Yeah, they're the extras, the fodder.

The poor saps who were more or less in the background but got caught up in the main story.

After what happened in VI, and even moreso in VII, I was glad to see how their appearance in VIII works out.

(SPOILER)In VI, they are vaporized by the esper at the very beginning of the game. Not that they were really good people in this case. In VII as members of Avalanche, they died when the sector piece came down on top of them. In VIII, you get to Lunatic Pandora, find them there yet again, and they quit.