1.0 link Rainbow Dash Network http://rainbowdash.net/ delete_ (remove) http://rainbowdash.net/remove http://rainbowdash.net/notice/191730 @<span class="vcard"><a href="http://rainbowdash.net/user/1842" class="url" title="Matt Geisen"><span class="fn nickname">tiro</span></a></span> No idea. I can only speculate, so don't take my thoughts as words from SE here. Considering the other things seem built around that, my guess is that they started the game with the intent for it to work some other way entirely, and then the party members became more important. Or maybe the plan was for Lightning to be the leader the whole game, and it changed later in development? Losing lightning in case like that would explain why the story would reasonably terminate, assuming downed members couldn't be brought back by other members. Hrm.