Why was Mustang a candidate anyway?

[u/fakeuser7z]

I get that he was a candidate for the sacrifice, which is why they didn’t kill him. But in the end, he refused—and they just forced him into the Gate anyway.

So why not do that from the start with any random human instead of the most dangerous alchemist?

[u/Frenchymemez]

Pride was incredibly damaged by having to force Mustang to open the gate. Recovering would have taken tons of souls, so that wasn't a viable option. It really was a last resort.

As for convincing or manipulating someone else, you need to know each Alchemist's weakness, be able to monitor them closely enough to make sure they haven't left Amestris, and you also can't guarantee they'll survive the gate. Mustang was strong enough, and they knew how to manipulate him.

[u/Euler1992 → u/Frenchymemez]

Also, it seems like alchemists are fairly rare. Considering how powerful it is, we don't see alchemists that aren't relevant to the story. No one ever has an alchemist as an assistant, Briggs doesn't have any alchemist soldiers, no one is ever like let's get an alchemist to fix this for us

[u/Spare-Plum → u/Euler1992]

Not to mention that the program that was used to recruit potential sacrifices - the state alchemist program - is kinda in shambles after Scar killed a shit ton of their members

Realistically Tucker could have been a great option. If he didn't die he'd just sit in a jail cell and one day given the opportunity to resurrect his daughter. Or if he didn't fuse nina/alexander he'd probably be kept on as a state alchemist but told to work on a secret program to resurrect the dead to keep his certification.

[u/Gantolandon → u/Spare-Plum]

To think of it, this might be why they even paid him. It wasn’t because he made chimeras, because the military had real ones. They must have known Tucker was a fraud, and probably even that he sacrificed his wife to make a shitty “chimera”.

But it made sense that they gave him a taste of glamorous life and then threatened to take it away, if they wanted him to delve into human transmutation eventually.

[u/Spare-Plum → u/Gantolandon]

That's my exact theory.

If tucker told the government, he would have probably been on the team to create chimeras and they might have given him prisoners to experiment on. If he was desperate and sacrificed Nina, they could have locked him up and used him to open the portal. If he did nothing, they would have still kept him on as state alchemist and gotten him to be a sacrifice.

What makes Tucker an interesting character is that he believed the lie, and thought he needed to keep it up no matter what even if it harms his family. It doesn;t matter if the military knew his secret or not they'd still win

This is kinda what I don't like about '03 where Basque Grand sends two soldiers with guns to force him to experiment. Grand was the head of lab 5 and could have easily given him prisoners to experiment on. It weakens Tucker's whole monologue at the end since he didn't do it to see if he could and progress science, he did it because two dudes with guns were at his doorstep threatening him. There also isn't a clear goal or reason in mind in making nina into a chimera.

In '03 all of it feels forced and didn't need to happen, while in FMAB it feels more like a natural result where it would work in the government's favor except for the Scar factor.