User blog comment:Zathronas/Speculative author: What is Cinder's plan?/@comment-5217560-20140804062226/@comment-11188061-20140806014922

Don't forget to 'turn the chessboard around'.

She is cool, collected, always in control. But has she always been like this, or was she changed by past events? Suppose that she wasn't like this in the past - what are the chances she held similar traits with Ruby Rose, considering Ozpin's unusual interest? Did he see his past mistakes in her, a decided to keep a closer eye?

She either needs Dust to achieve her goals, or she needs her opponents to have little amounts of Dust to make it work. From Roman's comments and Cinder's fickle attention, we may notice that she isn't even that interested in the mountain of Dust they've gathered.

It's never a bad idea to get some cash, no matter how little, because you never know the day you might need it, and with White Fang as her partner they must be burning money by the second. But Cinder doesn't care for it at all, so this either means she has vast amounts of resources to use, or she doesn't care to spend as long as it's within reason, or the resources do not belong to her at all, or forecasted that the significance of Lien and Dust will change in the future. If she's trying to undermine both the Hunter and the White Fang at the same time (the Hunters lacking Dust to fight back, the White Fang lacking resources since they're using it fully for the upcoming battle), she's succeeding very well.