Maybe I'm too pragmatic to see it from another perspective >:/

I agree with you that it's short-sighted of Ephraim to not tend to that particular detail. But I also played Shadow Dragon thinking everyone involved was nuts for allowing the Last Hope of Humanity to go skipping off to war without having an heir or two of his own stashed away somewhere on Talys, so pretty clearly my idea of sensible contingency planning doesn't line up with that of Intelligent Systems.