This began with a question: What if the <a href='http://typemoon.wikia.com/wiki/Second_Magic' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>Second Magic</a> became, due to technological progress, a <a href='http://typemoon.wikia.com/wiki/Magecraft' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>magecraft</a>, even if only partially? Well, once Rin found out (which could take a while, as she isn't exactly a science nerd), she'd want to talk to herself... by which I mean, her other selves.
Going into a little more detail, let's say that some time before the Fifth Holy Grail War, CERN discovered a way to exchange information with alternate realities. You need a massive particle accelerator, giant super-computers, and probably a million euros worth of energy a minute, but you can do it - transfer of matter, however, still requires a True Miracle. Some time after this, but still before the War starts, Rin hears about this from her science teacher, who is very excited by it. Correctly concluding that a limited form of the Operation of Parallel Worlds is now possible with magecraft, Rin goes through what information she has on the Second Magic, and attempts to set up communication with one of her alternate selves, and when it works, with others - given the source of her information on the Second Magic, her means of communication is probably a sword or other bladed weapon, made of gems.
I suggest that three become important to this story (any of which might be spun off into its own thread, if there's enough interest). Some of the items below may seem to bend or break the rules of the Nasuverse. This is intentional.
The first is in a 'magi are mostly not utter dicks' timeline (I was sure there was a thread for that, but I can't find it). The world resembles one of the more openly superheroic versions of the <a href='http://www.pjfarmer.com/woldnewton/Pulp2.htm' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>Wold Newton Universe</a>, mixed with the Nasuverse (so, a fair number of relatively low-power supers, some of moderate power, and very few high-power ones - even the strongest can at best match, rather than exceed, the top-tier Nasuverse characters - and not a lot of time-travelers or aliens; the Golden Age version (and any successors) may be the only Green Lantern, for example). The Magi Association is made up of good and neutral magi (and some evil ones pretending to be good), and administrates research into magics and magecrafts (and education in same, sometimes as a side effect), serves as a clearinghouse for information, assists superheroes and would-be superheroes in organizing, maintaining secret identities, and so forth, and encourages the advancement of science, for the benefit of humanity - and so that more things may be accomplished with magecraft. It was this timeline that contacted the CERN of Rin-0's universe, and showed them how to set up the cyclotron for transmission. While it is not a 'proper superheroes never kill' timeline, it is a 'most superheroes reserve killing for a last resort' timeline (e.g. Kiritsugu might still his Thompson Contender and Origin Bullets (if he actually has the same Origins), but would use them far less frequently than in canon).
Interestingly, there are about twice as many magi and magecraft users as in Rin-0's world, but their average power level is higher, rather than lower. The total world population is a bit smaller, as well, but not enough to account for the difference. The Magi Association has heard of the rule that this breaks, that the more magi there are, the less powerful each one can be, and the more people there are, the less dense their souls are, and thus the less magical individual humans can be, but considers it a disproven theory. It seemed to be true for a long time, as humanity seemed to be in decline, but the decline did not match up with the rise in population. Its currently believed that it was instead a combination of factors, environmental, biological (inbreeding is bad, m'kay? - and that may not be the only biological reason), magical, and cultural, that lead to the theory appearing to be true. Humanity has been on the upswing in that timeline, since the late 19th century. The Wold Newton meteor probably helped a bit, but there aren't enough people descended from those affected by it, for that to be the only factor.
The Rin of this world (let's call her Rin-1) lives with her parents, Tokiomi and Aoi, and younger sister, Sakura, and is pretty horrified to know what happened to Rin-0's family (and will be even moreso, when she finds out what Sakura's home life is like), and that Rin-0's main adult supervision for ten yours was Kotomine Kirei, whom she knows as a murderous supervillain. In fact, the more Rin-1 learns of the magi of Rin-0's world, the more it looks like an Evil Mirror Universe. Fortunately for Rin-0, their interaction is deep enough, and Rin-1 is perceptive enough, for Rin-1 to recognize that Rin-0 is a lot less heartless than a 'true magus' of her world is expected to be, despite what Rin-0 tries to tell herself.
Rin-1's life could be described fairly accurately as a cross between a Japanese harem comedy, and an American superhero comic. Her father is a superhero, and she and Sakura-1 are his sidekicks, as well as being magi in training. The two of them are in competition with a few other girls for the heart (and other parts) of Shirou von Einzbern, sidekick and adopted son of the kind-of-Batmanish-but-with-magecraft hero Emiya Kiritsugu von Einzbern, a friend and ally of their father. Shirou-1 was orphaned during a fight between Kiritsugu-1 and Kirei-1, and thus was adopted by Kiritsugu and his wife, Irisviel. He appears to be both smarter and more powerful than Shirou-0 (of course, so does Archer). Prior to being contacted by Rin-0, Rin-1 and Sakura-1 agreed to share him, so as not to give any advantage away to their rivals - especially not Luviagelita Edelfelt. They might be inclined to share with Ayako-1, if necessary, as long as it reduces Luvia-1's chances - its not that they think she's evil (she isn't), or that she's foreign (she is), but that they don't think Shirou-1 would be happy with her, and do think he'd be to nice to dump her. (No, I don't have hero names for any of them, though I was thinking of calling Kirei-1 'Judas'.)
Rin-1 is rather technologically inclined, like most magi of her world, a bit of an otaku, and a fan of Western SF. She has a top-of-the-line cell-phone and a PDA souped up into a technomagical tricorder, both of which she carries in her civilian guise (the PDA looks fairly normal, just rather customized), and a sonic screwdriver, a lightsabre, wrist phasers, and a lightly armoured costume with a visor that duplicates her PDA's functions in a smaller package, for her hero ID. Style-wise, she's very much a technomage, though she does make use of crystal-based magecraft that overlaps well with Rin-0's gem-casting.
The second world Rin-0 works with much more closely resembles her homeworld, save that its about a year in the future, and the CERN experiment happend not that long ago. The timeline matches Rin-0's, to the best she and Rin-2 can determine (which does not mean things that they are unaware of all match up; that's important), up until Rin-0 heard about the breakthrough at CERN, which happened several months later in Rin-2's universe, well after the War. The Holy Grail War that she participated in resembles the Fate route (and thus, Rin-0 is aware that her world's Grail may have been corrupted). Shirou-2 doesn't appear to be much smarter than Shirou-0.
Some time after the War ended, and she recovered from her injuries, Rin-2 discovered the situation her sister was living in, and tried to rescue her. This lead to Rin-2 being back in the hospital, in a coma. One night, Sakura-2 went to visit her, and found Shirou-2 asleep, holding her hand and partially drained of prana from Tracing Avalon. Sakura-2, unable to remain for long, and not being in a healthy mental state, binds Rin-2 to Shirou-2 as a rather bizarre familiar variant (or at least, something kind of like a familiar). Rin-2 being both alive, and having vastly more (and better quality) Magic Circuits than Shirou-2, she could supply prana to him, or he could draw it from her, thus allowing him to Trace Avalon long enough to do some good. Sakura-2 left a note wrapped around Shirou-2's hand, and returned to the Matou mansion. Shortly thereafter, the mansion was destroyed by something dark and silent, that left it a pile of rubble, that most are afraid to approach - there's just something wrong with that place. Sakura-2 and Zouken-2 are both dead, as best the Mages' Association can determine, but they're really not sure what she did, or how she did it.
Rin-2 is still getting used to her new nature. She has begun to develop some succubus-like traits, and also finds it uncomfortable to disobey, mock, or harm Shirou. That's not to say she can't, just that its not easy. There may be other odd quirks, as its an unusual situation, and Sakura-2 was insane at the time, on top of that.
Variation: Rather than Fate, it appears to be a hypothetical Ayako route (which also includes the revelation of the corrupted Grail). Ayako getting involved is by no means healthy for her, and at one point, she was injured badly enough that she would have died, had Rin-2 not been present. Lacking the gem she used to save Shirou-2, Rin-2 chose to bind Ayako-2 to herself as a living familiar. This made their situation with Shirou-2 a lot more complicated, particularly after Sakura-2 bound Rin-2, and thus Ayako-2, to Shirou. Because Rin-2 has more and better Magic Circuits than Ayako-2, and she was not insane at the time, their bond is rather less quirky than Shirou-2's with Rin-2.
In Rin-3's world, where it appears to be the late 19th Century (17th year of Meiji, meaning 1885 - and this is confirmed by astronomical observations made by Rin-3, and looked up by Rin-0), but most of the F/sn cast are present, the magi have a disturbing amount in common with the Sparks of <a href='http://girlgenius.wikia.com/wiki/Girl_Genius_Wiki' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>Girl Genius</a>. This includes the 'madness place', and a semi-instinctive spell that gives them a charisma bonus - the more powerful the magus, the greater the bonus, but the target must be able to hear them speak. Just as in GG, they tend to rule large swathes of territory openly. They're still magi, but they push the advancement of SCIENCE! even more than Rin-1's people. Alchemy and a sort of Steampunk technomagic are probably the most common magecrafts, but far from the only ones. The world population is quite a bit smaller than in Rin-0's timeline, either 'now', or in the 19th Century, being closer to that of the middle ages. The total number of magi and magecraft users is about the same as in Rin-0's timeline 'now', in 2004, as is their level of power - as far as Rin-3 can tell, anyway. Rin-3 has never heard of the rules that this breaks, and wonders why the Mages' Association of Rin-0's world didn't simply reduce the surplus population, if they really believed that theory.
Rin-3 is a bit nuttier than the other Rins, especially once she gets going, and tends to rant and laugh more. She hasn't heard of anything like the Holy Grail War, but admits that it could be happening elsewhere, as world-wide communication is rather limited (somewhere between that of the GG world, and the RL late 19th Century). She lost most of her family to a worm attack from Makiri Zouken, but was able to save her sister with the help of Professor von Einzbern... by freezing her to death, extracting the quiescent worms from her very cold corpse, stitching her up, and then warming her, and reviving her with a properly channeled and filtered bolt of lightning (Rin-0: O_O "Eh, lets call that a last resort, OK?"). Her personal style of magecraft mixes gem magic with the more common alchemy and technomagic.
She is tsundere for Emiya Shirou, GENTLEMAN ADVENTURER!, and often supplies him with equipment ("S-stupid hero, I'm not doing this because I like you or anything!" *blushes cutely* "I just n-need someone to field test it."). Isn't fooling anyone - even the generally oblivious Shirou-3 saw through her act after a little while. Shirou-3 appears to be a fair bit smarter than Shirou-0 or Shirou-2 - he's only emotionally oblivious. He has a powerful familiar named Lily, whom he inherited from his father (though where Kiritsugu-3 got her, they don't know, and Lily claims not to remember). Apart from a fondness for wearing white, and being a very friendly and cheerful person, Lily seems a hell of a lot like the memories Rin-2 shared of the Saber Shirou-2 summoned, even having the same sword.
The various Rins wonder if the rules under which magecraft operate are different from world to world, or if different worlds found different exceptions and loopholes, and/or some of the rules are inaccurate.
One thing that the other Rins agree on, that Rin-0 really hopes they're wrong about, is their uniformly horrible luck with their own plans: when ever they make a plan, and it truly matters, bad luck will screw them over, every time. Enacting someone else's plan, they're generally OK, but their own plans fail, and it nearly always bad luck, rather than bad planning or inadequate information. Rin-3 reluctantly admits that this is why she asked for von Einzbern's help with Sakura-3 (von Einzbern planned the operation, in a scene somewhat reminiscent of <a href='http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20090814' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>this Girl Genius comic</a>), and needs to keep Shirou-3 in her territory (yeah, that's the only reason; sure). Its also why Rin-1 wants Sakura-1 to inherit the family Crest.
This is a serious problem for Rin-0, because the only people she can count on to make plans for her are either extradimensional (and would have to relay through the other Rins, unless she can get Shirou-0 to connect with Shirou-1 and/or -3), apparently stupid (i.e. Shirou-0), or evil (though Kotomine-0 would certainly be inclined to help with a plan that harms Zouken-0, for canon reasons, even - just not good ones) - or crazy and not necessarily willing to help, like Zelretch. Rin-0 is rather more interested in rescuing her sister than in winning the Holy Grail War, and dearly hopes that the Servant she summons can help her in that regard. "Right, my new cellphone has the right time, so I'll set an alarm to tell me when to do the ceremony. Now, where's the book that came with it...?"
So, thoughts?
Going into a little more detail, let's say that some time before the Fifth Holy Grail War, CERN discovered a way to exchange information with alternate realities. You need a massive particle accelerator, giant super-computers, and probably a million euros worth of energy a minute, but you can do it - transfer of matter, however, still requires a True Miracle. Some time after this, but still before the War starts, Rin hears about this from her science teacher, who is very excited by it. Correctly concluding that a limited form of the Operation of Parallel Worlds is now possible with magecraft, Rin goes through what information she has on the Second Magic, and attempts to set up communication with one of her alternate selves, and when it works, with others - given the source of her information on the Second Magic, her means of communication is probably a sword or other bladed weapon, made of gems.
I suggest that three become important to this story (any of which might be spun off into its own thread, if there's enough interest). Some of the items below may seem to bend or break the rules of the Nasuverse. This is intentional.
The first is in a 'magi are mostly not utter dicks' timeline (I was sure there was a thread for that, but I can't find it). The world resembles one of the more openly superheroic versions of the <a href='http://www.pjfarmer.com/woldnewton/Pulp2.htm' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>Wold Newton Universe</a>, mixed with the Nasuverse (so, a fair number of relatively low-power supers, some of moderate power, and very few high-power ones - even the strongest can at best match, rather than exceed, the top-tier Nasuverse characters - and not a lot of time-travelers or aliens; the Golden Age version (and any successors) may be the only Green Lantern, for example). The Magi Association is made up of good and neutral magi (and some evil ones pretending to be good), and administrates research into magics and magecrafts (and education in same, sometimes as a side effect), serves as a clearinghouse for information, assists superheroes and would-be superheroes in organizing, maintaining secret identities, and so forth, and encourages the advancement of science, for the benefit of humanity - and so that more things may be accomplished with magecraft. It was this timeline that contacted the CERN of Rin-0's universe, and showed them how to set up the cyclotron for transmission. While it is not a 'proper superheroes never kill' timeline, it is a 'most superheroes reserve killing for a last resort' timeline (e.g. Kiritsugu might still his Thompson Contender and Origin Bullets (if he actually has the same Origins), but would use them far less frequently than in canon).
Interestingly, there are about twice as many magi and magecraft users as in Rin-0's world, but their average power level is higher, rather than lower. The total world population is a bit smaller, as well, but not enough to account for the difference. The Magi Association has heard of the rule that this breaks, that the more magi there are, the less powerful each one can be, and the more people there are, the less dense their souls are, and thus the less magical individual humans can be, but considers it a disproven theory. It seemed to be true for a long time, as humanity seemed to be in decline, but the decline did not match up with the rise in population. Its currently believed that it was instead a combination of factors, environmental, biological (inbreeding is bad, m'kay? - and that may not be the only biological reason), magical, and cultural, that lead to the theory appearing to be true. Humanity has been on the upswing in that timeline, since the late 19th century. The Wold Newton meteor probably helped a bit, but there aren't enough people descended from those affected by it, for that to be the only factor.
The Rin of this world (let's call her Rin-1) lives with her parents, Tokiomi and Aoi, and younger sister, Sakura, and is pretty horrified to know what happened to Rin-0's family (and will be even moreso, when she finds out what Sakura's home life is like), and that Rin-0's main adult supervision for ten yours was Kotomine Kirei, whom she knows as a murderous supervillain. In fact, the more Rin-1 learns of the magi of Rin-0's world, the more it looks like an Evil Mirror Universe. Fortunately for Rin-0, their interaction is deep enough, and Rin-1 is perceptive enough, for Rin-1 to recognize that Rin-0 is a lot less heartless than a 'true magus' of her world is expected to be, despite what Rin-0 tries to tell herself.
Rin-1's life could be described fairly accurately as a cross between a Japanese harem comedy, and an American superhero comic. Her father is a superhero, and she and Sakura-1 are his sidekicks, as well as being magi in training. The two of them are in competition with a few other girls for the heart (and other parts) of Shirou von Einzbern, sidekick and adopted son of the kind-of-Batmanish-but-with-magecraft hero Emiya Kiritsugu von Einzbern, a friend and ally of their father. Shirou-1 was orphaned during a fight between Kiritsugu-1 and Kirei-1, and thus was adopted by Kiritsugu and his wife, Irisviel. He appears to be both smarter and more powerful than Shirou-0 (of course, so does Archer). Prior to being contacted by Rin-0, Rin-1 and Sakura-1 agreed to share him, so as not to give any advantage away to their rivals - especially not Luviagelita Edelfelt. They might be inclined to share with Ayako-1, if necessary, as long as it reduces Luvia-1's chances - its not that they think she's evil (she isn't), or that she's foreign (she is), but that they don't think Shirou-1 would be happy with her, and do think he'd be to nice to dump her. (No, I don't have hero names for any of them, though I was thinking of calling Kirei-1 'Judas'.)
Rin-1 is rather technologically inclined, like most magi of her world, a bit of an otaku, and a fan of Western SF. She has a top-of-the-line cell-phone and a PDA souped up into a technomagical tricorder, both of which she carries in her civilian guise (the PDA looks fairly normal, just rather customized), and a sonic screwdriver, a lightsabre, wrist phasers, and a lightly armoured costume with a visor that duplicates her PDA's functions in a smaller package, for her hero ID. Style-wise, she's very much a technomage, though she does make use of crystal-based magecraft that overlaps well with Rin-0's gem-casting.
The second world Rin-0 works with much more closely resembles her homeworld, save that its about a year in the future, and the CERN experiment happend not that long ago. The timeline matches Rin-0's, to the best she and Rin-2 can determine (which does not mean things that they are unaware of all match up; that's important), up until Rin-0 heard about the breakthrough at CERN, which happened several months later in Rin-2's universe, well after the War. The Holy Grail War that she participated in resembles the Fate route (and thus, Rin-0 is aware that her world's Grail may have been corrupted). Shirou-2 doesn't appear to be much smarter than Shirou-0.
Some time after the War ended, and she recovered from her injuries, Rin-2 discovered the situation her sister was living in, and tried to rescue her. This lead to Rin-2 being back in the hospital, in a coma. One night, Sakura-2 went to visit her, and found Shirou-2 asleep, holding her hand and partially drained of prana from Tracing Avalon. Sakura-2, unable to remain for long, and not being in a healthy mental state, binds Rin-2 to Shirou-2 as a rather bizarre familiar variant (or at least, something kind of like a familiar). Rin-2 being both alive, and having vastly more (and better quality) Magic Circuits than Shirou-2, she could supply prana to him, or he could draw it from her, thus allowing him to Trace Avalon long enough to do some good. Sakura-2 left a note wrapped around Shirou-2's hand, and returned to the Matou mansion. Shortly thereafter, the mansion was destroyed by something dark and silent, that left it a pile of rubble, that most are afraid to approach - there's just something wrong with that place. Sakura-2 and Zouken-2 are both dead, as best the Mages' Association can determine, but they're really not sure what she did, or how she did it.
Rin-2 is still getting used to her new nature. She has begun to develop some succubus-like traits, and also finds it uncomfortable to disobey, mock, or harm Shirou. That's not to say she can't, just that its not easy. There may be other odd quirks, as its an unusual situation, and Sakura-2 was insane at the time, on top of that.
Variation: Rather than Fate, it appears to be a hypothetical Ayako route (which also includes the revelation of the corrupted Grail). Ayako getting involved is by no means healthy for her, and at one point, she was injured badly enough that she would have died, had Rin-2 not been present. Lacking the gem she used to save Shirou-2, Rin-2 chose to bind Ayako-2 to herself as a living familiar. This made their situation with Shirou-2 a lot more complicated, particularly after Sakura-2 bound Rin-2, and thus Ayako-2, to Shirou. Because Rin-2 has more and better Magic Circuits than Ayako-2, and she was not insane at the time, their bond is rather less quirky than Shirou-2's with Rin-2.
In Rin-3's world, where it appears to be the late 19th Century (17th year of Meiji, meaning 1885 - and this is confirmed by astronomical observations made by Rin-3, and looked up by Rin-0), but most of the F/sn cast are present, the magi have a disturbing amount in common with the Sparks of <a href='http://girlgenius.wikia.com/wiki/Girl_Genius_Wiki' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>Girl Genius</a>. This includes the 'madness place', and a semi-instinctive spell that gives them a charisma bonus - the more powerful the magus, the greater the bonus, but the target must be able to hear them speak. Just as in GG, they tend to rule large swathes of territory openly. They're still magi, but they push the advancement of SCIENCE! even more than Rin-1's people. Alchemy and a sort of Steampunk technomagic are probably the most common magecrafts, but far from the only ones. The world population is quite a bit smaller than in Rin-0's timeline, either 'now', or in the 19th Century, being closer to that of the middle ages. The total number of magi and magecraft users is about the same as in Rin-0's timeline 'now', in 2004, as is their level of power - as far as Rin-3 can tell, anyway. Rin-3 has never heard of the rules that this breaks, and wonders why the Mages' Association of Rin-0's world didn't simply reduce the surplus population, if they really believed that theory.
Rin-3 is a bit nuttier than the other Rins, especially once she gets going, and tends to rant and laugh more. She hasn't heard of anything like the Holy Grail War, but admits that it could be happening elsewhere, as world-wide communication is rather limited (somewhere between that of the GG world, and the RL late 19th Century). She lost most of her family to a worm attack from Makiri Zouken, but was able to save her sister with the help of Professor von Einzbern... by freezing her to death, extracting the quiescent worms from her very cold corpse, stitching her up, and then warming her, and reviving her with a properly channeled and filtered bolt of lightning (Rin-0: O_O "Eh, lets call that a last resort, OK?"). Her personal style of magecraft mixes gem magic with the more common alchemy and technomagic.
She is tsundere for Emiya Shirou, GENTLEMAN ADVENTURER!, and often supplies him with equipment ("S-stupid hero, I'm not doing this because I like you or anything!" *blushes cutely* "I just n-need someone to field test it."). Isn't fooling anyone - even the generally oblivious Shirou-3 saw through her act after a little while. Shirou-3 appears to be a fair bit smarter than Shirou-0 or Shirou-2 - he's only emotionally oblivious. He has a powerful familiar named Lily, whom he inherited from his father (though where Kiritsugu-3 got her, they don't know, and Lily claims not to remember). Apart from a fondness for wearing white, and being a very friendly and cheerful person, Lily seems a hell of a lot like the memories Rin-2 shared of the Saber Shirou-2 summoned, even having the same sword.
The various Rins wonder if the rules under which magecraft operate are different from world to world, or if different worlds found different exceptions and loopholes, and/or some of the rules are inaccurate.
One thing that the other Rins agree on, that Rin-0 really hopes they're wrong about, is their uniformly horrible luck with their own plans: when ever they make a plan, and it truly matters, bad luck will screw them over, every time. Enacting someone else's plan, they're generally OK, but their own plans fail, and it nearly always bad luck, rather than bad planning or inadequate information. Rin-3 reluctantly admits that this is why she asked for von Einzbern's help with Sakura-3 (von Einzbern planned the operation, in a scene somewhat reminiscent of <a href='http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20090814' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>this Girl Genius comic</a>), and needs to keep Shirou-3 in her territory (yeah, that's the only reason; sure). Its also why Rin-1 wants Sakura-1 to inherit the family Crest.
This is a serious problem for Rin-0, because the only people she can count on to make plans for her are either extradimensional (and would have to relay through the other Rins, unless she can get Shirou-0 to connect with Shirou-1 and/or -3), apparently stupid (i.e. Shirou-0), or evil (though Kotomine-0 would certainly be inclined to help with a plan that harms Zouken-0, for canon reasons, even - just not good ones) - or crazy and not necessarily willing to help, like Zelretch. Rin-0 is rather more interested in rescuing her sister than in winning the Holy Grail War, and dearly hopes that the Servant she summons can help her in that regard. "Right, my new cellphone has the right time, so I'll set an alarm to tell me when to do the ceremony. Now, where's the book that came with it...?"
So, thoughts?
