Me, Myself, and I
An Article about the Alters and Duplicates in Fragments of Chaldea
As I’ve said many times, the Fate System will not be able to materialize duplicates if a variant of the core saint graph is already registered to the system. As example, Arturia was already present, so Lancer Arturia turned into a memorial essence. There were two who circumvented the process because they’re too radically different.
Arthur, as a male, lead a completely different lifestyle from Arturia and also comes from another dimension (that summoning quirk will be talked about in story later). Jeanne Alter was a total fabrication, and so also counts as a completely different servant even if they share Jeanne’s backstory: She’s not a true possible outcome of Jeanne living her life.
That made things look very bleak for anyone who liked certain servants like Arturia Alter, Vlad III Extra, Carmilla, and others. Well, the cat is out of the bag now. I understand many of you were disheartened about the whole situation, but as I said before, one only needed to wait to see.
With Fragment 67, I’ve opened the first of a few other entryways into Chaldea: Bringing a servant home directly.
However… as evidenced in the story by Lu Bu failing to return even if Gudao had a temporary contract, this is not a guarantee. There are restrictions and circumstances to this method that will be talked about later, but I’ve given enough clues to showcase what those important details are. You just get to do a bit of dot-connecting before the full explanation to cone. It can become a viable way to bring a servant back once guaranteed, but it won’t work for everyone.
That’s where the other methods come into play… but those will be revealed in Season 4.
Now to answer some questions that likely arise from this revelation
Does that mean everyone will come to Chaldea?
I have stated before, but unfortunately no, that will not be the case. Arturia will not be surrounded by 10+ other Arturias who all need different names. I will still have a ‘limiter’ in place for the sake of character bloat and lack-of-confusion in crowded situations, but the chance of seeing a duplicate or alter appear in Chaldea is no longer ‘zero.’ Having said that, the servants will still make appearances in multiple cameos at the absolute minimum. I intend to do much more than that to give them their just desserts though.
So Jeanne Alter Santa Lily appeared. Does that mean the other lilies can come?
Like with alters and duplicates, yes. However, I do wish to limit duplicates wherever possible. In the case of other lilies, there’s a higher chance of them just getting a lot more cameos. This may or may not change in the future, but like I said, juggling duplicates and names can be potentially messy business. Just look at Supplements I and II.
Swimsuit Servants?
Like Halloween Lizs, this will remain just costume changes for the most part. I have different intention for these type of servants, but for the most part consider them fanservice with one caveat: They may still be able to get certain abilities and Noble Phantasms (like Nitocris’ lore-immersive one) through memorial essences.
So then can you drop us a kind hint on who we might look forward to actually arriving?
I’ve already confirmed Arturia Alter to arrive sometime in Season 4. However, I’ll be a little nice today. Supplement stories have a habit of introducing a servant at the end of it. Although Supplement III will break that chain, Supplement IV continues the tradition, and it will be a ‘duplicate’ servant of some sort. That’s all the hint I’ll give you though.
