How are we handling GO variant Servants?

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EGGS·9/18/2016

It's mostly dependent on what kind of information the pages would have. The seasonal variants are just the Servants playing different roles in a mostly parody context. They're not even technically "different people" in the case of regular class variants (i.e. Santa Alter references the Fuyuki order). The swimuit ones are literally the same characters whose containers were modified by Scathach to have some sort of plot reason behind the class switch. Their resulting pages would be extremely short and mostly pointless with sections reading "they're mostly the same other than X minor difference." Same thing with Bride. She shares everything with regular Nero besides a couple minor differences, and the one that appears in America is just regular Nero in her Bride outfit.

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Otherarrow·9/18/2016

Fair enough on the seasonal variants, though there really needs to be a better way to present them than just having a separate stat section that says in the Master bracket "Protagonist (New Class)" and hoping the reader will get that it refers to some GO joke content and not an actual alternate summoning. Anyway. Bride's whole excuse for being there (aside from the out of universe "got to have Nero in her CCC outfit") is that she isn't technically the same person (same summoning?) as the normal one, no matter how nigh similar they seem. She is basically Nero's equivalent to Saber Lily...who also gets her own page (and if I recall, got her own page in response to her appearance in GO; before that she was merged with Saber). I guess what I am trying to ask is, well, where is the line between "this is a different form of the same person" and "this is a different person with the same identity", especially since most of these variant Servants appear to just exist with no fanfare (or, as you pointed out with Bride, their bio and actual appearances contradict each other). For example, we can probably say that Proto!Cu Chulainn, FSN!Cu Chulainn, and Berserker Alter are the latter, but can we say that for Caster Cu, who is, from all appearances, just FSN!Cu Chulainn summoned as a Caster? This also applies to characters whose sole GO appearance differs from their source appearance, like Jekyll. Is Assassin!Jekyll a different person from Berserker!Jekyll, even though they share the same design and persona? And once we say "yes, Caster Cu Chulainn is a different person" or "yes, Assassin!Jekyll is not Berserker!Jekyll", what leg do we stand on to say "no, Saber Bride is the same person, despite her bio" or even "no, Saber Lily is just Saber"? I am probably overthinking it, geez. Sorry. Disregard that last paragraph if you need to.

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EGGS·9/18/2016

The infoboxes need an overhaul anyway. At this point, it might be best to move Servant stats to the abilities section. The class variants should each have a section where their individual boxes could be placed, possibly. Bride was created as the what-if variant that never met Hakuno, but that's really only for the character lines and maybe interlude. The one summoned in America is no different than normal, keeping up her normal Banter with Liz and her regular personality. They even mention that she has a vague recollection of the protagonist due to having met her in Rome. Due to that, there's really no proper way to separate the two. It's mostly a case of "is this an independent summoning unrelated to all others that may share a section or two" or "both pages need to make constant references to each other because they're barely different." The Cu and Gil variants, while mostly the same, have enough slight quirks due to the different settings that trying to encompass them on a singular page would just be super bloated. In the case of Bride vs Red, it's just her in a different costume with a slight deviation in history. There really only needs to be a singular section to point out those slight differences.

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Otherarrow·9/18/2016

Probably for the best, especially since that is where the data would be most useful, instead of having them be on opposite ends of the page. I think part of the problem is that the current character template tries to do too much at once, and that would be a major move away from that. As I pointed out, said what-if bio makes no sense anyway, since GO doesn't involve the Moon Cell, so Nero is thus presumably summoned from the Throne of Heroes and thus shouldn't have any memories of Hakuno anyway and...yeah, most of this is me overthinking a excuse plot fanservice game, sorry. And I can get the logic of "independent incarnation unrelated to the others" versus "so entwined with a prior incarnation that coexistance is impossible." Saber Bride, from what I gather, has her bio claim her to be the former, but she is the latter in execution and in every meaningful way. Of course, one can argue Saber Lily (who has no reported fictional appearances outside her GO bio and even originated as an alternate costume for "normal" Saber) is the same way. (I personally think whoever split her off with her GO appearance may have jumped the gun, but eh.) I think Caster Cu is the Cu variant that I really wonder "is this actually a separate character?", since he seems to exist solely to answer the long suggested idea that Cu could be summoned as such. Does his story appearances do anything to set him apart from the default FSN Cu? With Berserker Alter, in contrast, goes out of its way to explain how he isn't just "Cu summoned as a Berserker", so Caster Cu sticks out a bit more in that regard. Again, sorry if I am overthinking things.

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EGGS·9/18/2016

I think of it mostly from how the story treats the characters. For Santa Alter, it's just Alter dressed as Santa going around in a parody scenario. In the case of Cu Lancer and Cu Caster, they're two separate incarnations who can potentially interact with each other and such. Even if not as different as Caster and Saber Gilles in core character, they're still different. While swimsuit Kiyohime does have a line referencing regular Kiyohime, you're never going to actually see them act separately in the plot because they're just the same person in different clothing as far as the plot is concerned. Bride really isn't really that different. Saber Lily, like kid Gil and Alex, is a younger aspect. The "Lily" Servants come from the same core but emphasize a different part of their life. Bride is just "Core Nero - Extra/CCC memories + emphasis on finding a loved one." Those differences really only need a paragraph or two to explain and then everything else is the same. As shown in the main plot, they aren't going to separate the two, so the only place that difference comes into play is probably the interlude.

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