History Headscratchers / FateEXTRA

** Quite frankly, I think the reason Saber Nero is female is because the developers wanted to reuse Saber's character design and thought, "Hey, the original Saber was a [[HistoricalGenderFlip gender-flipped]] KingArthur, so let's have this Saber be a gender-flipped Nero even if it makes no sense and will have no importance for the character!" What I don't understand is why they didn't give Saber Nero a feminized version of her real name, like Nera or something.

* The characters' page says Gilgamesh is an ArtificialHuman created from the Counter Force. How does that work? How did the gods create something from the Counter Force? I have been slowly reading CCC, and even when Gilgamesh's birth story was brought up, he didn't say anything about being created from Counter Force. Is it brought up and elaborated on elsewhere?

** To be exact: The Seven Servants as summoned by the Holy Grail are not the actual heroes of legend themselves (With the exception of Arturia, as explained in the Fate route of F/SN). They are, more or less, copies of them, each made to fit one of seven vessels in the form of Classes (again, irregular cases like Avenger aside). Thus, the actual soul of a hero never actually leaves the Throne. The Moon Cell, on the other hand,having observed the entirety of Earth's history, simply summons an accurate representation of a Heroic Spirit as they were observed by it in life. That they even use Classes at all is more of a nod to the original F/SN than any particular need.
* I've been watching a LetsPlay of Caster, and I'm trying to figure out when she brings up her...[[GroinAttack Castration fist technique.]] I recall a scene in your private room where she's practising Martial arts and all(in a really scary voice too). Is that it?

*** There's also the part where Nasu stated he wanted to use Nero as something to get fans of the F/SN into Extra. So why not use previous character models? Hence Archer, Rin, Sakura, and others being in the game. Also, while Rome and Britain had connections, let's not forget that King Arthur's legend was also Celtic. Which is very far from Roman based.

** Actually, according to the manga adaptation of Fate/EXTRA by Robi~na(which closely follows the original game with some twists here and there), Saber Extra was indeed a woman. It is explained that Agrippina, her mother, arranged matters in the court so that her daughter can succeed the Roman throne after killing off Emperor Claudius(Agrippina's husband, also Nero's stepfather). Despite being a woman, Nero called herself an "emperor" and was regarded as such, even being forced to "marry" the late Claudius' daughter Octavia(this was the result of Agrippina's urging as well). Since the Protagonist expresses some degree of surprise at her identity but doesn't go "Wait, you're a girl?!"(as Kiritsugu did in Fate/Zero after summoning Saber), it seems possible that the fact that Emperor Nero is female is an established fact in this world. Maybe this is the same case with Rider Extra.

** Uhm, I'm not so sure about the above theory. The Japanese game does mention that as an interesting story but kind of shrugs it off, saying "Well there is this pretty romantic theory about Drake and the Queen, but it's merely a fictitious account." According to the text, Rider was given the nickname El Drago by the Spanish people because she is "the 'woman' who pulled the sun down for the kingdom on which the sun never sets(Spain, in this context)." The text even confirms at the start of that part of MATRIX that "Francis Drake was a man in real history, but appears as a woman in Fate/EXTRA universe."

* So Extra Caster [[spoiler: Remembers competing in, and winning a previous Grail War? How is that possible? Does the Moon Cell not follow the usual rule of Servants not remembering being summoned before, or does her status as an aspect of Amaterasu (basically a goddess) make her immune to the previous rules?]] I'm pretty curious about this.

* I've been watching a LetsPlay of Caster, and[[spoiler: I'm trying to figure out when she brings up her...[[GroinAttack Castration fist technique.]]]] I recall a scene in your private room where she's practising Martial arts and all(in a really scary voice too). Is that it?

* Saber Extra ([[spoiler: Aka Nero Caesar]]). Okay, Regular Saber makes sense to have been gender-flipped, her hiding it was a plot and characterization point, and her legend was purely oral for a thousand years, five hundred of which are known for poor recordkeeping. But Saber Extra didn't hide it at all, and there were no less than two historians ([[spoiler: Tacitus and Suetonius]]) who wrote about her extensively within a century, in a period known for good recordkeeping. How did it somehow not come down to the present?

* Similarly, how is Rider Extra ([[spoiler: aka Francis Drake]]). Again, how did she somehow hide her gender without, y'know, hiding her gender, in a period with decent contemporary records?
** If I remember correctly, the Japanese version mentions that ([[spoiler: "Francis Drake"]]) was a real man, who was a lover of Elizabeth I, and switched places with her. So because all of the actions that were attributed to ([[spoiler: "Francis Drake"]]) were those of the Queen, she is technically the Heroic Spirit.
*** So, I modify my question then. How did ''[[spoiler: Queen Elizabeth I]]'' manage to end up in the history books, as the male Francis Drake, without making any attempt at hiding gender and a figure that is incredibly improbable to hide?

** Quite frankly, I think the reason Saber Nero is female is because the developers wanted to reuse Saber's character design and thought, "Hey, the original Saber was a [[GenderFlip gender-flipped]] KingArthur, so let's have this Saber be a gender-flipped Nero even if it makes no sense and will have no importance for the character!" What I don't understand is why they didn't give Saber Nero a feminized version of her real name, like Nera or something.

** Pretty sure the Decoy Protag is Shinji's 'friend' the way the girls that flock to him are his 'fangirls': They're [=NPCs=], so Decoy Protag is Shinji's friend even though he doesn't know ''why''. For the Actual Protagonist, it could go either way: Either they really were friends with Shinji, or the MC's semi-NPC status lumped them into the same category as Decoy Protag ('NPC programmed to be Shinji's friend') until the War started, since it seems that [=NPCs=] all serve the same roles to whoever they're interacting with. Issei, for example, is supposedly the friend of both the Decoy and Actual Protags, and gave them both the same speech. I'm leaning towards "MC is Shinji's actual friend," since it would match the theme of the prologue, like the Decoy thinking that Leo is looking at/addressing him when he's actually paying attention to the MC.

** To expand on the explanation: In the original continuity, Servants are Heroic Spirits who are summoned from the the Throne of Heroes, a sort of databank beyond space and time (or rather, before the beginning of space and time, but Akasha is not relevant here) that stores the souls of these beings. These souls are recognized as "perfect" and "unchangeable" by being accepted into the Throne of Heroes, so even if they are summoned and dismissed, they are stripped from the actual memories of their deeds (though it is implied that they have information of them... it's complicated). The Servants in this game, however, are not summoned but reconstructed by the Moon Cell's Serial Phantasm (a reality marble of sorts) based on the data recorded in the Automaton. This is why they have access to information normal heroic souls wouldn't be and why they can be modified by both the system and the masters to some degree... In short, they are not actual heroic spirits, only virtual copies.

** Uhm, I'm not so sure about the above theory. The Japanese game does mention that as an interesting story but kind of shurugs it off, saying "Well there is this pretty romantic theory about Drake and the Queen, but it's merely a fictitious account." According to the text, Rider was given the nickname El Drago by the Spanish people because she is "the 'woman' who pulled the sun down for the kingdom on which the sun never sets(Spain, in this context)." The text even confirms at the start of that part of MATRIX that "Francis Drake was a man in real history, but appears as a woman in Fate/EXTRA universe."

** Actually, according to the manga adaptation of Fate/EXTRA by Robi~na(which closely follows the original game with some twists here and there), Saber Extra was indeed a woman. It is explained that Agrippina, her mother, arranged matters in the court so that her daughter can succeed the Roman throne after killing off Emperor Claudius(Agrippina's husband, also Nero's stepfather). Despite being a woman, Nero called herself an "emperor" and was regarded as such, even being forced to "marry" the late Claudius' daughter Octavia(this was the result of Agrippina's urging as well). Since the Protagonist expresses some degreee of surprise at her identity but doesn't go "Wait, you're a girl?!"(as Kiritsugu did in Fate/Zero after summoning Saber), it seems possible that the fact that Emperor Nero is female is an established fact in this world. Maybe this is the same case with Rider Extra.

* Similarly, how is Rider Extra ([[spoiler: aka Francis Drake]]). Again, how did she somehow hide her gender without, y'know, hiding her gender, in a period with decent contemporary records

*** If that's the case, then why not just use the Saber Lily incarnation of Arturia? Sounds like a better idea to me than randomly gender-flipping Nero.

** Pretty sure the Decoy Protag is Shinji's 'friend' the way the girls that flock to him are his 'fangirls': They're [=NPCs=], so Decoy Protag is Shinji's friend even though he doesn't know ''why''. For the Actual Protagonist, it could go either way: Either they really were friends with Shinji, or the MC's semi-NPC status lumped them into the same category as Decoy Protag ('NPC programmed to be Shinji's friend') until the War started, since it seems that [=NPCs=] all serve the same roles to whoever they're interacting with. Issei, for example, is supposedly the friend of both the Decoy and Actual Protags, and gave them both the same speech.

**** [[StayInTheKitchen Male machismo of course.]]
* The DecoyProtagonist and the Actual Protagonist both seem to have the same "role" as Shinji's best friend. Is there something wrong, or is the messing-with-perception aspect of the computer system responsible for this apparent overlap?

*** That still doesn't make any sense. One character inspiring the legend of the other character is not the same as the two characters looking exactly alike, especially when real-life Nero and Arthur had clearly distinct appearances.

*** Wait, so he was male in life, and because he had a vague ego-based gender dysphoria, ended up as a sexy female as a Servant? Despite being famous as (and actually) a mildly overweight male? ...I feel so ''unclean'' having found hir attractive.

**** [[StayInTheKitchen Male machismo of course.]]

*** So, I modify my question then. How did ''[[spoiler: Queen Elizabeth I]]'' manage to end up in the history books, as the male Francis Drake, without making any attempt at hiding gender and a figure that is incredibly improbable to hide?