Oh good, it can go forward again.Originally Posted by Kieran
Hm. If I travel back in time, then enough time passes that the time I jumped back from is in the past, I assume that also counts as a return trip (going back the long way). Let's see... it sounds like from the plot that time is not self-consistent when she does this, as there are multiple "fix the timeline" attempts, but it also doesn't sound like she ends up having herself from divergent timelines interfering (that is, if she goes back to the future, repairs the watch, and jumps back again, she won't end up with 3 or more copies of herself running around?)
It also sounds like since she can "break" the timeline, that she can cause proper grandfather paradoxes and get away with it, like travel back and kill someone AFTER having encountered them. That might not help much in a Holy Grail War, as that would just result in a different Master or similar (steal a catalyst, you're just asking to summon a stronger Servant as a result, unless it's a perfect Servant choice, like Vlad). Could still be worth it if you can get rid of Kotomine Shirou by siccing the Church on him or somesuch.
I feel like I'm not coming up with any good solutions for this for some reason, even though it sounds like it should be possible to have your future self go back in time to do whatever you want to do right now, thus deferring the watch breaking for you personally, assuming you're still around in the future.
Time travel with paradoxes allowed feels weirdly difficult to exploit in a structured way, when starting a loop is so expensive, since starting one WILL almost certainly get you killed after if you haven't already won (I may be underestimating Nerine's ability to stand up to other Servants, actually). Confusing. I would say "if you can improve the state for your next self, good enough", since paradoxes allowed, but that doesn't stop you personally from being dead. I wonder if this makes time-travellers try to avoid interacting with themselves, or to make changes that don't cause obvious paradoxes, just to avoid truly unpredictable changes to the present. Seems plausible as a rule of thumb.
In specifically Anarchy's timeline... there are likely still a few useful points of intervention, but many of them can still probably self-correct to something worse. I'm really not sure what you'd want to do. Optimally, kill off Kotomine Shirou and Darnic before they have servants (you may need to bring someone else powerful, like Erik, for Shirou), then snag the Heart of Winter as it arrives, I guess.
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