Its a Fragment. Its easy enough to see from the prologue. Rather specific about what it is.
At the moment I kind of favor an interpretation that allows for both single worlds and multiple worlds.
I think there are an infinite amount of worlds, but there’s only one Umineko world, one Higurashi world, one Hotarubi world, etc.
The problem with this is that it doesn’t make sense that the characters in Umineko and Higurashi would only exist in that one world when everything else other than Rokkenjima and Hinamizawa seems identical in both worlds.
It only makes sense if you assume that there’s a single primary world, and all the other worlds are just variations of it (which is technically true, of course–the primary world being “our” world. That doesn’t mean I want that to be the case in this fictional universe, too, though.)
In Higurashi’s case, you could account for it by saying it deviated from all the other worlds because of witch involvement (Hanyuu arriving in Hinamzawa a thousand years ago, and also Lambda granting Takano’s wish), but this doesn’t really work for Umineko. Or does it?
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In in infinite multiverse, why would there only be one world? What I would say is that they are near to each other in a modal logic sense, in that they share many characteristics because of that. They are in similar worlds shall we say. The primary world of umineko seems to be Ange’s 1998 timeline though, so thats what I consider to be Alpha. Theres plenty of ways to explain it with modal logic, but that would just necessitate an infinite amount of the worlds.
Well, I’m far from being an expert on modal logic, but it seems an important characteristic of it is that the worlds are completely separate. No branching worlds or anything like that.
Consider Lambda granting Miyoko’s wish. Under modal logic, if Lambda granted her wish in one world, that would be the only world where it happened. I could be wrong, but I really doubt Lambda would go to the trouble of granting her wish in every single separate world where Miyoko made such a wish (especially since they would be infinite, right?). Maybe she’d grant it in a few worlds to see if they varied at all, but I can’t see her granting it in enough worlds to cause Rika to be trapped for that long.
Or, if we talk about Hanyuu descending as a god in Hinamizawa (Onigafuchi) a thousand years ago, that should also just have been one world.
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Well, the easiest way to say it is that she did it in all worlds simultaneously by granting “Miyoko”'s wish. Because the miyoko in all those similar worlds is Miyoko, then by virtue of that her wish could easily be granted that way.
Also, well, its hard to say but it could be interpreted that worlds branch. Plus its not exactly a perfect metaphor granted the witches are running around it. It gets complicated by it. Its a decent enough example though on a basic level without the witches existing in it since its not accounted for. It could just be that a gameboard produces fragments with a similar setup to the original. Perhaps theres a sub-alpha fragment that acts as the base for the gameboard like one could say rokkenjima prime acts as for Umineko.
how I would put is that as mentioned, there’s a “primary” world each setting so far. then there’s the fragments, which are like basically parallel/alternate events or possibilities of said world. normally it is just the primary world events that are happening and the reality… until some witch then starts messing around with the world’s fragments.
in higurashi’s case, that was featherine at first but then it tied to bernkastel. due to their magic, that world was indefinitely stalled or constantly changing with each result until they finally got the perfect ending. they would restart everything, or depending on how you see it, switch the fragments around to another one. we occasionally saw glimpse of different “futures” such as rena as the only survivor, but it didnt matter after all.
umineko is a similar but different case. like higurashi, there was a witch, however said witch initially only saw the fragments but otherwise had no proper magic… that is, until lambdadelta decided to lend her power. still though, the difference between this and higurashi is that there’s this primary world which persisted despite whatever ending each game had. this could be due to the fact that beatrice magic is technically borrowed and how beatrice is a human in reality, such that nothing of the result in games reflect the primary world. or you could see it as beatrice own “personal” fragments that she imagined herself, rather than voyager witches who look around for the fragment they would go to. as it is, while beatrice and battler were having their own game, the primary world kept on advancing.
the alternative theory I can come up with is that the sea of fragments/witch world is actually the “real” world and everything else are just stories/games that the witches have made.
Don’t get me wrong; I think there are lots of problems with every theory I’ve heard (or made up myself). Witch involvement makes it almost impossible to figure out.
perhaps hotarubi will add some more to the universe rules.