After the initial interest in the story, my C&C seemed to dry up.
If you like it, or have any thoughts, on it please let me know.

Well, I guess I'd better give some C&C then. :)

   Ranma dove to one side as the heavy umbrella smashed into the 
concrete where he had been standing.  *So this is Ryoga.  A lot of 
brute force, but he doesn't seem to have much upstairs.  Maybe I 
can defuse this situation before it gets violent.*  He regained his 
feet and smirked at the boy in the bandanna.  "Can I help you with 
something, Ryoga?"

*grin* About time someone tries to defuse a potentially hostile situation
by using non-violent means. :)

   Ryoga whirled.  Anger blazed in his eyes.  "What are you doing 
here with Shampoo?!"  He stomped closer to Ranma.

It always amazes me how Ryouga wants to take Akane away from Ranma, but
also reacts negatively when Ranma shows signs of dating another girl. ^_^

   "Concentrate on what you're doing now," said Cologne coldly.  
"I don't pay you to slack off."  She watched as Mousse picked up 
the pace of his little one duck cleaning detail.  She smiled in 
amusement.  *Oh Mousse, you do provide an old woman with 
hours of entertainment.*

That brings up an interesting mental image, the "little one-duck
cleaning detail". :)

   *He called me... Mom?  Since when does my son take to using 
slang talk?  What sort of people is my son spending time with?*  

A bunch of crazy people, eheheheh...

   "Well... why did you feel the need to arrange for a bride for me 
so soon?"  Ranma picked up his cup of tea, and noticed that his 
hand was trembling slightly.  He drank it down quickly.

   "Well, you don't have a girlfriend," she replied.  "I wasn't sure if 
you would be able to tear yourself away from your studies long 
enough to find a girl to marry.  I decided, as your mother who only 
has your best interests at heart, to arrange for you to meet someone 
suitable.  I had the marriage broker arrange for each girl and her 
parents to visit us over the next week."  Nodoka set down her 
teacup, and gave Ranma a reassuring smile.

..... that's Nodoka for ya.

old friend of his father's.  It was an old loophole in Imperial 
security that hopefully hadn't been discovered yet.  Basically, what 
it did was send two data requests simultaneously.  The security 
software would intercept the first one, but the second would get 
through.  *If it hasn't been discovered yet,* he amended in his 

Hrm, that loophole sounds a bit weird to me, being a computer science
graduate student myself. A good secure server should be checking for the
user's priviledges to access the file first, before sending it (so that
such a "race condition" cannot be exploited). Just a minor nitpick.
Readers who don't understand this sort of computer system won't notice
that though, and would accept the "security software would intercept the
first one, but the second one would get through" explanation.

   *Ha!  The Anything-Goes School of Data Hacking strikes!*  He 
grinned at the screen.  His grin didn't last long.

Lol, Anything-Goes School of Data Hacking? :/

~1847.  The Musk Dynasty was discovered to use the so-called 
~'Spring of Drowned Girl' in order to breed with local animal life 
~in 1848.  The Security Directorate determined that members of 
~the Musk Dynasty were to be classified as sub-human, and 
~purification efforts were carried out  under the able direction of 
~Colonel Hisato Tendo in 1848.  Final pogrom carried out in 1849.  

Ouch. How savage of the security directorate..."purification" *shudder*

session, and powered down the system.  *At least the Amazons 
exist.  Since the Empire has practiced a relatively light approach 
with them, they may be much as they are in the other Ranma's 
quantum band.*  He wandered back to his futon, undressed 

Yes, but he'll be unpleasantly surprised when he finds out that his
beloved Shampoo is a slave, and one in a dangerous profession at that...

   "So why didn't you pre-charge that gizmo of yours?"  The other 
Ranma stood up and stretched.
   "I did each time before, but Akane made me so upset that I 
didn't notice that she'd discharged the capacitor!"  Ranma suddenly 
blinked.  "She... discharged... it...," he said in a wondering tone.  

Oooh...Ranma'd better lock up his lab better next time, before someone
messes up his equipment even worse than discharging a simple capacitor. 
^_^

He had somehow forgotten that he kept it charged.  The trickle 
charger was his last-ditch backup.  It was all that had allowed him 
to come back.

Last-ditch backup? Wouldn't he have been able to get back without the
capacitor if the power had came back on, before the fuel cells got 
exhausted causing his equipment to lose the signal lock on him?

   "Your Akane seems to be even more uncute than mine is, and an 
even bigger pain in the rear," observed the other Ranma.  He began 
to run through a slow kata.

Would the real Ranma really talk like that about Akane, even if it
is true?

   Nodoka narrowed her eyes at him.  Genma gulped, and he 
started to sweat a little.  As much as he loved her, Nodoka had 
always intimidated him a little, ever since they were married.  *If 
you know what's good for you my son, you'll prolong the decision 
as long as you possibly can,* he thought sincerely.  He began 
placating Nodoka, and by the time the lights were turned out they 
were both occupied with something other than arguing.

Well, looks like Genma is the more intelligent & responsible one
here. I can really sympathize with Ranma here, being a very 
academic/work oriented person in RL. I sure wouldn't like it if my
mom engaged me to a bunch of girls without my input. ^_^ (especially
not if one of them was a violent maniac...)

I must say, you're doing a very good job of cranking out good quality
chapters at a brisk pace. I wonder how Akane/Nabiki would react if they
got engaged to Ranma. I could really see this Akane taking the opportunity
to get "closer" to Ranma, in her own violent way. (One of Ranma's thoughts
from an earlier chapter...something about breaking Akane's jaw to get
her to stop bothering him comes to mind.)

Nabiki wouldn't be nearly as physically dangerous, but she'd probably cause
trouble for Ranma all the same, possibly worse than the normal Nabiki,
and being close to Nabiki for Ranma would mean being close to Akane/Soun.

(Times like these I wonder how the normal Ranma ever put up with all the
day-to-day craziness that happens in the Tendo Dojo. He must be a very
very tolerant person. Of course, all that crap is part of the humor so
its not supposed to have ill psychological effects. The psychological
effects probably have to be taken into account here though, considering
this fanfic has a more serious tone.)

And then there's ninja-Ukyou. I can really see scholar-Ranma falling for
her here, especially if she's the sweet/cute and intelligent kind of girl 
(scholar types tend to go for that sort of girl, at least in my experience).

You are going to have scholar-Ranma get to know normal-Ukyou (while in
martial-Ranma's body of course) better right? So far he hasn't done much
in the normal universe except date Shampoo. :)...BTW, what happens to
martial-Ranma's mind when his body gets "possessed" by scholar-Ranma?
Does he just black out when possessed, then re-awaken later?

Unless I'm missing something here, I think ninja-Ukyou would be the
better match for scholar-Ranma here. (I'm assuming that everyone agrees
that violent-Akane and heartless-Nabiki are no match for her. ^_^)
Other than Ukyou, there's also slave-Shampoo. While scholar-Ranma 
shouldn't have too much trouble finding her in his own reality,
she doesn't seem to be the kind of girl for him (this Shampoo seems
to be more of the battle-hardened type, and not the "cute & cuddly"
type); and she IS stuck being a slave for at least 3 more years, so a 
relationship between them isn't going to be really feasible unless
something extraordinary happens.

Are we going to see more of Genma later? I imagine Ranma would want to
tell him about the success of his quantum experiment by now (after all,
he's made reliable equipment, and tested it, and it works exactly like
it should, in the abscense of power failures or capacitors discharged
by non-scientific minded people ^_^). Also, Ranma might need Genma's help 
soon, judging by what's coming to him.

Great fic as always,

-Philip Mak (pmak@cs.dal.ca)
http://is2.dal.ca/~pmak/ukyou.html