John D. Pliskin

Originally Posted by Seika

Originally Posted by LoliVampLover

There was a bit about loli Caster in one of the Tiger Dojos IIRC, but I'm pretty sure that you're joking about Medusa and Shinji. Also, I only mentioned Illya and Shielder because it brings the total to 5, same as Tsukihime.

Literally in my sig.

Scrapped Routes

- Rejected Routes [Other]
Source: Fate/side material (2004-1-30), p.072 Fate Dictionary
Exactly what it sounds like. Route ideas that didn't make the cut.
In the beginning, the plan was for Fate/stay night to have four different routes, one for each heroine.
It would start off by letting the player arbitrarily choose between playing as either Shirou or Rin. Then around the middle of the story they would finally meet, and after that you would branch off into one of the four routes for the last half of the game. Yeah, I don't really understand how it was going to work either.
Anyway, getting back to the rejected routes, it goes without saying that the Illya route tops the list.
Besides that, there was also the "Rider route where you fight against Rin and Saber", and the "Caster route where Caster gets turned into a loli and becomes your partner".
While all traces of the Caster route were completely erased, the development where you teamed up with Rider was actually folded into part of the final story.
If the Illya route had made it into the game, the diversion point probably would have been on the ninth day of the Sakura route. Instead of choosing between being a superhero and choosing Sakura, there would be a third choice where you could choose Illya.
But unfortunately, as it stands that choice doesn't exist.
(McJon01’s Encyclopedia of Type Moon; Side Material - Rejected Routes)

- A heroine candidate that vanished without a trace during the plotting stage.
...
Unfortunately, though, she had to be cut for the sake of keeping things manageable for the player.
After all, around this point, the plot itself was starting to stray. Not only Rider, but even Caster was a potential heroine candidate. It was terrifyingly chaotic.
Hmm? Fuji-nee? I don't know what you're talking about, Fuji-nee never had a main route even during the plotting stage.
(McJon01’s Encyclopedia of Type Moon; Side Material - Stray Servant)

- Nasu: "That's right, when I finished writing the Saber and Rin route all in one go, part of me thought the game wouldn't be settled unless I flipped it over. As the theme of Fate/stay night, if we assume the Saber route to be posing a question, the Rin route is the answer and the Sakura route is a practical application. In the beginning there were plans for an Illya route, but if we were to add it, the game would have wound up being incredibly huge. So we had this plan to release the Saber route and Rin route as "Fate/stay night", and the Illya route and Sakura route as "Fate/other night". But when we thought of the 8800 yen price, we decided we should include the Sakura route after all, so in the end, we decided to combine the Illya route and Sakura route into one route. So, although it had been finished during 2002, we took more time to reorganize the plot in January or February of the following year."
Then some stuff about how the readers said the transition between the original routes and HF was too sudden (because it was)
(Forum Source)
[From Fate/Secret Book]

- During the plotting stage, she actually had her own route.
However, if we had tried to make it, it would have delayed the release of Fate/Stay Night by another half a year. Rest in peace, Illya route.
(McJon01’s Encyclopedia of Type Moon; Side Material - Illyasviel Von Einzbern)

- Ah, it's so disappointing. A Caster route would have been great, dammit! Especially the part where you get stabbed in the back while having an affair with Rider…
(McJon01’s Encyclopedia of Type Moon; Side Material - Caster)

- Originally there was going to be an option to accept his invitation to join forces in the Saber route, but tragically we ran out of time and were forced to cut it.
Ah, if we'd included that route (let's call it the "Shinji route"), players would have gotten to see a bit of Shinji's good side, but there was just no way. Please, find it in your hearts to forgive us!
(McJon01’s Encyclopedia of Type Moon; Side Material - Matou Shinji)

[Fate getting locked down to four routes after plotting aside, I count at least seven concepted routes: Saber, Rin, Sakura, Ilya, Caster, Rider and Stray Servant. Shinji’s route might have been its own thing or part of the Rider route concept, for example.]

^^ Makeshift blogpost that's really just my way of bookmarking a nice and informative post!