litecoin will always be connected to bitcoin. if bitcoin grow - litecoin grow faster. and vis a versa. ripple is more independent but also connected to BTC.
It's not. This time litecoin is not even following bitcoin and you can see that a lot of litecoin holders are losing their trust in the litecoin. Bitcoin will not need litecoin to become the experimental blockchain before bitcoin try to do a hardfork. This is a really sad situation for litecoin.