Advice and Trust [NGE]

[Strypgia]

Mari's a running gag here because Rebuild doesn't exist in this world, so her attempts to write herself in are just silly. I do love the Mari of fandom, since she gets a lot more development there. The Mari of Nobody Dies or SIRP Quest is a character I like. She's just not the one who is Asuka's backstage PA.

 

[Matt R]

I think her character could have more potential in fitting in with our less than sane cast if they focused in her thirst for battle and apparent lack of worry as a sign of her not being as well adjusted as she seems

Click to shrink...

Of course she's not well adjusted; she's just differently broken than the usual EVA cast.

There's a notion I have that Mari's odd overly-familiar behavior with everyone is the result of some NERV (or IPEA, in Rebuild) jackass trying to create a pilot capable of synching with any EVA by taking a girl who'd developed Disinhibited Social Engagement Disorder as a result of wildly unstable care after losing her parents in the post-2I chaos, and deliberately making her worse with counterproductive therapy, under the theory that by breaking down her senses of interpersonal boundaries and hesitation or restraint towards others, they could create someone capable of forcing a parental-type bond from their end onto the soul in the core. (Presumably they'd rely on the core soul's basic maternal instincts towards any child in need to synch from the other end.)

 

[Schpoonman]

Of course she's not well adjusted; she's just differently broken than the usual EVA cast.

There's a notion I have that Mari's odd overly-familiar behavior with everyone is the result of some NERV (or IPEA, in Rebuild) jackass trying to create a pilot capable of synching with any EVA by taking a girl who'd developed Disinhibited Social Engagement Disorder as a result of wildly unstable care after losing her parents in the post-2I chaos, and deliberately making her worse with counterproductive therapy, under the theory that by breaking down her senses of interpersonal boundaries and hesitation or restraint towards others, they could create someone capable of forcing a parental-type bond from their end onto the soul in the core. (Presumably they'd rely on the core soul's basic maternal instincts towards any child in need to synch from the other end.)

Click to shrink...

I'm really really hoping they expound more upon the nature of the Rebuild Evangelions in 4.0. Up until now we've mostly assumed they work in the same way, but enough changes have been made (also Asuka's playing with the doll bearing her name, so either her circumstances are different or her background is even more fucked-up than it was in NGE) that I want hard-and-fast answers.

Yes, I'm aware of the sometimes-futile endeavor of getting straight unobfuscated lore from Anno.

 

[Susano]

That seems to be one of those theories trying to explain why Mari can synch with 02, nevermind that Asuka can also synch with 03, and that Rei was also a potential test pilot for 03. In Rebuild, there simply doesn't seem to be a fixed unit-pilot association, different to the series.

So no, @Schpoonman , we cannot assume the EVAs work the same. In fact, we have to assume the very opposite.

 

[Matt R]

That seems to be one of those theories trying to explain why Mari can synch with 02, nevermind that Asuka can also synch with 03, and that Rei was also a potential test pilot for 03. In Rebuild, there simply doesn't seem to be a fixed unit-pilot association, different to the series.

So no, @Schpoonman , we cannot assume the EVAs work the same. In fact, we have to assume the very opposite.

Click to shrink...

There was also mention when they were sealing Unit-02 in 2.22 that, in addition to locking Unit-02 in that vault, that the core had also been removed. It could be that Cores on production models in Rebuild can be swapped between units, and -03 had sortied with -02's core in the Bardiel incident. That leaves the question of how she's piloting again in 3.33, given that the core was presumably destroyed with Bardiel. Then again, if the theory on Shikinami being Angel-contaminated in 3.33 is true, it could be that she now pilots the same way Kaworu did in the series, perhaps without even realizing it...

For that matter, given that IIRC the only EVA whose core we saw in the TV series was Unit-01 (whose construction was quite a bit different than the others), it could be that their cores are also removable. It could help explain how every child in Shinji's class is a potential Pilot; they salvaged the souls of their mothers after their deaths and have a warehouse full of cores down in Terminal Dogma, just waiting to be loaded into an Evangelion... (Which also raises the disturbing question of just how their mothers died. Did NERV clandestinely salvage the souls of mothers with children of the appropriate age all over Japan following tragic accidents and illnesses, etc., and gather the children in Tokyo-3 by offering their fathers employment on terms too good to refuse, or did they arrange the deaths of the children's mothers?)

 

[Susano]

For that matter, given that IIRC the only EVA whose core we saw in the TV series was Unit-01 (whose construction was quite a bit different than the others), it could be that their cores are also removable.

Click to shrink...

I highly doubt that. If cores were swappable, NERV wouldn't have needed such a haphazard and ad hoc pilot recruitment. They wouldn't have needed to immediately grab the daughter of one of their lead scientists just because that scientist had happened to have an accident in her contact experiment. They might not have needed to split Rei's soul, but could have provided EVA-00 with an ensouled core (there apparently is an additional material saying that at first activation tests with EVA-00 didn't work because it had no soul). And they might not have needed to literally grab Shinji off the street as an emergency measure.

The conclusion I draw from this is that in the series, units are built around the cores, and hence the cores are not replaceable. That means to build Unit 03, the core containing the soul of Touji's mother had probably been sent to America; which means basically that Touji was always going to be its pilot as soon as construction had started.

 

[Strypgia]

Not necessarily. We know Cores can and are built in empty, with the soul added later. Touji was no emergency case. Why not have him training for months ahead if they knew he'd be Unit-03's Pilot?

 

[Susano]

Not necessarily. We know Cores can and are built in empty, with the soul added later. Touji was no emergency case. Why not have him training for months ahead if they knew he'd be Unit-03's Pilot?

Click to shrink...

Okay, but where has the soul been stored in the meantime? I can only think of two ways: Cores, or Rei clones - as per Ritsuko's statement that this was their original purpose, containers of souls. However, Ritsuko also says that all clones in the Reiquarium are soulless, and yet most of the class had remained untapped. If the Reis were permanent containers, they would still have had the souls of those mothers in them. While this is more speculative, it makes sense to me to assume souls are stored in cores to begin with.

And, as we've seen, once souls are inside cores, they don't come out that easily anymore.

 

[Strypgia]

We don't know exactly how would are 'salvaged', but they do, as with Adam's from Antarctica to be put in Kaworu later. They have some tech-based means, we just don't get to see it outside of the apparatus wrapped around Unit-01's Entry Plug while they're trying to extract Shinji after Zeruel.

There's also EarthScorpion's dark idea: The mothers aren't dead, just kept in a coma or something until they're... "Needed".

 

[Lord Sovereign]

If I were handling Mari, and deciding on her backstory, I'd probably do something like this (it also makes some sense to me)

Make her Asuka's Rei.

She would be a SEELE clone of Kyoko Zeppelin (Shikinami?) and used for infiltration and shit by the old men. That is until Mari discovers her heritage, and that the child of her progenitor was mauled to near death as possibly part of some insane conspiracy. Cue something akin to mama bear instincts kicking in (most likely after seeing Asuka on life support swiftly after said revelation), and SEELE's treasured instrument is now one of its most implacable enemies. That would explain how she could synchronize with Unit 02, seemingly knows so much about what's going on, gives her a proper connection to one of the characters, and provides a logical place in the universe, at least in my view.

 

[Matt R]

I highly doubt that. If cores were swappable, NERV wouldn't have needed such a haphazard and ad hoc pilot recruitment. They wouldn't have needed to immediately grab the daughter of one of their lead scientists just because that scientist had happened to have an accident in her contact experiment. They might not have needed to split Rei's soul, but could have provided EVA-00 with an ensouled core (there apparently is an additional material saying that at first activation tests with EVA-00 didn't work because it had no soul). And they might not have needed to literally grab Shinji off the street as an emergency measure.

The conclusion I draw from this is that in the series, units are built around the cores, and hence the cores are not replaceable. That means to build Unit 03, the core containing the soul of Touji's mother had probably been sent to America; which means basically that Touji was always going to be its pilot as soon as construction had started.

Click to shrink...

EVA-00 isn't a production model, so it might not hold to the same standards; it's plausible that its core wouldn't be interchangeable even if the production models were. EVA-01's core certainly isn't removable; we see it grown into the EVA's flesh when Zeruel exposes it during their fight. So for those two Units, there might not have been a choice of who pilots them.

That leaves the Asuka question. But, frankly, why wouldn't they grab Asuka once they know she's compatible with an ensouled core they already have on hand? The mother's in no position to object, and the father's too busy bonking her nurse to care. Besides, keeping it in the NERV family, as it were, keeps outsiders from being sufficiently involved to ask uncomfortable questions.

As for Touji, I got the impression that Unit-03 was under construction since at least Episode 7 if not before, based on his conversation in that episode, but the wording of Episode 17 suggested Touji's selection was genuinely recent.

On the one hand, I wonder why they didn't have Shinji's entire class undergoing NERV training in preparation for possible Pilot selection, but I suppose there are secrecy concerns with making things too obvious.

Okay, but where has the soul been stored in the meantime? I can only think of two ways: Cores, or Rei clones - as per Ritsuko's statement that this was their original purpose, containers of souls. However, Ritsuko also says that all clones in the Reiquarium are soulless, and yet most of the class had remained untapped. If the Reis were permanent containers, they would still have had the souls of those mothers in them. While this is more speculative, it makes sense to me to assume souls are stored in cores to begin with.

And, as we've seen, once souls are inside cores, they don't come out that easily anymore.

Click to shrink...

That's why I speculated that they had a warehouse of Cores in the basement waiting for EVAs.

Depending on the circumstances, there's another alarming possibility: the mothers of Shinji's classmates aren't actually dead yet, and are instead comatose (possibly brain dead), being kept alive in Terminal Dogma until one of their kids is selected as a Pilot candidate. Depending on the circumstances of death, it might be possible to fake the mother's death (perhaps through the organ donation system? Take the mother away for "organ donation," ship her off to NERV, present the family with an urn of fake ashes?).

There's also EarthScorpion's dark idea: The mothers aren't dead, just kept in a coma or something until they're... "Needed".

Click to shrink...

Yeah, like that.

 

[Susano]

We don't know exactly how would are 'salvaged', but they do, as with Adam's from Antarctica to be put in Kaworu later.

Click to shrink...

Personally, I see no reason to doubt that Kaworu's given birthday was meant as a genuine hint to what he is, instead of an in-universe SEELE lie. I think Kaworu was in fact created by Second Impact. Which did after all involve inserting genetic material into Adam.

But yes, obviously they have means to salvage souls, see Rei after Armisael. But they still would need to store that salvaged soul somehow.

There's also EarthScorpion's dark idea: The mothers aren't dead, just kept in a coma or something until they're... "Needed".

Click to shrink...

Hah. I suppose that is also possible. Get EVA-03 with an empty core from America, and then force a Contact Experiment between it and a comatose Ms Suzuhara...

Make her Asuka's Rei.

Click to shrink...

Yes, that theory has been around, mostly based on that one photograph of Yui and Baby Shinji with people around them, and due to Mari being able to pilot 02.

However, we have no clue if that person who kinda looks like an adult Mari is indeed Kyoko, and once again, indications are there simply is no fixed unit-pilot association in Rebuild. So that theory is very weak. In fact, Asuka's name was deliberately changed in Rebuild just so as to signal we can't assume the same with her as with Soryu. She even plays with a doll after arriving! It seems fair to assume that whatever happened with Soryu's mother in the series... didn't happen with Shikinami's mother in Rebuild.

That leaves the Asuka question. But, frankly, why wouldn't they grab Asuka once they know she's compatible with an ensouled core they already have on hand? The mother's in no position to object, and the father's too busy bonking her nurse to care. Besides, keeping it in the NERV family, as it were, keeps outsiders from being sufficiently involved to ask uncomfortable questions.

Click to shrink...

Because that is simply bad planning. It's just so incredibly ad hoc. It would have made more sense if NERV had already been preparing pilots. I mean, what, did NERV just get lucky with Kyoko deciding to do that contact experiment? That is so random and haphazard... I think it makes more sense to assume that once an EVA has a soul, welp, you'll have to deal with it somehow. Which would mean cores aren't replaceable.

 

[Dealer]

I like how Susano keeps assuming competence on the part of SEELE and NERV when they have a literal guidebook telling them what to do and they still almost get killed several times, not to mention being so incompetent they don't realize Yui ended up in Unit-01 until ten years later despite knowing A) What a Contact Experiment does, and B) being the ones who let her sign up for it.

The pilot choosing method is less ad-hoc and more 'no-one in either organization really gives a fuck.'

 

[Susano]

I like how Susano keeps assuming competence on the part of SEELE and NERV when they have a literal guidebook telling them what to do and they still almost get killed several times, not to mention being so incompetent they don't realize Yui ended up in Unit-01 until ten years later despite knowing A) What a Contact Experiment does, and B) being the ones who let her sign up for it.

Click to shrink...

Eh, if we go by Gendo's report to the Committee in Episode 1, SEELE had literally no idea what the hell NERV did with their Evangelion tech. Which yes, isn't very competent on their part. But that means it isn't SEELE doing and knowing all that stuff - all the "executive" work is indeed NERV's. And NERV almost certainly knew how things worked - otherwise they wouldn't have grabbed Asuka literally immediately after her mother's contact experiment (Kyoko dies in the same year still, and Asuka is made a pilot before that), for the very same unit Asuka's mother had the "accident" in (that must have raised some alarms in some people...).

Also, "they just didn't give a fuck" is really always the last explanation model that should be tried. I mean, given the importance of that all, there is absolutely no reason why people wouldn't "give a fuck". The idea that NERV simply had no other choice, because cores aren't removable seems to make much more sense to me. And I mean, why should cores be removeable? Do we have any hint towards that in the series?

 

[Dealer]

But they don't give a fuck. Nobody ever even tried reaching out to the pilots beyond Misato and maybe Kaji if you squint. Like, to use your example of how hellish piloting is, they know the EVAS transmit pain to the pilots, but no one ever checked up on any of them besides what their job required. Not even a 'hey you okay'.

Hell, Section 2 is a literal army of MIBs and they couldn't find one kid for an entire week.

Nobody at NERV cares beyond doing the literal bare minimum required of them.

 

[Susano]

But they don't. Nobody ever even tried reaching out to the pilots beyond Misato and maybe Kaji if you squint. Like, to use your example of how hellish piloting is, they know the EVAS transmit pain to the pilots, but no one ever checked up on any of them besides what their job required. Not even a 'hey you okay'.

Hell, Section 2 is a literal army of MIBs and they couldn't find one kid for an entire week.

Click to shrink...

It's still an ass backwards argument, to be honest.

"NERV is incompetent in its day to day handling of the pilots. Therefore, they MUST also be incompetent in pilot recruitment, never mind that they were competent enough to immediately seize upon Asuka's new potential once her mother had her CE 'accident'. And therefore, cores can also be removeable."

The causal link simply isn't there. There is no reason to assume incompetence here, and on the other hand, there is really nothing that would indicate that cores can in fact be swapped.

(Also, Misato speculates that was deliberate sabotage on part of Section 2. Which seems to be her only worry...)

 

[Matt R]

Personally, I see no reason to doubt that Kaworu's given birthday was meant as a genuine hint to what he is, instead of an in-universe SEELE lie. I think Kaworu was in fact created by Second Impact. Which did after all involve inserting genetic material into Adam.

Click to shrink...

Aaand that leads us back around to the notion that, if Kaworu's body was created by the Second Impact Contact experiment, that Dr. Katsuragi might have been the donor...

Which has already been ruled out by Stryp for A&T at any rate.

There's a similar theory I've seen online that the first Rei wasn't, in fact, deliberately created by anyone, but was an accidental product of the attempt to salvage Yui Ikari after her disappearance in her Contact Experiment. The Extended Version or Platinum Edition or whatever of the TV series suggests that EVA-01 and Lilith were still physically linked at the time of the Contact Experiment, and presumably at the time of the salvage attempt. If I understand the theory correctly, when they tried to get Yui's soul out, she unsurprisingly refused to budge, but they did manage to grab onto Lilith's soul somehow, and it created a body for itself based on that of the soul they were trying to salvage. In that situation, Gendo presumably based his Scenario around her, rather than creating her to fit the Scenario.

Yes, that theory has been around, mostly based on that one photograph of Yui and Baby Shinji with people around them, and due to Mari being able to pilot 02.

Click to shrink...

That adds a really disturbing element to a lot of Mari/Asuka fanart and doujinshi...

However, we have no clue if that person who kinda looks like an adult Mari is indeed Kyoko, and once again, indications are there simply is no fixed unit-pilot association in Rebuild. So that theory is very weak. In fact, Asuka's name was deliberately changed in Rebuild just so as to signal we can't assume the same with her as with Soryu. She even plays with a doll after arriving! It seems fair to assume that whatever happened with Soryu's mother in the series... didn't happen with Shikinami's mother in Rebuild.

Click to shrink...

It could be she simply reacted differently. Heck, she could have developed an interest in kigurumi as a result.

(Here's a disturbing take on the Costumes and Games omake... is there some connection between Asuka's secret love of cosplay and dress-up, and Kyoko's attachment to the doll? "I can be your doll, mama..." Lord, I hope not, and don't even suggest it to Asuka herself...)

Because that is simply bad planning. It's just so incredibly ad hoc. It would have made more sense if NERV had already been preparing pilots. I mean, what, did NERV just get lucky with Kyoko deciding to do that contact experiment? That is so random and haphazard... I think it makes more sense to assume that once an EVA has a soul, welp, you'll have to deal with it somehow. Which would mean cores aren't replaceable.

Click to shrink...

I get the impression they were still trying to figure things out at the time. Besides, a bird in hand, and all that -- if you already have a soul/Pilot pair, might as well make use of it. Unless they have some profile about what sort of child makes the best child soldier (and isn't that a disturbing thought...), one kid is probably as good as another, for the most part, at least from a top brass perspective.

Actually, here's a thought: this might be how NERV found out that the mother/child bond was capable of creating a synch in the first place. At the time they tested Asuka, they genuinely might not have known quite how they were going to control the Evangelions. Alternately, they were planning on creating artificial pilots (either like Rei, or similar to the dummy plugs) in the first place, and the Children were a stopgap measure that wound up as the main solution when dummy plug development was delayed.

 

[Susano]

There's a similar theory I've seen online that the first Rei wasn't, in fact, deliberately created by anyone, but was an accidental product of the attempt to salvage Yui Ikari after her disappearance in her Contact Experiment. The Extended Version or Platinum Edition or whatever of the TV series suggests that EVA-01 and Lilith were still physically linked at the time of the Contact Experiment, and presumably at the time of the salvage attempt. If I understand the theory correctly, when they tried to get Yui's soul out, she unsurprisingly refused to budge, but they did manage to grab onto Lilith's soul somehow, and it created a body for itself based on that of the soul they were trying to salvage. In that situation, Gendo presumably based his Scenario around her, rather than creating her to fit the Scenario.

Click to shrink...

Hm. However:

1) Gendo didn't appear at work at all for one week after Yui's disappearance
2) When he did reappear, he had his Scenario ready
3) We know Rei is an - no, the integral part of the Scenario.

So I would assume in the week after Yui's disappearance, nothing happened, or at least nothing involving Gendo. And when he returned he already had his Scenario. And that Scenario seems to require Rei. I would hence assume Rei's creation was entirely deliberate. And hey, even though Gendo bailed just in time during the Antarctica expedition, he might still have learned its result. And it's not a far leap to conclude that if this can be done with Adam, it can also be done with Lilith.

Also, I don't know about the whatever edition , but in the normal TV series we see a normal EVA testing room... and given how large Lilith is, even from Shinji's weird perspective she would have to have been visible somewhere.

That adds a really disturbing element to a lot of Mari/Asuka fanart and doujinshi...

Click to shrink...

As a Shinji/Rei shipper, I really, really disagree

It could be she simply reacted differently. Heck, she could have developed an interest in kigurumi as a result.

Click to shrink...

Well, we have no hints towards that, either. And more to the point, I think the scene with the doll was basically meant to scream at us "This isn't Soryu, Shikinami doesn't have Soryu's background".

I get the impression they were still trying to figure things out at the time. Besides, a bird in hand, and all that -- if you already have a soul/Pilot pair, might as well make use of it. Unless they have some profile about what sort of child makes the best child soldier (and isn't that a disturbing thought...), one kid is probably as good as another, for the most part, at least from a top brass perspective.

Actually, here's a thought: this might be how NERV found out that the mother/child bond was capable of creating a synch in the first place. At the time they tested Asuka, they genuinely might not have known quite how they were going to control the Evangelions. Alternately, they were planning on creating artificial pilots (either like Rei, or similar to the dummy plugs) in the first place, and the Children were a stopgap measure that wound up as the main solution when dummy plug development was delayed.

Click to shrink...

Well, everyone seems to call the Rei clones the 'dummy plugs', and that even though they are already ten years old. So it's possible that was the first idea. However, the fact that Asuka was snatched up so quickly indicates to me that someone in NERV must have known how things work. And let's not forget Yui certainly knew what would happen during her CE. So knowledge at the time can't have been that bad...

 

[Doctor Squared]

I wonder if Mari is a response to criticism about all of the children having self-esteem/worth issues tied up in piloting and Shinji not wanting to get back in the pilot's seat?

Rei pilots because it's partially what her reason for being is. Asuka pilots for the praise and attention it gets her and because she views it as being the only reason anyone would ever care about her. Shinji pilots because Eva is the first thing that's given him something close to a family along with the praise and affection that he been missing for his entire life.

Mari makes weird cat noises, sings pop songs in the middle of battle, has an LCL fetish, and is extremely enthusiastic about being an Eva pilot. The difference between her and the others is that she doesn't show any angst or signs of trauma, she's a child soldier who loves her job and doesn't really seem to have a grip on reality (in 3.0 she tells Shinji to save Shikinami, who was trying to kill him less than five minutes ago) it's disconcerting especially when you consider that no sane person would get inside of the entry plug in the first place.

 

[Lord Sovereign]

I wonder if Mari is a response to criticism about all of the children having self-esteem/worth issues tied up in piloting and Shinji not wanting to get back in the pilot's seat?

Rei pilots because it's partially what her reason for being is. Asuka pilots for the praise and attention it gets her and because she views it as being the only reason anyone would ever care about her. Shinji pilots because Eva is the first thing that's given him something close to a family along with the praise and affection that he been missing for his entire life.

Mari makes weird cat noises, sings pop songs in the middle of battle, has an LCL fetish, and is extremely enthusiastic about being an Eva pilot. The difference between her and the others is that she doesn't show any angst or signs of trauma, she's a child soldier who loves her job and doesn't really seem to have a grip on reality (in 3.0 she tells Shinji to save Shikinami, who was trying to kill him less than five minutes ago) it's disconcerting especially when you consider that no sane person would get inside of the entry plug in the first place.

Click to shrink...

So no sane person would march into battle for the preservation of their people and homeland?

 

[curiosity]

Pilots in Rebuild seem to be in a better mental state, than in the series. I think Mari fits in just fine.

 

[Matt R]

Hm. However:

1) Gendo didn't appear at work at all for one week after Yui's disappearance
2) When he did reappear, he had his Scenario ready
3) We know Rei is an - no, the integral part of the Scenario.

Click to shrink...

That's the A&T background (Gendo disappears for a week, and comes back with his plan), but is it confirmed as series background, or is that still open?

Well, everyone seems to call the Rei clones the 'dummy plugs', and that even though they are already ten years old. So it's possible that was the first idea. However, the fact that Asuka was snatched up so quickly indicates to me that someone in NERV must have known how things work. And let's not forget Yui certainly knew what would happen during her CE. So knowledge at the time can't have been that bad...

Click to shrink...

Given that everyone but Fuyutuski considered what happened to Yui an accident (and Fuyutsuki only knew because Yui told him otherwise beforehand), she doesn't appear to have told anyone else what she knew would happen during the CE... probably because they would have tried to stop her if she had. So a lot of the particulars of what Yui had worked out necessarily "died" with her. It's possible that they tested Asuka for compatibility with Unit-02 after Kyoko's contact experiment on a hunch, and developed the plans about using the mother/child pair to control the EVAs as a result. (Another idea: NERV Berlin might have initially hoped that they would finish development of the Dummy Plug in time, and could use Asuka as a pattern for their own Dummy Plug rather than having her act directly as a child soldier. No evidence for this, but no proof against, either, I think.)

So... Unit-00 is constructed successfully, but they can't figure out how to actually make it move. Unit-01, under construction, undergoes Yui's contact experiment. Yui is lost, and the salvage attempt fails; either as a direct result, or in the aftermath, Rei is created. All indications are that her unique nature will enable her to control the Evangelion, and she's designated First Child at some point, but it turns out they can't just replicate her outright because there's only one soul to animate her no matter how many copies they make of her body. Dummy Plug project begins, to create a fake soul for synchronization purposes based on Rei's brain scans.

Meanwhile, in Berlin, Unit-02 is completed. Kyoko analyzes the results of Yui's experiment and implements safety features for her own Contact Experiment. (Theory: Kyoko expected to be able to directly link with the core of the EVA even without a resident soul, and then develop a way to control the Evangelion through that. Perhaps she expected to become the pilot herself? Or develop a system that would let anyone pilot EVA?) Unfortunately, she doesn't understand as much as she thought, and while physical absorption is prevented, her soul is ripped in half, driving her insane. Metaphysical biology theory crossed over with psychological theory indicates that Asuka should be able to synchronize with her mother's soul in the EVA to control it. She's tested, and the theory is correct. As part of the only mother soul/child pair NERV has at the moment, Asuka is designated Second Child and begins training. Plans are made to control subsequent Evangelions in the same fashion, in the event the Dummy Plug program doesn't bear fruit in time.

Question: Did the first Rei die before Asuka's selection as a pilot? It seems likely, since Naoko didn't know of Rei as a designated pilot, and Asuka was designated Second Child rather than First. This suggests that the first Rei's death and the division of Rei's soul happened before Kyoko's experiment. Possibly without anyone at Tokyo-3 passing the details on to Berlin.

Back in Tokyo-3, as best we can tell, the combination of Rei's unusual psychological state, the poor quality of Unit-00s core, and the unusual soul bond limited Rei's effectiveness in synching with Unit-00, and she evidently hasn't had any luck yet with Unit-01 either in the anime (Manga continuity being a bit different). The Dummy Plug program has also fallen behind. The last straw is Rei's injury in the Unit-00 berserker incident, leaving NERV with no viable pilot/Unit pair in Japan -- Rei's too beat-up to pilot reliably, and hasn't yet managed to synch with the only usable Unit anyway. With projections indicating the Third Angel's arrival is imminent, in desperation, Gendo falls back on the mother-child system NERV-Berlin demonstrated, has Shinji designated Third Child, and requests his presence in Tokyo-3...

 

[Gryphon]

And more to the point, I think the scene with the doll was basically meant to scream at us "This isn't Soryu, Shikinami doesn't have Soryu's background".

Click to shrink...

Too bad they didn't actually do anything with that development, eh?

(Yeah, I'm still annoyed about that. Grumble grumble...)

 

[Doctor Squared]

So no sane person would march into battle for the preservation of their people and homeland?

Click to shrink...

They would and do, but that's not really the reason why any of the children pilot. Asuka does it because it she sees it as what makes her special and worthy of attention, Rei pilots at first because she's ordered to and later out of a desire to protect Shinji, Shinji pilots at first because Rei can't and later because it earns him the affection that he's craved for so long, and Touji became a pilot because his sister would get better healthcare.

None of the pilots actually pilot for the good of humanity or the preservation of their homeland, they're in it for themselves.

 

[akrasiel23]

So no sane person would march into battle for the preservation of their people and homeland?

Click to shrink...

That's a valid reason to fight, the issue however is that the fighters in question are children who have yet to pass puberty and can't be trusted to resist the mental strain of a war.

Too bad they didn't actually do anything with that development, eh?

(Yeah, I'm still annoyed about that. Grumble grumble...)

Click to shrink...

I for one believe that her playing with the doll is meant to signify that Asuka Shikinami had already got over the mother issues that Asuka Soryu had, though that requires Rebuild to be a sequel to the original series to make sense.

They would and do, but that's not really the reason why any of the children pilot. Asuka does it because it she sees it as what makes her special and worthy of attention, Rei pilots at first because she's ordered to and later out of a desire to protect Shinji, Shinji pilots at first because Rei can't and later because it earns him the affection that he's craved for so long, and Touji became a pilot because his sister would get better healthcare.

None of the pilots actually pilot for the good of humanity or the preservation of their homeland, they're in it for themselves.

Click to shrink...

At least until 3.33, and by then the situation is so screwed up that not doing so it tantamount to being an accomplice to Gendo or Seele (with the exception of Shinji for some important reasons).