- Location
- The Midlands.
Destroying the city to save the city would be bad for business.
Advice and Trust [NGE]
Ranma-sensei
Sorcerer
- Location
- Citrix Receiver
- Pronouns
- Weatherdependent
Possible. Has the MOAB a pressure wave radius like the one the N² in episode 1 shows?
Dranndor
Clueless Idiot
- Location
- Cloudcuckooland
No, i have never seen a MOAB having the same strength as the N2 in the first episode, though logically if Sachiel's AT-Field was neutralized the MOABs could potentially badly hurt or even kill it, as demonstrated by Shin-Godzilla, who despite being immune to tank guns and missiles proved to be vulnerable to bombs designed to drill through meters of solid concrete.
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BG_Character_592
The Fisherman
- Location
- Australia
So with Angels, the policy of "More Dakka" applies. Just keep firing at it until it drops! Ignore the fact the taxpayer pays for every shell that bounces off the AT-Field.
Although sometimes it works. Matarael fell to a pallet rifle of all things (although its up for debate whether or not it was using the AT-Field to disrupt the power grid, and couldn't defend itself properly), so if the power was indeed on, a bit of heavy bombardment could've felled it.
Of course, the problem with just applying more bullets to the problem is that pesky AT-Field that just so happens to stop those sorts of things (unless you wanted to flatten the city you're trying to protect). If only we had something effective that could counteract this
Dranndor
Clueless Idiot
- Location
- Cloudcuckooland
I think taxpayers would appreciate the fact that their money is being used to fight off giant thousand ton eldritch abominations that intends on bringing the apocalypse.
This have me thinking, if Shamshel's S2 engine didn't went poof into a Dirac Sea, could NERV somehow built an AT-Field generating contraption for the sole purpose of nullifying an Angel's AT-Field so that the Evas and the military could bring them down much easier?
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TsukikoHime
CEO of yuri
- Location
- that one gay idol magical girl show
So you suggest that NERV enslave the very souls of the defeated Angels with the tools of man, and turn them against their brethren?
... That's a VERY NERV thing to do and they really should have done that earlier. Wow.
- Location
- Spain
Cool idea, but how would it practically work? The in-series explanation for AT-Fields is that they are the barriers that separate people (and other sentient beings, I suppose), which the EVAs somehow amplify because they're biomechanical clones of ADAM and have human souls inside them. Or something along those lines. How could a soulless machine replicate such an effect?
Maybe you could put a Rei inside it and have it work on a similar principle to the Dummy Plugs? But that would in turn require for DP development to be fairly advanced or even complete, which doesn't happen until fairly late into the timeline, and at that point an AT-Field jammer would be pretty pointless due to Big Z and Tabris having stupidly powerful AT-Fields and Arael and Armisael not playing by the rules.
Dranndor
Clueless Idiot
- Location
- Cloudcuckooland
Maybe the dummy plug don't need to be that advanced, just enough to be able to activate and deactivate the contraption at will. It definitely could help against big Z, but like you say against the last two Angel it'll do jack squat.
Also slightly off-topic, but how exactly does Armisael works? I never watches that particular episode because i'll bawl my eyes out watching it(which is why i avoid both the anime and A&T version of Armisael fight).
Astray Spiral
Potential Evil Incarnate
- Location
- C:\Windows\explorer.exe
Um... would a parasitic tapeworm that spreads like a kudzu once it affects someone/something be an apt description guys?
- Location
- California
Dropping an N2 mine is seen as a last result because the collateral damage is massive. After the JSSDF bombed Israfel, Fuyutsuki complained they would have to redraw the map again, due to the coast line being obliterated.
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Lord Sovereign
The Emperor of shitty fanfic
- Location
- England
True, but I'd much rather empty countryside get blown to Kingdom Come than have monsters tear each other apart in a densely populated city.
- Location
- The Midlands.
Empty countryside is a rare commodity in Japan: As soon as the Angels go feet-dry it's almost guaranteed that there'll be civilians inside the blast radius, and their civil defence infrastructure is probably much less well-developed than in Tokyo-3.
And that's before we consider the fact that several Angels either weren't detected until they were too close to engage with N2 warheads, had countermeasures of some sort or both.
Lord Sovereign
The Emperor of shitty fanfic
- Location
- England
On that topic, how in the balls do you manage to miss these fuckhuge eldritch monstrosities stomping through the land until they're directly on your doorstep? It isn't like they're subtle or anything. I mean what, did it go something like this?
(Literal 160 meter tall eldritch god sneaking through border control in full on ninja clothing)
++YOU CAN'T SEE ME++
Border Guard 1: Anyone else hear that?
Border Guard 2: Nah, must be your imagination.
++I SHALT RECLAIM FATHER ADAM AND CLEANSE THIS EARTH OF THE LILIN FILTH. I AM THE ANGEL OF MIGHT, AND I HAVE COME!!!++
Border: Huh...wind's blowing a bit loudly today...
++YOU CAN'T SEE ME++
Border Guard 1: Anyone else hear that?
Border Guard 2: Nah, must be your imagination.
++I SHALT RECLAIM FATHER ADAM AND CLEANSE THIS EARTH OF THE LILIN FILTH. I AM THE ANGEL OF MIGHT, AND I HAVE COME!!!++
Border: Huh...wind's blowing a bit loudly today...
- Location
- The Midlands.
Good question. We know at least two came out of the sea, one was preparing to climb out of a volcano, Leliel just kind of materialised... Hmmm. Maybe they're stored in a kind of pocket dimension (aka a "Sea of Dirac") until they're deployed by some automated process triggered when Misato's father poked ADAM with a stick?
BadRoad
a thousand miles
I think it has the same general strategy as Arael-- try to understand the Lilim by bonding with them. Arael's mistake was trying to stay out of range of the Lilim weapons, which worked until we broke out a longer-range weapon. Armisael responded by getting into such close range that the Lilim it's interrogating wouldn't survive an effective attack. It may also have been trying to gather more information, or gather it faster, by physically merging with its target rather than just analyzing its mind-- combining AT fields rather than just brushing them together. (Arael's strategy, meanwhile, was similar to Leliel's, but faster. Tabris perfected the strategy-- slower, but gentle enough to avoid provoking a violent response from the Lilim.)
At least, that's my interpretation at the moment.
- Location
- Up A Creek
My impression was that N2s were, essentially, just nukes without all the nasty radioactive fallout. Because Japan.
Thing is, if you can hand-wave away the radiation issues, a nuke isn't really any more than a Really Big conventional explosion. Heck, in history we've had conventional explosions of Sufficient Size to deliver the same effects as very small nuclear devices. It's just that a multi-thousand-ton pile of TNT tends to be a bit tactically unwieldy (and getting the whole thing to detonate at once is a complex exercise).
The real problem is, Angelic (in)vulnerability is essentially plot-driven. Sachiel and Israfel both get their ATFs breached and take substantial damage from N2s, but regen (why didn't anyone try "N2s until the pieces bounce"? Plot) in fairly short order. Ramiel dies to a pinpoint DEW at power levels equivalent to a high-yield nuclear device. Matarael, well... I just closed my eyes and imagined that Shinji was neutralizing the Spider Angel's ATF without bothering to mention he was doing so.
But basically, yeah -- unless the Angels have some kind of magical "immunity to mundane weapons" things, above and beyond the demonstrated capabilities of the ATF, there's no reason the military couldn't kill them with conventional, N2, or even nuclear weapons. EVAs just create much less collateral damage... if things go right.
I mean, it's Pacific Rim all over again -- no matter how much we love Giant Robots punching Giant Monsters, at the end of the day, the entire concept makes no sense. Anything a Giant Robot can do, can be done better by conventional weapons, barring Applied Phlebotinum like the ATF.
Thing is, if you can hand-wave away the radiation issues, a nuke isn't really any more than a Really Big conventional explosion. Heck, in history we've had conventional explosions of Sufficient Size to deliver the same effects as very small nuclear devices. It's just that a multi-thousand-ton pile of TNT tends to be a bit tactically unwieldy (and getting the whole thing to detonate at once is a complex exercise).
The real problem is, Angelic (in)vulnerability is essentially plot-driven. Sachiel and Israfel both get their ATFs breached and take substantial damage from N2s, but regen (why didn't anyone try "N2s until the pieces bounce"? Plot) in fairly short order. Ramiel dies to a pinpoint DEW at power levels equivalent to a high-yield nuclear device. Matarael, well... I just closed my eyes and imagined that Shinji was neutralizing the Spider Angel's ATF without bothering to mention he was doing so.
But basically, yeah -- unless the Angels have some kind of magical "immunity to mundane weapons" things, above and beyond the demonstrated capabilities of the ATF, there's no reason the military couldn't kill them with conventional, N2, or even nuclear weapons. EVAs just create much less collateral damage... if things go right.
I mean, it's Pacific Rim all over again -- no matter how much we love Giant Robots punching Giant Monsters, at the end of the day, the entire concept makes no sense. Anything a Giant Robot can do, can be done better by conventional weapons, barring Applied Phlebotinum like the ATF.
Dmol8
The Undead Unhinged Lunatic of the Web
- Location
- Belgrade,Serbia
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Leliel I would think.
Matt R
Giant Robot Pilot
- Location
- North Dakota
Mountainous terrain, a depopulated countryside, and a surveillance network damaged first by Second Impact, then by the Angels? I seem to recall Sahaquiel took out a lot of surveillance satellites while it was in orbit.
Come to think of it:
Sachiel: Tracked even before it emerged from the sea
Shamshel: Likewise, tracked and engaged even over water
Ramiel: Tracked for quite some distance; IIRC there was mention that interception options were limited due to lingering damage from Shamshel
Gaghiel: Open-water ambush
Israfel: Tracked and first engaged as soon as it emerged from the water
Sandalphon: Detected by chance (assuming it wasn't laying an ambush) and engaged at point of detection
Matariel: Was probably being tracked by all sorts of stations, but none of them could contact NERV due to the blackout
Sahaquiel: Detected in orbit and monitored as soon as it was detected. Although one wonders how it got into orbit; maybe it launched from the open ocean?
Iruel: Infiltrated via contaminated construction materials, IIRC?
Leliel: Just "showed up," but given its properties, that's not too surprising.
Bardiel: Not detected in the "cloud" form it used to infect Unit-03, probably because nobody knew what they were looking for, but tracked consistently after Unit-03's activation.
Zeruel: Appeared very soon in the aftermath of Bardiel's attack
Arael: IIRC, seemed to just "show up" holding position at an orbital altitude above Tokyo-3.
Armisael: Again, just showed up.
Tabris: Arrived by private plane, truly proving himself the wisest of the Angels.
So, up until Zeruel, it seems they actually had pretty consistent tracking on the Angels from before they made landfall. Zeruel's where things seemed to start falling apart, although part of it might be due to damage from Bardiel. And, to be fair, Zeruel wasn't exactly stomping through the countryside, and seemed to approach from pretty low altitude. So it seems plausible that Zeruel emerged from the sea in a location already damaged by previous Angel attacks (frankly, the coastline itself seems still devastated from Second Impact IIRC), with satellite surveillance depleted by Sahaquiel's previous attack, and made a beeline for Tokyo-3 through the valleys between the mountains around Hakone, with NERV's surveillance further compromised by Bardiel's attack. It's not that far of a trip -- Tokyo-3's only about 13 km from the ocean as the crow flies. This might also explain Armisael's unannounced arrival. Arael's a bit harder to explain, unless it's another case of NERV's orbital surveillance having been wrecked by Sahaquiel and not yet rebuilt. Rocket launches take time, after all.
- Location
- United States
Just read the most recent installment.
When I read the scene about Ritsuko getting the order to parade herself commando-style for SEELE's amusement, I couldn't help but feel VERY strongly that if Gendo somehow doesn't die in the oncoming shitstorm...that he should REALLY avoid being alone in a room with Maya for any extended period of time.
*Thinks about it for a moment*
"You know what? On second thought, Maya's so sweet and adorable, I'm sure nothing THAT bad will happ-
*peeks into the room*
*closes the door, and walks away whistling innocently*
When I read the scene about Ritsuko getting the order to parade herself commando-style for SEELE's amusement, I couldn't help but feel VERY strongly that if Gendo somehow doesn't die in the oncoming shitstorm...that he should REALLY avoid being alone in a room with Maya for any extended period of time.
*Thinks about it for a moment*
"You know what? On second thought, Maya's so sweet and adorable, I'm sure nothing THAT bad will happ-
*peeks into the room*
*closes the door, and walks away whistling innocently*
DB_Explorer
Purveyor of alternate realities.
- Location
- San Diego, California
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Maya: oh god! Gendo fell down the stairs!!
TheShiningSun
*Waits for Polyphemus Ch. 16*
- Location
- Practically the middle of Germany
ltmauve
"Excuse me?"
- Location
- Earth
- Pronouns
- She/Her
"While doing so, he fell on this knife 23 times!"
obssesednuker
Commander of 10 Million Men
- Location
- In the Kremlin, activating Perimtr.
It should be pointed out that some Angel's are a lot more physically resilient then others. Zeruel, for example, took a N2 weapon that had been shoved through its AT field by Rei and came away pretty much scott free. So that's at least one Angel who can withstand nuclear-yield explosions even without it's AT field and survive.
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Dragontrapper
Homeless Draconis
- Location
- A Tower in the middle of nowhere
- Location
- California
As a metalhead, I've tried to imagine a story where Shinji also listened to metal. I picture him laughing maniacally, tearing apart an Angel while Deicide or Behemoth is blasting in the background.
I'll write it some day, like I keep telling myself about all the other ideas I have.
Edit: I just remembered Behemoth has an album titled Evangelion. Hmm...
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