For reference, Shinji with a sync of 41% in the first episode was unable to take more than a few steps in Unit 01 before it tripped on its own foot and faceplanted. 55-ish is better than 41 for sure, but it's bad.
41% was considered a really good score for his first try with no plugsuit or clips; he fell on Yui Unit-01's face due to nerves and a lack of familiarity piloting.
With Asuka's taste for Alternative Rock and general downward spiral, if things get much worse, she'll be blasting Nirvana.
Hikari coming in clutch, as usual. Asuka's situation is worrying but we should be able to halt the spiral. More synchronisation training, more scenarios built to give her confidence, that sort of thing.
[X] Clear communication is key. People can sometimes be dense (willfully or otherwise), whether out of politeness, fear or for any number of other reasons. Toji's a good kid from what you've heard and you're sure he'll give an honest response, so long as she makes sure he understands how she feels and why.
-[X] Miscommunication or ambiguity is often worse than even rejection itself.
-[X] Believe Misato, she knows it perfectly from experience, better than many people.
...the really worrying thing is we're likely gonna get her boyfriend hurt in the near future, assuming something else doesn't happen.
[X] Clear communication is key. People can sometimes be dense (willfully or otherwise), whether out of politeness, fear or for any number of other reasons. Toji's a good kid from what you've heard and you're sure he'll give an honest response, so long as she makes sure he understands how she feels and why.
-[X] Miscommunication or ambiguity is often worse than even rejection itself.
-[X] Believe Misato, she knows it perfectly from experience, better than many people.
[X] Clear communication is key. People can sometimes be dense (willfully or otherwise), whether out of politeness, fear or for any number of other reasons. Toji's a good kid from what you've heard and you're sure he'll give an honest response, so long as she makes sure he understands how she feels and why.
-[X] Miscommunication or ambiguity is often worse than even rejection itself.
-[X] Believe Misato, she knows it perfectly from experience, better than many people.
[X] Clear communication is key. People can sometimes be dense (willfully or otherwise), whether out of politeness, fear or for any number of other reasons. Toji's a good kid from what you've heard and you're sure he'll give an honest response, so long as she makes sure he understands how she feels and why.
-[X] Miscommunication or ambiguity is often worse than even rejection itself.
-[X] Believe Misato, she knows it perfectly from experience, better than many people.
[X] Clear communication is key. People can sometimes be dense (willfully or otherwise), whether out of politeness, fear or for any number of other reasons. Toji's a good kid from what you've heard and you're sure he'll give an honest response, so long as she makes sure he understands how she feels and why.
-[X] Miscommunication or ambiguity is often worse than even rejection itself.
-[X] Believe Misato, she knows it perfectly from experience, better than many people.
Or? Do neurotypical people just listen to music and not do other stuff at the same time?
(...wait, is Asuka neurotypical? She looks neurotypical next to Rei, but so would I.)
Asuka snarks that it's kind of hard to mentally synchronize with something missing large parts of its body, to which Ritsuko coolly remarks that it doesn't work like that—
Alright, good response. Direct, to-the-point, addresses Asuka's point witho—
—and furthermore, Asuka's already halfway there with her shoulder problems anyway. Asuka explodes with rage and Ritsuko cuts off her microphone in response.
Ritz, if I smashed your leg with a hammer, the medic would be justified in cussing me out for doing that, even though fixing broken bones isn't my responsibility.
The Magi are using Rei's personality data to create a program, so the AI Evas will be limited to a virtual Unit-00 piloted by a virtual Rei Ayanami, though the scans and surveys Ritsuko did on Rei aren't enough to construct a complete gestalt of Rei. It'd just be virtual Evangelions that behave theoretically similarly to how they would if Rei were piloting them.
You give Asuka some time off to destress, but to your dismay, she spends much of it moping around the house feeling sorry for herself. You're not sure what you expected here, but you were hoping she'd start to bounce back. No such luck; she's feeling vulnerable and unsure of her self-worth.
We really need to find hobbies for these kids. Or at least a decent fantasy series.
I liked the Dragonlance novels at her age. (Or, well, the first six. The next ones I picked up were the War of Souls trilogy, leaned on context I didn't know and also were kinda bad.)
Asuka bickers with you and says that playing her music loud is the only way she's been able to focus on anything at all.
You're caught off-guard that a middle school friend of one of your charges is actually seeking you for any kind of advice, let alone relationship advice.
41% was considered a really good score for his first try with no plugsuit or clips; he fell on Yui Unit-01's face due to nerves and a lack of familiarity piloting.
This isn't Asuka's first time, though. She's just...in a toxic headspace.
[X] Clear communication is key. People can sometimes be dense (willfully or otherwise), whether out of politeness, fear or for any number of other reasons. Toji's a good kid from what you've heard and you're sure he'll give an honest response, so long as she makes sure he understands how she feels and why. Miscommunication or ambiguity is often worse than even rejection itself.
-[X] Miscommunication or ambiguity is often worse than even rejection itself.
-[X] Believe Misato, she knows it perfectly from experience, better than many people.
[X] Clear communication is key. People can sometimes be dense (willfully or otherwise), whether out of politeness, fear or for any number of other reasons. Toji's a good kid from what you've heard and you're sure he'll give an honest response, so long as she makes sure he understands how she feels and why. Miscommunication or ambiguity is often worse than even rejection itself.
-[X] Miscommunication or ambiguity is often worse than even rejection itself.
-[X] Believe Misato, she knows it perfectly from experience, better than many people.
I agree with Asuka and Shinji get put on training regime. I think it'll help Asuka.
This is true, but 1) you don't need this specific point in her plummeting Sync Ratio to tell you that and 2) the person I quoted was technically incorrect, the funnest kind to correct!
For reference, Shinji with a sync of 41% in the first episode was unable to take more than a few steps in Unit 01 before it tripped on its own foot and faceplanted. 55-ish is better than 41 for sure, but it's bad.
I feel like I've said this before somewhere but the startup index in this quest is around 12%. If a pilot's ratio drops below that the Evangelion will not activate. That said, low synchronization scores are going to adversely affect ability to control the Eva, to project an AT-Field strong enough to repel attacks or degrade Angel AT-Fields, things like accuracy and fine motor movement, etc. The one advantage to a poor synchronization ratio is reduced ability to feel pain inflicted on the Evangelion and likelihood of feedback injury; this is why techs cut synchronization ratios on purpose during battles sometimes.
Too high a synchronization ratio increases pain feedback, likelihood of neurological (or in extraordinary cases, actual physical) injury, and likelihood of the Evangelion going out of control of the pilot. Berserk incident likelihood becomes much higher over 100%. The upper limits of synchronization ratios are not known but likely around 666.66666667%, at which point the pilot and Evangelion's egos become impossible to distinguish. It is not currently thought possible using current technology to come even close to this, and the pilot's body would likely be unable to physically withstand even half this synchronization ratio.
This is the information you've been given on the subject as Head of Operations.
[X] Clear communication is key. People can sometimes be dense (willfully or otherwise), whether out of politeness, fear or for any number of other reasons. Toji's a good kid from what you've heard and you're sure he'll give an honest response, so long as she makes sure he understands how she feels and why.
-[X] Miscommunication or ambiguity is often worse than even rejection itself.
-[X] Believe Misato, she knows it perfectly from experience, better than many people.
[X] Clear communication is key. People can sometimes be dense (willfully or otherwise), whether out of politeness, fear or for any number of other reasons. Toji's a good kid from what you've heard and you're sure he'll give an honest response, so long as she makes sure he understands how she feels and why.
-[X] Miscommunication or ambiguity is often worse than even rejection itself.
-[X] Believe Misato, she knows it perfectly from experience, better than many people.
Where did Ritsuko or whomever find a statistically significant data sample about pilots with synch rates over 100%? (Or perhaps more accurately, where did Ritsuko claim this data came from?) I can believe that data models would predict a merger of pilot and Evangelion at 666⅔%, kinda like how physicists can calculate the Planck temperature, but berserk incident likelihood sounds much harder to accurately model.
Yeah, that actually ties into something with Shinji: conversely to Asuka, we should give him less sync training from now on. If that gets too high, berserk incidents become a lot more likely, and it takes less damage to the Eva to put him out of commission. 85 is damn good already.
Well clearly they can limit synch ratios. if he can manage 100% then they can probably slow his roll with reduced plug depth or whatever to keep him at an ideal ratio.
[X] Clear communication is key. People can sometimes be dense (willfully or otherwise), whether out of politeness, fear or for any number of other reasons. Toji's a good kid from what you've heard and you're sure he'll give an honest response, so long as she makes sure he understands how she feels and why.
-[X] Miscommunication or ambiguity is often worse than even rejection itself.
-[X] Believe Misato, she knows it perfectly from experience, better than many people.
We can stop asking Shinji about his General Well-Being for now
We never asked kids about Past. We should do this, so we can have more points to relate with them (and show them that Misato cares about other things than only their piloting). Asuka especially is not somebody who should talk about present.
Unless we want Rei to be new Salvador Dalí, or H.R. Giger (but what is wrong with that?), we can have her doing something else than Arts (on the other hand, in the quest her art improvement is greatly described)
Asuka should get her sleeping bag and some instant ramen into her Entry Plug, because she will spend some weeks on sync training
How the hell Shinji has so low grades when studying is on the second place in his activities?
[X] Clear communication is key. People can sometimes be dense (willfully or otherwise), whether out of politeness, fear or for any number of other reasons. Toji's a good kid from what you've heard and you're sure he'll give an honest response, so long as she makes sure he understands how she feels and why.
-[X] Miscommunication or ambiguity is often worse than even rejection itself.
-[X] Believe Misato, she knows it perfectly from experience, better than many people.
You give Hikari what you think is solid advice. There's no need to overcomplicate things. Hikari's got a good head on her shoulders, and you don't think she's going to mess this up. Suzuhara seems a little dense and kind of self-righteous, but he's not a bad kid. From your limited observation of their interactions, Hikari and he get along well, and you get the sense that they're very protective of each other. It's obvious that in any relationship between the two of them Hikari is going to wear the pants, so you're not really worried about her.
Hikari considers what you have to say attentively and thanks you for your insight. She needs to be as direct as possible, then. Got it. Hikari pauses and asks how Rei has been doing. You shake your head and explain that she's still hospitalized due to her injuries from the last fight. You leave out the finer details of Rei's injuries. Hikari frowns. She noticed Asuka's arm wasn't right, either. Is everything okay with…everything? You say it's unfortunately an occupational hazard. There are a lot of mechanisms in place to keep them safe, but when it comes to fighting the unknowable and unfathomably powerful, not everything can go as planned. You grimace.
Yeah. Hikari supposes so. She wishes her friends didn't have to go through this. She wishes she could do more to help. You tell her that her supporting them has been more than enough. Seriously, you're not sure what you'd do without all her help. Hikari brightens up and says she's just being friendly, but you can tell she's flattered. She thanks you for hearing her out and heads home.
You receive an update on the situation in Tokyo-3. The economy has been considerably depressed by the widespread destruction endured by the city. In addition to businesses being outright destroyed, disposable income is being funneled more and more to repairs and stocking up on necessities. The exodus of residents from the city is the largest emigration from the region since the Fifth Angel's chemical attack. Many of the permanent residents remaining are NERV employees and their families, though there are still commuters from nearby settlements. Sales of all NERV merchandise are also down. The overall mood among residents is one of resignation and anxiety.
You also receive an unpleasant phone call from Japan Heavy Chemical confirming that the languishing Jet Alone project has finally been axed. The representative from the project sounds like he's going to cry. He hopes you're happy.
[X] Special Activity: Visit Rei in the hospital. Talking to coma patients is supposed to be good for them, right?
-[X] Allow Pilots to accompany, if they wish to do so
You take some time to visit Rei. You offer to take the other two pilots with you, but they turn you down. Asuka says she's too busy. It's clear she doesn't want to be around Rei right now, so you let her have that lame excuse. Shinji, meanwhile, has plans with his friends this afternoon and says he plans to visit Rei later if he can.
You bump into Fuyutsuki in the hospital wing coming back from his own visit with Rei. He asks if the younger Ikari is with you. You respond in the negative and the older man gives you a look of relief. Fuyutsuki gives you a heads-up that the elder Ikari is currently visiting Ayanami.
Oh God.
You thank Fuyutsuki for the heads-up and wonder whether you should wait for Gendo to leave. After a few minutes of delaying, Gendo does not appear, so you decide to bite the bullet and make your way to Rei's hospital room.
You find Gendo sitting in a chair some distance away from the bed with his hands folded in his lap, staring intently at the unconscious girl laying in it. Major, he says. You stand at Rei's bed in silence while Gendo just stares at Rei without saying anything. It's insanely awkward. You were hoping to talk to Rei for a moment, but your words catch in your throat from the heavy atmosphere in the room. You glance over at Gendo. His face is unreadable as ever.
After another minute, Gendo says that the Fourth Child has been located and will be notified of their status within the next week. You will also be sent a report by the Marduk Institute within the same time frame. Ordinarily, Gendo would like to wait until Unit-03 arrives, but considering the poor conditions of Rei and the pilot of Unit-02, he is in favor of replacements if there isn't any improvement. Shinji cannot do it by himself, even if he is piloting Unit-01.
Of course, Rei will still be taken care of if she is deemed no longer fit to pilot. Gendo is taking some time to think about things. Weighing out his options regarding Rei's status. He does not wish to replace her, but if things continue, he feels he may have no choice.
As for Sohryu…he's not happy with her performance lately. Her numbers are lacking, and her conduct during the latest operation was appalling. Her current disability is also of dubious validity, as there is nothing medically wrong with her. Dr. Akagi seems convinced Sohryu is not malingering, and he is willing to believe that, but it's not exactly like she would be above that. If things continue this way, the pilot of Unit-02 may need to be replaced with someone more capable. Still, at least she's conscious.
You feel your heartbeat quicken at the thought of Asuka getting kicked out of the Evangelion program. It would destroy her. The entire basis of her pride is being able to pilot the stupid things. You can't let that happen. You tell Gendo that you plan to whip Asuka into shape and advise caution on ditching Asuka. She's obviously your most experienced and trained pilot, and has been crucial in several sorties, even if the last one went poorly for her. It'd be insanely wasteful to discard the massive investment NERV has made in her. Gendo thinks about this and grunts his assent. He does expect better from her, though.
You're a little more ambivalent about Rei getting taken out of the program. While you're certain Rei also takes a quiet pride in what she does as a pilot, you wonder if she could adjust more easily to a sudden discharge than Asuka. It's clear that piloting Eva is good for none of your charges, and if you had it your way, you would be piloting instead. Maybe being replaced as pilot of Unit-00 would be good for Rei. But you also think back to the medical reports on Rei's fragile mental health and wonder whether such a change would be too destabilizing. You conclude it's probably best if things stay the way they are for now.
Gendo says he's taking his leave and says he has work to do, says goodbye to Rei, and stalks out the room. The atmosphere in the room feels lighter. Glad to have survived another encounter with the Commander of NERV, you quietly talk to Rei about how things have been at home lately. You talk about Asuka's troubles, Shinji's loneliness, how Pen2 misses her. You make a joke about how she's going to have to spend more time with Suzuhara now that Hikari is going to officially ask him out. You say you miss her too.
You say that you're not going to let anyone replace her on your watch.
NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO
Rei's eyes snap open, and she begins to scream in absolute terror. She's hysterical.
You barely suppress the urge to panic and try to figure out what the hell you should do.
[ ] Try to solve this yourself.
[ ] Inform medical staff immediately.
[ ] See if you can't catch Gendo on his way out and have him handle it.
