[X] "Christ, fuck that angel. Am I right, Shinji?"
Shinji looks up, startled at your language. He apparently hadn't suspected his superior officer to be so flippant about these kinds of things.
What, you thought she'd be more professional during Angel attacks than she is the rest of the time?
...I mean, there are probably people like that, but Misato isn't one of them.
Shinji turns pale. He looks like he wishes he were dead. You reassure him that he'll be fine and lead him out of the room back to the operations room. You realize belatedly this is probably going to be the first time he's spoken to his father face-to-face since he arrived in Tokyo-3. Oh dear.
Reminder that Gendo is a garbage dad. I'd suggest we get him a World's Worst Father mug on Father's Day, but A. I'm not sure Japan celebrates that holiday, B. I don't know what the date is, and C. he'd probably drunk from it like a badge of honor whenever Shinji was around.
Your selection of a melee weapon for such a large target was your first mistake. Gendo does not know about anybody else here, but he would rather attempt to destroy an oncoming boulder with explosives rather than a sharpened stick.
In my defense, everyone who's seen Evangelion was
certain that investing in ranged weapons was a waste of time. If they'd been right, Gendo would be chewing us out for giving Shinji a gun.
I'm probably going to sound sore here, but I'd say it was predictable that trying to fight the giant-boulder-ten-times-the-size-of-an-EVA with a melee weapon was going to go badly. I predicted it.
With all due respect to your predictive abilities, this quest is popular that
someone was going to. And a bunch of people predicted wrong things.
Moreover, the Angel employed chemical warfare and each southward shot it made was another chance for one of its toxic attacks to hit Lake Ashi. You know, where your drinking water comes from. Gendo says nothing but stares at you intensely in a manner that suggests that he does not care, and that you are stupid to.
Gendo...you might be a ruthlessly competent corporal, but if you don't see the importance of goddamn
water, you should leave strategic and operational concerns to people with at least a schoolchild's understanding of logistics.
(P.S. Misato, do
not point this out to Gendo or anyone who likes him.)
Gendo concludes by saying that he was unimpressed with Rei's reflexes and you should work harder to ensure she does not get hit by projectiles in the future.
I'll give Gendo, this, he's right about one thing in this spiel. Rei needs to learn how to dodge.
You and Pen2 have a drinking party in the kitchen.
...how old is Pen
2? Is this legal?
Fuyutsuki then asks how we should break this news to the public.
[ ] Tell them about the full extent of the damage and possible health hazards the latest Angel attack poses. It's the moral thing to do.
[ ] Tell them there was a contamination incident and give them precautions, but seriously downplay the degree and extent of the environmental damage done. You don't want to incite a general panic or another exodus of the city. You're already probably going to lose people due to the infrastructural damage.
[ ] Do not tell them. Present cleanup operations as preventative and precautionary rather than as a reaction to an ongoing issue. Continue life in Tokyo-3 as normally as the constraints of the cleanup operation will allow you.
Option #3 is not an option. If I have any power over NERV (I do not), we are
not going to let people go about their day-to-day lives without knowing about the danger they're in. And quite bluntly, even if it means less manpower for the Geofront, I don't see an exodus from a godforsaken interplanetary(?) warzone as a negative.
[X] Tell them about the full extent of the damage and possible health hazards the latest Angel attack poses. It's the moral thing to do.
Truth has a cost. Lies also have a cost - one that can be much more insidious. As Derpmind points out, the lies coming out is liable to be disastrous in its own right.
Quoted for truth.
