Yes, but every outcome of a 3d10 roll has a 1/1000 chance of happening. The thing is, here there are ten possible outcomes that are worse than 2-2-2, and nine more that are no better. So the probability of being this unlucky, if not in this exact way necessarily, is 20/1000 or 2/100.
I meant 2 3 1. 1 2 3 would have been unusual but we'd have succeeded on the last roll by another degree of success, so it wouldn't have felt like a kick I. The teeth.
I'm thinking that if we do the "see Reis apartment " scene, we're going to be asking a lot more questions than canon Shinji. Higher learning might clue us in on the medication, and intrigue will probably ask who knows that she lives like that.
After all, trying to befriend Rei is pretty crucial. She's literally the single most important person in this entire plot. Every non-angel initiated Third Impact all depends on her.
On a less serious note, school wise we're probably making friends with Hikari at school, who might be able to be a mediator when Asuka arrives. That's also where we're probably getting some crossover characters, since outside of the Stooges and Hikari, there's not really a lot of characters there.
I will say just straight up that there is at least one individual that is nominally a crossover character but will be more akin to a expy that is in your school.
You'll recognize her when you meet her, but I am NOT including any of the... complications that she's tied up in.
Just saying, but given NGE is NGE, isn't solving Shinji's trans issue as simple (or as hard, given even without being as melodramatic and angsty as canon Shinji it'll take time) as being tanged and de-tanged by reaching a 400% sync rate? I'm sure there are other ways as well.
I will say the Eva points are very badly executed here. Rather than rewarding anything in particular, there's no real negative to acquiring as many as possible. Like, why would we NOT choose one of Punk Witch or Space Case that give 1 Eva Point over any of the other options when they possess no drawbacks? Why wouldn't we ask as many questions as possible when we're rewarded with Eva Points to ask more questions, ON TOP of the already existing heavy incentive to do so from an IC perspective? It's kinda too late to fix it too, given without the extremely heavily weighted vote, Shinji wouldn't have wound up trans, for instance.
getting tanged requires us hitting Zeruel fight levels of synch. Something that took shinji a long time to recover from and during which he was basically incapacitated, not a great situation to be in.
Honestly, if Shinji isn't on hormones already, I think ritsuko will probably be fine prescribing some for her. She's actually reasonably concerned about Shinji early on.
Just saying, but given NGE is NGE, isn't solving Shinji's trans issue as simple (or as hard, given even without being as melodramatic and angsty as canon Shinji it'll take time) as being tanged and de-tanged by reaching a 400% sync rate? I'm sure there are other ways as well.
I will say the Eva points are very badly executed here. Rather than rewarding anything in particular, there's no real negative to acquiring as many as possible. Like, why would we NOT choose one of Punk Witch or Space Case that give 1 Eva Point over any of the other options when they possess no drawbacks? Why wouldn't we ask as many questions as possible when we're rewarded with Eva Points to ask more questions, ON TOP of the already existing heavy incentive to do so from an IC perspective? It's kinda too late to fix it too, given without the extremely heavily weighted vote, Shinji wouldn't have wound up trans, for instance.
Those are some good points about the Eva points. They probably could have been balanced better, and I'll try to learn from the experience to do better in the future.
Honestly my only beef with them is the questions and the appearances this update.
The gender options I'm mostly fine with it? Like, yeah this is SV so there's a bias, but as was mentioned at the time, there's not a lot of Trans Shinji stuff, so rewarding people for choosing something unusual and interesting when otherwise they might have chosen the default option is a better use of them to me. It's totally weighting the vote, but it's weighting the vote for doing something notably different from the norm.
The appearance stuff and questions though just... it ends up feeling like there's blatantly correct choices instead of being rewarded for choosing to go against the grain. The appearance stuff is better, since the ones giving Eva points there are ones that seem to have more effect on Shinji's perskonality, but the questions should have frankly remained at us getting to ask 3 and having a base 3 Eva points going into this part regardless of whatever choices we had made before.
Just saying, but given NGE is NGE, isn't solving Shinji's trans issue as simple (or as hard, given even without being as melodramatic and angsty as canon Shinji it'll take time) as being tanged and de-tanged by reaching a 400% sync rate? I'm sure there are other ways as well.
I will say the Eva points are very badly executed here. Rather than rewarding anything in particular, there's no real negative to acquiring as many as possible. Like, why would we NOT choose one of Punk Witch or Space Case that give 1 Eva Point over any of the other options when they possess no drawbacks? Why wouldn't we ask as many questions as possible when we're rewarded with Eva Points to ask more questions, ON TOP of the already existing heavy incentive to do so from an IC perspective? It's kinda too late to fix it too, given without the extremely heavily weighted vote, Shinji wouldn't have wound up trans, for instance.
Honestly, the EVA points probably shouldn't have been in the questions, but I feel it would be more of a mistake to take them from you than just deal with it.
getting tanged requires us hitting Zeruel fight levels of synch. Something that took shinji a long time to recover from and during which he was basically incapacitated, not a great situation to be in.
Honestly, if Shinji isn't on hormones already, I think ritsuko will probably be fine prescribing some for her. She's actually reasonably concerned about Shinji early on.
I dunno man, the differences between being on hormones and actually having the full monte are massive, whether physically or mentally. Definitely worth.
It seems that your father has been paying so little attention to you that he never updated your file with the information that you sent to him. And why he simply told you to handle the transfer paperwork yourself.
You never had the highest of expectations for this meeting with your father, but everything that you are learning now just makes it all the more obvious that he isn't paying you any attention. Which makes him calling for you out of the blue all the more suspicious.
"And, I know that this whole situation is… Something. But if you have any questions, then feel free to ask them. I'll try to answer them as accurately and honestly as I can. "
[X][Me] Space Case
[X][Questions] "Where would I even begin?"
-[X] Ask about why you've been summoned.
-[X] Ask what the point of sending paperwork that is more redactions than words even is
-[X] Ask about the giant monster that you barely managed to escape being exploded with
As you start to open your mouth, the first words of your refusal are already on the back of your tongue, but then you pause. You were going to refuse to ask any questions, because you've spent a decade now with your uncle, someone who always refused to answer any of the many questions that you had about your parents. And even now, there is a part of you that expects Ms. Katsuragi to refuse to answer your questions. But that just doesn't make sense. Not with the fact that she is the one offering to answer in the first place.
And Misato isn't your uncle. Your uncle wouldn't have traveled from Tokyo to Tokai City just to pick you up. Honestly, just by offering to answer your questions, Misato has put more effort into your relationship with her than your uncle ever did. Sometimes, you think that the only reason why your uncle didn't throw you out into the street was fear.
Not of you, of course. You barely weigh 48 kilos when sopping wet. But he was afraid of your father, and what would happen to him if your father found out that he threw you out.
So… Maybe, just maybe, you might actually be able to get some answers from Miss Misato.
"But where would I even begin?" You mutter, less to Miss Misato and more out of frustration.
The older woman chuckles all the same. "I'd wager the beginning, yeah?"
You snort, shaking your head. "I… Yeah, okay. Fair." Leaning back in your seat, you spend a long moment watching the trees rush by as you try and organize your thoughts a little more. All the while you can hear the different pieces of the car that had been shaken loose by the explosion rattle and clank. As the quiet stretches out, you spot Miss Misato opening her mouth. Likely about to say something, but she stills when you raise a hand. "I just… Needed a moment to figure out how to word everything."
"Do… Do you know why my father is summoning me?" You ask.
1d10 + Int = 2 + 12 = 14
DC = 12, 15, 18, 21, 24
One Success
Misato almost seems to flinch at that question, before she glances out the window herself at the passing forest. "I…" Misato is quiet again, lightly tapping on the steering wheel. "It's not my place to say what your father might be thinking. That is something that you'll be able to ask him yourself when we get there."
You frown, quietly nodding. Maybe you had been a little bit too hopeful when you started to think that Miss Misato might have been diff-
"So I need you to take what I am about to say with a grain of salt. Because there is all the chance in the world that I'm wrong."
"...Okay." At the very least, Miss Misato doesn't seem to be lying.
"So your father is in charge of a program as part of his other duties." Misato starts to explain before she pauses, chewing on her lower lip as her brow furrows. "I never can remember the name of it - Just call it the HIP Project. The… The…" Blinking, Misato snaps as a grin explodes across her face. "Right, right. The Honors Inception Program Project. Personally, I think the name is terrible, but that's none of my business. Anyways, your father has managed to get the program implemented into every high school in Tokyo Novus. It's supposed to 'prepare the next generation for the problems of our life-times'. Whatever that means. The finer details of the project are out of my wheelhouse, but I know it has something to do with the Magi supercomputer project that NERV is also running."
You take a moment to think about what Misato is saying. On the one hand it definitely doesn't sound like she's lying, but…
But this just doesn't make sense, given the fact that your father couldn't be bothered to do the paperwork to transfer your schooling himself. If this was what your father was calling you here for, then why was he only doing the bare minimum to move you here?
On the other hand it sounds like this thing is going to be running through all the schools, so perhaps it really didn't matter which school you end up applying for. Maybe.
…But there is something about that explanation that just feels… off.
Maybe not incorrect but definitely incomplete. And that might just be what it is. After all, Misato herself said to take her words as more a guess than definitively what your father is thinking. She's doing her best "I just hope you're right." You admit softly. "Because I have this really bad feeling that there is something more waiting for me."
Misato goes extra quiet, carefully skimming glances over towards you as she continues to drive. Urgh. That was a really downer way for that question to come to an end.
There has to be something else that you can talk about, something else that you can ask about in order to turn the conversation away from this awkward silence. "Uhh… Speaking of questions. Yes. Asking questions. Not sitting here in silence."
Misato chuckles a little at your awkward words, and while it is a little embarrassing, that is still better than the quiet.
Leaning around the side of your seat, you carefully unzip one of your suitcases, before you pull out the other set of papers that your father sent to you with his letter. "Talking about that HIP project… Do you think that has anything to do with this? My father sent me this paperwork and a keycard."
1d10 + Int = 2 + 12 = 14
DC = 16, 18, 20, 22
[NO SUCCESSES]
Every word of the paperwork has been redacted out, leaving you with little more than a number, and a note hastily scrawled into an empty corner of the page before someone scribbled over it with a pen.
You can still read the single sentence…
'Boy. Come.'
A part of you wonders if your father wrote that, and seeing the old scribbles summons forth a ghost of the same anger that you felt upon first seeing the page. You'd ripped the page apart and tried to scribble out the simple words. Misato barely glances at the page before she turns her attention back to the road and shakes her head.
"That…" Miss Misato just shakes her head and scoffs a little. "Of course they'd send something like that, just typical. Typical and utterly useless to you. That might be part of the HIP project, but without seeing the unredacted original I don't have the slightest of ideas." Misato blinks. "Actually, now that I am saying that, something to remember in the future - When you get paperwork like this, you shouldn't show it to anyone else. Not unless you know what kinds of security clearances they have. You could end up in a lot of trouble if you accidentally reveal government secrets by showing that around."
"I don't think that will be a problem." You admit softly. "It's not like I have any friends in my new school to show off to, and I doubt that I'm going to get my hands on any important paperwork that needs to be redacted. I'm just here to be closer to my father and finish off my school days."
Misato grins and gives you a wink. "You never know - If what I understand about the HIP project is correct, then you might find yourself interning for the Prime Minister or a senator before you graduate. You might run into all sorts of paperwork that way. Ah, here we are."
Slowing down for a moment, Miss Misato turns the car off of the highway and onto a smaller dirt road. This is not at all what you were expecting out of all of this. Misato mentioned that she got permission to use something called a…
"Oh, uhm… What's an SSE?" You ask as you just now start to parse what Misato mentioned earlier.
"Technically, it's called the Subsurface Elevation Controlled Rail System, but the acronym that everyone uses is SSE… Not really sure why." Misato admits as she continues down the dirt road. "It's a special emergency government high speed rail system, buried deeper underground."
"Are you sure that this is really the kind of emergency that requires using something so important?"
"Well, I've already cleared it with the higher ups so it's fine on that front." Misato answers, but even so, that doesn't sound like a good enough reason to use something like this. "More importantly, we'd have to get on the SSE to reach our destination once we reached Tokyo Novus anyways.
"Oh…" What kind of job does your father have anyways?
Before you have a chance to ask that question, Misato perks up. Off to one side of the road you can see a small little cabin out of the way of everything else, with an old slightly run down wooden garage next to it. From here, you can see an old rusted down junker laying forgotten in the garage. All the same, Misato pulls onto the small property and up to the garage. Reaching up, she hits what looks to be an old garage door opener. And indeed, it- well, technically it closes the garage door, but after another moment it opens it up again.
And the old junker is nowhere to be seen. Pulling into the garage, Misato hits the button again. Near silently, the ground under the car jerk downward a little, before slowly and steadily lowering deeper. Glancing back, you watch as another section of road starts to move back, the rusted hunk still there, but now at this lower angle you can see that the mess of rusted metal has been bolted into place.
With a heavy clunk, the ground under Misato's car comes to a stop, and Misato rolls her car forwards. The lights are dim, but you can see clear markings on the floor in front of you where the car is supposed to stop. Once she fits within the gap, a heavy set of doors close behind you.
Misato puts her car in park and turns it off, before leaning her seat back. The whole little… section that the car is in starts to move off to one side, as you realize that Misato's entire car is fitting inside of the SSE.
Just how big is this SSE anyways?
Sitting back up, Misato passes a small booklet over to you. "Special Governmental Assistance Agency NERV?" You ask. The small green booklet has the name along with a logo of what looks to be a leaf with some english text below it.
"That's right. It's an attache to the U.N. Security Council."
Flipping through the first handful of pages, you realize that this is only going to make you more confused at the moment instead of less. So before you really start to read all of this, you should ask that final question that you have. That way you can take in the answers - get confused by those, and then add on the new confusion that this is going to give to you.
Setting the book down in your lap you sigh. "Before… Before I even try to wrap my head around that… What was that thing out there?" You finally ask. Of each of the questions that had been bothering you, that was the one that you both wanted to ask the most, and were the most afraid to ask.
1d10 + In = 2 + 12 = 14
DC = 10, 15, 20
[ONE SUCCESS]
Misato is quiet, but not in a dismissive way. It probably says something bad about your uncle that you can tell that just from listening.
"That thing is something that NERV calls an 'Angel'. It is one of the great enemies of mankind."
That is a term that you've never heard before… "The Great Enemies of Mankind? Are you saying that…" You don't even manage to finish your sentence before you realize how exceedingly dumb that nearly was. "...Of course that thing wasn't human… but…" But that just makes things make even less sense.
That thing doesn't look anything like any angel that you've seen before in video games or manga, and it being called an enemy of mankind doesn't match up either.
Then there is the fact that NERV has a name for the thing. Which only makes sense if NERV was somehow expecting it to arrive. This is the first time that one of these things have attacked, right? You'd have heard of it if it wasn't.
"I don't have all the answers about the Angels," Misato admits. "But I know that some of the higher ups in NERV believe that the Tomino Impact was the first volley sent from the angels."
"Wait… Are you saying that the Angels are aliens?" That… All once you find yourself distinctly conflicted. If these Angels are indeed aliens, then that would be everything that you've wanted for years and years now. The chance of meeting another intelligent species…
But it just so happens to be one that is in the middle of fighting for humanity's destruction. That is the last thing that you've ever wanted.
And yet, on a third hand, the possibility of this thing being some kind of intelligent creature offers a possibility -
People don't just attack others for no reason. So there has to be a reason why this… Angel… is doing what it is doing. And if there is a reason, that must mean that the Angels are capable of making reasoned decisions. If that is true, then it should be possible to come to an understanding.
But before all of that - "You said One of the Great Enemies of Mankind, what did you mean by that?"
"Some of the higher ups at NERV believe that there are going to be more angels after this. I've heard numbers brandied about, but no one seems to have any solid idea as to how many of them there might be."
There may be more of those things? You don't have words for the sheer shock of that, given the fact that the United Nations apparently incinerated an entire city just to take a single one of those things down. How much more would be lost in a war against the angels?
More than ever, the idea of trying to communicate seems like the obvious decision. You still aren't sure how to-
The dark of the SSE's tunnel disappears completely, as does every other surface.
"Woah…"
Staring off into the distance you see softly rolling hills, covered in a layer of thin trees and what even looks to be an underground lake. Off to one side of the lake you can see a grouping of small buildings - Maybe a little rural style town? It's hard to tell from how high up you are. To either side of the SSE there are towering buildings that hang down from the top of the chasming GeoFront that look almost like massive stalactites. "This can't be real." You mutter quietly. "A Geofront?"
"That's right. I'm surprised that you know what this is." Misato says with a chuckle, "And look there-" She points down to a massive pyramid almost in the very center of the Geofront. "That is where we are going. Our secret base if you will - NERV Headquarters. A bastion of humanity's efforts to rebuild after the Tomino Impact, and the final line of defense should the worst occur."
"How… High? Low?" Trying to ask how high above the ground you are when you are below the ground is a very confusing thing.
"The Geofront is a total of two kilometers in depth, and is a circular area about 4 kilometers long at its widest point. That means that there's a little more than twelve and a half square kilometers of space here. The engineering project was actually started prior to the Tomino Impact, and was only completed two years ago." Misato pauses a little. "Well, this part of the Project was completed two years ago. There are almost always projects in the works to develop new structures and technologies for future geofronts. Look over there for instance."
Off to one side of the massive space, you can see a trio of hexagonal shaped buildings that have cranes near the tops of the buildings, pieces moving up and down. "That is a vertical farm, which is supplementing the food requirements for the entirety of Japan. Any time that you've eaten Kale or Cabbage in the last two years, it was grown here in the Geofront."
Now that you are thinking about it, you have seen a hexagon symbol with a GF on the bags of kale that your uncle has bought recently. You thought it was simply a change in brand, but maybe your uncle was simply trying to support his brother.
"And over there is the track that NERV uses to develop new engine designs." You can only barely see the race track at this distance, the road seeming small to the point of being a bare line on the ground, but you can sort of see what she is pointing out. Combine all of this with the sky blue of the walls and ceiling of the Geofront, and it almost feels like being outside. Which makes the whole riding a train down from the fake sky feel even weirder.
As do the massive hanging buildings up near the very top of the Geofront. "And this… All of this, the Geofront - NERV, all of it. My father is part of this?" To say that you were already nervous about meeting your father after all this time would be an understatement, but seeing all of this just makes you all the more worried.
Just what is your father's work? What does he do for NERV?
"You really are nervous about meeting him, aren't you?" Misato asks.
Honestly, you can't help but chuckle at that, if somewhat self-deprecatingly. "It's been more than a decade now." You admit softly. "I can't say that I even really remember my father. And I've changed so much from the child that he abandoned. I don't know where to even begin with trying to meet him. And I have a feeling that things are going to be rocky." You can't say why you feel like that, just that you very much do.
"Heh." Misato chuckles, "Sounds like you have as much trouble with your old man as I do with mine."
Huh. You wouldn't have taken Miss Misato for being someone to have family troubles, but maybe the two of you are more alike than you might have first expected.
With a solid clunk, the SSE finally comes to a stop, and Misato hops up out of her car, pulling a map out. "Come on, Shinji. This way!"
…Why do you have a bad feeling about this? This update got away from me a little. I was originally planning on having you reach the Eva during this update, but...
Well, here we are. Encountering Unit-01 Codename: [REDACTED] will be in the next update.
