Some things to consider about this:
Bagheera wrote:- It is reasonable, IMO, to assume that the original plan was to put one shard of Lilith's soul in a clone of some sort and one in Unit-00. A clone would then pilot Unit-00 without difficulty, and without the need to sacrifice a human and traumatize a child to have an effective Eva. This is the sort of plan Yui and others in Gehirn might have developed (obviously not with Rei specifically, since she didn't exist at the time, but still; this explains why the sophisticated cloning tech in the show exists in the first place).
Isn't it more likely that the cloning tech was invented to clone the Evas and was applied to Rei out of neccessity?
Also, I usually bring this up when the question of Gendo and Yui's earliest plans comes up, but it somehow slipped my mind this time until now:
There is one clue. Ritsuko's ep. 23 tirade is pretty hard to follow, but in this section:
The Evas do not intrinsically have souls,
but they have human souls embedded in them.
They were all salvaged.
The only vessel that contained a soul was Rei.
She was the only one born with a soul.
The Chamber of Guf was empty, you see.
she
seems to be mean that the original plan was to use unborn souls from the Guf as souls for the Evas, but the cupboard was bare, so to speak, so they were forced to turn to salvaged souls. Your theory sounds reasonable for a plan formed after they came to this realization.
The clone might easily die in combat against the Angels, which was fine; the soul would be recycled into a new body as necessary, ad infinitum.
Once Rei I was murdered, the plan changed. Gendo might have decided that he didn't want a murdered soul acting as his trump card against SEELE. So, he put the murdered soul into Unit 00 and put a fresh soul into Rei II.
This question comes to mind:
This explains why they changed the plan in regards to Rei, but why not still use it with the other pilots? With Shinji you could correctly say that it's because Yui is already in Unit-01, but why not clone Asuka and Toji, give the clones Lilith soul fragments, and stick Lilith soul fragments in Units 02 & 03, instead of, as you said, sacrificing humans and traumatizing children? Why abandon the plan altogether? Was this the plan
only for Unit-00?
Once Rei II and Unit 00 died their soul fragments appear to have been reconstituted in the form of Rei III (though it's also possible Rei II's fragment was used and the Unit 00 fragment returned to Lilith and participated in Instrumentality of its own accord; if Rei can "witness" others another fragment of Lilith's soul can presumably "witness" itself in like fashion. The other option's simpler, though). The why of this is unclear; perhaps Gendo figured that Rei II has stabilized Rei I enough that she could be trusted? Ironically it seems to be the influence of Rei II that ultimately betrayed him.
It's also been suggested that their souls were collected for Instrumentality ex-post facto. i.e. The Kaworu reflection in Rei 1's eyes in Death and the shot of Gendo as Rei 2 self destructed were phantom soul collecting Rei 3s. (I actually can't think of a better reason why Rei 1 would be seeing Kaworu.) Of course these aren't mutually exclusive provided you can except typical time travel problems: Reis i & 2 would simultaneously exist in Instrumenatlly seperately and as part of Rei 3. I personally don't have a problem, but a lot of people do.
We know something like this had to have happened because the Rei in Unit 00 is explicitly identified as Rei I in the ep 25 script. It probably wasn't the original plan, but since she's there the plan had to have changed for whatever reason. The above is one theory as to how it might have happened.
I agree that Rei 1's death must have triggered changes in the plan, and your theory seems a reasonable possibility, at least if my above thoughts can be addressed. But I have occasionally seen at least one contrary theory. Some people have occasionally suggested that the reason Rei 1 speaks to Naoko the way she does is because she's gone a little crazy because part of her soul has
already been put into Unit-00. I don't particularly believe this myself, but I suppose it's possible.
The core of the theory, at least for me, is this: first, because of the way Synchronization works the soul in Unit 00 must have some relation to Rei. This is why it simply cannot be Naoko Akagi. And second, since the being in ep 25 is specifically identified as Rei I it follows that she had to get there somehow. The simplest route is through Unit 00, and from there through Rei III.
Agreed 100%.
Rejoice, glory is ours. Our young men have not died in vain. Their graves need no flowers. The tapes have recorded their names.
I am all there is.
Negative! Primative! Limited! I let you live.
But I gave you life.
What else could you do?
To do what was right.
I'm perfect, are you?
To that end, noting that Shinji saw something that looked like Rei I, and that Rei I participated in Instrumentality and was specifically labeled as such in the script, and that synchronization works the way it does, is sufficient to conclude that the Rei I theory is credible. I think most of the rest of what's in there is extraneous.
