BlueBasilisk wrote:As for the Mark.06, I seem to be in the minority as I don't believe it was ever intended to be the True Evangelion. Gendo and Fuyutsuki speculate that it might be, but they also weren't aware of any plans beyond Unit 05 and leave open the possibility of more 'undisclosed apocrypha' that they don't know about.
Gendo and Fuyutsuki are just speculating, yes, but I don't think they're wrong. Fuyutsuki says, "[Seele] want to create a real god, not just false ones?" And this is indeed how Seele treat Mark.06. Namely, they emblazon the Seven Eyes of God boldly upon the Eva's mask, and they insistently keep the Eva's face covered. From my write-up for the wiki:
EvaGeeks Wiki wrote:Later, the white cover is removed and the Eva undergoes the process of outfitting. The exposed skin on the head is dark gray. The mask remains affixed to the face, but the part over the eyes has been cut away. What looks like a temporary covering is held over the eyes as the helmet is readied for application, as though to avoid "gazing upon the face of God". That is, the effort to keep Mark.06's face covered at all times may be an allusion to the Biblical God, and continuing the theme started with Lilith in the original series. According to Exodus 33: "You cannot see my [God's] face, for no one may see me and live".
BlueBasilisk wrote:The FoI could simply be waste material from a misfired Third Impact. Not all of Seele's desired pieces were present, after all Perhaps they have the Fruit but weren't given souls, or they do have souls but didn't get the Fruit to give them power, leaving them immobile husks.
"Failures of Infinity" implied that "infinity" was not obtained, and since it is the Fruit of Life that provides eternal life, I'm going to lean toward the latter. Back here, I suggested that the skulls in Central Dogma represent/embody/whatever the Fruit of Life:
Reichu wrote:Their souls do not yet possess the Fruit of Life, an omission perhaps reflected in the glaring lack of a cranium. It's hard to be perfect when you don't have a head. And every single FoI is missing this anatomically critical feature. They seem to be CREATED that way. However, there is a gigantic pile of skulls in Lilith's chamber (see above my suggestion for how they got there)... This, along with Lilith's own decapitation, implies a very strong link between the FoIs and Lilith. But what could it be?
During 3I, Lilith is not merely herself, but — bringing to mind EoE — a composite being. She is Lilith, 06!Adam, and 12th Angel. Since her chamber is described as the 3I epicenter, it can probably be assumed that this composite being is the original impetus behind 3I. It's the force that is causing both the landscape to transform and people to turn into mini-Evas that then spontaneously seek out Instrumentality.
We see, from the FoIs clustered around Lilith's head, that they are attracted to her in some fashion. This may also explain the FoIs plugging up the main shaft. As indicated in BB's FoI post, the FoIs get increasingly less developed the further away from the epicenter they are, so logically the inverse applies: those closest to Lilith reach “near-perfect” state first. In an attempt to become perfect — achieve Infinity — they must, perhaps, contact Lilith themselves. Are the skulls more than just bone? Do they — or did they, perhaps — contain the Fruit of Life? This might be hypothetically possible, if they were created from the chamber's LCL after Lilith became a composite being with (presumably) access to the Fruit of Life. Hence, once a failure reaches the chamber and claims a head for itself, it becomes complete both physically and spiritually.
The whole "souls? y/n" thing is also discussed in that thread. To me, the evidence suggests that the FoI represent human souls undergoing successive fusions. The more mini-Evas/human souls that merge together, the bigger and more "perfect" the Eva becomes, and likewise the more perfect (= complemented) the composite soul becomes.