Lilith and Yui's Contact Experiment, and Related Subjects

[ACGT-Samael]

Today I was thinking about the contact experiments depicted in the series after Reichu's comments in the Misato and Second Impact thread, and my mind fixated on Yui's experiment with Lilith and Unit-01. Specifically Lilith's lack of reaction to the whole thing.

Now its it's pretty easy to figure out why Adam just let everything happen up until that point. She couldn't really say or do otherwise since her Spear kept her dormant. Lilith wasn't kept sedated with the Spear until well after half her body was grown into a duplicate of herself and severed off, and yet she didn't really respond to the whole affair in any way. She should even still have her soul at that point since it's implied Rei's creation was when (most of) it was removed.

It seems very odd to me she would allow herself to be experimented upon in such grotesque fashion when nothing seems to have been keeping her from retaliating. Did I miss something, or is this one of those glossed over details due to the vague storytelling employed?

[Sachi]

It's important to mention the reason for Lilith's mutilated state to begin with. Unit-01 is unique compared to other Evas because, unlike the other Evas which are clones of Adam, Unit-01 was born from Lilith's flesh... like literally.



Remember that Rei's creation seemed to be an accidental byproduct of a botched salvage attempt to recover Yui from Unit-01. Any part of Lilith's soul she carries, she probably received via Unit-01, not Lilith directly. One can conclude that during Unit-01's birth, Lilith's soul entered Unit-01 but was later replaced by Yui during her contact experiment. Instead of salvaging the soul of Yui, Gehirn received the soul of Lilith in a body that resembled Yui's.

This doesn't really answer the question of Lilith's lack of reaction prior to the creation of Unit-01, but I think is sufficient enough explanation for her apparent sedated state even before being pierced by the spear. Her soul simply wasn't with her; it was with Rei.

As for beforehand to all of this, I can only speculate. Perhaps after fulfilling her role as a Seed of Life on this planet, she went into a dormant state until she was eventually discovered by mankind and they began experimenting on her before anything triggered her to awake.

[Reichu]

My own best (lame) guess is that Lilith basically considers her job done, and if she can help her children's intellectual development by letting them play with her, then that's just fine. Alternatively, Eva-01 and Rei's creation were things that Lilith wanted to happen, for whatever reason.

Eva2 stirs up the shit even more by implying that Lilith is using Rei as a means of securing the Fruit of Knowledge Life. This could be entirely opportunistic, but since Lilith spent all those billions of years not trying anything we have to conclude that maybe Lilith is doing this because for some reason she CAN'T do what she wants in her Seed body. This reminds me that I need to stop being lazy and finish translating that scenario.

Any part of Lilith's soul she carries, she probably received via Unit-01, not Lilith directly. One can conclude that during Unit-01's birth, Lilith's soul entered Unit-01 but was later replaced by Yui during her contact experiment. Instead of salvaging the soul of Yui, Gehirn received the soul of Lilith in a body that resembled Yui's.

I've never heard this particular variation before -- that Lilith was the original occupant of Eva-01's core. It's interesting. Unfortunately, I think we can rule it out by virtue of what Ritsuko says. According to her, the Evas weren't born with souls, but "Rei" was. "Rei" is said, in this way, to be different not only from the Evas, but from the clone bodies, implying Ritsuko's talking about the first Rei (the one that initiated the existence called "Rei"). Now, if however Rei got a soul is considered "being born with a soul", then we can rule out the possibility that Eva-01 received a soul in a similar manner.

If you think about this too hard, it gets even more confusing, since Ritsuko says the souls that the Evas receive are "salvaged". Having a soul "salvaged" into you, vs. "being born with" it? Disregarding the dodgy use of English -- if both the Evas and Kaworu use "salvaged" souls according to the text, how exactly is Rei different? Rei, too, has a soul that's been repurposed into a new body through technological means. The only meaningful distinction I can think of is that, for Rei, the soul transference was unintentional.

[ACGT-Samael]

Eva2 stirs up the shit even more by implying that Lilith is using Rei as a means of securing the Fruit of Knowledge

Just checking here, but do you mean the Fruit of Life? Because she definitely already has the Fruit of Knowledge.

Regarding Rei not being salvaged: the idea makes sense in the context of that mission of we assume that Lilith's soul being siphoned out instead of Yui was NOT an unintended consequence, but instead a deliberate move on Lilith's end as part of some Long Con.

Since Unit-01 was still part of Lilith's body at the time of the contact experiment, Yui was basically communing with Lilith. And as Impacts show us, communing with a Godly being allows you to perform a wish. Perhaps Yui conferred so Lilith what SEELE intended to do, and wished for Lilith to help her prevent it. Perhaps Rei was Lilith obliging that wish by creating a way to subvert Instrumentality (which wasn't entirely successful, but bad execution doesn't speak for intent).

[Reichu]

Corrected my typo.

Regarding Rei not being salvaged: the idea makes sense in the context of that mission of we assume that Lilith's soul being siphoned out instead of Yui was NOT an unintended consequence, but instead a deliberate move on Lilith's end as part of some Long Con.

Yui's soul being siphoned into Eva-01 was fully intentional, yet Ritsuko says the Evas have "salvaged" souls, and this would of course include Yui. I suppose this implies that Ritsuko doesn't actually know what Yui's intentions were, hence phrasing Eva-01's acquisition of a soul as "passive" (done unto the soul, rather than the design of the soul itself). The odds that Ritsuko knows anything about Lilith's motivations are effectively zero, so we can't assume her language choices in episode 23 contain any such information.

I'm probably making this too complicated than it needs to be. Let me try again...

Neither the Evas nor Kaworu were "born" with a soul, and "born" in this context just refers to "creation", not literal birth. It means these vessels entered the world empty, and had souls placed into them after the fact. Souls that are artificially reappropriated for use in a new body are referred to as "salvaged" (rather odd wording considering the Evas' souls were in perfectly fine bodies beforehand and didn't need to be rescued from anything; maybe there's an implicit play on "salvation" here, I dunno). Rei being born with a soul means no soul had to be salvaged in after the fact.

So, yeah, this could mean that Lilith did it on purpose. Another possibility I've considered is that it happened on its own, because of metaphysical forces gone haywire. Or it could be a combination of both? Let me draw up a scenario here...

Ritsuko explains that the reason Rei was "the only one born with a soul" is because the Chamber of Guf was empty. What is that even supposed to mean? If the Chamber was empty, wouldn't Rei be just as soulless as her clones? But what is the Chamber of Guf, really? It's implied to be a pocket dimension (or something to that effect) that is linked/anchored to our physical world by means of both a Seed's soul and her Moon. (The Moon-anchor provides another means of access in case the Seed is compromised -- see initial 3I setup in EoE.) Now, think about the salvage operation that Gehirn carried out. We know the one in episode 20 was heavily based upon the original, and the process is described as "reconstructing [the] body and anchoring [the] psyche within it". The "real" reason this process failed is because Yui didn't want to leave the core, and a soul's will to return is critical. This meant that Gehirn were actively creating demand for a soul, via the attempted replacement Yui-body, that was not being satisfied. What if this "vacuum" stimulated Lilith's Chamber of Guf into wanting to satisfy the demand? Only, her Guf is empty, so there's nothing to be done. However, from a certain point of view, there IS still one soul left: Lilith's own. And so that's the soul that answers the call, resulting in Rei.

[I'm not 100% satisfied with this. On the one hand, that whole "Chamber of Guf" mention really bothers me and I want to address it one way or another. On the other, it opens up countless doors of inquiry regarding exactly how soul acquisition is supposed to work in the variety of humans from NGE. Why would the mere act of creating a Lilin generate a spiritual vacuum powerful enough to affect a god, whereas creating the body of a god does nothing? I have some ideas about this, but they probably don't belong here.]

This scenario allows for the full range of "Lilith actively participated" to "it was just something that happened", depending on interpretation. On the one hand, the salvage operation explicitly requires that a soul be willing -- why should Lilith be any different from Yui in this regard? Maybe she isn't. Or maybe Lilith's status as a Seed means she could not prevent her soul from getting sucked out on account of a loophole in metaphysical biology. Or perhaps, like you suggest, the contact with Yui bounds Lilith to fulfilling one of Yui's desires, so because of that Lilith is forced to leave her body.

Since Unit-01 was still part of Lilith's body at the time of the contact experiment, Yui was basically communing with Lilith. And as Impacts show us, communing with a Godly being allows you to perform a wish. Perhaps Yui conferred so Lilith what SEELE intended to do, and wished for Lilith to help her prevent it. Perhaps Rei was Lilith obliging that wish by creating a way to subvert Instrumentality (which wasn't entirely successful, but bad execution doesn't speak for intent).

For me, it's ambiguous exactly what we're meant to read into Eva-01 and Lilith being connected when the CE takes place. It could mean that communion took place, but I don't feel this was an emphasis of the experiment. Yui was drawn into the core of the Eva when she lost her ego boundary, implying that the experiment was focused on the Eva side of things. If Yui lost her ego boundary communing with Lilith, versus synchronizing with the Eva, wouldn't it make more sense for her to get drawn into Lilith's body or Chamber of Guf or something?

Perhaps more importantly, I'm not sure the CE satisfies the requirements for Impactful Wish-Making. Then again, it's hard to tell what these requirements are. Are both Fruits required, or not?

- Second Impact: donor has FoK, Adam has FoL. Straight-forward.
- Episode 22: Misato fears that "Adam" plus Rei in Eva-00 (plus Spear of Longinus?) might trigger an Impact. She's wrong. Only FoL is present -- no Impact.
- Angel Impact (Eva2): Angel has FoL, Lilith has FoK. Any annoying questions about whether or not Lilith's (mostly?)-soulless body retains the FoK are conveniently sidestepped by having Rei magically show up to take part in the fusion.
- Third Impact (Gendo's): Gendo fuses Adam's body and his soul into Rei, then Rei fuses into Lilith. FoK present, but is FoL? (Eva-01 eventually is part of this scenario, but is not part of the initial setup.) This returns to the question of whether a Seed's body retains the Fruit when the soul is gone. We know that Adam's soul gets involved SOMEHOW, given Kaworu's later presence, but it's not made clear if her(his) soul is there from the start (as in, was salvaged into the embryo between Kaworu's death and Gendo approaching Rei). See below* for relevant considerations.
- Third Impact (Seele's): Eva-01 has both FoL and FoK. Alternatively, Shinji has FoK and MP Evas have FoL.

* Relevant considerations:
- Cloning Adam results in a soulless being without an S2 Engine
- 15-year incubation of Adam's children is initiated with them receiving souls
- Eva2 describes Fruits as something "eaten" by the recipient (Seed)'s soul

I'm leaning toward "yes, both Fruits are needed". Eva2 provides the necessary exposition here, and, effectively: you can't have two incompatible human types on the same planet, so, in the extremely unlikely event that ever happens, the Seeds have the built-in ability to "react with" the opposing type of descendant-human, triggering an event that resets the two types of descendant-humans into a single type.

Now, on the other hand, the basic premise behind an Impact is more than likely just a repurposed version of what the FAR did to move their souls off-world. (AATF covers planet; bodies reverted to LCL and souls released; souls collected into Chambers of Guf.) One can easily imagine future races needing to use their Seeds for the purpose of evacuation and resettlement, so if the FAR thought ahead about common scenarios and not just exceedingly improbable ones, there must be some way to effectively trigger an Impact with a Seed and descendant of the same type. I guess it just never came up because Seele and Gendo explicitly want the FoL to be part of the equation.

Bringing us back to the Contact Experiment, I guess. I don't think whatever might have transpired between Yui and Lilith is the same sort of interaction as the ones that produce an Impact. But it probably doesn't matter that much anyway. There is still a very real need for a Seed's descendants to be able to communicate their needs to her in, for instance, the event of something like a planetary emergency. So the idea of Yui calling upon Lilith for aid totally fits!

Sorry about organization and rambling.

[ACGT-Samael]

Gonna change the title to something that better reflects the direction this thread has taken.

...I'm not sure how I missed the word play with "Salvage" and "Salvation". Bad Samael.

As far as the creation of a new Lilim inducing Lilith to release a soul: the idea of her doing that doesn't seem to make much sense. Given the way the human population has increased over millennia, she'd have to have a massive stockpile to begin with; and if she can't accommodate a new soul with 3.5 billion humans, how did she manage with 7 billion? How did she manage at all in stasis? My general assumption has always been that the human reproductive process allows the creation of souls from those of the parents (metaphysical still involves physical after all), and clone bodies would lack one by virtue of circumventing that process. The only reason Salvaging would work here is because they're directly asking this Lilith/Unit-01/Yui amalgamation "Cough up a soul", and given this Same process is strong enough to extract a soul from pseudo-Instrumentality (soul permitting, of course), it's probably pretty hard core. So that kind of addresses that particular oddity. I suspect that Guf was simply necessary for the first batch of human souls and/or "going straight to the source", as well as a convenience place to store them if they ever needed to start over.

And yeah, I'm not suggesting the Contact Experiments was on the level of an Impact, just that they operate on similar mechanics and/or the former is necessary for the latter to occur. I assume the Contact Experiments is akin to communing with Lilith because Unit-01 has clearly been created from her body, and is still physically attached to her, but lacks her own soul; therefore, I treat them as still being a single entity, which counts as Lilith by virtue of Lilith having a soul. And if all you're doing is communing with the Seed, not triggering an Impact, I see no reason why the other Fruit would be necessary.

[Reichu]

In bringing up the Chamber of Guf stuff, I was merely trying to puzzle out why Ritsuko mentioned its empty state as part of her explanation.

シンジ(OFF)「人、人間なんですか？」
リツコ(OFF)「そう、人間なのよ。本来魂のないエヴァには、人の魂が宿らせてあるもの」
リツコ(OFF)「みんなサルベージされたものなの」
リツコ(OFF)「魂の入った容れ物はレイ、一人だけなの」
リツコ(OFF)「あの娘にしか魂は生まれなかったのよ」
リツコ(OFF)「ガフの部屋は空っぽになってたのよ」
リツコ(OFF)「ここに並ぶレイと同じものには魂がない。ただの容れ物なの」

As translated fairly straightforwardly on Platinum:

Shinji (OFF):
People? They're human?

RITSUKO:
Yes, they're human.
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 Gaf Guf was empty, you see.
These things here that look like Rei have no souls.
They're just vessels.

All of the "nano"s and "noyos" marks every sentence following Ritsuko's initial response to Shinji ("Yes, the Evas are human because...") as part of a chain of additional explanation. This means that all of these things are connected, in her mind. The two bolded lines end with extra emphasis (のよ), suggesting she thought they were especially important. These are "She was the only one born with a soul" and "The Chamber of Guf had become empty". What's the connection? What is this supposed to explain?

I'm a bit confused over how exactly we're supposed to read this. Is it "Rei was the only one born with a soul BECAUSE the Chamber of Guf had become empty sometime before this" or "Rei was the only one born with a soul and the Chamber of Guf became empty as a result"? The distinction is important and unfortunately no translation I'm aware of even acknowledges the issue that the ていた verb form presents here. I'm leaning more toward the first option.

With regard to "what does RItsuko think this is explaining?", I tried to address the problem in my previous post. Some of the issues you raised aren't relevant to my thought process, since I too think Lilin souls are supposed to be generated via sexual reproduction; and, furthermore, Fuyutsuki's lines about the Chamber in EoE imply that Lilith emptied out her Chamber a long time ago and hasn't touched it since.

[BlueBasilisk]

Maybe the experiment was to reach out to Lilith through Unit 01 and convince her to open her chamber to give them some souls for their Evas, and they discovered she didn't have any left to give besides her own? Would they have any reason to suspect Lilith was tapped out prior to this? Unless I'm forgetting something, Unit 01 should have become the first successful, functioning Evangelion after Gehirn's long string of failures so this might have been where they figured out exactly why none of the previous Evas were successful.

Ritsuko sounds like she's hinting at what exactly Rei's soul was and where it came from. The Evas were created but they don't have souls because the Chamber of Guf is empty. Rei, who was also created, has just the one soul, but since the chamber was empty, it came from...?

[Reichu]

Eva2 addresses the ostensible function of the CEs:

A copy of a personality is made in the dummy plug, but a soul cannot be copied. Why can't it be done, or how would it be done? As far as the technology branches of Seele and Nerv are concerned, it is a theme of research integral to seeking out the Path to God, and study into how to deal with the problem has spanned many years. Examples of failure include Yui and Asuka's mother. The dummy plug is something that came about in the midst of that research.

If you accept this, it means that Gehirn wanted to imprint the cores with copied souls, but this obviously didn't work.

Your analysis of the Chamber of Guf bit doesn't entirely satisfy my itchy, restless brain, but it doesn't feel unreasonable either. Any take on why Ritsuko would treat Rei as unique in being "born" with a soul?

[BlueBasilisk]

The only way it makes sense to me is if Rei I came into being with Lilith's soul already anchored inside. If the recovery operation was similar to the one performed on Shinji in episode 20, I'm assuming that whatever was left of Yui's physical form was floating around in Unit 01's plug. Somehow Lilith's soul got involved and Rei I was born.

If the original Rei body didn't have a soul inside when it was created then there's no meaningful difference between her and the Evas that I can see. She would have been an empty shell of a body like Units 00 and 01 and her soul likewise would have been salvaged.

That's the only thing I can make of her words. The Evas came body first and got souls later, but Rei had one from the start.

That stuff from the CE has my brain itching now. It starts off saying it's not possible, but the rest of it makes it sound like it might be possible and NERV just doesn't know how yet. Is that where you got the idea that the NTE Evas might be using that sort of technology? Between the Evas and the weirdness of the Ayanamis, it does seem like that version of NERV had greater success in that regard. Maybe it's time to dust that thread off again. :P

[ACGT-Samael]

Wait, the Dummy Plugs are the result of trying to create artificial souls? They don't really seem to be anything of the sort given their job is to replace the pilot. Also, if the MP Eva's are anything to go by they don't even generate very strong AT Fields without the aid of an S2 Engine.

And yeah, I always sort of assumed Rei came into being with part of Lilith's soul, though not all of it since Lilith's actual body seems to hold some residual consciousness. That does make me wonder exactly how Lilith's soul got split though, whether she somehow did it herself or whether Gehirn put some of her soul back when they realized what had happened.

@Blue Basilisk: link to said dusted off thread please?

[Reichu]

Sammael: The CI provides additional context for the stuff about artificial souls that's consistent with what's in the show. Look over the entries again (the early, Eva-related ones especially) if it's been a while.

BlueBasilisk: I got the idea for the NTE Evas from a combination of that entry, the text written on Eva-02's disembodied core, and what's mentioned in episode #13 about the Evas running on MAGI-based technology (Personality OS). The last item implies that Nerv's personnel (in NGE) were mislead into thinking that the Evas use digitized personalities as pilot interfaces. This explains why people like Misato and Maya accept so many strange things (like berserk episodes) despite not knowing what's actually going on -- they think it's just renegade AI. It's a pity, IMO, the show didn't actually develop or acknowledge the idea in any meaningful way.

[BlueBasilisk]

@Blue Basilisk: link to said dusted off thread please?

This one here: post/877924/Mark-09-Adams-Vessel-Unit-13-and-the-stolen-AAA-WUNDER/#877924

@Reichu I see. It really is strange that the show never really went anywhere with the AI concept when we had stuff like Ireul or the MAGI who acted as the government for the whole damn city. Maybe they should have let the MAGI pilot the Evas. Movie NERV evidently figured something out unless Gendo has a soul farm to feed all of those mass production Evas.

[Reichu]

I'm not really satisfied with my previous post, so here's some additional info.

The actual quote from episode 13:

Misato:
Hey, tell me a little about the Magi.

RITSUKO (OFF):
It's a long story. And not a very interesting one, at that.
Do you know about personality transplant OS?

Misato:
Yes, it's a system that implants an individual's personality
into a seventh generation organic computer so it can think.
It's the same technology used for operating the Evas, right?

RITSUKO:
I've heard Magi was the first of them.
My mother developed the technology.

Misato:
So, it was her personality that was implanted?

RITSUKO:
Right.

What Misato says could also be rendered "technology also used for Eva piloting" （エヴァの操縦にも使われている技術）. Since it's so vague, I didn't give it a second thought for the longest time. But given the context, what could she possibly be referring to? What do organic supercomputers implanted with someone's personality have to do with Eva piloting, aside from the remote assist provided by the MAGI? Nothing, as far as I can tell. Which means this is probably referring to a cover story about the Evas.

That CI entry is a bit incoherent, now that you mention it... What I translated as "cannot be copied" is "copy dekinai". Dekiru is the potential form of suru ("do"), so it basically means "is able to do" or "can do". Negate that, and you get "isn't able to do" or "cannot do". Problem is, I don't know how "strong" this is meant to be. Just because something can't be done NOW doesn't necessarily mean it can't be done ALWAYS. (For instance, "I can't speak French". Maybe true now, but possible to overcome.) Having "souls can't be copied" followed with "why not? how would you do it?" could well imply that "cannot" is 'soft' here, and just refers to technological inability.

Here's a re-take that might be overall more coherent, I dunno:

The dummy plug has a personality copied to it. However, this can't be done with a soul.
Why can't a soul be copied? How might it be accomplished?
These questions prompted a line of inquiry that Seele and Nerv's technology department consider essential to their search for the Way to God.
Study into how to handle the problem has spanned many years.
Among the efforts that failed were those of Yui and Asuka's mother.
The dummy plug is something that emerged in the midst of this research into soul-copying.

@ACGT-Sammael: To more clearly address your concerns...

Wait, the Dummy Plugs are the result of trying to create artificial souls? They don't really seem to be anything of the sort given their job is to replace the pilot. Also, if the MP Eva's are anything to go by they don't even generate very strong AT Fields without the aid of an S2 Engine.

The catch here is that Evas run on TWO souls. The pilot's is one of them ("entry plug, the throne for a soul" --Rei, episode 14), and the soul in the core is the other. Since Seeds and Angels work just fine with one soul, I assume Evas would also function perfectly well with one, and the need for two arises because of the desire to make them 'pilotable'. With just a pilot's soul, there's nothing to pilot -- the Eva is dead meat. Hence, the Eva requires a resident soul to become a functioning entity; and this soul's will and ability to govern its own body is technologically suppressed to enable the "piloting" mechanic to be instituted. When the CI calls the dummy system/plug/whatever an "artificial soul", it's referring to its ability to substitute for the soul of a pilot, not that of an Eva.

Here's my refurbished, not-yet-published-to-the-Wiki translation of the Eva Mechanics section of the CI (too lazy to fix formatting, plz ignore):

Code: Select all

"The multipurpose humanoid decisive weapons\n"
"developed by Nerv for use in anti-Angel combat.\n"
"They operate on electric power supplied via cable,\n"
"functional for only five minutes on internal power\n"
"alone.\n\0",

"Evas are clones of the First Angel, a being\n"
"discovered in Antarctica in the year 2000.\n"
"This means that Evas have features in common with\n"
"the Angels. One example is the A.T. Field, which has\n"
"the power to influence even the laws of physics. $n\n\n"
"Evas differ from Angels in that they lack both\n"
"S2 Engines and souls.\n\0",

"Evas are vessels for souls that abandoned human\n"
"form: egos magnified through embodiment as giant\n"
"human beings. Inserting souls into the Evas\n"
"- termed \"pilots\" - is a requirement for\n"
"operating them. $n\n\n"
"However, Evas won't work with a pilot alone.\n"
"It's also possible that they are unable to perform\n"
"properly.\n\0",

"A unit called a core is used to eliminate any\n"
"disparity between an Eva, the body of a god, and\n"
"the soul of a human being. The soul of the pilot's\n"
"mother, which is placed within the core, acts as a\n"
"medium and makes piloting possible.$n\n\n"
"Due to difficulties encountered in the development\n"
"of Unit-00, the core's system is poorly constructed,\n"
"and the Eva falls behind in performance as a result.\n"
"Another reason for this is that Unit-00's pilot, Rei\n"
"Ayanami, does not have a mother.\n\0",

(Not totally satisfied with the "they are unable to perform properly" part. If you're curious, the relevant lines are だが、パイロットだけではエヴァは動かない。あるいは、きちんとした性能を発揮する事が出来ないのである。)

Sorry the thread has strayed from your intent. Anybody feel free to redirect it.

[ACGT-Samael]

My comment was more about the great disparity between research to artificially create the soul for the Eva body and an AI designed to substitute for the pilot, which would seem to be very different from each other. I'm more wondering how a ultimately led to b.

[felineki]

だが、パイロットだけではエヴァは動かない。あるいは、きちんとした性能を発揮する事が出来ないのである。

I'd want to translate that as something like "However, a pilot alone is not enough to move an Eva. Or rather, not enough to truly utilize its full potential."

[Reichu]

Ahh, that makes way more sense! Thank you!

[ACGT-Samael]

Going back to the topic of Yui, the fact she fully merged into Unit 1 while Kyoko did not intrigues me. Yui being a voluntary case explains her end, but I wonder if she can explain anything about Kyoko having her soul divided. Is that meant to mean she was of two minds on the ordeal?

[Reichu]

Between Kyoko knowingly repeating an experiment that the previous subject lost her body undertaking, and Kyoko not getting fully absorbed, I would guess that Kyoko's motivation was to prove the procedure (as imagined by Gehirn, not Yui) could be done.

I feel that her getting the "maternal part" of her soul absorbed means that the maternal aspect is what Evas -- as Seed of Life clones -- automatically "lock onto". Sort of like the binding site on a cell membrane or enzyme. A soul having experienced motherhood means it is eligible for Seed duty; no other type of soul will do. Once the Eva core latched onto that specific part of Kyoko, she was unable to escape without ripping herself in two.

[Lavinius]

Thesis: Lilith went along with it willingly, and incarnated herself into Rei willingly. Why? Because she's the Second Angel.

What is an Angel- and by Angel I mean all eighteen on the full list, not the fourteen or fifteen Children of Adam that the term usually refers to?
Recitation: Adam, Lilith, Sachiel, Shamshel, Ramiel, Gaghiel, Israfel, Sandalphon, Matriel, Sahquiel, Iruel, Leliel, Bardiel, Zeruel, Arael, Armisael, Tabris, Lilin.
We have: two Seeds, fourteen children of the first Seed, one incarnation of one of those Seeds, and then the children (singular) of the other Seed. This is a quaint list.
1) Why is it seemingly out of order? After all, weren't Lilin created before the Adamids? We certainly were created before Tabris was.
2) What accounts for the omissions? None of the Evas are on the list. Nor is Rei, despite her being, to quote Tabris, the same as him. (Nor, for that matter, is the Lance of Longinus).
3) What is the commonality between these disparate creatures, or, rather, what is the commonality that is not shared by Rei & the Evas?

The answer is that the Angels' only commonality is only that they are listed as Angels in the Dead Sea Scrolls, while Rei & the Evas are not.

As for the order, it isn't an order of creation, it's an order of destruction.

That is, somewhere in the Dead Sea Scrolls, there's a passage something like:

And yea I saw then eighteen Angels.
The First was Adam, the Great Lord in His Sin.
The Second was Lilith, Mother of the Moon, of the Daughters of Men.
The Third was Sachiel, Adam's Firstborn, sacrifice to Him His like, He is masked, & He shall unmask the God.
The Fourth was Shamshel, the Vulva of the Sun.
The Fifth was Ramiel, the Temple, He scorches & blasts & yea is overthrown likewise.
The Sixth was Gaghiel, the Only Pious Son.
The Seventh was Israfel, and yea He is Two & yea They are One.
The Eighth was Sandalphon, Prince of the Unborn.
The Ninth was Matriel, the Eyes in the Dark.
The Tenth was Sahaquiel, the Eyes of Heaven.
The Eleventh was Iruel, yea He is like unto a Nation, but He beareth not the Fruit of Science, He knoweth himself not.
The Twelfth was Leliel, the Night of the Womb, She shall speak unto Men.
The Thirteenth was Bardiel, the Cloud, and yea He is stronger than the rest, and so are those who follow Him.
The Fourteenth was Zeruel, the Might unto God.
The Fifteenth was Arael, the Proud & the Loving Youth, His wings span the Heavens.
The Sixteenth was Armisael, the Loving Maid, the Sweet of Tears.
The Seventeenth was Tabris, and He is the First come again.
The Eighteenth was Lilin, the Ever-Dying.
And each was killed in their turn, the interval between the Second Retribution & the Third, being the span of Fifteen Years.

Disregarding Lilith for a second, we can see that each of these Angels was, indeed, sacrificed in their proper place, as they were doomed to. And, indeed, the state Lilith enters into- a soulless, degraded body- is analogous to the state Adam enters into, and he certainly counts as being killed. So we see that the Angels are the hosts for fated Sacrifice.

Realize that the Dead Sea Scrolls' prophecies are binding- even Fuyutsuki admits them. But, of course, incidents not depicted can occur, and beings not described can come into being. The Evas are, presumably, such beings, as is Rei.

And, of course, none of these fated deaths preclude a resurrection, it's merely dictated that the being in question must be dissolved. Seele, of course, seek to make these deaths absolute, whereas Gendou hopes to let humanity hide from the necessary dissolution and then be reborn.

(Regarding the question of an Adamid victory- assuming an Angel uniting with Lilith would cause an Impact, instead of just creating a God and fucking over both Gendou's & Seele's scenarios (which is far from clear)- the sacrifice order could be retained by the Impact consuming the remaining Adamids before completing the tanging of the Lilin. The Adamids would then, presumably, be reborn.)

As we see, Lilith would know that she must be sacrificed- indeed, until this happens, she is under the power of the fates. Just as Tabris says that the only freedom for him is in death, so it was for Lilith at the time Gehirn made contact with her. And remember that Yui too would have been prophecy-bound as an Angel, a component of Lilin, until she sundered herself from that collective.

The arreingement between Yui & Lilith, then, is a best-case scenareio for both. She reincarnates herself into a Lilin body, where she can remain active until the time of her reisurreiction. Yui, on the other hand, places herself in a direct daughter of Lilith, so that the might of Lilith will not be lost. The two simply treide places- Lilith in a clone of Yui, and Yui in a clone of Lilith. And both reisulting entities, Rei & Shogouki, are libereited from the fates.

(I suspect that, far from an error, the incarnations of Adam & Lilith as Kaworu & Rei are instances of a standard Seed practice or ability. The benefits to incarnating to communicate & reign comfortably among a child race for a time are obvious. In episode 25 we see Rei contempleiting that her true form "might not be human". Lilith is certainly humanoid, and certainly bears the Fruit of Science, but doubtless her cognition, used to timespans of millions of years, and likely devoted to matters of the creation & recreation of millions of species over those millions of years (what, you thought she would do nothing for four billion years when there are eukaryotes to evolve?), is quite different from that of mortal Lilin. The Seeds are, after all, Cthulhu-level entities.)

Perhaps Lilith even instructed Gehirn in how to make Evangelia from Adam, so that her incarnation could have a Seed-body reidy to use?

It's not clear to me, of course, how well Gehirn understood Lilith's plans in this matter, if communication was even possible, or if Gendou or Seele subsequently tried to renege on the agreement. Rei forgot who she was- was this the reisult of her initial reincarnation, or that of the unforeseen & traumatic break from Rei I to Rei II?