How many Evangelion Units were originally planned by NERV/SEELE?

[Garfieldwxg55]

Hi,

I was curious if anyone know exactly how many Evangelions were planned by NERV/SEELE. Obviously there are Unit-00, Unit-01, Unit-02, Unit-03, Unit-04, and the nine Mass Production Evangelions, which makes fourteen total EVAs. However, according to the wiki, originally three extra Mass Production EVAs were planned, but SEELE were in a rush to initiate the Third Impact after the last angel was killed, and so just made do with nine. But if SEELE were in a bit less of a rush after Kaworu died, and had taken their time, we would be left with twelve Mass Production EVAs instead. Further, after Zeruel attacked, Ritsuko mentioned two EVAs, Unit-05 and Unit-06, which were scrapped to make biological repairs to Unit-00 and Unit-02, implying there might have two more production models initially planned.

So, does this mean, if no EVAs were scrapped, and SEELE had taken their time with the Mass Production EVAs, we would have one Prototype model (Unit-00), one Test type model (Unit-01), five Production models (Unit-02, Unit-03, Unit-04, Unit-05, and Unit-06), and twelve Mass Production models (Unit-07-Unit-18), totaling 19 Evangelions? Or did I get something wrong, and were the Unit-05 and Unit-06 Ritsuko mentioned being scrapped Mass Production models? I was under the impression they weren't, as I think it was mentioned that the Mass Production EVAs were just entering production after Zeruel, but the original Unit-05 and Unit-06 (not the Mass Production units that would take their names after they were scrapped) sound like they would have been fairly complete, since they could be used to make biological repairs to Unit-00 and Unit-02.

This was just something little that I wondered about the series, any clarification would be greatly appreciated!

[Blockio]

This is one of those things that we're never given any decisive in-universe timeline for; I tend to look at it in a similar fashion to the irl history of naval construction. It's common there to make adjustments to the formula with each successive unit based on experience with the previous ones, since prototyping in the traditional sense is not reasonable for the amount of material, manpower and time involved in the construction; so you start with one design that you think is going to be pretty good, and see how it does, potentially make some adjustments to fix particular issues that arise over time (this would be the equivalent of 00 to 00'); for a subsequent design, you may make some more fundamental adjustments on the same template (irl example - change the shape of the bow for higher stability in heavy seas, as was done for the Admiral Hipper-class Prinz Eugen), the 00->01 equivalent; and then, for subsequent models, you may change the underlying structure into a subclass of its own(irl example - the last two ships of the Richelieu class would have had their main battery in a very different arrangement than the first two, had they been completed), this would be the 02 onwards production models in this. It's also not unheard to use parts of incomplete ships to repair damage incurred to the ones in service (irl example - using the bow of the never-completed USS Kentucky to repair damage to her sister ship Wisconsin)
Finally, the MPEs in this would be a more streamlined followup class of designs; them all looking the same is less usual after a previous class that had that much design variety within, but is not unthinkable, either.

The analogy is not 100% clean, there are several points at which it breaks if you look too closely, but on the whole, I do think that this is a fairly useful way of looking at it. Plans change over time, Seele at first probably just wanted enough to take care of a problem, the actual numbers game only starting after they were sure that things were going to their terms