Hey guys, I'm still new and can't work the thread search function properly - So please link me if I should just bump an older thread instead.

I was just wondering how Unit-01 'awakens' at the end of 2.0 in Rebuild. Thinking about it briefly myself, I came to the conclusion that Unit-01 may be one of the Adams from Second Impact (Hence why we see the halo when it goes berserk). Then, once Shinji pulls Rei into Unit-01's core, which is taking a fraction of Lilith's soul into itself; it then possesses parts from both the Life and Knowledge Seed/Fruit aspects. So it would meet the same kind of conditions or criteria Unit-01 had in EOE.

If we go with the speculation that the Rei we saw in 1.0 and 2.0 may now be stuck within Unit-01 (Reminds me of her comments in 2.0 of how she can't survive 'outside'. Bit of foreshadowing there), this would lead to almost the same situation as in NGE/EOE where Nerv are ordered to keep Unit-01 in lock down because they basically have a god in their possession.

Is this a popular train of thought for others? Would be keen to see what other people think; for or against...

Thanks in advance!

Unit-01 achieving god status is basically a successful mix of several ingredients. Exactly what the ingredients are is not quite clear, but here is a list of possible ones:

- Unit-01, whether it is "an Adam" or a cyborg Lilith-clone;
- The remnant of Yui that resides inside Unit-01;
- Shinji inside the entry plug;
- Shinji's wish ("GIVE BACK Ayanami!!!");
- No power to the Evangelion's mechanical armor/restraints.

Not all of these are necessary and some of them may even be irrelevant, but this is what came together right before God Mode happened.

Note that Rei is NOT part of this equation. Unit-01 had already sprouted a halo and regenerated its severed arm with a new limb made of light before it attacked the 10th Angel.

However, Near-Third Impact only started when Shinji and Rei made contact, i.e. when Unit-01 penetrated the Angel's core. So the ingredients for Third Impact can be narrowed down to the following:
- God Mode Unit-01 (see above);
- The essence of Rei Ayanami;
- The core of an Angel.

Not all three of these may be a requirement; it could very well be that only two of them are necessary. However, my guess is that Third Impact cannot be achieved without a God Mode Evangelion at its center.

From various searches of "eva", "01", and "god"/"adams"

http://forum.evageeks.org/post/358699/What-are-the-Adams/
forum.evageeks.org/thread/9302/God-in-NME/
http://forum.evageeks.org/thread/8559/Beast-Mode-God-Mode-Limiters-Plug-Depth/

Thanks for the links Ornette. I was using the thread list search - Didn't realise there was a proper search function, haha (I see now that they're two different links up the top). Sorry.

Officially, there are two stages to Eva-01's transformation (pseudo-evolution):

- Initial Arousal/Awakening Phase (alt. First Phase: Arousal)
- 2nd Phase: The Radiant Giant

The first phase starts as soon as Eva-01 activates. The second is complete when Eva-01 merges with the Angel's body fluid (it's not just the core; it's the whole thing) and Eva-00's core / Rei's soul.

Third Impact starts the moment Shinji says, "So that's why I'll save you!" (or whatever it was), not as soon as contact is achieved with the nesting cores. Ritsuko's monologue implies that this is cause and effect, not coincidence.

IMO, the whole thing is an irresolvable clusterfuck right now. As if to toy with us, nobody during the NME awakening scene comments on two of the elements that got due emphasis in episode 19: the fact that a mysterious "she" [Yui] was involved, and, of course, the internalization of the Angel. That these go uncommented upon in NME does not mean the elements are missing; indeed, close observation reveals that Eva-01 absorbs the Angel's entire body this time, and Yui's involvement is (arguably) foreshadowed right before Eva-01 is deployed against the 10th.

If I didn't know better, I'd say the film intentionally withheld the aspects of the exposition we were expecting to focus on the NME-specific elements. In doing so, however, we're left with a picture far too incomplete to figure out precisely what is going on in the scene. Not until next time, anyway.

They don't give us enough information to "precisely" know what is happening in the sense that we don't know what every little thing means, no. But we do understand the big picture, which I think was their only obligation. It's not as if Eva has ever spelled this stuff out... EoE didn't have Fuyutsuki saying, "OK, the reason why the MPEs grew Rei faces is because X, Y and Z." I see the opaque nature of it more as a creative decision than a flaw.

Reichu wrote:If I didn't know better, I'd say the film intentionally withheld the aspects of the exposition we were expecting to focus on the NME-specific elements.

You shouldn't know better, because I'd say that's exactly what they're doing. How would a Yui info dump from Ritsuko improve the scene? What's happening here isn't about that. Going on about it, like a monolith over Tokyo-3 lake, would just be out of place.

Warren: I'm not asking for 100% clarity; I've never expected anything labeled Evangelion to provide that. However, I do anticipate more details about Near 3I to surface in 3.0, including -- but not limited to -- a delayed "pay-off" for Gendo's "...Yui!" comment, along with some words on the fusion with the 10th Angel.

I won't disagree with the idea that the finale is the way it is for a reason, but without the contents of subsequent films I don't think anyone can claim in good faith to fully understand what it's "about". In that vein, it's not possible for us to really know what could be added to or subtracted from the scene without affecting its basic premise. However, if you think the scene is "about" what I suspect, I doubt an allusion to a female presence in the Eva playing some role in making all this crap happen or one brief sentence vaguely commenting on the effects of the Angel goo on Eva-01 would provide any more of a 'distraction' than all the other gobbledygook ("Inside the huge swells of complementarity, it's binding together the heavens, the earth, and all creation, transforming into an energy condensate").

I dunno, I guess I don't see why Yui should be mentioned just because she was before. The circumstances now are completely different -- the scene is more a companion to EoE than Episode 19. There already is "a female presence in the Eva playing some role in making all this crap happen" in the form of Rei. That may be why they don't bring another one into things.

Warren Peace wrote:There already is "a female presence in the Eva playing some role in making all this crap happen" in the form of Rei.

Within the last minute, maybe...

And I think you misunderstood me. I didn't claim that "Yui should be mentioned just because she was before".

I should probably take the opportunity to mention something that I felt when I first watched the scene in question as well. I mentioned it in my post in the 'Welcome' thread that I only just recently watched the Rebuild movies. It was a couple months ago after returning from another trip to Japan (Even though I'm a huge NGE fan and first saw it when it aired initially on Australian TV way back in 1999).

But when Unit-01 shoots the eye-beam, that blew me away:


The eye-beam just strikes me as something overtly Adamic, as it is a weapon nearly every Angel deploys. I just remember being really taken aback by it because we've never seen an Evangelion use it before. I guess it's just one more thing for me which strengthens the possibility that Unit-01 may be one of the Adams. Oh and yeah, in before; "Evas are clones of Adam anyway..." That may be, yet we never saw them deploy the eye-beam in NGE/EOE.

Blue Monday: Eva-02 and Eva-01 do the familiar "eyesplosion" in EoE. (Eyes light up and something blows up.) The focused eye beam is something that, among the Angels, only Zeruel and his NME counterpart are shown using.

Reichu wrote:Within the last minute, maybe...

Like you said, no one can yet be sure exactly what's happening, but I think it's a safe assumption that she's as instrumental as anything else. I mean, there is a GNR smack dab in the middle of it...

Reichu wrote:And I think you misunderstood me. I didn't claim that "Yui should be mentioned just because she was before".

I guess I did misunderstand:

Reichu wrote:As if to toy with us, nobody during the NME awakening scene comments on two of the elements that got due emphasis in episode 19: the fact that a mysterious "she" [Yui] was involved...

Warren: Yeah, you made some unwarranted assumptions. She didn't expect some comment about Yui because she was the centerpiece of ep. 19. Rather, she exepcted some comment about her because Gendo set us up for exactly that when he said her name prior to Unit 01's deployment. If she's in there, it's reasonable to assume that Gendo or someone would comment on her role in things. If Gendo hadn't uttered that line I'm sure Reichu wouldn't expect any mention of Yui in that scene at all.

Reichu: Good points. I'll note that the NME has done this to us several times by this point, playing with our expectations based on the original only to do something different when the time comes to move forward. What does that mean in this case? Dunno. But I agree it was quite deliberate. I just hope the punchline is worth the wait.

Bagheera: You summarized my intent succinctly; thank you.

One thing I mentioned -- to Jorno, I think -- is the vagueness of Fuyutsuki's line, "As we thought, those two were enough to awaken Unit-01." Of course, when we hear "those two", we think "Shinji and Rei" -- but what if Fuyutsuki actually means "Yui and Shinji"? That is, Rei may only play an indirect, motivational role in things (aside from providing a substrate for the Angel goo to coalesce upon). Eva-01 "awakens" for reasons similar to the "400% sync" crap from NGE, by having the pilot pulled to the "Great Beyond" core depth and ultimately absorbed (going by the preview text).

Reichu: Given the focus on Rei's and Shinji's relationship in the NME that seems unlikely. The show has its share of fakeouts, but they usually make sense in hindsight. A bait and switch like you describe really wouldn't.

Yeah, given the prominence of Shinji and Rei's relationship this time around, there's no doubt Fuyutsuki's line was meant for them.

Reichu wrote:Blue Monday: Eva-02 and Eva-01 do the familiar "eyesplosion" in EoE. (Eyes light up and something blows up.) The focused eye beam is something that, among the Angels, only Zeruel and his NME counterpart are shown using.

Ahh, had forgotten about those. Just chucked the DVD in the player then to have a look... Unit-02 coming out of the lake and the same for Unit-01 when coming out of Nerv HQ. 'Eyeplosions' pew pew.

Moot point is moot.

Carry on.

Reichu wrote:Blue Monday: Eva-02 and Eva-01 do the familiar "eyesplosion" in EoE. (Eyes light up and something blows up.) The focused eye beam is something that, among the Angels, only Zeruel and his NME counterpart are shown using.

Didn't Sachiel use it to take out one of the cameras observing them?

Alaska: The cross-shaped explosions are the only energy weapon Sachiel is ever explicitly shown using. When we see his eyes light up and the cameras go out, I think we're to assume he uses the cross-splosion for the first time.

Blue Monday wrote:Is this a popular train of thought for others? Would be keen to see what other people think; for or against...

Thanks in advance!

It's more or less what I suspected was happening, based on how it would work in the original.

You had all the necessary ingredients:

-Soul of a Seed of Life in Rei Ayanami as the soul of Lilith
-Body of a Seed of Life in EVA01 as a clone of Lilith (or something else)

The above makes one whole, a true Seed of Life or close to it.

-S^2 engine in the Angel Zeruel
-Soul/Core/Biological tech from another Seed of Life, Adam in this case

This would provide the catalysts that are generally thought are needed to create a powerful lifeform that can start something along the lines of "Third Impact".

A bit from Adam, a bit from Lilith. Makes sense right?

If you look at the Directors Cut of the original, EVA00 transforms into a Enormous Naked Rei before exploding, here we see a merging of at least the soul of Lilith and an adam-based angel. Could be something, but not quite enough - which could why the thing dies when exploding.

Now back to Rebuild, these could be combined in two ways depending on how well I remember who had the fruit of life and who had the fruit of knowledge:

If only Lilim have the Fruit of Knowledge, Shinji would in addition to being the great enabler with EVA01 provide that chain in the reaction. Yui would be along for the ride.

If it's an Adam+Lilith thing, the two would become one by merging as we see happening at the end.

Though it was stopped by Kaworu using a Lance of Longinus, real or replica. From thereon there's that hybrid theory which proposes that Rei and Shinji become one for some time. Sounds interesting and out there, but with Rei's angel status and some fanart I've seen, I'm buying into it.