@TMB :

@ Bagheera : I admit that my initial assumption was that the seal only blocked the main shaft, and that for HIP, SEELE needed two spears, so when EVA-13 was completed Kaworu didn't bothered to jump outside the inverted pyramid and preferred to take the long and relaxing route since they can break the seal now.

But Fuyutsuki's dialog when everything was over and the fact SEELE intended to use Mark.06 (a single entry plug Eva) 14 years ago implied that they only needed one LoL for HIP and that the added LoC was only part of Kaworu's plan.

But TMB's theory that the seal encompass all of Lilith's Chamber is far more likely.

@ Freaky : nowhere its implied that Gendo was the one who ordered Lilith's Chamber to be sealed. Gendo knew that Misato would try anything to stop the impending Impact, even a last ditch desperate assault, and he counted on it : since he modified the LoC, he knew that Kaworu would try to abort the operation, and he made sure that Shinji was too broken to listen to his copilot and will grab the spears nonetheless, leaving to Kaworu only one option to stop 4I : killing himself. WILLE will then just have to finish the job by extracting Shinji from the weakened EVA-13.

Had Kaworu not decided to kill himself, WILLE would had been completely impotent to stop 4I, all of Gendo's plan hinged on Shinji being too insane and desperate to fold it and Kaworu loving Shinji too much to not kill himself to weaken EVA-13 and let WILLE finish the job.
And in the end Keikaku Doori.

We always wondered just how good of a planner and manipulator Gendo could be, and 3.0 gave us that, this is Gendo at his apex, the man who fooled and made dance with strings absolutely everyone, even the millenia old immortal monoliths!

TMBounty_Hunter wrote:

It was completely unintentional (didn't even know I hit "post" and was surprised to see my post there), but looking at it now, it totally looks intentional.

Awesome illustrations, TMBounty_Hunter! Now I FINALLY understand the entire layout of the epicenter in Evangelion Q. You da man!

I would like to add that TMB's pictures were also hilarious.

May future generations of EGFers gaze upon it likewise and laugh.

TMBounty_Hunter wrote:Crummy pictures time.

snip

TA-DA!

this is how I've imagined in my head all this time! nice to see a good info-graphic of it!!

Just for reference:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ldx6Nago6I
;)

I'm of the opinion that they just crawled down through the crack in the ground (that we later see them climbing out of), waited for the barrier to break (or found it already broken) and then attacked. We see planes in the crevice Mari is hiding in so it could conceivably have led aboveground at some point. We also see that she's placed down a recharge pod, some other gear and what I think could be some kind of handhold/rock-climbing thingamajig hammered into the wall:



So it is logical to assume that they entered through there and set up a mini-camp rather than entering via the main shaft, super-jumping to the top of the room and then planting all their stuff there.

Bagheera, before the split wrote:Not that this has anything to do with the topic at hand, of course.

It will when I'm done with it.

EDIT: And I'm done with it. The split went here.

FreakyFilmFan4ever wrote:For your consideration, were the ropes that lowered Unit 13 and Mark.09 evert lifted back out of the shaft? No? They weren’t? There’s no scene that shows the ropes going up?

Guess what’s still leading down into the shaft, then? THE ROPES.

Guess how Mari and Asuka got down there? THE ROPES.

This doesn't work. Where were the ropes lowered from? Somewhere around where Eva13 was birthed and Mark09 stored. Where was Eva13 birthed? Somewhere inside the giant floating pyramid.

You're suggesting Mari and Asuka either invaded the pyramid or otherwise breached the access shaft, grabbed the ropes and used them to rappel down super fast? And Gendo and Fuyutsuki didn't pick up on it and warn Eva 13? I doubt that very much.

It's far more believable to think the hole in the GeoFront surface, through which the main access shaft arose, was simply the largest of several breaches of the surface, and the shield that Shinji and Kaworu dispelled had sealed off ALL the breaches, not just the main access shaft.

Here's a good question if not asked already, how long were they there for before EVA-13 arrived? And also, why did Mari take a shot so long after EVA-13 touched down in Level EEE?
She can hit a moving target easily but with EVA-13 it stands there looking at Lilith for almost a minute before it begins to walk towards her only to stop briefly and Mari finally taking a shot.

Theatrics are more important than tactics.

Well, they don't know that EVA-13 don't have an AT Field, while they know that Mark.09 don't have one either (being an ADAMs Vessel), and anti-ATF ammo seems to be be dangerous to use since Mari needs clearance from Asuka to use them. So their plan was probably to have EVA-02 go up close and personal with EVA-13 to erode its AT Field and tore it to pieces, while EVA-08 keeps Mark.09 pinned down.

After the fight begin, Mari was too busy keeping Mark.09 pinned down to help Asuka, and they still didn't know that EVA-13 didn't had an AT Field, so her bullets would had a limited effect, especially since it has the RS Hoppers as additional defensive measures.

As for why Mari didn't shot after EVA-02 ended without batteries, there was still the problem of Mark.09 to keep pinned down (since EVA-02 would be an easy target while recharging her batteries) and the fact she didn't know that EVA-13 don't have an AT Field. (maybe Mari also didn't wanted to shoot Shinji, but that's speculation)

Finally, when EVA-13 was about to pull out the spears, EVA-02 had finished to recharge, so she wouldn't be an easy target for Mark.09, leaving Mari free to shoot Shinji, since Asuka is now out of reach, so she lift the block of Anti-AT Field ammo on Mari, who then proceed to change ammos and shoot EVA-13... at which point it's revealed that EVA-13 is an ADAM, and thus don't have an AT Field and is immune to Mari's special bullets. (ironically, the normal bullets were the more adapted to the situation, since it would had ejected EVA-13 out of Lilith's top and let Asuka continue to fight him while Mari goes back to pinning down Mark.09)


Something very important to take into account is that neo-NERV and SEELE are the specialist on crating really weirds units capable of pulling out all kind of crazy shit, and that Mari and Asuka operated with very limited knowledge on EVA-13 and Mark.09's capabilities, so they had to play it safe with the information they are sure of, such as the fact that Mark.09 doesn't generate an AT Field, and adapted their strategy following circumstances. And even the bad guys still managed to be one step head of WILLE with EVA-13 being an ADAM, Mark.09 being able to "awake" and hack the Wunder, its special protective plate for its core and the fact that Mark.09's whole body is its core. In fact, Mark.09 is really a tactical nightmare for an Eva pilot, except the fact its humanoid and have a pilot, it doesn't behave at all like an Eva!

Okay, besides all that, both Asuka and Mari were lying in wait, what I want speculate about is how long were they there for and what could they have discussing about before EVA's 09 and 13 arrived?

Could they have been for such a time while looking down at Lilith that they had made their own assumptions or conclusions about her current state and possible consequences should anything disturb her?

wiser3754 wrote:Okay, besides all that, both Asuka and Mari were lying in wait, what I want speculate about is how long were they there for and what could they have discussing about before EVA's 09 and 13 arrived?

There's no indications of how much time they were waiting down there, my guess is that they were sent when the Wunder detected the activation of an unknown Evangelion unit, being the sign that Gendo is finally making his move.

As about what Mari and Asuka were talking about, it depends on how many time they had after installing their gear, before EVA-13 and Mark.09 arrives at Central Dogma. If they had some time to spare, I suppose that they talked about the mission, rehearsing the attack plan and each role, maybe Mari wondered what happened to Puppy-kun and Asuka told her to shut up because it's not important right now, with Mari throwing another knowing cat smile, who knows.

wiser3754 wrote:Could they have been for such a time while looking down at Lilith that they had made their own assumptions or conclusions about her current state and possible consequences should anything disturb her?

If TMB's illustrations are how the seal was really installed in Liilth's Chamber (meaning that it encompassed the whole Chamber, crack where Units 02 and 08 was hiding included, then it was blocking their view of Lilith, and could only see it when Shinji and Kaworu broke it.


EDIT: Well, apparently the second Q Groundwork gave us an answer, let's again thanks TMB for his work!
Here is the relevant passage:

TMBounty_Hunter wrote:The crevace shot seems to mention the "14 years ago" when pointing to the stuck VTOL as well as specifically calling out some of the mounts as "rock climbing" thingis

So that VTOL didn't accompanied Units 02 and 08 to carry their equipment, but is the wreck of a VTOL that participated in the initial fight in Lilith's Chamber.
So that crevace was also here 14 years, well that info actually resolves for good the debate about how Mari and Asuka got into Lilith's Chamber: that crevace was indeed already here, and they escalated down there from the outside (probably from the ruins of the Geofront).
So either that crevace was made during whatever happened when the 12th Angel merged with Lilith (which illustrate the immense power that was at work) or the Black Moon was already more damaged than was we thought back in Jo and Ha.

That also makes TMB's scenario of the chain of event explained and illustrated in the previous page all the more probable.

ElMariachi wrote:If TMB's illustrations are how the seal was really installed in Liilth's Chamber (meaning that it encompassed the whole Chamber, crack where Units 02 and 08 was hiding included, then it was blocking their view of Lilith, and could only see it when Shinji and Kaworu broke it.

While the barrier can only be visually seen around the main shaft, it's reasonable to assume that the entire chamber is sealed form all interference.

It's worth nothing that, as the barrier cubes begin to disintegrate, a prominent "spark"(lightning) can be seen flashing inside the crevice which Mari is later seen sniping from.