Reichu wrote:Pilot's If the head were just left in the LCL at Lilith's feet, then it could simply be absorbed into her body when she starts expanding in size.

Not being combative, just curious. How is that much different from this?:

Welcome Home

I don't understand the question. Is there supposed to be a link there?

Reichu wrote:I don't understand the question. Is there supposed to be a link there?

Sorry, here it is:

forum.evageeks.org/thread/18562/Welcome-Home/

Lilith is awakened by regaining her own soul and, from there, absorbs Kaworu's remains and his soul with them. Note that Lilith has Adam's flesh within her, so Kaworu's soul has a logical place to go upon absorption.

In any case, this is quite different from Kaworu's soul somehow ending up in Lilith's body of its own accord, an idea I've already pointed out problems with.

New thought on this...

The MPEs are Adamic bodies clones from Adam itself...Could it be that Adamic souls are then the best candidates as far as functionality then? To be clear, I think that the MPEs contain the souls of the Angels. Then, since Kaworu/Adam always had a complete soul, his Dummy System could then have stronger ego, thus maintain more concentrated control of the Units as a collective as the one with the most superiority over his "children."

Granted, I'll be the first to admit that this theory does have problems...namely that the number of angels (not counting Adam and Lilith) doesn't't exactly match up...

But this kind of power over them + their souls and body types does explain their upgraded abilities - having S2 organs helps too as far as the continuous factor goes...But, then again, the angels have S2 organs as well...


It's like the MPEs are the best perfected versions of the tech Nerv was tinkering with and used in the most lethal ways..

Take for example the contrast to Unit 00

-Lilith's' soul fragment
-Adamic Body clone
-Rei Dummy Plug System

In essence, the soul/body dynamic is a kind of metaphysical body dysmorphia and the fragmenting means less ego control and over sense of instability

By contrast, all of the flaws are bypassed or overcome within the MPEs, espeiclaly if the idea of them having souls holds any water..

Although, by contrast, soul fragmenting could be what's going on here (as opposed to collecting - something SEELE already would ahem practice with in bringing Adam's soul into Kaworu's body)...They could've taken the data from what's going on with Rei or even Kyoko. The implication being the the souls are actually fragments from Kaworu following his death... I mean, while SEELE state that Adam's soul resides completely within Kaworu in the DC of ep. 24, it would seem that after he's killed, it would be fair game...Especially given the fact that we never see the MPE's until afterwards...

There is one profoundly disturbing option here. Lets say that NERV had backup cores like in the case of unit 3. They had full class of pilors compatible with those cores. The said class was evacuated. I ask where... Imagine if it was revealed that the pilots of those MPs are Asukas and Shinjis classmates drugged or othervise forced to the plugs.

In this case the MP fight would be another level of messed up. Perfectly aligning with the whole EVA misery untill death theme. I bet this was the plan but it was scrapped for being too messed up even for EVA.

Imagine Asuka knew who she was fighting. Imagine the faces of those classmates flashing on the screen when she wrecks each MP eva. I think that would be too much of the horror but I believe that this might be the original intention.

Caroline L.S.: The MP Evas are piloted by Kaworu dummy plugs. Blink and miss it shot of one of the plugs going in when the camera zooms in on an MP unit for the first time.

Caroline L.S. wrote:There is one profoundly disturbing option here. Lets say that NERV had backup cores like in the case of unit 3. They had full class of pilors compatible with those cores. The said class was evacuated. I ask where... Imagine if it was revealed that the pilots of those MPs are Asukas and Shinjis classmates drugged or othervise forced to the plugs.

Interesting theory and I love where you brain is on this one, epically with the dark creepy factor of NGE's misery. However, the MPEs are more or less automatic on account of being piloted by the Kaworu dummy plugs. However, spare cores and classmate candidates does bring to mind this idea that maybe they used the souls of the other kids' dead mothers such Kensuke and Hikari, both of whom also don't have a mom...

However, I still stick by my theory that given how "angelic" the MPEs are, plus the Adamic bodies + Kawor's (ie. Adam's) influence via the dummy plug, that they were more or less harvested and built from all of those dead Angels that were "disposed" of. This includes both their souls and S2 organs.

And there is evidence to suggest that this has happened before. Just look at Unit 00. After the fight Ramiel in ep. 6, it gets form its basic orange to getting a sleek new blue veneer. In fact Ramiel is seen being physically deconstructed and broken down in the back ground for a few episodes after Operation Yashima.

In essence not only doe step Unit have the psycho-cogntive problems of being part of Lilith's soul made briefly human and then murdered and stuck into the cloned body of its anti-thesis - Adam, now it's being slapped with some cannibal-like madness where it's essentially given a new coat of flesh from the skin of Adam's babies.

They most definitely have cores prepared with the souls of the pilots mothers. Otherwise, Toji wouldn't be able to become a pilot seemingly out of the blue. But there's no reason to suggest that they used those cores in the MP-Evas. If anything, they'd use loyalists or weak minded people to facilitate dummy-plug control. Unit 01/Yui was able to reject the dummy plug outright. When Asuka is unable to start her Eva, no attempt is made to use the dummy-system, even though it had been installed and is operational at that point. This suggests that Kyoko is incompatible as well - possibly because of the nature of her split soul, leaving all the motherly/caring bits inside Unit 02. Both Kyoko and Yui went into the Eva willingly to protect their children. For the MP-Evas to work reliably, SEELE would use people who become part of the Eva to initiate Third Impact and thus don't reject control.

There is nothing to suggest that Unit-00 revieced anything more than a new paint-job. It already is a clone of Adam, a progenitor, which, I presume, is far more powerful than any other angel. The only reason that the Evas do not curb stomp any enemy is because they are artificially limited in their capabilities - limits that Unit 01 surpasses every time Shinjis life is in actual danger. Given how dangerous angelic contamination is, I don't think they'd risk it by cannibalising angel parts to "improve" Unit-00. Besides, all the other angels are inferior copies/offspring of Adam to begin with - there is nothing to gain by incorporating their parts into an Eva.

Regarding the S2 Engines, I think it's strongly implied that those of the Eva series are man-made. There is no mention of any recovery, the only angels whose corpse is relatively intact are Shamshel and Ramiel, all the other get completely destroyed. There's also the debacle with Unit 04, where they tried to install an S2-Engine built in Germany, I think. The whole idea behind mass-production is that it isn't relying on salvaged parts, being repeatable indefinitely. Relying on salvaged angel souls isn't exactly sustainable.

The MP-Evas are no more angelic than Unit 01 under dummy-plug control. If anything, they are a little slow on the uptake, just standing there while Asuka tries to tear them apart. Unit 01 immediately started taking Unit 03 apart, while the MP-Evas take some time to become active, pointing to the fact that they'd never been activated or used in combat before. They were equipped with replica-lances. They could have finished Asuka off the second they arrived, they just didn't, because the dummy system is "dumb". On the other hand, they are capable of performing the ritual to start third impact, so, maybe they aren't as dumb as they seem, but just cruel and play with their prey. Or they run on Windows 2000 and just need ten minutes to actually start up.

I've got an alternative hypothesis that I think makes some sense, on the assumption that the Confidential Information's description of SEELE's true objective for Instrumentality is correct: The souls in the MP EVAs are fragments of the souls of the 12 SEELE council members.

Here's my thoughts:

1. 12 MP EVAs were planned for (i.e.: one per council member), even though fewer were actually required to initiate 3I/Instrumentality.
   
   1. In EoE Keel states "There aren't quite enough, but it can't be helped", even though the 9 units that were able to be deployed were obviously capable of the task.
2. The CI states that SEELE's true objective is to "...guide the elite (themselves) to (a) state near that of God's", which would require them to become the souls of Evangelions, not just passive passengers ("We aren't abandoning human form just so we can board the Ark called Eva.").
   
   1. A full merger would not be acceptable prior to 3I/Instrumentality, since this would leave Gendo free to pursue his own plans without restriction.
   2. A partial merger appears to be possible without resulting in catastrophic consequences.
      
      1. Kyoko Zeppelin's contact experiment in 2005(?) split her soul between EVA-02 and her human body, but left her human body a psychotic wreck. However by 2010 Rei was able retain full intellectual capacity despite her soul being split between EVA-00, her clone body, and possibly Lillith's body.
         1. Whether her social limitations are a consequence of this split, or of being raised completely alone, at the bottom of a hole in the ground, by a psychopath with limited social skills of his own, are a different topic for discussion.
3. When the vessel for a soul is destroyed, the soul can relocate (or be relocated) to another suitable vessel. With part of their souls already stashed away safely in the cores of the MP EVAs, 3I would result in the SEELE council members' souls recombining within the cores of the MP EVAs, rather than participating in Instrumentality.
   
   1. Adam's soul was originally located in Kaworu's body, but by EoE it appears to have been located in the embryonic body that was embedded in Gendo's hand.
   2. The soul fragments in EVA-00 and Rei II appear to have merged together in Rei III following the battle against Armisael.
4. The way that SEELE inserts Kaworu into NERV suggests that, by that point, SEELE is not particularly concerned about who or what is controlling 3I when it occurs.
   
   1. Kaworu comes within a handful of meters of initiating 3I, and would have succeeded if he hadn't decided that he valued humanity's existence above his own.
   2. The events of EoE suggest that there is a significant element of voluntary control over how 3I/Instrumentality proceeds, and the task that SEELE gave to Kaworu made no mention of Instrumentality for humanity.

Any comments?

ASW_Canuck wrote:The CI states that SEELE's true objective is to "...guide the elite (themselves) to (a) state near that of God's", which would require them to become the souls of Evangelions, not just passive passengers.

Regarding the bolded part: Why?

Edit: I've got other objections, but I want to understand what you think their goal is first as they depend on that goal.

I'm not sure I would put too much stock in the Classified Information in this particular case. There is absolutely zero indication in the original work that Seele consider themselves elite in any way beyond "it's okay if we make really big and important decisions on humanity's behalf". Evangelion 2 forces the existence of a "bad Instrumentality" and "good Instrumentality" which serves no purpose beyond providing a standard gameplay-related Bad End vs. Good End (completely serious -- the CI contains references that specifically apply to the game's Bad End); it makes a complete mess of the original lore and turns Seele, who were not originally "evil" in any traditional sense (just supremely misguided), into, well, full-on baddies who only care about themselves. Eva 2 is full of great content, but it has a fair amount of not-so-great stuff; the disparity is not necessarily obvious looking at the CI by itself, but it becomes increasingly obvious the more one is the exposed to the rest of the game.

Seele's own souls being invested in the MP Evas is unnecessary, and might not even allow them to make any meaningful decisions in terms of the Impact. One thing to notice about Second Impact, Third Impact, and the hypothetical Angel Impact is that, ALWAYS, events are set off by a successor (Lilin or child of Adam) coming in contact with a Seed (or Eva-01, effectively the same thing). Second Impact has the donor contacting Adam. Third Impact has Gendo contacting Rei/Lilith and Shinji contacting Eva-01. The Angel impact has a child of Adam contacting Lilith. The implication is that the Seeds or Evas cannot simply decide on a whim to reformat a planet; they need to be "triggered" by a consenting soul from a successor race. This might sound like a pretty lame failsafe on the surface, but it would certainly have enough uses to make it worth programming in. (For example, a usurper Seed could not simply show up on an already-colonized planet and wipe it out for the lulz. They would have to forge an actual connection with one of the denizens to do so.)

Those were objections I would have raised as well. Being inside a core protects one from being tanged, apparently, since the MP-Evas were still active after Instrumentality started (they pierced their own cores), which would be impossible if their souls were gone, and Yui remained inside Unit 01 the whole time. Besides, if they had their own souls inside the MP-Evas, there would be no need for the Kaworu-dummy-plugs, since those only exist to overwrite the will of the resident soul and make the Eva act, which would be unecessary if SEELE can control them directly already.

Other than that, the whole "power" aspect of their supposed plan makes no sense if they want to achieve Instrumentality. What exactly do you have power over if everybody is joined in a singular being without any physical form or means to interact with the real world, lost in endless contemplation and dreaming? Instrumentality as a goal in itself makes sense, but you can not use it to DO anything, besides giving people the option to return, which makes the whole ordeal rather pointless. If they just wanted to be demi-gods, uploading themselves into the Cores of the MP-Evas and using the S2-engines would give them eternal life and "magical" abilities anyways, and then there is no need for Instrumentality or Third Impact at all.

And now I imagine an MP-Eva inhabited by Lorenz Kiel marching up to the UN building and demanding One million Dollars!

My own suspicion is that, if Seele had been able to complete all twelve units, they would have somehow utilized themselves as triggers for Third Impact. This explains why the JSSDF was under orders to simply kill the pilots: Seele didn't actually need them. Yui forced their hand, however, by activating in God Mode with Shinji inside and attracting the Spear back to Earth.

I'm actually somewhat dubious about whether the MP Evas would even be able to ensoul the Seele members. To start with, there are the maternal connotations of both the Seeds and the Evas, and there is the peculiar limitation that only children with a connection to the Eva's soul and/or body are able to pilot. Kyoko's case is, for me, the real smoking gun -- somehow she was able to resist being absorbed in full, but the Eva still got part of her soul, and which part was that? The part of her that is a mother. This suggests very strongly that Eva cores "select for" that specific attribute; perhaps comparable to how a cell membrane has specifically shaped binding sites that only allow certain molecular structures to pass through. Given the Seeds are the "female/mother" half of a pair (with the Spear being the "male" half), it seems plausible that this "mothers' souls only" limitation was programmed in by the FAR themselves, and Lilin don't possess the wherewithal to remove said limitation without, say, sacrificing an attribute that they require in the Evas.

(BTW: As awful and stupid as it is, "Kiel" is actually the man's first name. )

By "utilizing themselves", do you mean as the contacting person? They still need some form of Lilith (herself or a clone) to trigger it, right? And wasn't the spear part of their plan all along, and with it missing, they settled for death of all humanity instead?

Ah, yes, I completely overlooked that. That said, there is no hard evidence in the series itself that the limitation to female souls is hardcoded in, and not a consequence of the control mechanism that was designed (by Yui?), where the mother-child bond simply works better than the father-child bond, given that it mirrors the return to the womb quite literally. Kyoko's case might simply be an accident, or the result of using the same method that Yui used, with the same, human-made emphasis on motherly aspects. An Eva controlled by a male soul directly should work just as well, as there is no need for any connection to another person in the pilot's chair.

(Reg. Kiel: Yeah, I know, but in this case I firmly believe that Anno is just wrong. There is no other named western Character, so maybe he just got the order of first name/last name mixed up. (Btw, the Wiki Notes regarding the pronounciation of his name is wrong. "Kiel" is pronounced like "Keel", the "Kayl" suggested there would be "Keil" or "Kehl".) Well, he got it right with Soryu Asuka Langley, but there are other problems with her last name.)

Derantor wrote:Regarding the bolded part: Why?

Edit: I've got other objections, but I want to understand what you think their goal is first as they depend on that goal.

In the scene in Episode 21 where SEELE is discussing EVA-01 gaining an S2 Engine, they describe it having become an actualized god, possessing an Angel's unlimited power which is controlled by the human intelligence within its core. To merely be absorbed into the EVA's core, like Shinji was for a time, would not gain them access to the EVA's god-like power - to do so they would actually have to truly BE the EVA.

Reichu wrote:My own suspicion is that, if Seele had been able to complete all twelve units, they would have somehow utilized themselves as triggers for Third Impact. This explains why the JSSDF was under orders to simply kill the pilots: Seele didn't actually need them. Yui forced their hand, however, by activating in God Mode with Shinji inside and attracting the Spear back to Earth.

I'm actually somewhat dubious about whether the MP Evas would even be able to ensoul the Seele members. To start with, there are the maternal connotations of both the Seeds and the Evas, and there is the peculiar limitation that only children with a connection to the Eva's soul and/or body are able to pilot. Kyoko's case is, for me, the real smoking gun -- somehow she was able to resist being absorbed in full, but the Eva still got part of her soul, and which part was that? The part of her that is a mother. This suggests very strongly that Eva cores "select for" that specific attribute; perhaps comparable to how a cell membrane has specifically shaped binding sites that only allow certain molecular structures to pass through. Given the Seeds are the "female/mother" half of a pair (with the Spear being the "male" half), it seems plausible that this "mothers' souls only" limitation was programmed in by the FAR themselves, and Lilin don't possess the wherewithal to remove said limitation without, say, sacrificing an attribute that they require in the Evas.

(BTW: As awful and stupid as it is, "Kiel" is actually the man's first name. )

Having a mother-child bond seems to be optimal, but not a strict necessity. In the end the EVA's desires probably have a lot to do with it, since EVA-01 explicitly rejects sync with both Rei and a dummy plug in Episode 19 despite allowing it in earlier episodes.

@ASW_Canuck: Ah, ok, I looked at it the other way around. That becoming the soul of an Eva was a necessary step in achieving god-hood (Instrumentality, unified being), not god-hood in itself.

Again, if they just want that, Third Impact seems entirely unecessary. The soul-splitting adds needless complexity, and I don't see how Gendo is any feer to act if they merge fully shortly before the attack on the Geofront. If anything, it would give them more direct control over the actual physical events. The MP-Evas don't seem to be very smart (or utterly cruel, your pick), not going straight for their goal. If that is because SEELE has only part of their souls in them and thus their control is limited, it's a liabilty which could have been avoided. Fully merged and in control, without any need for the Kaworu-plugs, they could split up, kill Lilith, obtain Unit 01 as a replacement and start any Impact they want without interference.

Derantor wrote:Those were objections I would have raised as well. Being inside a core protects one from being tanged, apparently, since the MP-Evas were still active after Instrumentality started (they pierced their own cores), which would be impossible if their souls were gone, and Yui remained inside Unit 01 the whole time. Besides, if they had their own souls inside the MP-Evas, there would be no need for the Kaworu-dummy-plugs, since those only exist to overwrite the will of the resident soul and make the Eva act, which would be unecessary if SEELE can control them directly already.

Other than that, the whole "power" aspect of their supposed plan makes no sense if they want to achieve Instrumentality. What exactly do you have power over if everybody is joined in a singular being without any physical form or means to interact with the real world, lost in endless contemplation and dreaming? Instrumentality as a goal in itself makes sense, but you can not use it to DO anything, besides giving people the option to return, which makes the whole ordeal rather pointless. If they just wanted to be demi-gods, uploading themselves into the Cores of the MP-Evas and using the S2-engines would give them eternal life and "magical" abilities anyways, and then there is no need for Instrumentality or Third Impact at all.

And now I imagine an MP-Eva inhabited by Lorenz Kiel marching up to the UN building and demanding One million Dollars!

I was pretty sure there was a giant smoking hole in my argument somewhere :-)

I suppose I'll go ahead and give my doctrine (revealed to me in a dream), and that's that the Harpies' souls are those of the Twelve Nine Seele Lords' wives. (As alchemists & esotericists, they would obviously need female counterparts.)
This retains the feminine/maternal connection while also explaining the numerical symmetry. It also parallels pretty obviously with Gendou & Yui.