Yet people loved to immediately call it a ridiculous idea when Reichu proposed it, so it can't be nearly as clear-cut as you claim.

Well, joke's on them.

DantesInferno wrote:I do not think the vessels are the original cores extracted from the Adams though. In Shin we learn that Nerv can manufacture them at will (if not easily), and thus they could replace the Mark 09 that was destroyed at the end of Q.

So you think that the Opfer Units are not the original Vessels but copies of them? That may be possible, however when Ritsuko called mark 9 "Wunder's original master" made me think that they are indeed the originals.

Check this out -
https://twitter.com/ArqaZone/status/1379183416642564099

Heaven Piercing Man wrote:EDIT: I remembered. It was on ETI/LUElinks, a gamefaqs spinoff message board which is now a shell of what it used to be.

Link?

Raikyu wrote:

DantesInferno#919077 wrote:I do not think the vessels are the original cores extracted from the Adams though. In Shin we learn that Nerv can manufacture them at will (if not easily), and thus they could replace the Mark 09 that was destroyed at the end of Q.

So you think that the Opfer Units are not the original Vessels but copies of them? That may be possible, however when Ritsuko called mark 9 "Wunder's original master" made me think that they are indeed the originals.

I don’t know what you mean by “original vessels”; what I think is that perhaps, the vessels themselves are man-made from the start, there are no “originals”, and thus they do not come from the Adams (i.e., they are not the cores or othwerwise any other parts removed from the original Adams). I think just like the Wunders, they were manufactured by Nerv/Seele as tools for instrumentality. What the name “Adams Vessels” means, I don’t really know. Perhaps they’re intended to host the souls of the Adams somehow.

UrsusArctos wrote:Check this out -
https://twitter.com/ArqaZone/status/1379183416642564099

Heaven Piercing Man#919134 wrote:EDIT: I remembered. It was on ETI/LUElinks, a gamefaqs spinoff message board which is now a shell of what it used to be.

Link?

I haven't been there in like 4 years man
and they nuked the archives

Greetings everyone!

I’m back with another summary of an eye’s only youtube video that explains how deicide/ the power to kill a god is used in Shin Eva.
This topic also answers some questions about the Adams, Eva Opfer Types, Nerv Battleships etc which grew out of this topic by EGF user Cookie H Wilson.
Special thanks to EGF founder Reichu for her extremely readable translated script which I quoted extensively from as well as some pictures from her twitter.

Introduction

Questions we will answer:

• What is the deicide and the god killing power they mention in Q and Shin?
• Who/What has the god killing power?
• How do the Nerv battleships work?
• What are the Adam’s Vessels, what do they do?
• How are the Adam’s Vessels related to the Adams from the second impact scene?
• Why can’t Nerv just build another battleship for Eva Mark 09a?
• With all this talk about god slaying/ deicide/ the power to kill a god, when is it even used!?
• How is this power to kill a god used?

[Note: this was mentioned by EGF user DantesInferno in another topic but the word deicide in Japanese is 「神殺し」 and the power to kill a god is 「神殺しの力」. So these terms are used somewhat interchangeably.

Table of Contents

[1.] AAA Wunder
[2.] Nerv Battleships
[3.] Adam’s Vessels
[4.] Deicide 神殺し
[5.] Overall Summary = TLDR

AAA Wunder



To start off, let’s Get to the bottom of the power to kill a god. Who/what has it?

In Q, Misato and Ritsuko both say that the Wunder has the power to kill gods.

00:14:30 {Misato} The power to kill gods... I'll see what it can do.

00:24:15 {Ritsuko} So this is the power to kill gods.
00:24:17 {Ritsuko} Wunder. Truly the ship of hope.

Again in Shin Eva, while in the same kind of ship (Erlosung) Fuyutuski says:

The same god-killing power, how troublesome.
同じ神殺しの力、厄介ね

There’s certainly one thing we can say from this.

The power to kill a god is not just a unique ability that the Wunder has but rather something that all the Nerv battleships have in common.

To summarize:

• Wunder has the god killing power.
• Not only the wunder, but Nerv battleships also have the god-killing power.

Nerv Battleships




Now, you might be thinking: what the hell is Nerv doing with the battleships that it built which have the power to kill a god?

In Q, Ritsuko says that the Adam's Vessels are Wunder’s original master.

01:20:46 {Ritsuko} The Adams' Vessel is Wunder's true master.

We also see this in Shin Eva, when Mark 09 takes control of the Wunder for a second time. [Note: Mark 09 = an adam’s vessel]

It was previously mentioned [in other topics] that Eva 09 to Eva 12 are Adam’s vessels and also referred to as Eva Opfer Types. Opfer is the German word for Sacrifice

Moreover, each Nerv battleship battleship 1 through 4 has a corresponding Eva Opfer type.
For example, the third ship, Erbsunde corresponds to Mark 11.

In addition, the advanced Ayanami series were prepared as the pilots of the Eva Opfer Types.



From the script Fuyutsuki says:

The Adams' vessels to be sacrificed, and the immaculate life-form, made only of the pure sexless soul(s), the rebirth of the Advanced Ayanami Series.

We can say that the Adam’s vessels are also a “sacrifice” for the Nerv battleships.
I think this was mentioned in another topic but the Advanced Ayanami series, Eva Opfer Type, and Nerv battleships all make a set. That is, they go together.

• Battleship needs an Eva = Eva Opfer Type (Adam’s Vessel)
• Eva Opfer Type needs a pilot with a soul = Advanced Ayanami series.
  All three form a set.

This is sort of akin to how Pilot ->entry plug -> evangelion are connected. Here, the entry plug is the vessel of the soul (魂の器). So the same abstraction is used with the battleships. Ayanami Series (soul)-> Eva Opfer Type (Adam’s vessel) -> Nerv Battleship.

The Opfer series connects Nerv’s battleships with the Ayanami series which are essentially just pure souls. So that’s the explanation for the Eva Opfer Types.

Nerv battleships do not function independently, they are operated using Adam's vessels so Wunder can only operate by using Unit 01. Well what about the soul in Eva 01? Rei 2.0’s soul is in there! We see later in the minus space that she’s been piloting Eva 01 the whole time.

Again, taking everything into account, the set is 3 Nerv battleships, 3 advanced Ayanami series, 3 Adam’s vessels + 1 Adam’s Vessel, 1 advanced Ayanami series, and the wunder. Get it? 3+1

Adam’s Vessels

So in the end, we can say with confidence what the Adam’s Vessels are.

As the name suggests, are they related to the Adams that we see in the second impact scene in 2.0?



When Mari absorbs Eva 09 - 12, she says:

There's a whole bunch of Eva Opfer-type, which are/in the capacity of the Adams Vessels. As one would expect, Fuyutsuki-sensei's performance was good, nya.
アダムスの器たる、エヴァオップファータイプが勢ぞろい。さすが冬月先生手際がいい,にゃあ

The key word here is たる = (those) who are; (that) which is; in the capacity of​.
The key phrase is 「アダムスの器たる、エヴァオップファータイプ」
That is the Eva Opfer types which are in the capacity of Adam’s Vessels.

They key point is that Adam’s vessels are (NOT) Adams

Adam’s Vessels =/= Adams

Moreover, after absorbing all of the Adam's Vessels, in the scene before heading to the Wunder, Unit 08 shoots down the Nerv battleships in between dimensions and Mari says:

The Lilin won't use you guys anymore. Sleep well, Adams.
もうリリンが君らを使うこともない。ゆっくり眠りな、アダマス達。

Sleep well, Adams.

She doesn’t say sleep well, Adam's Vessels to the Nerv battleships, she says sleep well adams when the Nerv battleships are sinking.　

Therefore,

• Eva Opfer Types = Adam’s Vessels
• Nerv Battleships = Adams (アダムスたち）

In other words, the Nerv battleships are the reincarnated Adam’s that were lost in the second impact and their forms were changed. The Adam’s Vessels are what controls the Adam’s. So that’s why there needed to be four nerv battleships.

This also occurs in Shin in Misato's line when facing Mark 09 in the Wunder.

So it's a newly built Mark.09, pilot included!
パイロットごとMark 09を新造したのか

Even though the Ayanami series pilot and the mark 09 [Adam's vessel] were newly built, the first ship Buse [original name for the Wunder] was not, and the Mark 09 went through all the trouble to take back Wunder.It seems “Buse” is something that can not be “newly built” and is irreplaceable.

To quote Gendo in Shin,

Someone who is not human left the world of God(s) and remained here, along with the Adams and the six spears.
人ではない何者かがアダムスと6本の槍と共に神の世界を ここに残した

In the world of the gods, the Adams and the Golgotha object can’t be made via human means so we can infer that the Buse/Wunder was never newly made.

Also, in Mari’s line, “Sleep well, Adams” she uses the word アダムスたち。This line shows that there are not multiple Adams but rather multiple individual beings (個体) called adams. It also suggests that Mari’s existence is closer to the Adams and not the Lilin. (FAR perhaps)

To summarize,

• the Adam’s Vessels and the Adams are different things.
• The Nerv battleships are reincarnated Adams whose forms were changed and their corresponding Adam’s vessels are the things that are required to control them.

Deicide aka 神殺し

Based on what was said before, we can say that the power to kill a god that Nerv battleships have is also the power of the Adams.

Also, there’s one more thing in the film that’s related to using the Adams' power to do something else.

It’s Evangelion Unit 13.

01:18:09 {Mari} Guess it's Awakened...
01:18:12 {Mari} It's one of the surviving Adams!
覚醒したみたいね。アダムスの生き残りが！

In Q, Mari calls Eva 13 one of the surviving Adams. That is to say, Eva 13 is the evangelion that holds “the Adams’ power,” the power to kill a god.

Again in Q, Gendo says

01:17:12 {Gendo} The long desired Human Instrumentality Project,
01:17:15 {Gendo} and the inevitable deicide will be completed by me.

Since both Seele and Gendou have the goal of "deicide", naturally their plan will be based around using the Adams.


We get 5 Adams if we include the 4 Nerv battleships and Eva 13. Moreover, there are 5 crosses at the epicenter of the second impact

That is, the five crosses represent the Adams of the 4 Nerv battleships and Eva 13.



To summarize,

• the power to kill a god is the power of the Adams
• Other than Nerv’s battleships, Eva 13 is also made from an Adam

How was the power to kill a god used?

So when was the power to kill a god that was mentioned in Q used?

Deicide is carried out towards the very end of the film approximately around the time of the “Neon Genesis” scene.

Shinji says

I finally understand.
I guess Father wanted to see Mother off.
This is the god-slaying that Father wanted.
やっとわかった
お父さんはお母さんを見送りたかっただね
それはお父さんのお願った神殺し

Gendo uses the lance of Gaius to pierce Unit 13 to Unit 01 with Yui inside and thus his desired deicide is accomplished. Therefore, Yui, who is a god, is able to carry out the deicide by means of using Unit 13 which has the power to kill a god.

However, what was the lance of Gaius (Wille’s lance) used for in this “neon genesis”?

Ritsuko says:

The requirement [to convert the Wunder into a spear] is likely in the spinal cord connection system.
要は脊維結合システムにありそうよ

The spear of Wille was created by converting Wunder's spinal connection system.


After the Wunder (which has the power to kill a god) was converted into the Lance of Gaius / Spear of Wille, the deicide occurred when the spear pierced Unit 01 and Unit 13.



To summarize:

• The power to kill a god was finally used in “Neon Genesis.”
• This was accomplished by means of the converted spear of Wille and Unit 13

Overall Summary = TLDR

• Adam’s Vessels are (not) Adams.
• The Wunder along with the other 3 Nerv battleships are the Adams whose form was changed.
• The Adams are the things that have the power to kill a god.
• The power to kill a god was used for “Neon Genesis”
• To use the god-slaying power, the Wunder was converted into a spear (Spear of Gaius)

Amazing Post! It was really interesting and gives more insights about those concepts. Do you plan to continue expanding on those theories?

Thanks, Pluto-this can be helpful for the community at large. Though I would say that the way this post corroborates Reichu's theories, gives a slight amount of support for the idea at least NTE's mythology was already mostly thought out, instead of made up on the fly.

So, the plot twist is that there were actually 5 Adams originally, and not 4 as we thought? So Mark.06, after "dying" during 3I, was somehow rebuilt as one of the 4 battleships, while the last Adam was converted to EVA-13, that's right?

Can you merge this with my thread? thread/20747/The-Adams-Eva-13-The-ships-The-vessels/

Done. -- Staff

ElMariachi wrote:So, the plot twist is that there were actually 5 Adams originally, and not 4 as we thought? So Mark.06, after "dying" during 3I, was somehow rebuilt as one of the 4 battleships, while the last Adam was converted to EVA-13, that's right?

Let's just say this was alluded when Mari said 13 was one of the surviving Adams.
4 Adams = alive
1 = possibly dead at the time of Q

Great post Pluto! Wow

I prefer when the vessel of the adams was a rocket kayak

https://twitter.com/ikuto_yamashita/sta ... 06/photo/1

EscapismIsBad wrote:

ElMariachi#919786 wrote:So, the plot twist is that there were actually 5 Adams originally, and not 4 as we thought? So Mark.06, after "dying" during 3I, was somehow rebuilt as one of the 4 battleships, while the last Adam was converted to EVA-13, that's right?

Let's just say this was alluded when Mari said 13 was one of the surviving Adams.
4 Adams = alive
1 = possibly dead at the time of Q

I say that because the leading theory until Shin was released was that Mark.06 and EVA-13 were two of the four Adams seen in Misato's flash-back, and that the Key of Nebuchadnezzar was a third one reduced to a minuscule fossil (NTE's version of the Adam embryo from NGE), leaving a fourth one unknown (sometimes assumed to be EVA-01 if it wasn't made from Lilith this time)

Registration wrote:I prefer when the vessel of the adams was a rocket kayak

https://twitter.com/ikuto_yamashita/sta ... 06/photo/1

Glad to see that Yamashita is still as batshit insane as ever!
Looking at a Google translating of the tweet, it's interesting that in the first drafts Mark.9-A was supposed to have a visual similarity with Q's Mark.9. Another interpretation is that it was supposed to be the salvaged remains of Mark.09, hastily repaired a la EVA-02 and sent against the Wunder for a second round.

Edit: there are interesting tidbits on Yamashita's twitter, for example, Misato's old electric car from the 2.0 was supposed to be present in the Third Village to serve as a storage battery for naturally generated power :
https://twitter.com/ikuto_yamashita/sta ... 7607721984

As always, great post Pluto!

Some comments:

Pluto wrote:[Note: this was mentioned by EGF user DantesInferno in another topic but the word deicide in Japanese is 「神殺し」 and the power to kill a god is 「神殺しの力」. So these terms are used somewhat interchangeably.

I think there is a bit of mistransaltion around these terms, and even though it does not change the end result, I’ll clarify forn anyone interested.

As I mentioned eralier, 神殺し can be either translated as

1. An abstract noun: Deicide / God slaying
2. A concrete noun: God-Killer

(TL,DR: I believe Ritsuko and Misato use the latter when refering to the Wunder herslef, and Gendo/Seele use the former as 神殺しを行う "to perform kamigoroshi" when refering to a specific step of instrumentality - they are obviously related, in that one is responsible for performing the other)

When Ritsuko questions Misato’s reckless plan to fight the Nemesis series, and she responds:

Misato wrote:神殺しの力、見極めるだけよ！

This phrase is a bit ambiguous, because at this point we do not know what exactly kamigoroshi is refering to, and whether it's being used as a concrete or abstract noun, so we can't infer from context.

The way I always understood it is as:

We'll just find out the power/strenght of the kamigoroshi!

...where kamigoroshi refers to the Wunder herself (i.e., nicknamed “The God-killer"). Equivalently, instead of translating 力 directly as “power”, the same meaning can be rephrased as:

We'll just find out what the kamigoroshi is capable of!

So we are translating the noun 力 to either “the power of (something)” or “what (something) is capable of”; but it can’t be “What the power of (something) can do”, because for that we wold need two 力s! Literally, it would have had to be:

「神殺しの力」の力、見極めるだけよ！

Of course, it is also possible to construe the original dialogue as:

We’ll just find out what the God-killing power is about!

...And now 神殺し kamigoroshi is refering to an ability that the Wunder has, rather than the Wunder herself. I lean towards the first interpretation, given the repeated use of kamigoroshi later by Ritsuko, and the whole context of the scene to me suggests rather that they are testing the Wunder as a ship.

---

Pluto wrote:Again in Shin Eva, while in the same kind of ship (Erlosung) Fuyutuski says:

The same god-killing power, how troublesome.
同じ神殺しの力、厄介ね

This I would translate, word-for-word, as:

The power of a similar God Killer; how troublesome.

...and ultimately, rephrased to men what would more naturally be rendered in English as:

An equally powered (i.e., matched) God-killer; how troublesome!

The conslusion of yourt post regarding the ships stands, though.

...

Pluto wrote:This also occurs in Shin in Misato's line when facing Mark 09 in the Wunder.

So it's a newly built Mark.09, pilot included!
パイロットごとMark 09を新造したのか

Even though the Ayanami series pilot and the mark 09 [Adam's vessel] were newly built, the first ship Buse [original name for the Wunder] was not, and the Mark 09 went through all the trouble to take back Wunder.It seems “Buse” is something that can not be “newly built” and is irreplaceable.

A more literal translation would be:

So they built the Mark 09 anew, pilot and all!

This is a great finding by the way; Gendo had no option but to reclaim the Wunder. I discussed with Reichu on Twitter (spoiler! my real name is there ) whether the Mark 09 was rebuilt or salvaged. I pointed out that in Shin, it (and it alone among the Opfers) is refered to as Mark 09A. This is reminiscent of how at the end of the third Star Trek movie ("The Search for Spock"), the USS Enterprise is destroyed, but by the next movie the rebuild the "Enterprise A", and later in the series there's an Entrprise B, C, etc. So you go from "plain, unqualified Enterprise" (the original) to "serially lettered Enterprises (sequel ships)". It's perhaps a long shot, and easy to miss...

Pluto wrote:To quote Gendo in Shin,

Someone who is not human left the world of God(s) and remained here, along with the Adams and the six spears.
人ではない何者かがアダムスと6本の槍と共に神の世界を ここに残した

This I would rather translate as:

Someone not human left the world of god(s) here, togehter with the Adams and 6 spears.

There is no "remaining" (notice it's the transitive 残す, not the intransitive 残る).

Pluto wrote:In the world of the gods, the Adams and the Golgotha object can’t be made via human means so we can infer that the Buse/Wunder was never newly made.

Also, in Mari’s line, “Sleep well, Adams” she uses the word アダムスたち。This line shows that there are not multiple Adams but rather multiple individual beings (個体) called adams. It also suggests that Mari’s existence is closer to the Adams and not the Lilin. (FAR perhaps)

Yes indeed: アダムスたち contains both the English plural marker -s and the Japanese pseudo-plural marker たち, which means that each individual of the group is refered to as "Adams", not "Adam".

Also, there’s one more thing in the film that’s related to using the Adams' power to do something else.

It’s Evangelion Unit 13.

I'm still not 100% on this, because it does not explain how Unit-01 fits in. Unit-01 seems to be pretty much "on the same footing" as Unit-13 in terms of awakening capabilites. And then we have the Mark 06. I believe these Evas are (three of the four) Adams, and the Wunders are some sort of "alter egos" of them created perhaps at Second Impact.

Pluto wrote:So when was the power to kill a god that was mentioned in Q used?

Deicide is carried out towards the very end of the film approximately around the time of the “Neon Genesis” scene.

Shinji says

I finally understand.
I guess Father wanted to see Mother off.
This is the god-slaying that Father wanted.

I totally missed/forgot this; great finding!

DantesInferno wrote:I'm still not 100% on this, because it does not explain how Unit-01 fits in. Unit-01 seems to be pretty much "on the same footing" as Unit-13 in terms of awakening capabilites. And then we have the Mark 06. I believe these Evas are (three of the four) Adams, and the Wunders are some sort of "alter egos" of them created perhaps at Second Impact.

Ja- we have at least two Adams to account for- Eva-13 and Mark.06, not counting the Jo outline (which could be Eva-13) or the Key (which needn't be an Adams necessarily). The only way I could see this working is if we say Mark.06 was the 12th Angel from the beginning. But the 12th Angel's form is pretty distinct from both Mark.06's and from Lilith's, and it seems to be the Armisael analogue, so I think this is doubtful.

If there were six Spears, and we only ever see the two of them from Q, and the Wunder turns back into a Spear, couldn't the Ships be transformations of the Spears?
On the other hand, the Black Moon can apparently be turned into Spears(??) so everything here is operating on really weird rules.

Lavinius wrote:Ja- we have at least two Adams to account for- Eva-13 and Mark.06, not counting the Jo outline (which could be Eva-13) or the Key (which needn't be an Adams necessarily). The only way I could see this working is if we say Mark.06 was the 12th Angel from the beginning. But the 12th Angel's form is pretty distinct from both Mark.06's and from Lilith's, and it seems to be the Armisael analogue, so I think this is doubtful.

I always assumed the "crime scene" outline seen in Jo was where the Unit-01 Adams had been found (this makes more sense than Eva-13, which isn't even hinted at until Q).

Yes, Mark 06 being the 12th angel from the beginning makes little sense. There was some speculation on another thread that maybe Seele injected tha Angel on purpose at some point (perhaps as part of "turning the Mark 06 into an autonomous unit") and/or programmed it (think Ireul from NGE). There is a rejected scene in the storyboards for 2.0 apparently where Mark 06 is shown blown away by second impact and into the Moon. Some say it was removed because it was not needed to make it so explicit (i.e., it can be inferred from all other visual cues along the movies); but some believe that the scene being removed means it is no longer "canon". I personally think that it makes no sense for Seele to go all the way to the Moon to build the Mark 06 from scratch.

Lavinius wrote:If there were six Spears, and we only ever see the two of them from Q, and the Wunder turns back into a Spear, couldn't the Ships be transformations of the Spears?

This is actually a brilliant idea. In Shin, we learn for the first time (from Gendo's exposition) that there were originally 6 spears; but since the first movie only two have appeared on screen, and a total of four including the 2I flashback. This idea of yours is a nice explanation of where the other 4 ended up. Still does not explain why Mari calls the ships "Adams".

Lavinius wrote:On the other hand, the Black Moon can apparently be turned into Spears(??) so everything here is operating on really weird rules.

Yes; apparently both the ships and the black moon are made of some special material unique to the ancestral race, not found originally on Earth, and from which the spears too are made?

It bugs me how there's absolutely no mention or reference whatsoever to a white moon counterpart; but then again there is no single Adam as counterpart to Lilith; she is refered as the second angel, and Kaworu as the first, but never are the (4) Adams refered to as angles (unlike in NGE, where Adam is the first angel).
Gendo mentions that the ancestral race left the Golgotha Object, the spears and the Adams, but no, mention is made to Lilith. This is very puzzling...

I have a theory about the identity of the Adams. It's not completely fleshed out (and can't be until I can actually see the whole movie), but I thought it was coherent enough to add to the discussion here.

The 4 battleships definitely have some connection to the Adams, but I'm hesitant to say they're the Adams themselves. I'd still say we've seen 3 of the Adams in the films: Unit-01 (the "crime scene" seen in 1.0, like DantesInferno said), Mk.06, and Unit-13. Since Mari called Unit-13 one of the remaining Adams, then that implies that one of them was destroyed/died/no longer exists, which would explain why we've only seen 3 and not all 4. The only question I had at this point was about the Key of Nebuchadnezzar: was it the missing Adams? Was it related to the Adams at all?

After seeing in Shin that there were 6 spears (Lilith's + 4 Adams' + ?) and 5 crosses at Second Impact, I had a new idea: the existence of 1 Adam proper, plus 4 Adams (what their exact connection/relationship is I have no clue. Like I said, not completely fleshed out yet). The 1 Adam then was reduced to the Key as we see it in 2.0, analogous to the Adam embryo from NGE. That's why Kaji calls it the "Lost Number" - all this time we've been thinking there were only the 4 Adams, as Adam itself was lost.

I also believe that Adam would be the 1st Angel, and so Kaworu's soul would be Adam's, again a la NGE. Kaworu calls himself the 1st Angel in 3.0, but we know that Kaworu (or at least this version of Kaworu) isn't older than Lilith, the 2nd Angel, so I assumed this was just Kaworu referring to his soul. But despite being the 1st Angel, he "falls" to become the 13th Angel, and for a while I didn't know what that meant specifically. On my last rewatch of 3.0, I noticed that when his fall, during the activation of Unit-13/start of Fourth Impact, triggers the DSS Choker, it gives a Pattern Blue alert - implying that up until that point, Kaworu was not Pattern Blue, but became Pattern Blue as the trigger of Fourth Impact - and that's why Kaworu becomes the 13th Angel. He becomes an Angel in his own right, not just because he had the soul of the 1st Angel. By that logic, if triggering an impact can change your blood type to Pattern Blue and register you as an Angel, then perhaps the same happened to Shinji in Near-Third/Third Impact - making him the missing 11th Angel.

This is all kind of messy right now, but hopefully this makes sense to some of you!

MakeGoodChoices wrote:I have a theory about the identity of the Adams. It's not completely fleshed out (and can't be until I can actually see the whole movie), but I thought it was coherent enough to add to the discussion here.

The 4 battleships definitely have some connection to the Adams, but I'm hesitant to say they're the Adams themselves. I'd still say we've seen 3 of the Adams in the films: Unit-01 (the "crime scene" seen in 1.0, like DantesInferno said), Mk.06, and Unit-13. Since Mari called Unit-13 one of the remaining Adams, then that implies that one of them was destroyed/died/no longer exists, which would explain why we've only seen 3 and not all 4. The only question I had at this point was about the Key of Nebuchadnezzar: was it the missing Adams? Was it related to the Adams at all?

This has been discussed long time ago by founding forum user Reichu. Ironically, she no longer thinks the key is one of the Adams, and says she's working on anew theory.

MakeGoodChoices wrote:After seeing in Shin that there were 6 spears (Lilith's + 4 Adams' + ?) and 5 crosses at Second Impact, I had a new idea: the existence of 1 Adam proper, plus 4 Adams (what their exact connection/relationship is I have no clue. Like I said, not completely fleshed out yet).

This too has been discussed, in a thread started by me of I remember correctly. Yes, the fifth cross is a real puzzle, as are the 6 spears.

MakeGoodChoices wrote: The 1 Adam then was reduced to the Key as we see it in 2.0, analogous to the Adam embryo from NGE. That's why Kaji calls it the "Lost Number" - all this time we've been thinking there were only the 4 Adams, as Adam itself was lost.

Kaji's whole line would be transalted as:

Kaji Ryouji wrote:予備として保管されていたロストナンバー
The lost number, which was being kept as a spare.

Cryptic indeed, but "lost number" can take any out of a number of meanings. It could be the one lost Adams among the original four, or, as you said, refer to the original, "central" Adam. We do know from Gendo's dialogue that the Adams (already plural), the spears and the Golgotha object were "left behind" by "someone not human" (let's call them "Ancestral Race"), so this would seem to dispell that the original Adam either split into or spawned the four "child" Adams...

MakeGoodChoices wrote:I also believe that Adam would be the 1st Angel, and so Kaworu's soul would be Adam's, again a la NGE.

This makes sense. We know for sure that Lilith is the second angel, and Kaworu calls himself the first (whatever that means). This doesn't leave any clear room for the four "Adams" to fit in.

MakeGoodChoices wrote:Kaworu calls himself the 1st Angel in 3.0, but we know that Kaworu (or at least this version of Kaworu) isn't older than Lilith, the 2nd Angel, so I assumed this was just Kaworu referring to his soul. But despite being the 1st Angel, he "falls" to become the 13th Angel, and for a while I didn't know what that meant specifically. On my last rewatch of 3.0, I noticed that when his fall, during the activation of Unit-13/start of Fourth Impact, triggers the DSS Choker, it gives a Pattern Blue alert - implying that up until that point, Kaworu was not Pattern Blue, but became Pattern Blue as the trigger of Fourth Impact - and that's why Kaworu becomes the 13th Angel. He becomes an Angel in his own right, not just because he had the soul of the 1st Angel. By that logic, if triggering an impact can change your blood type to Pattern Blue and register you as an Angel, then perhaps the same happened to Shinji in Near-Third/Third Impact - making him the missing 11th Angel.

I also thought about this. There are a few unresolved issues, though:

1. If Shinji becomes the 11th by virtue of triggering the impact, What happened to the "scheduled" 11th Angel? (the one that would have attacked Tokyo-3 right after Zeruel, had N3I not happened).

2. What makes an angel, exactly? In NTE, there are several "Pattern Blue" entities that for some reason aren't "counted" as angels (the Mark 04a, b, c and the 44A-4444C etc. Evas in Paris). In NGE, we know the angels originated from the One Adam at Secodn Impact, and for some unknown reason they appear one at a time (perhaps each is a successive reincarnation of the single Adam soul, and therefore only one can exist at any given time?). In NTE, the rules seem to be more convoluted and not stated explicitly...

3. We still don't know what is meant by Kaworu being "unseated" from 1st angel and "sroped" (落とされた) to the 13th, as if someone (Gendo?) needed to reclaim the 1st place at the top, for some reason (instrumentality?), and how does that work...