nerv bae wrote:I think there's an accepted theory that NTE establishes only five pilots available, period: Ayanamis (as many as you want!), Nagisas (only one coffin's worth at a time, please), Ikaris (just one), Shikinamis (only one still active -- or so we thought!), and Makinamis (who knows lol). Unlike in NGE, where there's an entire Marduk class of pilot candidates, we just get these five in NTE. Under that restriction, neo-Nerv after the timeskip only has access to the first two, because Shinji, Asuka, and Mari are out of its reach (and protected by lots of explosive collars, etc.). Wille thus believes that neo-Nerv cannot operate Unit 13 with two pilots because 1) Ayanamis don't work and 2) Nagisa is a one-off / dead. The surprise appearance of Asuka's original shows this belief by Wille to be tragically wrong.
We don't know what exactly makes an Eva pilot in NTE, in NGE it was "easy" (a human + a soul of someone emotionally close to you to put in the core, a piece of your own soul also works if available), but in Rebuild we have no idea of anyone could be a pilot or not, as Rei and Asuka were created for it, but from what we got Shinji is a completely normal human, Kaworu is Kaworu so he doesn't count, and we don't know enough about Mari to know if she's a normal human, a clone or the 14th Doctor dicking around.