State of Humanity in 3.0

[Tumbling Down]

So there are still angels and there's still Shinji and Kaworu, but, uhhhh, how many humans are there outside of NERV and.. Misato's.. Eva-hunting.. gang.. whatever it's called?

[Sailor Star Dust]

We need 4.0/Final to be out to know exactly what's the state of humanity besides Nerv, Wille (Misato's group) and Shinji. Waiting sucks, but I think it'll be worth it.

[Ray]

What about the photo of post N3I earth from space? Doesn't that pretty much confirm the planet and humanity by extension is FUBAR?

[Jimbob]

It appears that way, but as said, Fridge Logic has you realize Misato and Wunder's fleet can't just be sitting around in the middle of nowhere all the time. They have to have a homebase somewhere, and they're clearly getting resupplied by someone.

We just don't know because we almost never see them unless it's from Shinji's perspective.

[BlueBasilisk]

It's just shown to be tinted red and the Door of Guf over Antarctica seems to have closed. Otherwise, we don't know a thing about the state of the world outside of the old Tokyo-3 area. The oceans were already red before N3I.

[Vikocho]

Misato and Wunder's fleet can't just be sitting around in the middle of nowhere all the time. They have to have a homebase somewhere, and they're clearly getting resupplied by someone.

Also didn't the ships that are tethered to Wunder has crews? and remember when Wunder was about to fly for the first time they evacuated? they have to go somewhere, right?

[Nuclear Lunchbox]

Simple answer: we don't really know. A popular theory was that there is some sort of human settlement a la Zion, but SSD's right on the money when she says that we won't have any definite answers until FINAL comes out.

[ElMariachi]

I'll just copy the very good words of PW posted on his fanfiction thread:

On world-building.

Q has two clearly differentiated levels, but one is downplayed and the other emphasised. We are made conscious, from end to end, of Shinji's view, and what he is aware of being told or shown (I leave the possibility in place that his awareness or comprehension may simply be flawed, as well as misled deliberately). The world has been devastated; Kaworu tells us, and shows him, even talks of extinction. Kaworu says this is Shinji's fault, and Shinji's experience of the cold stares on the Wunder must confirm for him that they think the same. On the other hand, in a mere fourteen years, Nerv, wrecked though it is, and Seele, together, have a mass production facility for Evas and the Nemesis series; Wille has the Wunder, with huge new weapons capabilities, the capability to undertake expeditions in space, a vast support fleet for the Wunder. These things did not come out of thin air, neither are they supported on nothing. There are still huge resources, physical and human, available in this world, and there must be parts of the world where they live and work. There is still hope, and I think that the bleakness of Kendrix's vision is a step too far, even though it is what Shinji has been led to accept.

And just to give you a comparison, the size of the Wunder fleet is roughly the same than the US NAVY 7th Fleet, meaning all the ships the US Navy has in the Pacific!
And then add to that four times the number of aircraft carriers (a good dozen for the Wunder, the 7th Fleet had three), and you just begin to see the logistic behind necessary to operate and supply that fleet.
Knowing that an aircraft carrier has a crew ranging between 2000 and 6000 sailor, and that there are a good dozen of them, just the aircraft carriers represent between 24000 and 72000 member, added to all the frigates and destroyers also present in the fleet, with crews varying between 500 and 1000, plus the submarines (crew around 150)
And I'm not even talking about the AAA Wunder itself, whose size is three times as long as an aircraft carrier (and that's without the tail, which doubles the length of the thing!), which would logically have a crew ranging around the 10000-15000 sailors.

All in all, it's sure that there are at least more than 100.000 sailors in this fleet! Sailors that are trained, healed, fed, and all possess uniforms and equipment in good shape!

And as a final touch, all those ships comes from different Navies: you have US Navy ships, British Royal Navy ships and Russian ships, meaning that WILLE had to find those ships all around the world, and I doubt battleships would had survived all around the planet if it was obliterated as Kaworu implied.

In fact, the only big unknown is the mysterious red tint over the world seen during operation US. On one hand that would suggest that the whole planet was turned to core material, but on the other then how all those ships, that predates even Second Impact, are still intact? And when Fourth Impact started and the vortex rings started to expand, we got a quick shot of nearby cities, and even docked ships where in core material.

But that (big) detail aside, everything points toward the rest of the world still in one piece and standing strong, with lots of people still alive. The climate is probably more fucked than before, the Moon spinning wildly at close range of Earth must cause lots of problems (notably huge tsunamis), but apparently the situation isn't that desperate.

Also didn't the ships that are tethered to Wunder has crews? and remember when Wunder was about to fly for the first time they evacuated? they have to go somewhere, right?

IIRC, all crews of non vital ships were to be evacuated to vital ships and the AAA Wunder itself. Where else they were supposed to go since all the supply choppers left the area when the NS were detected?
They probably came back to their post offscreen once the Wunder destroyed the NS, while Shinji was in his cell.

[UrsusArctos]

Presumably the ships had a large number of functions automated to reduce their crew components to a fraction of what they used to be, and that would make sense since Wunder has newbies and civilians among its crew. How many humans are present on the planet is a good question - but the point about there being resources to spare is undoubtedly true.

It does make me wonder how the ships manage the tidal effects on the planet. The force of gravity is proportional to the square of the distance - and if the moon is one-tenth the distance from earth (38,400 kilometers - inside Geostationary orbit!) or maybe less, like one-twentieth (19,200 kilometers- sure looks that way!) the gravitational effects would increase from hundred to four hundred times the original.

The tides would be enough to completely obliterate all coastal areas and wash them down into the sea, and earthquakes would also become more frequent as magma in the Earth's mantle shifted in response to the moon's gravity. The moon would also get the worst of it - it turns out that Earth's Roche limit is 18470 kilometers, so if the moon hit that limit, it would start to break up and turn into orbiting ringlets for Earth, many pieces of those would bombard Earth's surface and destroy the atmosphere for good. That it hasn't might be due to whatever voodoo happened at 3I.

Whatever the rest of the world is doing in order to survive and go as far as it did must be right - there is no way that the present world would survive if an apocalypse happened and the moon was drawn unnaturally close to earth.

[Monk Ed]

About the moon, voodoo maybe, but we also have to consider the possibility that the director just didn't care about what having the moon that close would actually do. I remember reading an EvaCommentary where (I think) Reichu mentioned in passing just how impossible the telescoping city buildings would be due to the amount of energy required to move them. It's also pretty common for people to point out that Shinji and Misato should not have survived the N2 mine explosion in the first episode and the first Rebuild movie. Rubber physics could be in play with this moon business as well.

[ElMariachi]

That, and there's also to take into account that in Evangelion, the Moon is some sort of spaceship (or at least a component of a spaceship), and if the grid pattern of core is any indication, it might had been activated, turning on a sort of anti-grav function that let it be so close to the Earth without breaking it (or itself), and also so the Moon won't crash against Earth, because at this distance, it's completely impossible for the Moon to not be further attracted by Earth's gravitational pull.

[Monk Ed]

I would take any notion of the moon being a space ship this time around with a grain of salt. New continuity, new rules, and enough things have changed by now that I wouldn't just assume that something that was true in NGE is still in play in NTE. Especially anything relating to the Seeds, because we already know that the whole Seed of Life dynamic is different because we have four Adams instead of one.

[ElMariachi]

^
That's true I admit, but just the strange pattern of core material could be an hint that the physical properties of the Moon were modified compared to its normal state (ie before the time skip)

[Nuclear Lunchbox]

El, taking into account what you said about how many people it would take to run the ships, that's certainly an interesting idea- putting 100,000 humans in perspective, that's about a third of Iceland's total population.

[Ray]

Simple answer: we don't really know. A popular theory was that there is some sort of human settlement a la Zion.

Well. . . considering Eva was one of the influences on the original Matrix. . .

There's also the fact that there are Minors like Sakura and Mayumi are members of the crew. . . Now with the original series it made sense because only children could pilot the Evas. But if the world isn't as destroyed as 3.0 seems to heavily imply it is. Then why are they in the Wunders crew unless they were strapped for resources and people? This is not criticism, I'm genuinely asking out of curiousity.

Ever hear of "Sci Fi Writers Have No Sense Of Scale?"

[pwhodges]

Sukura a minor? I don't know if we are told her age anywhere, but I got the impression that Touji's little sister was about 8 at the start - which is already a pretty big gap from her 14yo brother. After the timeskip she'd be 22 - hardly a minor; if she signed up at eighteen, she's had time for some useful training as well.

Sakura in 2.0 -   SPOILER: Show

[Ray]

Really? I thought she was Shinji's age.

Well. . . now I feel silly.

[pwhodges]

We aren't told - the picture I just added to the previous post is all we have to go on. Even if she's six in that picture, she'd be 20 in Q.

[Nuclear Lunchbox]

Now that I think about it, she would have to be older than Shinji. It's odd, though- I was in the same mindset as heavytread when I watched the movie. Sakura really doesn't come off as an adult, does she?

[Lennik]

Sakura really doesn't come off as an adult, does she?

Does anyone in Eva?