Postby Gendo's Glasses » Sat Mar 20, 2021 7:59 am
I think that's pretty close, but there's a few things that I think might fill in some missing details.
We know that NERV was rebranded at some stage. We know there's also the International Project Evangelion Agency and they appear to be 'above' NERV when it comes to relative position within the United Nations. We know that the preview at the end of the second film basically indicates that, post 2.22, life continued for normal for at least enough time. Based on 3.0+1.0, it seems like all those scenes in the preview section happened in the interim. So, my thoughts are...
At the end of 2.22, Kaworu appears and puts a stop to Third Impact with the Spear of Cassius. Lilith is still on the cross. The event becomes known as Near Third Impact. Sealing Pillars are constructed around Evangelion Unit 01, which is otherwise left where it is - spear and all.
Given the event, the United Nations arranges for NERV's staff to be detained and interrogated. Tokyo-3, the site of Near Third Impact Ground Zero, is abandoned. At the very least, any eyewitness to Near Third Impact is questioned. Given the damage to the old NERV logo that we see in 3.33 (and the bakelite everywhere), this may not have been a peaceful process (and would echo End of Evangelion, too.) Gendo and Fuyutsuki seemingly escape into the mountains to avoid this, eyewitnesses and architects both. Potentially the world thinks they are dead.
Here is where things get hazy. My assumption is that, after the UN debriefing, the powers-that-be basically decide to restructure NERV. After all, there's still Angels on the way. If human pilots can cause Impacts, then remove the pilot. So, all Evangelions are automated with dummy systems, including Mark 6, and the organization itself gets a 'digital' logo to reflect this. While SEELE doesn't seem to have the same string-pulling political power they did in the original series, they seem to be able to get Kaworu Nagisa put in as the new Commander of NERV. A five-person meeting of 'SEELE's Children' takes place at some point, presumably including Mari and Rei at the very least, maybe Asuka, too. No one seems to know what to do with Unit 01 - I presume the spear is still keeping it in torpor. While Kaworu is seemingly SEELE's boy, he works closely with Kaji and fills him in on some deep lore - the Fuyutsuki to his Gendo? WILLE may be formed around this time.
At some point, Angel 11 appears. Angel 11 is killed. Angel 12 appears. Angel 12 makes it all the way to Lilith. Given what's said in 2.22 about an Angel-detecting self-destruct system, it appears that the Twelfth Angel merged with Mark 6 prior to reaching Lilith. If Unit 02 and Unit 08 were deployed, Mark 6/Angel 12 must've defeated them. The Mark 6/12 Angel decapitates Lilith and triggers Third Impact by merging with it in place of its head. Kaji takes a VTOL jet all the way to Lilith's chamber and plays some pivotal role in ending Third Impact, sacrificing his life in the process, and this event seems to be the rallying cry for WILLE. At some point during Third Impact, Mark 6 is impaled by both spears - one of which is confirmed to be the Spear of Cassius.
Given that people seem to think Shinji was involved with Third Impact, it's likely that Unit 01 was a direct participant (also, the Failures of Infinity.) Perhaps, similar to EoTV's Arael, someone (Kaworu?) gave the order to pull the Spear out of Unit 01 and throw it at Mark 6 as a last resort, leading Unit 01 to involve itself in the Impact process. Either way, people get scared of Unit 01 and throw it into space within the Tesseract (how they managed this is not apparent) because the Spears are currently busy. People place a powerful seal over Lilith's chamber, which remains unbreached until the deployment of the Evangelion 13.
Third Impact is apocalyptic enough to basically end the world. With everyone busy with that, SEELE takes up residence in the ruins of NERV, with Gendo and Fuyutsuki slinking back in, too, and they begin churning out Ayanamis and Evas, including the Mark 9. Given their differing objectives during 2.22 and the Unit 01/Mark 6 gambit, it seems that both parties may have decided to bury the hatchet. The development of Evangelion 13 begins with the two-pilot system specifically so SEELE/NERV can defeat the barrier over Lilith's chamber. However, Gendo is just waiting for his opportunity to dispose of SEELE and Kaworu. Gendo potentially injects himself with the Key of Neb and transforms the Spear of Cassius on the sly. WILLE begins operations to stop NERV once and for all, managing to grab the Wunder at some point in the intervening fourteen years (but closer to 3.33 - the WILLE crew is not experienced), but realizing they need one hell of a power source to get it flying - and so, come up with a plan...
Meanwhile, Kaworu awaits Shinji. The passage of time from Near Third Impact to Third Impact appears to be a matter of weeks. It's still weird to me that 3.0+1.0 seems to have everyone think Near Third was the apocalypse when that just doesn't seem to fit with the events. You'd think you would have Third and Near Fourth, then, if Shinji turned the world to core and created Teeth Canyon. And if all that happened, I just can't see the UN going through with the whole detainment thing.
edit: A slight change to this could be that SEELE decides to kick off their own impact after Angel 11 and Angel 12 was a last-minute surprise, but I don't think SEELE is that sloppy. Potentially SEELE charged in and sent Mark 6 to kick things off when the UN apprehended everyone, but I don't think that makes much sense. Possible that Unit 01 was thrown into space before Third Impact and he's blamed because he was the instigator of the first big bad event, but I don't think that really matches with the blame he gets.
chee wrote:
