Could Unit 1 be the first Eva?

[illustriusCheese]

A thought has been bugging me for a while now and I thought it was time to voice it, could Unit 1 be the fist Eva? The reason for me wondering this is because Yui got absorbed into the Eva before Rei 1 was even thought of, so wouldn't that make Unit 1 the first functioning Eva?

[AuraTwilight]

Unit 00 was being produced first. We even saw this in a flashback. Once Unit 00 was technically functional in that it wasn't a corpse, they made Eva 01. Later, they put in a part of Rei to be Unit 00's soul.

[illustriusCheese]

Oh, I thought the soul was what made an Eva functional

[Sachi]

Oh, I thought the soul was what made an Eva functional

A soul is simply needed to synchronize with the pilot and project an AT-Field.

Nerv wasn't necessarily interested in Activation Tests until just prior to episode 01, yet they still considered their two units long completed. It's likely what they mean by "functional Eva" is, as AuraTwilight said, an Evangelion that's not dead. In other words, the cloning process was a success and they didn't end up with a dead body to stash in their graveyard.

[Hyper Shinchan]

A soul is simply needed to synchronize with the pilot and project an AT-Field.

Well, it depends on your concept of "completed" and "functional"; an EVA that can't be activated (probably like Unit 00 until Rei was created) can't be considered really functional (especially if Unit 00 was lacking its pseudo-core when Unit 01's Contact Experiment was performed, I don't know if there's any hint about it in the series or other lower tier works).

[AuraTwilight]

The Evangelion could be activated. It's just not gonna move or anything without a soul or pilot. Regardless, it seems the requirement was more like "Alright, is it rotting? Does it have ultra-cancer? Can we turn it on, even if the juice doesn't cause anything? Alright cool. Put in the sacrifice. SOULLLLLS"

[Reichu]

When it comes to these beings, how does one draw the line between alive and dead, anyway?

If it's any use: In NGE2, Kaworu comments at the Angel autopsy that the Angel isn’t dead, just "suspended", and that it doesn’t rot like humans do.

[Hyper Shinchan]

If it's any use: In NGE2, Kaworu comments at the Angel autopsy that the Angel isn’t dead, just "suspended", and that it doesn’t rot like humans do.

Wow, that's quite interesting by itself, recently I've played as Kaworu (PSP version) from the beginning until the EVA MP attack (I've avoided starting the "Tabris's power", or something like that, event to check if there was any interesting event, my first playthrough with Kaworu was quite short, I've obtained the ending pretty early in the game) and I think that I saw this event but I've completely overlooked Kaworu's comment.
I wonder if it could be related to the weird revival of the Angels in Evangelion Anima.

[EVA Unit 01]

If you really want to think about it this way, The Evangelion's themselves are in a sense, mindless, souless vessels that are simply ''alive'' organically. Input a human soul, giving it a ''mind'' but supress that mind with technology. Fit it with an entry plug, and you have a finished product. It's almost as if you had an entry plug in you, you were aware of everything going on, but armor and nerve components limited your movement to the pilot's control. It's more or less the same thing. And as far as Unit 01 being the first Evangelion, I don't think so. I think it was the first with an absolute goal in mind, but being created first just doesn't make sense.

[arkiel]

It depends on how Unit Zero was made.

I got the sense that Zero was created with a different methodology, probably adapting Adam's tissue to create a stable clone. Lots of skeletons in Terminal Dogma, great fodder for a Night on Bald Mountain animated short.

Unit One seems to have been created by placing a core in one end of two crosses with their long ends stuck together, putting Lilith in the other end, and letting her tissue flow around and adapt to the core. Parthenogenesis, like.

If this is correct, then Unit One is the first -something-. You couldn't call it an Eva, because it didn't come from Adam. Its singular. There is no name for what it is, except Demon.

[AuraTwilight]

It's suitably Eve, since it's made from Lilith's rib and is meant to replace the First Woman, Lilith.

I mean, if we pretend for a minute that the biblical references are halfway consistent, that is.

[Reichu]

I mean, if we pretend for a minute that the biblical references are halfway consistent, that is.

But Lilith wasn't in the Bible. :4chan face:

[AuraTwilight]

Pfft. Apocrypha, bizzatch.

[Reichu]

Pfft. Apocrypha, bizzatch.

Then you should have said "apocryphal references".

[AuraTwilight]

Does Anno know the difference? I doubt it.

[The Abhorrent]

Since the repair bill for an Evangelion reported can bankrupt a small nation (I think that's a line from the series, as opposed to something fanon), it's fairly safe to assume that the process of building one is a massive project (financially speaking). As such, getting the books sorted would likely involve naming the project (and the final product) before any work was actually done. Calling the Evas "Unit 00", "Unit 01", and other fairly non-descript names is likely linked to the project start date as opposed to the day it's finished.

In other words, work on Eva-00 had started before any was done on Eva-01. The latter could have been finished before the former, but the designation would've remained the same because it was determined at the start of the project rather than its conclusion.


The reasons why Eva-00 was started first is fairly obvious: they found Adam in Antarctica first. However, circumstances (Second Impact) meant that very little raw material (Adam) was left over and they had to resort to cloning to create the full Evangelion. As demonstrated by the "Eva Graveyard" in episode 23, this involved some trial and error. Nerv/Gehirn did manage to finish it and create Eva-00, but it must've taken a long time to get it right.

Eva-01 was made from Lilith however (the only Evangelion with that origin), and not exactly a small amount either (Lilith's entire lower half). Assuming Lilith was found after Adam, the project dedicated to building Eva-01 started after that of Eva-00. Considering that the cloning process for Eva-00 wasn't going smoothly and the greater availability of raw material (Lilith), it was (presumably) decided that a significant proportion of Lilith be molded into the shape of Eva-01. If this different methodology worked much better (and it probably did), Eva-01 very well could've been the first completed Evangelion.


There we go, a loophole which would allow for Eva-01 to be the first Eva to be finished; it just wasn't the first one started. As for sorting out the finer time-line details of which one was done first.... well, I'll let someone else sort that out.

[GoGoGengar]

If I remember correctly, Gendo Ikari and Naoko Akagi, persuaded Fuyutsuki into joining NERV (Gehirn at the time) by revealing an incomplete EVA 00

Besides, EVA 00 is prototype. 01 is test type so it's unlikely that 01 was created first.