Pilot Consciousness during Berserkergang

[AuraTwilight]

Ritsuko specifically says that "Unit 01 has awakened" after the Zeruel fight, so in some sense, they're not always awake, whatever that may mean.

[ALKENO]

Getting back to the original question, I think that the pilots black out most of the time, but it isn't completely necessary. AuraTwilight, thanks, I forgot that she said that. Makes sense though ;P. To be completely honest, we probably are thinking into this more than the creators did. The question is now though: Why can't the EVAs move all of the time? Probably has something to do with their souls not initially belonging to them in the first place.

[Eva Yojimbo]

Why can't the EVAs move all of the time?

Their armor acts as physical restraints, and they've also done something to suppress their mental functions, which is why they need a pilot to "synch" with in order to be active at all.

[ALKENO]

Their armor acts as physical restraints, and they've also done something to suppress their mental functions, which is why they need a pilot to "synch" with in order to be active at all.

That makes sense. I knew that the armor was restraints. Does it ever say what that they did to the EVAs to restrain their mental functions (if stated at all)? I would think that it would have to do with the EVAs brains not being fully developed or that their souls don't belong to their bodies initially (or both for all we know).

[Kendrix]

I think that a Berserk includes the Pilot, the EVA and it's resident Soul to be fully harmonized with each other. It is all three of them doing it.
What leads me to that conclusion?
Ep1/2: Shinji remembered the entire battle, not right away, but the Memories came to him later. We see that red shot of him with his eyes wide open and we see him still awake with his eyes still wide open after the berserk without any 'waking up' process in between.
The episode 16 berserk was triggered by Shinji wishing not to be alone. If Yui could've gotten him out of there earlier, she would have. The poor kid almost died.
Same in ep. 19: Shinji practically begged for something to happen.
Another evidence is that the synch rate seems to drastically go up during a berserk, exeeding the 400% mark in one case.

Still, I think that poor Shinji's little conciousness gets mostly overwhelmed or is unable to really process anything in that state, as soon as he has opened himself up.
For example, in ep. 19, what Shinji did was opening himself up to the EVA, begging it and its resident Soul to do something.
Yui is probably in a dream-like, 'diluted' state (see ep. 20) and got alerted by the cries of her little Baby, gathered herself together and initiated the connection.
It was her Will that said 'save Shinji ands grab S2-Engine', the resulting Savagery came from Shogoki itself, probably much like the information that an Angel gets defeated by smashing its core or that this 'grabbing' of the S2 is possibly by nomming Zeruel. It's probably some sort of 'angelic' instict.
The EVa has no Will of its own and isn't really 'awake' most of the time (The Berserks were often refered as 'awakenings') so it needs Yui and Shinji to give it orders. for a Beserk, all three Beings must want the same.
(Shinji wants to survive the scary monsters onslaught, Yui wants her Baby to be safe, and Shogoki should have some basic self-preservation instinct)

What also speaks for my theory is, that at least in Rebuild,

SPOILER: Show

Shinji was able to take control of the integrated entity / insert his own will into it. I doubt that he knew he could fire those laser beams or that he had to rip Zerogoki's Core out of the angel to save Rei, or that he was just causing third impact. that was Unit 1's 'angelic instinct'. All he said was 'kick angels ass and grab Rei at ANY cost'.

What Asuka did in EoE was something similar to Shinji's stunt in Rebuild, just that Nigoki is Adam based and a production model made for battle alone and therefore probably stripped of it's apocaliptic abilities.
And it had only a part of Kyoko's Soul within itself, all of Kyoko would have made for a better resonance, I guess.
This is also why Shinji eventually reached a higher synch rate.

I'm not sure what to think of Zerogoki's berserks, tough.
If Ritsuko has a reason to assume it was attacking her, it might have been an 'Echo' of Rei I(Comparable with Rei IIIs crying and some remaining loyalty towards Shinji), either within the Eva itself or in Rei II and the 'imprint' she left in it.
An EVA starts to smell like it's users after a while (Rei commented on Shogoki smelling like Shinji, and saw some pictures/images from his mind (like the landscapes from when he run away, mixed with more of her own thoughs as time went on), so whatever 'Echo' Rei left within Zerogoki could have been responsible for it's Berserk when Shinji was the pilot.


I don't think the EVAs Brain's are all too important. They have some because they were made in the image of humans, but as with most 'angelic' beings, their 'self' is in the Core.

[AuraTwilight]

I think that a Berserk includes the Pilot, the EVA and it's resident Soul to be fully harmonized with each other. It is all three of them doing it.
What leads me to that conclusion?

EVAs are not conscious. It's really just the pilot and the Eva's soul.

It was her Will that said 'save Shinji ands grab S2-Engine', the resulting Savagery came from Shogoki itself, probably much like the information that an Angel gets defeated by smashing its core or that this 'grabbing' of the S2 is possibly by nomming Zeruel. It's probably some sort of 'angelic' instict.

No, it was just Yui going apeshit to protect her son. Berserk state is when the resident soul decides to act on it's own, not some "angelic instinct." Keep in mind that humans are, themselves, animals. It was Yui who awakened.

If Ritsuko has a reason to assume it was attacking her, it might have been an 'Echo' of Rei I(Comparable with Rei IIIs crying and some remaining loyalty towards Shinji), either within the Eva itself or in Rei II and the 'imprint' she left in it.
An EVA starts to smell like it's users after a while (Rei commented on Shogoki smelling like Shinji, and saw some pictures/images from his mind (like the landscapes from when he run away, mixed with more of her own thoughs as time went on), so whatever 'Echo' Rei left within Zerogoki could have been responsible for it's Berserk when Shinji was the pilot.

"Imprints" would be insufficient for generating an AT Field, though. Most likely, a piece of Rei's soul is inside Unit 00, and Rei briefly communed with Yui in some fashion.

[Kendrix]

No, it was just Yui going apeshit to protect her son. Berserk state is when the resident soul decides to act on it's own, not some "angelic instinct." Keep in mind that humans are, themselves, animals. It was Yui who awakened.

I never said that it wasn't Yui's doing.(I might not have expressed myself all too well) As I said, the EVAs have no will/soul and therefore need a resident soul and/or pilot to give it orders.
But how exactly a berserk works was never 100% explained.
As far as the ep. 19 thing is concerned, I'm sure Yui took controll of the combined being as soon as she was able to.
But I doubt that the EVA's distinctly inhuman acts came from her. It's just my interpretation tough. What I was trying to say is, Yui 'said' WHAT to do (i.e. save her Baby and get usefull gadget to controll/prevent Third Impact (->The S²-Organ)), but HOW it was done was determined by some Instinct of Unit 01's.
In the few scenes we see of Yui, she appears like a graceful, dignified Person that somehow appears to be 'above' those around her.
That doesn't exactly fit with Berserk!shogiki's fighthing style.
And I'm not even sure she as a human even knew HOW to do some of the things she did, even as the person who actually built the EVAs.
And even if she did: Those God-like Powers don't look like they couldn't be used in a more dignified way.
Plus Ritsuko says something like "What horrible Monster did we create that Beast from" in ep. 19.

"Imprints" would be insufficient for generating an AT Field, though. Most likely, a piece of Rei's soul is inside Unit 00, and Rei briefly communed with Yui in some fashion.

As I said, I am not quite sure about Unit 00. We just know far too little about it.

[AuraTwilight]

In the few scenes we see of Yui, she appears like a graceful, dignified Person that somehow appears to be 'above' those around her.
That doesn't exactly fit with Berserk!shogiki's fighthing style.
And I'm not even sure she as a human even knew HOW to do some of the things she did, even as the person who actually built the EVAs.

Uh, you do realize that under everyone's dignified, civilized personalities, we're all just a bunch of instinctual apes, right? In other words, if we're overcome by adrenaline, anger, and crazy mama bear instincts, we are prone to FLIP THE FUCK OUT in cases of violence. Look it up, it's happened with normal humans before.

The Evangelions cannot have natural instincts, because they have no souls of their own. They are totally blank flesh dolls, which is why a soul needs to be put in. If they had instincts, it would mean they had their own consciousness.

[Shinji]

Okay, I get that Yui is awakened during berserker mode and she's like "oh hey it's Shinji! Wait, what's that weird thing attacking him? DIE MOTHERF****R!!!!! What I don't get is why she beats the crap out of Zeruel and then she's like "I'm gonna eat you now om nom nom."

I mean, couldn't she theoretically have done that to Sachiel from the very beginning? Would've saved a whole lot of time and she could've kicked every angel's ass a million times over if she did. The only reason I can see why she decided to eat Zeruel's core and not Sachiel's is because if she'd done it from the beginning SEELE probably would've decided Unit 01 was too powerful to be left in the hands of Gendo and Shinji. That and it would've been a pretty boring series if every time an angel showed up Unit 01 destroyed all life on earth...

[Azathoth]

The only reason I can see why she decided to eat Zeruel's core and not Sachiel's is because if she'd done it from the beginning SEELE probably would've decided Unit 01 was too powerful to be left in the hands of Gendo and Shinji.

This. Remember, Yui's plan hinges on nobody knowing that she's still awake, alert and planning her own thing until it's too late to stop her - and she leaves it as late as possible, taking the S2 from the last Angel that has a conventional physical form (and thus an accessible S2 engine). Even so, she acts too early for her own good, getting Seele to order that she be frozen from combat and leading Gendou to get rid of the Lance and risk Seele's wrath.

[Shinji]

Remember, Yui's plan hinges on nobody knowing that she's still awake.

I suspected it might be that, I just wasn't sure how conscious Yui actually is the whole time. But when you match up her actions with the results you can see that, well her plan was more thought out than SEELE's in my opinion.

It makes sense too since she would know pretty much everything about the angels and SEELE's plan since she has connections to SEELE (that aren't clearly specified and only vaguely hinted at). So she would know which angel was going to be her last opportunity.

This does kind of bring to mind that other guy's point about how weird she looked when she was crawlin around on all fours and eating Zeruel like a rabid wolf. But hey how much can you expect from someone whose soul has been cooped up in a huge artificial monster for a good number of years.

[nomis1242]

Sorry for backtracking, but in response to the original question, I'd like to point out that Unit 1 moves to protect Shinji from the falling lights in Ep 1. This is a form of berserker, so I believe that it is totally up to the soul and if the pilot happens to be in the entry plug at the time, then he/she is just a passenger.

[Zan]

I don't think that qualifies as a "berserker" so to speak, just spontaneous motion on Yui's part to protect her son. Notice how Unit-01 doesn't move after it blocks the light? I don't think that it's possible for Yui to move the Eva about very much on her own. Any time that the Eva goes berserker and does things that was previously assumed that it could not do, Shinji's been piloting, so I figure that his actions and emotional state have something to do with it.

Similarly, look at Asuka in EoE. While fighting off the JSSDF and the MPEs, she is in control of the Eva, as well as communicating with her mother. Granted, this isn't berserking, but it is an example of an abnormally high synch-ratio, which berserking is the extreme upper bound of.

[Azathoth]

I don't think that qualifies as a "berserker" so to speak, just spontaneous motion on Yui's part to protect her son. Notice how Unit-01 doesn't move after it blocks the light? I don't think that it's possible for Yui to move the Eva about very much on her own. Any time that the Eva goes berserker and does things that was previously assumed that it could not do, Shinji's been piloting, so I figure that his actions and emotional state have something to do with it.

Shinji's not piloting during any of the later instances in which Yui goes batshit. In EoE, he's entirely unhelpful to Yui, so much so that she refuses to respond to the control handles. In ep 19, he's not even physically extant at the time Unit 01 berserks. In ep 16, he's only semi-conscious, nearly catatonic. In ep 02, he's implied to be unconscious for the whole berserkergang, and in ep 01 he's not even inside. The key element is Shinji and Yui's relationship. When Shinji is threatened and absolutely incapable of saving himself, Yui protects him.

Similarly, look at Asuka in EoE. While fighting off the JSSDF and the MPEs, she is in control of the Eva, as well as communicating with her mother. Granted, this isn't berserking, but it is an example of an abnormally high synch-ratio, which berserking is the extreme upper bound of.

No, the extreme of high sync-ratio is the pilot's disintegration into LCL. What happens with Asuka and Kyoko is different; it's the second time that an action or strong emotion on Asuka's part has effectively forced Unit 02 into a berserk state - possibly the third if you count Arael, although it's implied that the mindrape affected Kyoko directly, too. Shinji never induces a berserk in Unit 01 the way Asuka does in Unit 02. Maybe because Yui is saner than Kyoko not that that's saying much

[Zan]

Ah I see, thanks for the correction. Looks like I'll have to watch the series again over my Winter Break.

[nomis1242]

I don't think that qualifies as a "berserker" so to speak, just spontaneous motion on Yui's part to protect her son. Notice how Unit-01 doesn't move after it blocks the light? I don't think that it's possible for Yui to move the Eva about very much on her own.

My belief is that "berserker" is any action that occurs without the pilots command. Sure, just raising an arm is tame compared with kicking an angel's arse and then eating its S2 engine but they are all examples of the Eva having its own motives. I think Yui stopped moving after the light was blocked because she had achieved her aim: Shinji was protected.

[Zan]

Oh, that makes sense. Sorry for the misunderstanding =P