TV Series
Page II

Q:  Why did the EVA-00 synch with Rei at all if Akagi Naoko hated her?
A:  The EVA-00 synchronized with Rei because she is half Angel (remember how Kaworu could fully synch with any EVA despite whose "being" was in the Unit?). And don't forget that Naoko's "being" was not all that the EVA-00 had inside of it, it also has programing that told it that it had to synch with the 14 year old pilot in its Entry Plug. But, it was truly Rei's strong mind and ability that even allowed her to pilot the Beast.

Q:  What exactly are those Magi Super computers? And how is "Magi" pronounced?
A:  The Magi Bio-Super Computers are the brainchildren (literally) of Dr. Akagi Naoko. She was a brilliant scientist who was "enticed" into creating the ultimate computer by me back when NERV was known as Gehirn. The Three Magi were named after the Three Wise Men that visited Jesus Christ when he was first born in Bethlehem. They brought their King of Kings gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. The Magi System doesn't bring gifts of wealth and fragrance to their king (me), but they do bring me power, security and brilliant strategies in combating Angels and SEELE.

The three Super Computers are even named after the Three Wise Men in the Bible. They are Melchior-1, Balthasar-2 and Casper-3. Each one of them is programmed and able to work independently of each other and together (not as one mind, but as three separate minds in one body....sound familiar?). Each Magi has a separate personality programmed into it that reflects that of their creator. Melchior is Naoko as a scientist, Balthasar is her motherly mind, and Casper is Naoko as a woman. Casper is the Magi that halted Akagi Ritsuko's countdown when she tried to self-destruct the Super Computers, and therefore NERV in order to prevent me from initiating my own version of the Third Impact. Naoko always loved me best (This was yet another reason for me to carry on my affair with Naoko. She programmed her feelings into the Magi before she, er, expired).

The Three Magi were also used to destroy an Angel by themselves (Ireul, the 11th Angel) and to keep SEELE from taking over NERV HQ for awhile (but not for long) in End of Evangelion. They are the fastest and smartest artificial intelligence on the planet. They have actual human brains integrated into their system for easier interface and faster cogitating.

The name "Magi" is pronounced "madge-eye" in the English language. But in Shin Seiki Evangelion the name is pronounced "maggh-ie". It's just easier on the Japanese tongue.

Q:  How did this whole crazy mess get started, what with the Angels, and SEELE and NERV? How does everything work together?
A:  I hope you have some time. It all began a long time ago when the First Impact split the one God-like being (known as Lilith) into two entities (the Lilith seen on the Cross in Terminal Dogma and Adam). It is assumed that the Lance of Longinus came with this being before it split (but this theory has never been confirmed [though it would explain a lot]). Then a while later came Keel Lorenz. While it is known that he is the oldest living human on the planet, it is only hypothesized that he is the Wandering Jew of Christian legend. He was able to decipher the Dead Sea Scrolls and find out how man's next and final evolution was to come about (an existence devoid of pain [which is all he seemed to care about] and devoid of pleasure. This sacrifice of losing pleasure to defeat pain and suffering leaves nothing but a vague existence [but Keel must have missed that part or misunderstood it]). He did his best to force mankind down the path toward the highest point of existence without many people knowing it except for those in his secret organization known only as SEELE (German for "soul"). At some point in the past (totally unknown) he had acquired the Angel Lilith and began experimenting on her with human DNA to see if a premature and artificial Impact could lead man back to Heaven.

Some point before the turn of the millennium a brilliant young scientist by the name of Ikari Yui joined the ranks of SEELE. She soon learned of Keel's plans by reading the Dead Sea Scrolls herself, and quickly got her boyfriend (turned "husband"), and eventually her moral and intelligent Sensei (Kozo Fuyutsuki) involved in order to stop a madman from destroying the world. Fuyutsuki and I joined the secret organization Gehirn right before the $#*% hit the fan. Even though we did not believe that what Lorenz was doing was right, the only chance that we had to fight his ultimate design was to continue working for him in the hope that we might be able to stop his plans from inside the clandestine world agency.

The last hope for mankind's survival.

In September of the year 2000 the Second Impact occurred in Antarctica. Adam had awakened after the testing of an artificial form of an Angel's immortality organ (the S2). Adam was then captured and shrunk down to embryo size at the cost of more than half the world's population (this was done to insure that the 17 messengers would come to induct the final test that mankind would have to edure and to keep the potential danger of a Destructive Third Impact to a minimum amount of damage). Keel didn't care. He was one step closer to eternal rest.

Soon after the devastation of the Antarctic Incident Yui and I married and our son Shinji was brought into the world. Due to an accident that occured when Yui was attempting to synchronize with the EVA-01 in the year 2004, she was completely absorbed into the faux Angel's consciousness and never came out. After a rescue attempt at saving my wife from her 400% synchro with the Unit 01 failed (due to Yui's will to remain merged with it) my world was shattered and my goal changed from saving man to personally leading him to the Final Impact so that I could be reunited with with my wife (remember, mankind is technically still one being in many different shells. This is what the Third Impact rectifies). It was at this point that I personally went to SEELE and asked to head the Human Compliment Project along with Project E. My beloved Yui was secretly cloned with a mixture of Lilith's DNA to form Ayanami Rei (as a seperate part of my own Human Instrumentality Project). I continued to have an affair with Naoko in order to get her to complete the Magi Systems. Then, the day they were completed she found out from Rei I that I was only using her. She killed the clone and then herself. Her death didn't matter though as soon after NERV was sanctioned by the UN and officially put in charge of two important projects: the Human Instrumentality Project and Project EVA (or Project E).

A few years later the Angels returned and the rest, as they say, is history.

Q:  After all this, I don't think you (or any other page for that matter) have answered the question that has been asked since the beginning which is "Why can only fourteen year old children pilot the EVAs?"
A:  Neither the TV show or End of Evangelion have answered this question outright, which is really weird because it is the whole reason the show exists. Why are these young children the only ones that can pilot these (General Purpose Humanoid Decisive Combat Weapon Artificial Human) beasts? There are hints dropped as to why, but nothing has been clearly stated in either the series or by Anno or Gainax themselves.

It has something to do with the Second Impact (which occured 15 years ago), seeing as all of the prospective pilots are Shinji's age and kept in his school for safe keeping. It is also known that none of these future pilots has a mother, although most of (if not all) their fathers all work for NERV. Maybe a candidate's mother (or just a woman) was needed to synch with an EVA first (giving it a human soul) in order to give the children a synchronization rate high enough to communicate with the man made Angels.....Do you remember how many EVA skeletons there were in the graveyard when Ritsuko showed the cloning tank to Shinji and Misato? There were a helluva lot. Although this may not fully 'splain the whole "children" deal, it begins to make a little more sense.

Also, the fact that EVAs were not originally built as weapons, but simply as tools to start an artificial Third Impact adds a little more mystery to it (i.e. it wasn't planned to have these children pilot them from the beginning).

  *Psssst* Misato here again. As to the "14-year old pilot" question, well, there is one biblical rumor that Commander Ikari failed to mention that might clarify the subject a little more. It has been said that the children are the first to be born with either no souls or recycled souls from the Room of Gauf (or Hall of Harad). When this room is empty (it is the legendary home for souls not yet born), as Fuyutsuki makes mention of, the birds stop chirping (meaning they only sing when a soul comes down from Heaven) and the end is near or upon us.

Don't forget that after the Second Impact fewer and fewer children have been born. Maybe the Room is already empty and they're scrapin' the bottom of the barrel (which would explain Shinji-kun, neh?), or maybe we're just reading too much into Anno's wacky mind. Who can tell anymore?

Q:  Would I be correct in saying that the EVAs are simply Angels spawned from Adam DNA with human technology and that they are controlled through the armor in which they are cased?
A:  No. EVAs are not pure clones of Adam just like Rei is not a pure clone of Lilith. They were created using his blueprints, but the final design became something else entirely.

The EVAs are not controlled through their armor (it only keeps them from growing and it confines their savageness). The EVA Units are controlled by their pilots or by their dummy plugs. The main problem with Project E is that we do not/cannot understand the EVAs completely. We built them through super-science and great advancements in cloning procedures, but we still don't understand their full power or most of their capabilities. The EVAs are the only weapons that we could use that were powerful enough to destroy the avenging Angels, but as Kaworu so ironically put it: We hate Angels, but we use them to try to save ourselves.

Q:  Who originally knew that Rei was a clone?
A:  Originally, only Fuyutsuki, and I knew of Rei's identity. Soon Naoko Akagi found out, and her daughter Ritsuko learned of Rei when she took over as the Chief Scientist of NERV (Maya also knew when she began working for NERV and Ritsuko). Keel learned about Rei after she reappeared after she self-destructed her EVA (he was not pleased to find out that I was up to something this destructive to his project). Ritsuko eventually spilled the beans about the cloning project to Shinji and Misato when she was no longer able to handle the guilt of what she was doing and when she learned that I was just using her like I used her mother. This is when she destroyed the rest of the Rei bodies (with no souls).

Q:  Does Rei love Shinji? Does Rei love Gendo? If so, why does she betray him at the end of the story?
A:  Yes, Rei does love Shinji. Even though it is not a romantic love (it is a mother-son or a sister-brother love), yes, she does love him. It's easiest to explain it this way: Rei knows that she is a clone. She also knows that she was cloned from Lilith and my wife (she is aware of her powers [including an Angel-like AT Field] and her destiny [to help me start the Third Impact]). Rei has some of the same genes as Shinji too, which must also make her feel pretty close to him. But in the end she is just as confused as to who she really is as Shinji seems to be.

While there are many clones of Rei, there is but only one soul. Somehow when the Rei with the soul dies it passes into another body (this is why Ritsuko threw the switch to kill the many clones in the Dummy Plug basement of NERV, they had no essence, no souls). Some of Yui Ikari's original memory still exists in Rei's mind and the memories pass on from one clone to the other with the soul. Not many, but enough for her to remember that there should be a bond between her and Shinji.

As to if she loves me? Well, at first the faint memories of a past love filled her (along with the fact that I raised her). So she started out by loving me, but over time, and the loosening of her emotions and past memories by the Sixteenth Angel, Armisael, she began to be able to think for herself and she started to question her feelings for me and my feelings for her. This revelation passed on to Rei III, which is why she was a lot colder to me and trashed the glasses that Rei II treasured so deeply. She began to realize that it was Yui I loved, and not Rei. Rei was just a thing that I used to initiate my plans to be reunited with Yui. Rei was an object I needed to merge with Lilith and attempt to free my tormented soul. This is also why she betrayed me in End of Evangelion. Out of spite for me, and love for Shinji. She wanted him to have the final say as to what mankind's destiny would be. She was a loving mother till the end. And boy, am I a dick or what?

Q:  Gendo never showed any affection toward Shinji. Why? I mean, he loved Yui so much, wouldn't he love their son even more?
A: Well, after Yui disappeared I virtually disowned Shinji. My plans for humanity's Complimentation would consume me as I tried to somehow ressurect my wife through my own form of the Third Impact. He was raised by my brother and his Sensei. By the time he was needed back at NERV, he was as distant to me as any of the other children (besides Rei). I raised Rei, but not my own son. I also had to focus on the goals of Project E and the Human Instrumentality Project. Shinji was just one player out of many involved in both. Not to mention the fact that Shinji is a total wuss. All of these factors add up to why I might seem so distant to my own flesh and blood.

I do feel regret and understand all the harm I had caused him (and my own hedgehog dilema relationship I had with him) when the Third Impact occurs and the reality of the evil I had committed against my own son hits me like a brick. My passion and love for my wife grew into a dark obsession that turned me into a cold and unfeeling creature when she originally vanished. When Yui first reappears to me during mankind's final moments on this planet I realised that I had grown too cold to love anybody anymore. In fact, my final words in this life are "I'm sorry", right before the giant EVA apparition devours me.

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E-mail me if you have any more questions at uber_rossman@yahoo.com