"DBM" <dbmacpherson@uq.net.au> wrote in message
news:ag9mfh$e8h$2@bunyip.cc.uq.edu.au...
<Snip>

Well I have some free time, so I'll bite.

> Theory#1  Rei's Real Age/Creation Date?
>
> In the ORIGINAL TV series, Gendo advised Fuyutsuki that
> Gendo had married Yui & had a son with her, & gives
> Professor F a card - on which is the image of a small blue
> haired cherub...  Blue-Haired... Winged-Angel-Type-Cherub?
> O_O;  Significant or what?

The scene may have been set in 2002 however it was created
long after the Rei character had been created (ie, existed).
The fact that on the card there is an image of something that
looks like Rei doesn't mean that Rei actually existed at that
point in the Eva timeline (she did in the "real world", just
not in Eva, it was a flashback remember).  See below
for further discussion about Rei's creation.

> Especially since Rei's 'Official Birthday', at least according to
> Gainax, is months before Shinji's!

If you are referring to the "Birthday of Rei Ayanami" album then
that is hardly "canon" information. It is rather absurd really. Yui
was born on March, 30th just has her voice actor Megumi
Hayashibara was born on March, 30th. Rei (even though she
was also voiced by Megumi) was _not_ born on March 30th,
2001. Rei cannot have been created until after Yui "died". Yui
died in 2004. Rei was probably created in the "salvage" attempt
on Eva-01 that took place in 2005 in an attempt to retrieve Yui.
This is further supported by the fact that Rei-001 (the one we see
in episode 21) is only 5 when she dies in 2010 at Naoko's hand.

According to The End of Evangelion - Theatrical Program, Rei's
birthday is "Unknown". We _know_ that Yui's is March, 30th just
like Megumi's, but Gendou would have to be an absolute idiot
to have Rei's birthday the same as his "late" wife's" and still expect
to keep Rei's origins a secret.

Rei was created sometime _after_ March 30th, 2004 (Yui was 17
when she "died" and was born in 1977)".

> Theory#2  What about the Official comment that 'Gendo created Rei'?
>
> Well, remember when Gendo interrogated Ritsuko about why she
> destroyed the 'Dummy Plug Project'?  Ritsuko answered with, 'It
> wasn't the Dummy Plug I destroyed - It was REI!'  This tends to
> indicate that Gendo does not see the Tank Clones as 'Rei', but only
> sees 'Rei' as being the Clone that's NOT in the tank, but is running
> around 'being' Rei.

I think it tends to imply that _Ritsuko_ say the clones in the tank as
Rei at the time she was destroying them, and that was the reason
in fact that she destroyed them.

From episode 23:

"I'm destroying them. These aren't human, just things with human
forms. But even so, I lost to these things, to these soulless dolls.
I couldn't win. I could've suffered any humiliation, endured any
torture. But he had already chosen... "

Ritsuko wasn't destroying the Rei clones because she wanted
to destroy the Dummy System, she did it because she wanted
to destroy Rei, to whom she had "lost" to.

> So, could 'Gendo creating Rei', mean the creation of the
> fictitious female CHARACTER known as 'Ayanami Rei', a
> character that a series of Clones would impersonate, & NOT
> the creation of the actual Clones themselves?

It _could_ but I think that Gendou (and Fuyutsuki) both had a hand
in her creation. They had to be involved in the "salvage" attempt on
Yui (Naoko wasn't involved).

> Theory#3  What about the 'remains' used by Gendo in the
> creation of 'Rei'?
>
> Hm...  If Yui was absorbed & reduced to soup like Shinji was,
> then there was NO body to speak of, & only a chemical soup
> that could NOT be identified as belonging to any specific
> terrestrial species, let alone DNA capable of being indexed to
> a particular person.

It is explained in episode 20:

----
Ritsuko: All of the materials which formed Shinji-kun are still
in the plug. What could be called his soul exits there, too. In
fact, his ego image gives pseudosubstance to his plugsuit.

Maya: Salvaging means reconstructing his body and fixing
his soul into it.
----

Salvaging specifically means reconstructing his body and
fixing his soul into it.

I think that when Rei was created they tried to "salvage" Yui,
that is reconstruct her body and put her soul back into it, and
they succeeded in reconstructing her body, they just failed
at putting her soul back into it. They put Lilith's soul into
it instead (Lilith and Eva-01 being joined when Yui was
"absorbed".)

Rei's body was created from the remains of Yui _salvaged_
from Eva-01. They tried to salvage Yui's body just like
they did Shinji's, but in the end they got Rei (ie Yui's body
and Lilith's soul) and not Yui herself (Yui's body, Yui's soul),

> Remember, it was 'Primordial Soup', & had no more discernible
> relation to a person, than a tree in a forest has to a modern
> timber-framed home... Actually, even less than that...  The trees
> & the timber in the house are at least identifiable as wood of a
> particular species...

Yet clearly they still had the technology to "reconstruct" the body
of a person out of it. To continue your tree analogy, perhaps they
had the "plans" of how to build the house stored in the Magi, and
simply created the house from the trees based on that plan. The
"Primordial Soup" is the base starting point, from it (using whatever
technology they had) they could reconstruct peoples bodies.

> However!  Could the comment refer to Yui's genetic material
> already contained in the Clones, or some sort of 'Mental' or
> other 'Personality Booster' derived from RNA encoded pieces
> of memory in the soup Yui became, or even reverse-downloads
> of data from the Core of Unit 1?  Tip the vat of Yui-Goop into
> the Clone Tank, let everything simmer for as the Clones absorb
> Yui's Humanity via electronic osmosis, & Hey Presto!  Instant
> Personality!

The EoE theatrical program states that Rei was created and _then_
multiple clones were _prepared_ in terminal dogma. This links into
another theory though about the reason for all the little legs sticking
out of Lilith's torso, but I wont go into that now.

> Remember, that in Japanese, 'Gendo created Rei', can also mean
> that Gendo created ONE Rei, or that Gendo created MANY Rei...
> There is a subtle cultural difference when it comes to plurals of a
thing...

To tell the truth, I don't remember where it is ever stated that "Gendou
created Rei". If you could please enlighten me as to where it is said it
would be most appreciated.

> Theory#4  So who DID create the Rei Clones?
> Long theory...  Please bear with me...
>
> Well...  Naoko & Ritsuko are both Genius scientists with
> multiple College Degrees, or 'Polymath's...  Asuka is an
> intellectual child prodigy, having graduated College at age
> 14...  Since it is canon that there are already 3 Geniuses in
> the show, could it be that Yui was ALSO a genius of the same
> calibre?  A genius eagerly recruited by SEELE for her latent
> talents?

Of course she was. Yui was one of the major Eva scientists before
she "died", she was one of the people who started it all, helped
construct Eva-00 and Eva-01. She was connected with SEELE
and bio-tech research before either of Gendou or Fuyutsuki were.

> Remember, Yui was employed by SEELE before she met Gendo...
> If so, & IF Yui was another 'child genius', then she could have
> created the Rei Clones sometime in her teenage years as part
> of her VITAL research into how to create an Evangelion!

Wow, that's a pretty massive jump. Ever heard of Occam's Razor?

What about Rei having Lilith's soul? What about the fact that we
are told that Rei is only 5 years old in 2010.

> It would also make more sense from a 'Bio Ethics' point of view
>  - if Yui used her own DNA in making the Clones, she wouldn't
> need permission from the DNA donor, & there would be less
> chance of things boiling over when the subject of 'destructive
> testing' came up...

One thing you are missing is that Rei's origins are supposed to be
a secret, even from SEELE. In episode 23, Fuyutsuki worries
about what SEELE will do if they discover that Rei is alive. Rei
is special, but no one is supposed to know that she is special.

> And if you think researchers wouldn't use living/conscious
> genetic constructs based on their own DNA...  Certain
> 'Super-powers' used new born human babies & the Mentally
> Disabled in A-Bomb tests...  And yes, some of the 'test animals'
> were still alive when the tests began...

This isn't a problem for me. Yui volunteered to be the test subject
for Eva-01 and she chose to stay there in the end. This was all
for Shinji's benefit, so I don't think she would have any ethical
problems with what you are suggesting, I just then that on the
whole what you are suggesting is very unlikely.

> Theory#5  But why create the Rei Clones?
>
> Well, to put it mildly, Guinea Pigs!
>
> Remember the size of all those 'Dead' EVA's in the graveyard?
> Why go to the trouble of building a 1:1 large scale model when
> a small scale model will do the job just as well, with a FRACTION
> of the cost & handling hassles?  Hey!  Engineers do it ALL THE
> TIME for wind tunnel tests & Natural Disaster resistance tests on
> skyscrapers & bridges!

Well for starters, Rei isn't the same as the Evas. She has a human body.
The Evas (except for Eva-01) are all clones of Adam. Eva-01 is a
clone of Lilith. They have human souls, but their bodies are clones
of the sources of life. They are the complete opposite of Rei who
has a human body and the soul of a source of life.

> Theory#6  Who or what is really inside Unit 0?
> Warning!  LONG piece follows...
>
> Well...  When Shinji tried to pilot Unit 0, it rejected him & went
> berserk, but just before it did, something tried to get into Shinji's
> mind from Unit 0...
>
> Remember?  It was Rei...
>
> But what does that mean?
>
> The Cores of the EVA's can hold data derived from a specific
> person - witness the comments about 'rewriting the data' in the
> series.  But what exactly does that mean, & does the data storage
> mechanism have a similar 'ghosting effect' to that of a Hard Disk?
> That is, can it still retain 'info' from earlier data sets, unless it's
been
> 'written over'?  Presumably, Unit 0 was 'rewritten' for Shinji, so the
> vision of 'Rei' was something that COULDN'T be rewritten, like
> the soul?

The Cores of the Evas also contain the Eva's soul. Eva-01's core
contains Yui's soul, Eva-02's contains Kyouko's soul. This is
confirmed in the EoE theatrical program which states that Kyouko's
"soul appears to have been used in the core of Eva-02."

> We know that Unit 1 'absorbed' Yui, & that Unit 2 'partially
> absorbed' Asuka's mother...  but...  the absorption ratio's
> were different... Unit 1 'totally' absorbed Yui, & evidently
> thinks of Shinji as her/its child - that's why it goes berserk
> protecting him, & moves of its OWN volition to protect him.
> Presumably that's why it was also able to rebuild Shinji when
> he was absorbed, because Unit 1 absorbed Yui's subconscious
> memories of being pregnant with Shinji, & of  'building' him
> during pregnancy/gestation.

See above where I discuss who Shinji's body is "reconstructed".

> Asuka finds her mother in Unit 1 in EOE, & it appears that
> Unit 2 starts to act as Unit 1 could, beginning to move after
> power had run out, etc.  That's just before the White EVA's
> do an Evangelion sized bit of 'Ultra-Violence'.  A scene I
> suspect may be a subtle homage to 'A Clockwork Orange',
> a book that had Classical music as a central plot device, &
> was also a movie done by Stanley Kubrick, the man who did
> '2001: A Space Odyssey'.

I don't think it was a homage to a clockwork orange, a lot of people
set scenes to classical music a long time before Kubrick did, they
also didn't have Shinji jerking off to the William Tell Overture either ^_^

> But Unit 0...  Unit 0 was a prototype...  And it had Rei's
> memories in it...

I personally think it has Rei's soul in it, rather an imprint of it. To be
even more specific an imprint of Lilith's soul from the time it was in
Rei-001.

> Here's a question...  How far removed is Rei from the Evangelions?
> Especially since Rei, like Kaworu, is composed of the same unearthly
> material?

No, both Rei and Kaoru have human bodies, they just have the souls
of sources of life (Lilith and Adam respectively). The Evas are the
other way around, they have human souls, but bodies cloned from
sources of life.

>  Could the EVA's just be 'deliberately retarded' versions of what
> Rei & Kaworu are/could be?  That is, Rei & Kaworu are the
> true 'production models', with the EVA's just being rough sketches,
> or models that have 'incomplete' options for testing & safety purposes?

I don't think so, as I said above, they are complete opposites.

> Think about this!  How far removed is Rei as a person, from
> the encoded personality in the Dummy Plug?

Very removed. One has Lilith's soul, the other doesn't.

> As Gendo once said, if the Evangelion thinks it has a pilot it
> will move...   Admittedly, this was true of Unit 1, but ONLY
> when Shinji was inside.  Even then it could be argued that the
> 'Yui Essence' was ONLY TOO HAPPY to let an ersatz Rei
> essence tell it to trash the thing attacking Shinji.

The Dummy Plug tricked the Eva into thinking its pilot was
controlling it. That's what it does. More on this below.

> If you don't NEED a living pilot, do you still need any sort
> of 'Living Soul' to animate an EVA?

Yes. The MP Evas must have souls to produce AT Fields,
however they use only the Dummy Plugs, so they only "souls"
in them are the souls of the Evas themselves, there are not living
pilots in them.

> What of the seeming consciousness in the 'Soul-less' Clones
> in the Dummy Plug Lab, the scene where Shinji speaks Rei's name,
> & all of the Clones 'wake up' & smile at Shinji?

That's a tough one. Personally I think it was just for affect, that the
soulless Rei's are not aware at all.

> Does 'Rei' move because her subconscious mind thinks she has
> a 'soul' inside of her?  Even if the soul is not her own?  Could the
>'soul' she have, be just another type of 'Dummy Plug'?  One that's
>designed for a Human sized body?

What is the mind without the soul in the Eva Universe? The mind
certainly doesn't belong to the brain. Shinji loses physical form
completely, he no longer has a brain, but he still has his "mind".

> Here's the actual theory, sorry it took so long to lay the
> groundwork...
>
> The system of Dummy plug based on Rei's digitised personality,
>  is a refined version of the situation between an EVA & its pilot...
> BUT! Rei herself is just another form of Dummy Plug, one that
>  has the memory of an artificial soul loaded into her living body,
> rather than the data of a living body loaded into the Hard Disk
> drives of the Dummy Plug unit.

She is the vessel for Lilith's soul. The Dummy Plugs have no souls
because it is impossible to digitise a soul. That is the major, very
important difference between the two.

> Proof?  Only theory I'm afraid, but please consider...
>
> Kaworu was able to commandeer Unit 2 at a moment's notice,
> because the 'soul' (subconscious mind ?) in Unit 2 was 'hiding'...
> But what if there was NO 'soul' to begin with in the EVA?  Could
>  he still have 'commandeered' Unit 2?  Or, would HE have been
> absorbed on attempting to synchronmise with it?

He didn't attempt to synchronise with it. That's the point. They say
what Kaoru was doing is "theoretically impossible' because they
haven't changed the Core. The current Core is Asuka's Core, the
Core containing Kyouko. Kaoru doesn't "synch" with this Core, he
just controls the Eva directly, because as he says in episode 24,
"Eva is made of the same body as me. Because I'm also born of Adam."

> For that matter, since the 'soul' in Unit 2 was hiding, can we
> presume that Kaworu had NO help whatsoever from it?
> Or, can we assume that he DID have some help, in that
> everything needed to animate Unit 2 didn't HAVE to come
> from him?  That is, when a pilot synchronises with an EVA,
> they partially merge their own consciousness with it.  The initial
> pilots of units 1 & 2 did more than merge their consciousness,
> they 'merged' themselves with the EVA to 'jump-start' it, using
> their OWN souls, & were absorbed.

Kaoru didn't get any help from Kyouko. In fact a strong resident
soul of the Eva would have stopped him from taking control. Again
from episode 24: "When the unit doesn't have a soul, I can unite with it.
The soul of Unit 02 is shutting itself up now.". If the soul wasn't then
he would have a problem controlling it.

I don't think either Yui or Kyouko were "pilots". There was nothing to
synch with, nothing to pilot. They merely participated in "Contact
experiments" which resulted (with a number of side effects) of placing
their respective souls into the Evas' Cores.

> Remember, Yui was totally absorbed, while Asuka's mom was
> only PARTLY absorbed...  Asuka's mother was driven mad by
> the process of 'sharing her soul' with the EVA...  But Rei was
> DESIGNED to 'share her soul', to just what extent we do not
> know for sure, but certainly with her sister Clones at any rate,
> just as she 'shared' her memories with them on a regular basis
> via Memory Download in the Dummy Plug Lab...  And the Tank
> Clones DID respond ON THEIR OWN TO SHINJI!  Indicating
> that the Tank Clones had some sort, or some PART of a soul in
> them...

I don't think it indicates that they had any "part" of a soul at all. Rei
only has one soul, that of Lilith's and it is passed from one clone to
the next when the previous one dies. Ritsuko states absolutely that
the other clones in the take have no souls. I think that their reaction
to Shinji's is sort of like a body still moving even after it's head has
been cut off, it isn't indicative of a soul, or of awareness.

> So, IF a soul can be shared between different beings, as it was
> with Unit 2 & Asuka's mom - could that also explain the reaction
> of the Tank Clones, Unit 0 & Rei's personality?

I don't think a soul can be _shared_ as such, but I do believe that
it can be "imprinted". Kyouko's soul was imprinted into Eva-02,
yet she still retained her soul herself. Different theory, similar
end result.

> Rei didn't go insane from sharing her soul, but her mind, her
>'willpower' was sort of 'fragmented' by it?  As the number of
> beings that 'shared' Rei's artificial soul were reduced, the
> concentration in each 'vessel' increased, until the last Rei Clone
> became totally coherent, & a real person...

I think that Rei-001 was mentally unstable due to her soul
being "imprinted" into Eva-00, similar to how Kyouko
because mentally unstable after her soul was put into Eva-02.

> Is that why Shinji saw 'Rei' inside Unit 0?  Because Rei had
> 'jump-started' an empty husk with her own memories &
> artificial soul, & in doing so, had HAD to leave 'parts' of
>  herself in the EVA, like Yui & Asuka's mother had done
> with their EVAs?  That is, 'echoes' or some other sort of
> psychic residue were left inside Unit 0 as a 'primer mixture'
> for the next synchronisation attempt?

I think that Rei-001's soul was merely "imprinted" into Eva-00,
which is why both Rei and Shinji are able to pilot it but not
Asuka. Rei can pilot Eva-01 because of "similar personality
patterns shared between Eva-01 and Eva-00". Asuka can
pilot neither. Yui is in Eva-01 and Rei is as similar to Yui as
you will get in the series.

> Could that be why Unit 0 had such low ratios, & why it took
> Rei so many months to learn to control it?  THERE WAS
> NO-ONE INSIDE UNIT 0 TO START WITH, SO REI HAD
> TO START FROM SCRATCH!

I don't think so. I think it has more to do with the fact that Rei
is "synching" with herself as well as Rei's inherent mental instability
at that point. The Evas work on a mother-child link over the A-10
nerve. Rei-001 is "like" Rei-002's mother, but she isn't her actual
mother, so that is where the problem lies in my opinion.

> Theory#7  So why would Unit 0 go berserk?
>
> From the above, Unit 0 has a void, a vacuum within that needs
> to be filled with the fullness of experience that a Human soul
> holds...  It WANTS more soul...  BUT!  Rei won't relinquish
> any more soul to it... And there's enough of 'Rei' in Unit 0, enough
> of her "You won't die... I will protect you..." mentality towards
> Shinji to prevent Unit 0 from trying to absorb Shinji!

Though there isn't anything that directly contradicts it, I really don't
like the idea of "parts" of the soul. My impression of "The Soul"
has always had an atomicity about it. You can't split a soul,
or break it apart, you can't have a "bit" of a soul. That is just
my opinion though, based mostly on the fact that whenever souls
are mentioned in Eva it is always "The Soul", they never mention
"part of the soul".

> Both times Unit 0 went berserk, it was in a fit of frustration.
> Unit 0 went berserk, because Rei WOULDN'T let it have
>  any more of her soul, & because the 'part' of Rei inside Unit
>  0 WOULDN'T try to harm Shinji by attempting to take his soul...

How do you explain Ritsuko's statement that Eva-00 was targeting
her "without a doubt"?

> This might explain why the 'pattern' between Unit 0 & 1 are
> similar enough for Shinji to try & pilot Unit 0, & why Rei can
> pilot Unit 1. If the Clone that became 'Rei' had originally been
> 'programmed' or otherwise had her 'personality' jump-started
> by a download of data held in Unit 1's core, then she could
> pass a similar looking 'download' onto Unit 0.

Overall this theory just seems way to complicated for my liking.
A number of things I think are flat out wrong (the Rei clones
in the tank are soulless according to Ritsuko), but generally I
like Occam's Razor rules. It seems to me that you are trying
to complicate things when they are already complicated enough.

--
Michael Wignall
"Tomorrow's just an excuse away..."