"Children" is the codename used. It bugged ADV no end at the time
itsune9tl has sort of hit on something I worked out in the background at some stage, that's utterly irrelevant - and only really visible in how quick Noriko recovered.
Anyway, if you'll permit me to go off on a Weber...
5 Billion years ago, there existed the first ancestral race. A extraterrestrial civilisation that formed, got bored and lonely in a lonely universe, and fired off some automated terraforming devices into the wild black yonder to sow the seed of life in the universe. Sort of like giant automated genesis devices. Each one contains a single primordial life form created by the Ancestrals to act as a seed.
One hit the Earth in the Giant Impact - which formed the moon - and began seeding the planet with a particular paradigm of life 'Lilith-type'. It did so by trialling different paradigms of life to suite the environment, then learning and correcting from its failures - until one eventually took hold and began to flourish. A second hit soon afterwards and - detected an already active biosphere and went dormant to prevent the annihilation of any sapient life.
Both seeds contained different aspects of life - reflecting different aspects of the Ancestrals. For whatever reason - probably competition and common sense - they preferred not to give their children their full faculties, but only a small subset of them. With each different seed being a different subset.
This of course, all went tickety-boo. Aeons passed. Dinosaurs came, then went. Birds ruled the world for a while. Then, at the final tick of the geological clock - humanity popped out of the chaos of natural selection and promptly set about understanding the universe and their place in it. They discovered Science. They discovered Physics. They discovered the amusing things that happened when a little M turned into a lot of E. And then they discovered the holes in Science.
And out of these holes came the stuff beyond our regular newtonian physics, and even beyond the fancy probability based quantum physics and into the new and fascinating field of Metaphysics - which deals with reality and how the human soul and consciousness are intrinsically linked. So yes, the soul and human psychology - and its interaction with the local higgs field - have now become a repeatable hard science. And an intrinsic part of how the clockwork of reality ticks. Something a bit beyond the whole 'Consciousness causes collapse of the local wave-function' thing that floats around. Metaphysical Biology is the specific field of science that deals with these matters.
These people are probably considered somewhat fringe - like those whackjobs who discovered the electron with no idea what it meant but thought it'd be neat at the time - or that atoms could be cracked, with some dawning idea ofd what it meant. (amusingly, the concept of a true atomic bomb was first patented in France in 1939).
They would've remained Fringe, up until the discovery of the second Seed, landed in Antarctica. Science promptly begins poking it to see what it's made of.
Somewhere along the line, the Artificial Human Evolution project is begun - when it's clear that there're things that can be done to the human genome to expand[ human capabilities in the metaphysical. The first prototypes are trialled towards the end of the Millenium. The Gene Drives are implanted in the healthy embryos of researchers involved, to be allowed to grow and 'see what happens for shits and giggles'.
Meanwhile Somebody manages to figure out how to overide all the safeties on the Antarctic seed and turn it on. It promptly sets about re-terraforming terra to match its own particul aspect of life - with the expected unfortunate consequences for the aspect already living on the planet. Realising their fuckup, they try to turn it off - only to find that it does not turn off quite so easily.
This is called The Second Impact. Antarctica doesn't so much go away, as expand to cover the entire globe in blue salty liquid. The resulting climate change is almost undeniable - but that doesn't stop some. The resulting chaos and nuclear wars promptly leads to humanity being bom,bed back to the 1960's. Thanos would be proud of the result.
Few of the original embryos survive the chaos. Some because 'Babies Can't work'. Some because their parents didn't. Most are just lost or forgotten. Noriko is a first generation prototype, with adjustments focusing on physical capability, and AT sensitivity. Touji is a first-gen, like Noriko.
A second generation are created in the immediate aftermath to try and create humans who can cope. This is Shinj, Asuka, Kensuke and most of 2-A. These Children are more balanced - with emphasis given to both intelligence and physical attributes.
They're still less than one-one thousandth of what might be possible.
This is all fine and good until someone realises that the Antarctic Seed hasn't gone away - it's working on creating a new Aspect of life - albeit at a slower pace. And that some time in the future it will release that Paradigm into the world where it will wreak untold havoc and destroy the human race in the process.
The first Evangelion is created, effectively, by taking the gloves off on the other 999 thousandths, and cloning the original primordial lifeform responsible for humanity. The intent, is merely to provide a gravestone for all of mankind - something that'll last for all eternity in case someone ever comes wandering by the solar system and wonders what once lived here. A researcher's wife gives her life - consciously - to this endeavour. To be the Final Human.
Naturally, it's realised that actually - if you stick a particularly depressed kid in there - it might be possible to fight back and save humanity. It's a million-to-one-chance, but it's worth trying rather than just sort of going 'poof' when the reset button gets pushed. The largest megaproject in human history is launched, to fight the last war for human survival. Good News everyone - we're not doomed.
Rei Ayanami, is an experiment to hydridise a human with a primordial life source in order
the markers created by the Gene Drive, make the prototype Children capable of piloting the resulting Evangelion machine. If only they hadn't been born and raised by the sort of people that think metaphysical biology and ancient aliens is a respectable field of science.
Add in to that, some Forever Alone types who would like to force the whole human race to spend eternity with them as an amorphous gestalt consciousness because real life sucks.
And that researcher - who'll also happily spend the rest of eternity with all of humanity as an amorphous gestalt
But they have to shut down the terraforming device to do it. Fortunately, it'll only spit out 15 paradigms of life before it concludes that the world it's landed on is just too hostile for the time being - and shuts down. Unfortunately, each paradigm learns from the previouis ones failure. So the difficulty level goes up each time.
None of which has any relevance to the story at hand at this time
itsune9tl has sort of hit on something I worked out in the background at some stage, that's utterly irrelevant - and only really visible in how quick Noriko recovered.
Anyway, if you'll permit me to go off on a Weber...
5 Billion years ago, there existed the first ancestral race. A extraterrestrial civilisation that formed, got bored and lonely in a lonely universe, and fired off some automated terraforming devices into the wild black yonder to sow the seed of life in the universe. Sort of like giant automated genesis devices. Each one contains a single primordial life form created by the Ancestrals to act as a seed.
One hit the Earth in the Giant Impact - which formed the moon - and began seeding the planet with a particular paradigm of life 'Lilith-type'. It did so by trialling different paradigms of life to suite the environment, then learning and correcting from its failures - until one eventually took hold and began to flourish. A second hit soon afterwards and - detected an already active biosphere and went dormant to prevent the annihilation of any sapient life.
Both seeds contained different aspects of life - reflecting different aspects of the Ancestrals. For whatever reason - probably competition and common sense - they preferred not to give their children their full faculties, but only a small subset of them. With each different seed being a different subset.
This of course, all went tickety-boo. Aeons passed. Dinosaurs came, then went. Birds ruled the world for a while. Then, at the final tick of the geological clock - humanity popped out of the chaos of natural selection and promptly set about understanding the universe and their place in it. They discovered Science. They discovered Physics. They discovered the amusing things that happened when a little M turned into a lot of E. And then they discovered the holes in Science.
And out of these holes came the stuff beyond our regular newtonian physics, and even beyond the fancy probability based quantum physics and into the new and fascinating field of Metaphysics - which deals with reality and how the human soul and consciousness are intrinsically linked. So yes, the soul and human psychology - and its interaction with the local higgs field - have now become a repeatable hard science. And an intrinsic part of how the clockwork of reality ticks. Something a bit beyond the whole 'Consciousness causes collapse of the local wave-function' thing that floats around. Metaphysical Biology is the specific field of science that deals with these matters.
These people are probably considered somewhat fringe - like those whackjobs who discovered the electron with no idea what it meant but thought it'd be neat at the time - or that atoms could be cracked, with some dawning idea ofd what it meant. (amusingly, the concept of a true atomic bomb was first patented in France in 1939).
They would've remained Fringe, up until the discovery of the second Seed, landed in Antarctica. Science promptly begins poking it to see what it's made of.
Somewhere along the line, the Artificial Human Evolution project is begun - when it's clear that there're things that can be done to the human genome to expand[ human capabilities in the metaphysical. The first prototypes are trialled towards the end of the Millenium. The Gene Drives are implanted in the healthy embryos of researchers involved, to be allowed to grow and 'see what happens for shits and giggles'.
Meanwhile Somebody manages to figure out how to overide all the safeties on the Antarctic seed and turn it on. It promptly sets about re-terraforming terra to match its own particul aspect of life - with the expected unfortunate consequences for the aspect already living on the planet. Realising their fuckup, they try to turn it off - only to find that it does not turn off quite so easily.
This is called The Second Impact. Antarctica doesn't so much go away, as expand to cover the entire globe in blue salty liquid. The resulting climate change is almost undeniable - but that doesn't stop some. The resulting chaos and nuclear wars promptly leads to humanity being bom,bed back to the 1960's. Thanos would be proud of the result.
Few of the original embryos survive the chaos. Some because 'Babies Can't work'. Some because their parents didn't. Most are just lost or forgotten. Noriko is a first generation prototype, with adjustments focusing on physical capability, and AT sensitivity. Touji is a first-gen, like Noriko.
A second generation are created in the immediate aftermath to try and create humans who can cope. This is Shinj, Asuka, Kensuke and most of 2-A. These Children are more balanced - with emphasis given to both intelligence and physical attributes.
They're still less than one-one thousandth of what might be possible.
This is all fine and good until someone realises that the Antarctic Seed hasn't gone away - it's working on creating a new Aspect of life - albeit at a slower pace. And that some time in the future it will release that Paradigm into the world where it will wreak untold havoc and destroy the human race in the process.
The first Evangelion is created, effectively, by taking the gloves off on the other 999 thousandths, and cloning the original primordial lifeform responsible for humanity. The intent, is merely to provide a gravestone for all of mankind - something that'll last for all eternity in case someone ever comes wandering by the solar system and wonders what once lived here. A researcher's wife gives her life - consciously - to this endeavour. To be the Final Human.
Naturally, it's realised that actually - if you stick a particularly depressed kid in there - it might be possible to fight back and save humanity. It's a million-to-one-chance, but it's worth trying rather than just sort of going 'poof' when the reset button gets pushed. The largest megaproject in human history is launched, to fight the last war for human survival. Good News everyone - we're not doomed.
Rei Ayanami, is an experiment to hydridise a human with a primordial life source in order
the markers created by the Gene Drive, make the prototype Children capable of piloting the resulting Evangelion machine. If only they hadn't been born and raised by the sort of people that think metaphysical biology and ancient aliens is a respectable field of science.
Add in to that, some Forever Alone types who would like to force the whole human race to spend eternity with them as an amorphous gestalt consciousness because real life sucks.
And that researcher - who'll also happily spend the rest of eternity with all of humanity as an amorphous gestalt
But they have to shut down the terraforming device to do it. Fortunately, it'll only spit out 15 paradigms of life before it concludes that the world it's landed on is just too hostile for the time being - and shuts down. Unfortunately, each paradigm learns from the previouis ones failure. So the difficulty level goes up each time.
None of which has any relevance to the story at hand at this time
Oh sweet meteor of death
Fall upon us.
Deliver us in fire
To Peace everlasting.
Fall upon us.
Deliver us in fire
To Peace everlasting.