Potential spoilers for New Perspective
And so, I wonder, is this a villain explaining their motives to the hero trying to stop them, or the other way around? I'm not sure, but I turned it out a while back when I began to wonder what sort of person Noriko would become and thought it pretty interesting.
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?
And so, I wonder, is this a villain explaining their motives to the hero trying to stop them, or the other way around? I'm not sure, but I turned it out a while back when I began to wonder what sort of person Noriko would become and thought it pretty interesting.
Quote:They selected me as a pilot, straight out of the hospital. I was still dazed and disorientated... still unsure of who I was, and I was being told that I would be the person standing between all humanity and annihilation. I would be the pointy end of a long spear made up of many millions of people giving their level best to ensure that humanity would prevail. There would be one more generation after this one. We would not just wink out into darkness.________________________________
It was the truth, and it fired me up. In the entry plug of a ten-thousand ton God-machine, I felt strong and confident. I felt that no matter what happened to the little toy tanks on the ground, I was safe and secure. And I could take the angels on face to face. It was my own personal giant robot animé and I revelled in it.
The saying at the time was that Science Division declared something impossible. Operations Division did it anyway. Really... it seemed like there was nothing we couldn't do. We wired all of Japan's electricity into one big cannon... in less than 12 hours. We held out for days against the tenth, staring right into the face of despair and still holding on.
Then Hikari died, and that changed everything. She was 14, just like me. She had a boyfriend. She had a plan for the future. She was my friend even at school. She was the sweetest person you'd ever meet, with a wonderful commanding streak that only came out in class. She could've been a teacher. She could've been anything. Instead, they called her to the principals office, and told her that she would be one of the heroes between humanity and extinction.
Of course she accepted.
Her Eva... 05... was invaded by the 13th Angel. It was corrupted and co-opted into a horrific, out of control monstrousity of a thing and she was trapped inside. The rest of us -we did everything to save her - everything. And we failed. The Angel-Eva kicked our asses and then some.
Then it exploded.
Hikari had been watching the whole battle unfold. She saw us try and fail. She knew what would happen if the Angel made it to Tokyo-3 alive. She pulled the self-destruct handle. A fourteen year old child chose to give her life to the world. It didn't hit me that she was really dead until her boyfriend called the apartment, asking if anything had happened to her.
All her hopes. All her dreams. All that future she had laid out before her. It was all gone and it wasn't coming back. She gave it all up, so that we could have ours.
Someone told me, after the 14th, that we inherit the will of the dead. Of all those who died so that we live today. All those in the Second Impact, drowned, incinerated, starved, sickened or just plain vanished in the chaos. All those soldiers who stood their ground, futilely firing at the Angels, hoping to delay the monster for that one critical second upon which the fate of the world might hinge.
We inherit their will, their hopes and their dreams, and mix them with ours. Their hopes for us to stay alive, for humanity to prevail. That's our duty as the survivors - to live enough for the dead.
I tried.
We beat the Angels. We lost Kaworu to the final Angel. We lost Rei to a JSSDF assault on the base, triggered by Seele. They told the Japanese government we were trying to trigger Third Impact. That was Seele's plan. They wanted Third Impact and they needed us out of the way to do it.
Tens of thousands died.
In my Eva I killed thousands to keep them from triggering Third Impact. I was fifteen when I rationalised it to myself. If they won, if they took down NERV, then everybody would die. They were doing no wrong, there were just people with families. Children. Their own future. Their only crime was that they'd been lied to by the real villains, and I killed them. Humanity had to survive.
Step. Crunch. Bang. Dead. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. God help me it felt like a videogame at the time
It was a tragedy and it wasn't our fault. If we'd let them win, we'd be all dead now. Instead they're dead and we're alive. We're the heroes who saved the world! Legends who'd go down history. The seven children who saved all mankind, and the three who didn't live to see it.
Now what? With the threat gone and mankind safe... the grand world alliances started to fall apart. With no common enemy to fight, they just got back to their old rivalries. Qusay invaded Kuwait again...anything my father can do, I can do better! Threatening to sweep into the surrounding Arabian kingdoms. Threatening to bring down the UN supply of oil.
They told us to get ready. That we were needed once more to save the world and humanity from the threat of an Iraqi dictator and his massed tank armies. We'd be heroes again, defending the freedom of the innocent from their malignant oppressors.
I was 16.
And I believed them. It was good. It was right. Freedom was the right of all human beings and the UN brought freedom.
They pointed me at the Republican Guard. We had a full combat load, including ammunition. Told me to go for a stroll when it all ran out. Hammurabi division was destroyed within five minutes. Over ten thousand men, squashed, stomped and blown out of existence. The news-people called it the highway of death.
The war lasted all of five minutes. The Iraqi army took one look at what we'd done and shat themselves a collective brick. They just gave up. No more fighting.
But. What threat where these men to humanity? What world-ending danger did they represent? They were nothing more than a spitting spark in a madman's brushfire war that should've been left to gutter and die on its own.
Except. Where does the world's oil come from?
They told us we were fighting for freedom. We were fighting for a twenty dollar barrel of oil. I murdered ten thousand men for cheap fucking fuel. But... I was 16. I was just following my bloody orders.
I only realised how wrong that was, after the fact. It's no excuse and I know it. I should've figured it out. I should've known. Instead I let them use me as a weapon of mass destruction just to solve their own petty arguments. Thousands dead.
And these same men who made me a mass murderer, now want their own Evangelion? These same people want me to turn over the Evangelion to them. Too much power for a private organisation! Only the Governments should have them! Only we are responsible! We can defend the world from within the United Nations of all people. No private company has need of such terrible weapons. Just take our hands and we'll take care of you.
They can spin on it.
Who was it that gave the order to use them in Iraq against tanks? Who was it that unleashed all that God-awful power? Who was it that pushed the button after Second Impact? The same Seven security council delegates who right now, are building their own Evangelion programs and who want us to turn over ours in to their loving care.
It's well that they're so expensive to build, and difficult to get right. Even the United States has only managed to build two.
It may be there's no God left in the world capable of forgiving me. It may be, I don't deserve to be forgiven. But the least I can do, is do my damnedest to make sure that it never happens again.
We inherit the will of the dead, the will to survive. the will for there to be a future. I'm fighting for that future. For Hikari, Rei and all those who died to get me here. For all those killed. I stand for them every day. I stand against those who would abuse Evangelion technology, wherever they may be and with whatever force is necessary to ensure that humanity continues on.
This is my duty to the dead.
--Major Nagato. Operations Director. NERV HQ. 2025.
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?
