Exactly what is Evangleion? What are the mysterious beings that only children can control, and how did they come to be? To find out, read on.
The official classification is "General-purpose Humanoid Decisive Combat Weapon Artificial Human Evangelion." Now that's the biggest mouthfull. As mentioned before, the Eva series are cloned from the remains of the First Angel. Evangelions are capable of generating their own A.T. Field and are the only weapons that are capable of neutralizing it. The Evas operate on external electrical power. Thus, it is fed to them through umbilical cables attached to their backs. That is their only current minus. Without this external power, they can only maintain 5 minutes of activation time.
These humanoids originally have no soul and need a pilot to give them a soul and basically, the power to move and fight. For reasons that are never revealed, only fourteen year old children are able to pilot the Evas. The pilot sits inside an entry plug, which is then inserted into the Evangelion's spine. The entry plug looks like a huge, long capsule. Now, activation depends on the synchronization between the Eva and pilot. To aid this, the pilot wears a control interface on his/her head (they look like funky hairpins) and a skin-tight plugsuit and the plug is filled with LCL, or Link Connection Fluid. This fluid not only aids synchronization. It also acts as a shock absorber and, basically, liquid oxygen.
The pilot then has two methods of controlling the Eva. He/she has two manual hand controls. I read somewhere that there are also foot pedals. The second comes as a benefit of synchronization. Whatever the pilot thinks, the Evangelion will do. However, there is a major downside that comes as a result of synchronization: Whatever physical damage that is incurred to the Eva is felt by the pilot. For example, if the Eva receives a sharp blow to the head, the pilot will feel it and will be in pain. The Evangelions themselves are pretty mysterious.
Unit 00/00'.
Prototype.
Pilot: Rei Ayanami.
Before:
Unit00 is the prototype
Eva, and since it is the prototype it experiences some severe technical problems. When the series begins Unit 00 is in stasis after an accident that severely injured its pilot and caused a lot of damage to the test facility. After all the problems were fixed, Eva 00 was melted after it fought against the fith angel.
After:
Unit00' is the revised prototype
Eva. When it returns to service it is severely damaged in the fight against the fifth Angel. After this it is fitted with a new body that is blue instead of orange and that closely resembles Unit 02. Though it is probably the weakest fighter, it is involved in a lot of behind the scenes work with Gendo and Lilith. Unit00 is self-destructed late in the series in Rei's attempt to protect Shinji and Unit01.
Unit 01.
Test Type.
Pilot: Shinji Ikari.
Unit01 is the test type and the most interesting (and coolest looking in my opinion) Evangelion. It is definitely the most powerful, even though it wasn't originally designed for battle. Unit01 is at its most destructive when it is in one of its berserker rages. Unit 01 has also run without any power cables attached or any power in back-up batteries, which leads me to believe it already has an S2 organ, even before it ingests the 14th Angel's S2 organ. This Eva seems also like it wants to protect its pilot, like it does in the first episode. This leads me to believe Yui, Shinji's mother, didn't die in the entry plug accident. I think she was instead absorbed by it, like Shinji is briefly in episodes 19 and 20. This is definitely my favorite Evangelion.
Unit 02.
Production Model.
Pilot: Asuka Langley Sohryu.
Unit02 is the production model and, as Asuka brags, the first Evangelion actually built for combat. Although it is not as strong as Unit 01, its cocky pilot picks up the slack and turns it into an effective fighting machine. Unlike most of the other Evas, Unit 02 never goes berserk during the series; actually, it stops working when problems with the pilot occurs. After Asuka is mind-wrapped by an Angel and loses the ability to synchronize with her Eva, the "5th Child," Kaoru Nagisa, is assigned to Unit 02. This is a brief assignment since he turns out to be the 17th Angel and attacks Nerv with Unit02. Afterwards Asuka is reassigned to the Eva. Unit 02 is finally destroyed in the last movie, when fighting Evangelion Unit's 05-13.
Unit 03.
Production Model.
Pilot: Classified.
The Nerv 1st Branch in
America constructed Unit03. Unfortunately, it was infected with an Angel on its flight overseas. During the activation experiment the Angel took over Unit 03 and caused an explosion that destroyed the Nerv test facility, injuring Misato and Ritsuko. Afterwards it is redesignated the 13th Angel and Units 00, 01 and 02 are sent after it under Gendo's control. Unit 03 makes quick work of Units 00 and 02, leaving Shinji on his own. After Shinji refuses to fight for fear of injuring the pilot, Gendo turns on the dummy plug system. The dummy system quickly kills the Angel and proceeds to rip it limb from limb, in the process severely injuring and almost killing its pilot.
Unit 04.
Production Model.
Pilot: N/A.
Not much is known about Unit 04, except that it looks a lot like Unit 03 and it is silver. The Nerv 2nd Branch constructed it in America. Unfortunately it disappeared, along with the Nerv 2nd Branch, in an experiment involving the first synthetic S2 engine. Nerv now believes that a Dirac Sea swallowed the Eva, like Unit01 was when fighting the 12th Angel.
Units 05-13.
Mass Production Models.
Pilot: Dummy Plug System.
These Units are the Mass Production models. They are used by Seele to fight against Nerv during the movies. Kaoru dummy plugs pilot them. They have bird-like wings and all have S2 engines, so they can operate indefinitely without power cables. Though Unit 02 originally defeats them, they regenerate themselves and quickly destroys Unit 02.
But what is the Dummy Plug System and S2 engine??
Okay, I guess I can tell you about that.
The Dummy Plug System: Later on in the series, a kind of "auto pilot" project goes into the making. This is the Dummy Plug System. The first Dummy Plug System, made by NERV, is modeled on Rei. This one is tried on Unit 01. The second, made by SEELE, is modeled on Kaworu. That is the one used on Units 05 through 13.
The S2 engine is a Self Sufficient engine. A unit with this engine requires no external power and has pretty much unlimited internal power. The Fourth Angel was defeated but remained pretty much intact. NERV obtained a core sample (the red core) from the Angel and modeled the S2 engine on it.
