Episode 13

Episode Information
Episode #13
Title 1: 使徒、侵入 Shito Shinnyuu Angel Invasion Title 2: Lilliputian Hitcher
Written By	Hideaki Anno,Akio Satsukawa, and Mitsuo Iso
Directed By	Tensai Okamura(director), Masahiko Otsuka(assistant director)
First Aired	12-27-1995
Video Release Date	8-7-1996 (Japan-Video/LD), 2-13-2001 (US-DVD)
Angel Appearances	Ireul
Eva Sorties	none
Episode chronology
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"Episode 12"	"Episode 14"

Overview

A routine test involving the Eva pilots turns into a struggle for survival when a wholly new type of Angel appears and spreads inside Nerv HQ. This new, computer-like angel threatens to set off the self-destruct for the entire facility, leaving Dr.Ritsuko Akagi in a race against time to save the GeoFront and destroy the Angel.

Synopsis

The episode begins with Ritsuko Akagi completing a routine maintenance test of the Magi supercomputer system, followed soon by an autopilot test for the three Eva pilots. The pilots are supposed to enter simulation bodies without their plug suits and after a thorough disinfection.

The pilots enter the "simulation plugs", the entry plugs for the simulation bodies kept inside the Pribnow Box, while the Magi monitor the data coming off their bodies. While the test proceeds smoothly, Aoba shows Fuyutsuki what look like stains on construction brought in three days previously. Hyuga thinks they are corrosion from trapped air bubbles, and Fuyutsuki reminds them to fix the problem by the next day.

Maya informs Ritsuko of the corrosion in the protein wall above, but since it does not pose any problems to the test for the moment, Ritsuko decides to go ahead, saying that they can't abort the test due to minor technical issues. The simulation plugs are then connected to their Evas via their simulation bodies, contact being first established with Eva-00. Immediately afterwards, a contamination alert sounds as the corrosion begins to spread explosively. The experiment is aborted and several water pipes sealed to prevent the spread, but to no avail.

Without warning, Rei screams and her simulation body starts moving and trying to break free of its restraints. It raises a hand towards the control booth, but the arm is severed by a blasting bolt and the pilots are ejected at once. The mass of corrosion is fired upon with lasers, but to everyone's shock and horror, it deploys an A.T. Field, revealing itself to be the eleventh angel, Ireul.

Immediate panic ensues in the command facility, and Central Dogma is closed off at once and all personnel evacuate the Pribnow Box. Gendo cancels the alarm, and orders that the committee and the Japanese government be informed of an error in the alarm system. He then orders the Evas to be launched pilotless to avoid the risk of infection, giving Eva-01 priority.

Meanwhile, Ritsuko and Misato attempt to fight the angel without the Evas. An attempt to destroy the Angel with an excess of oxygen fails as the angel evolves, soon turning into a system of electronic circuits that attacks Nerv's computer systems, reprogramming the Magi Melchior and attempting to initiate self-destruct for the facility. Unable to get clearance from the other Magi, it starts hacking into Balthasar as well. However, a temporary firewall is set up that prevents the Angel from hacking any further for the time being.

Ritsuko explains the nature of this new angel: a colony of microscopic entities working together to evolve and form intelligent circuits, and details a plan to counter-hack the Angel and program it to reach an evolutionary dead end, where it will have no choice but to die. She opens an entrance into the physical structure of the surviving Magi Casper, and begins work with notes left by her mother.

Ireul finally breaks through the firewall and completes infecting Balthasar, and with one second to go before Casper is defeated, the counter-hacking program is installed. The Magi are promptly restored to their normal status, and Ireul dies out. Ritsuko talks to Misato about the Magi and her Mother's personality, and the pilots are left wondering what happened.

Similarities to The Andromeda Strain

This episode is thematically based on Michael Crichton's The Andromeda Strain, and has several references and similarities to the events in Michael Chrichton's novel, including imagery based on the 1971 movie adaptation.

• The Angel Ireul is a microorganism comprised of a colony of microscopic machines, whose A.T. Field is represented as a pulsating grid of hexagons that pop in and out of existence, totally unlike that of any other known Angel. The Andromeda organism is a colony of hexagonal microorganisms operating in concert, the physical structure of which is able to alter its mode of operation to "switch on" or "switch off" at will.

• Oxygen is used to hold both organisms at bay. Andromeda is inhibited by oxygen and prefers carbon dioxide; it grows within a narrow acidity-alkalinity range that can be disrupted by an excess of oxygen. Ireul shows an initial vulnerability to oxygen in the form of ozone (O₃) that is never elaborated upon.

• Evolution is the same factor that ends the menace of both microorganisms. Andromeda gradually evolves into a form that is benign to humans, Ireul's evolution is steered to a point where it has no option but to die out.

• Both microorganisms "hitch a ride", arriving upon a human-made object, and are released by human carelessness. The tiny "planet" that contains Andromeda arrives with a satellite designed to collect lifeforms from the upper atmosphere, and released when the satellite is carelessly pried open. Ireul's method of entry is not specified, but it evidently enters in air bubbles caused by substandard construction. Human error is responsible for the incidents with both microbes.

• Other minor but notable similarities include physical isolation of the facility to contain the microorganism, people undergoing thorough decontamination (The Wildfire facility scientists and the Children entering the simulation bodies), and racing to prevent a nuclear self-destruct triggered directly or indirectly by the microorganism's actions.

Messenger Theory

While considering the origins of the Andromeda organism, a theory called the "Messenger Theory" is brought up, suggesting that the most efficient way for an advanced civilization to communicate with another species would be to send a microorganism out into space. The microorganism, containing within itself the genetic code to form an organ or even a full organism, may be used to communicate with the aliens discovering it and suggest methods of contact with the species that originally sent it.

The Andromeda organism is found on a tiny space rock that resembles a planet in miniature, and both the Seeds of Life arrive on their respective "moons", created by the First Ancestral Race. The humans(Lilin) and Angels that descend from the Seeds of Life are in effect their messengers. The Angels were created to be immortal and had immense power and the ability to survive the most extreme of conditions; the comparatively mortal, frail humans being evolved step by step from microbes, which in turn formed out of the blood of Lilith, Lilith's blood finally spreading the message of humanity. Either way, the original human race would be able to survive and communicate with whatever forms of life that were to come later.

Notes

• The English title, "Lilliputian Hitcher" is a reference to Gulliver's Travels: the Lilliuptians are a race of tiny people, and the microscopic Angel Ireul infiltrates Nerv HQ by "hitching" a ride on a newly installed faulty wall panel. (Crichton's Andromeda organism hitched a ride on a returning satellite)
• This marks the first and only time that an Angel is defeated without using the Evangelions at all: Ritsuko tricked the Angel into killing itself by reprogramming it with a self-termination program.
  • This episode is also unique in that it barely involves the Evangelions or any of the three Eva pilots: they just show up briefly at the beginning and end of the episode, and play no significant part in the central plot.
• The Magi supercomputers, mentioned by name several times before and explicitly identified as such in Episode 11, are the focus of this episode. We learn that they were built by Ritsuko's mother, Naoko Akagi. Naoko felt that each of the "personality" of each of the Magi represented one of the three aspects of herself: Naoko as a scientist (Melchior), Naoko as a mother (Balthasar), and Naoko as a woman (Casper). Casper's personality, in particular, comes to be of vital significance in the End of Evangelion.
• The Magi are "seventh generation organic computers" which are based on a "transcribed personality operating system", which allows a person's personality (in this case Naoko's) to be transcribed onto the supercomputers, to make them self-aware. This technology was invented by Naoko herself. Misato says that this is the system is the same one that is used to control the Evas, however as Misato is really "out of the loop" in terms of knowing how Evas really operate, it's possible that that is just a cover story.
• Ritsuko appears deeply influenced by her deceased mother: she refers to her mother several times in this episode, and her comment on growing older seems to indicate a drive to be as accomplished as and worthy of her mother as a scientist. By her own admission, she didn't really get along with her mother very well, and she seems to be living in her mother's shadow.
• This marks the only appearance of the Simulation bodies in the entire series. The simulation bodies appear to be coreless Evangelion torsos with arms attached. Their origin is unclear, though they may have been salvaged from the Failed Evangelion Prototypes seen in Episode 23. At least one body (Rei's) is missing its left arm, and all of them lack legs and heads. It is not known if they are restored or used again afterwards.
• This is the first time an Angel managed to get directly inside of Central Dogma, which as we will see next episode, causes the Human Instrumentality Committee to become quite concerned. It is not directly stated how it managed to infiltrate the base, but Shigeru's comments seem to indicate that it arrive in air bubbles within a poorly constructed clean room wall, the "87th protein barrier", which was installed in Nerv HQ after Sachiel first appeared.
• Ireul is an Angel composed of a series of microscopic organisms the size of bacteria acting in concert: the Angel's A.T. Field isn't a single polygonal barrier, but a moving, pulsating grid of hexagons.
  • In the sole magnified image of Ireul that we see, it displays the same rainbow-like pattern of colors seen in Seele's logo, before changing to a tangle of lines (Similar to one briefly seen in Episode 23), and then to a form that visibly resembles electronics before the screen cuts to static.
• The Evangelions are launched with priority given to Eva-01, with the other two Evas to be sacrificed if necessary. Once again, a hidden hint to how special Eva-01 is. It is possible that Gendo fears that an Angel merging with Eva 01 might start Third Impact.
• The testing booths that the Eva pilots are located in are labeled "C-01" (Rei), "C-02" (Shinji), and "C-03" (Asuka). If the "C" is supposed to stand for "Child", this is actually an error: Shinji is the Third Child, and Asuka is the Second Child.
• Nerv special order "582" is the order to self-destruct Nerv HQ.
• Ritsuko consciously does not think she ever wants to be a mother.
• The robots armed with lasers, used to keep the simulation body testing room sterile, are called "Polysomes"
• The names of things associated with the simulation Eva body testing area, such as "Sigma Unit", "Polysome", and "Pribnow box", are all named after objects involved in the process of DNA transcription and translation. The "Sigma Unit" of RNA polymerase enzyme is the part responsible for recognizing the signal on the DNA strand that tells the polymerase to begin synthesizing RNA. It is through this sigma unit that RNA polymerase is able to initiate transcription. The "Pribnow box" is the promoter site on prokaryote DNA, which causes RNA polymerase to bind to the strand and begin transcription into mRNA. A "polysome" is the term for a cluster of ribosomes, which translate mRNA into proteins.
• Ritsuko tells Misato and the Eva pilots that the test they are carrying out with the simulation bodies will ultimately help them develop "a new autopilot system".
• The insides of the Magi supercomputers are covered in many post-it notes left behind by their creator, Dr. Naoko Akagi. Pausing and zooming in reveals that many of them contain hidden Easter Egg messages, things like "Gendo, you are an idiot--Naoko", etc.

Analysis

• The episode is actually inconsistent is stating where exactly the "Sigma Unit" of Nerv HQ, containing the infected Pribnow Box, is in relation to Central Dogma. Fuyutsuki says that it is fairly close to "Adam" (presumably Terminal Dogma, the lowest level of the base). However, we then see Kaji, standing on Level 28, looking up at the Angel infection several levels above him, while in the same scene a voice on the intercom says that "All of Central Dogma under Sigma Unit will be completely closed off in sixty seconds" (Central Dogma, specifically the command center containing the Magi, is located around Level 40, and the level numbers decrease as they go farther down, so that would mean the Angel was above Central Dogma). In the very next scene, another voice over the intercom says that all deep facilities were taken over by the Angel, again saying that the Sigma Unit is below Central Dogma.
• Misato's drive to destroy Angels and sense of intuition, which worked so well in the previous episode and Episode 05, comes to a point of dangerous irrationality: she suggests the physical destruction of the Magi so that the Angel has no growth medium. This time, it is Ritsuko's logic and clear thinking that wins out.
• It is unexplained how the Eva pilots were able to synchronize with the simulation bodies given that in Episode 23 Ritsuko reveals that Evas need to contain a human soul in order for a pilot to synchronize with it, specifically the soul of their mother (Yui in Shinji's case, Kyoko in Asuka's case), and their exact workings are not explained in detail. Apparently, the pilots do not synchronize with the simulation body itself, but somehow the "simulation plugs" connect with the real Evangelion Units, through the simulation bodies, as seen when Rei turns on the real Eva Unit 00's A.T. Field while in the simulation body.
• The Angel Ireul takes over Rei's simulation body first; this might be the first example of an Angel trying to merge with Rei's Eva (the later ones are Bardiel and Armisael). When Rei's simulation body is infected, it reaches its hand out to the control box as if to attack it. Then again, Rei's simulation body just happens to be the closest to the control box, and as the simulation bodies have no legs, with all three infected it is possible that Rei's attacked simply because it was the only one that could reach.
• Angels cannot reproduce, each one only has one soul, so it's not clear exactly how Ireul, apparently a colony-based collection of microorganisms, operates. It would seem that one "soul" is shared across the entire collective (just as the entire collective seems to be guided by one intelligence, instead of many microorganisms acting independently).
• From the image seen, Ireul was extremely rapid in its evolution to electronic circuitry, and Fuyutsuki commented that it was searching for something within the files. Ireul then reprogrammed the Magi to initiate self-destruct, possibly at the risk of destroying itself. Since it already had broken into the computers and read all the files inside, it might have found out that the Angel in Terminal Dogma was Lilith, although its reaction(trying to destroy Nerv headquarters) was very different from that of Tabris, who let himself be killed.
  • Another possibility is that Ireul intended to merge with Lilith (It may or may not have mistaken Lilith for Adam). Like Sahaquiel in the previous episode, Ireul could have been trying to blow up all threats in its way while using its A.T. Field to survive the explosion and contact Lilith hassle-free.
• Ritsuko's intent on blaming herself for the Angel's invasion and the Magi's corruption might be due to feelings of her own inability to build on or even protect her mother's work, and prevent the Magi from being taken over in this way. By "keeping her promise", she seems to be trying to keep up with the image of her mother once again.
• Misato thinks that the same "Personality transplant" operating systems used by seventh-generation computers to think for themselves are also in the Evangelions. Misato is rarely in the know, and whether or not she is right or wrong on this issue is an open question: Ritsuko does not answer her, and the question is never brought up again. However, the problems associated with "thought noise", especially during Eva-02's activation in Episode 08, suggest that such a system might be used as an interface between the pilot and the resident soul.

Quotes

• Asuka: "What? You want me to take off my clothes again?"
• Intercom: "All of Central Dogma under Sigma Unit will be completely closed off in sixty seconds."
  Intercom: "Thirty seconds until activation of vacuum pump"
  (Kaji sneaking around in Central Dogma)
  Kaji: "So that's the Angel. Guess I don't have time for work now."
• Ritsuko: "We can think of them as micro-machines. Angels the size of microbes. Those individuals have aggregated together and have undergone explosive evolution to achieve intelligence circuits in this short amount of time."
  Fuyutsuki: "Evolution..."
  Ritsuko: "Yes. They're continuously changing themselves, searching for a system that can cope with any situation."
  Fuyutsuki: "That's truly the system of life itself."
• (After Ritsuko opens up the Magi and crawls in)
  Ritsuko: "Scribbles left by the developer."
  Maya: "Amazing! These are back doors! Magi's back doors!"
  Misato: "So it's a veritable encyclopedia of all the tricks up the Magi's sleeve."
  Maya: "Is it okay to see these? What a surprise! This is INT-C! With these we can program much faster than we thought, right, Ma'am?"
  (Ritsuko nods)
  Ritsuko: "Thank you, Mother. We can make it for sure now."
• (Large black graffiti inside the Magi left by Naoko Akagi): "Ikari, you jerk!"
• Asuka: "Jeez, I can't go anywhere naked! Somebody hurry up and help me!"

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