FGC:Episode 03 Cut 002(ctd.)

Screenshots	Cut #	Description/Dialogue	Commentary
	002 (ctd.)	Ritsuko (OFF - radio):“In emergencies, it can switch to an internal battery with an active life of one minute at full power, and no more than five minutes using gain mode. This is the limitation of our technology. Do you understand?” Shinji:“Yes…” Ritsuko (OFF - radio):“Then, continuing from where we left off yesterday, we'll initiate Induction Mode.”	Reichu: The "limitation" refers to how long the 'internal battery' lasts. Considering some of the completely wacky things they can accomplish technologically in this show, it's odd that they wouldn't have overcome this particular hurdle. Hexon.Arq: Oh sure, that's the limitation. Mr. Tines: This is one of the items which stuck with more plausible technology, in fact. Battery technology — indeed, energy storage in general — is one of those bits of neat sci-fi tech that just haven't come to pass. OMF: But I wonder why directors put in such weaknesses in "giant robots" at all. The most obvious reason is that it "keeps things interesting", although I think it's best summed up in the following interchange from Metal Gear Solid (regarding a mecha called Metal Gear Rex): Snake: You intentionally designed it with a weak point? Otacon: It's not a weak point. I like to think of it as a character flaw. People just aren't complete without some type of character flaw, don't you think? Reichu: This particular "weakness" actually makes sense within the NGE universe. Evas require huge amounts of energy to move. Instead of bothering to feed them and let them produce this energy via metabolism, Nerv just pumps raw electricity into them. This electricity has to come from somewhere, hence the umbilical cable. Exactly how an Eva makes use of this raw electric power is another matter altogether. Pending an appendix on this subject, I'll just throw in some food for thought: An Angel's entire body is powered by the S2 Organ, which resides within the core. (The proofs for this — and the matter of precisely why the pre-harpy Evas inherently lack the S2 — will come later.) The core logically must possess some means of distributing that energy to the cells (or the closest thing, anyway) of the body. But what if the energy was not generated locally, but was instead channeled in from somewhere else…? Here, Ritsuko says only "gain", but ADV's subtitles expand it to "minimal activity gain mode", presumably for those of us who have no idea what "gain" means. The manga explains "Induction Mode" as "trigger priority mode: placing priority on gun operations rather than brainwave synchronization". Sounds pretty useless, if you ask me… From this angle, we can see how the cockpit's upper and lower side screens (as seen back in episode #01) wrap around the plug interior. This is the first time we see the pop-up "windows", as well. I have no idea what function they are serving here, but their most common usage later on is to provide video chat boxes with other Eva pilots or members of the bridge. Hexon.Arq: So many screens. Being that this is practice, could they be stats? I don't think they are ever implemented to that extent ever again. Mr. Tines: I'm guessing here they must serve as instrument panels of some sort.