FGC:Episode 17 Scene 02

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Screenshots	Cut #	Description/Dialogue	Commentary
	013		UrsusArctos: Wait, if that's meant to happen in Nevada it's way too far north...and what in Pete's name happened to Canada??? Mr. Tines: Second Impact can handwave away some of the geographical oddities, but not all of them.
	014	HYUGA (OFF):“Anyway, 1st Branch is okay, right?” HYUGA (OFF):“It doesn't matter, we'll have the Magi evaluate the data discrepancies from the sensors!” TECHIE (OFF):“Send the info from Satellite 5 immediately. It's top priority.” TECHIE (OFF):“Just the schedule for Unit 04 is fine.” TECHIE (OFF):“I'd like confirmation on the synchro data and the S2 engine.” TECHIE (OFF):“We'll get rid of the noise over on our end. Just send us the originals.”
	015	FUYUTSUKI:“It vanished?!”
	016	FUYUTSUKI:“You're sure the 2nd Branch just vanished?!” AOBA (PHONE):“Yes, Sir, it's been confirmed.”
	017	AOBA (PHONE):“It vanished.”
	018	MISATO (OFF) Oh, man... HYUGA (OFF):“The Administration and Investigation departments are going crazy, and General Affairs is in a total panic.” MISATO (OFF):“So what was the cause?”
	019	RITSUKO (OFF):“We still don't know. Our only clues are these geosynchronous satellite photos. There's nothing else left.” IBUKI (OFF):“10 seconds... 8... 7... 6... 5... 4... 3... 2... 1 ... Contact.” MISATO (OFF):“This is horrible.”	UrsusArctos: Nevada, of course, is home to the legendary Area 51, and it was also the location of the Wildfire Facility in the Andromeda Strain. The disappearance into a sea of red is pretty creepy looking. As a little scientific nitpick, geosynchronous satellites only ever orbit above Earth's equator, so to get a view overhead would require the services of a satellite in tundra or molniya orbit, neither of which are properly geosynchronous. Dr. Nick: The disappearance effect looks violently energetic as opposed to Leliel's stealthily expanding maw, but of course in its case there was an intelligence in control. Here we even see an explosion-like pressure wave, which doesn't make sense to me - if a large area was suddenly dematerialized, the air would be moving in an opposite direction as it would be rushing in to fill the void. Incidentally, if we assume that Nerv's Nevada branch is supposed to be located at Area 51, a radius of 89 kilometers means that Las Vegas was narrowly spared from being swallowed.
	020	IBUKI:“Evangelion Unit 04 and all related research facilities within an 89km radius have completely vanished.” RITSUKO:“Along with several thousand people.”
	021	AOBA:“Looking at the time schedule, we believe it to be an accident during the experimental installation of the S2 engine that was restored in Germany.”	UrsusArctos: The description of the S2 engine as "restored" hints that it's the S2 from Shamshel, seen being recovered in Episode 05.
	022	IBUKI:“Potential causes range from a lack of structural integrity to a preliminary design stage error. That's 32,768 possibilities right there.” MISATO (OFF):“And there's also the chance of sabotage.”	UrsusArctos: 32768 or 215 is the highest absolute value for a negative signed integer in computing science. Is that where this seemingly random number was chosen from?
	023	HYUGA:“But it didn't explode, it vanished, right? In other words, it disappeared.” RITSUKO (OFF):“In all probability,”
	024	RITSUKO:“they were swallowed by a Sea of Dirac, just like Unit 01 was.”
	025	MISATO:“And the S2 engine that we finally restored?”
	026	RITSUKO:“Gone. Our dream's been shattered.”
	027	MISATO:“That's what we get for trying to push ourselves into using something we don't understand.”
	028	RITSUKO (MONO):“That goes for the Evas too.”
	029	MISATO:“So, what about the remaining Unit 03?” RITSUKO:“We're going to base it here. It seems the U.S. government doesn't want to lose the 1st Branch as well.” MISATO:“They're the ones who insisted on the right to build Units 03 and 04. And now they're foisting just the dangerous parts off on us? Talk about self-serving bastards.” RITSUKO:“After a disaster like that, anyone would get nervous.” MISATO:“So what are you going to do about the activation test? Will you use that dummy plug?”
	030	RITSUKO:“I've still got to decide that.”
	031
	032	RITSUKO:“This is the dummy plug prototype. Rei's personal data has been loaded into it, but it's not really possible to digitize a human mind and soul. Ultimately, it's a fake, an imitation.”
	033	RITSUKO:“Just a machine that emulates a pilot's thinking process.”
	034	IKARI:“It'll transmit a signal pattern to the Eva. As long as the Eva believes there's a pilot and synchronizes, that's enough. Load the data into Unit 01 and Unit 02.”	Mr. Tines: After the previous cross-synchronization experiments, doing anything with Eva-02 seems odd; and it turns out that this is a Chekov gun that didn't fire.
	035	RITSUKO:“There are still some problems with it.” IKARI:“That's not important. As long as the Eva activates, it's sufficient.” RITSUKO:“Yes, Sir.”
	036	IKARI:“I've delegated the transportation of the Unit to the U.N. It should arrive by the end of the week. You take care of the rest.”
	037	RITSUKO:“Yes, Sir. We'll perform the modifications and activation test in Matsushiro.” IKARI:“What about the test pilot?” RITSUKO:“The dummy plug is still risky. Of our prospective candidates...”
	038	IKARI:“We'll select a fourth, then?” RITSUKO:“Yes, there is one child whose core can be prepared immediately.”	UrsusArctos: Plot conveniences aside, it does raise the question of why there weren't other candidates for whom cores could be prepared at once. Dr. Nick: There's a bit of a missed horror opportunity that we're never shown Nerv's core warehouse of fridged mommies. Ritsuko's line here would make more sense if Nerv was showing ethical restraint and keeping the cores unstuffed until the last moment, at which point they would need to stage an unfortunate accident to seemingly kill off a select mother of a Class 2-A kid. Arisugawa: The conceit that all 2-A students are "fourth level candidates" feels....I don't know. I'm wrestling with this as I re-watch the show right now. It feels like a concept that wasn't properly fleshed out, or was in the initial planning in a different form and when they decided to call back to it some of the architecture of the show had shifted. How many contact experiments were run? Or, to put in another way, after Yui, who was crazy enough to volunteer? And after the woman after Yui, who was crazier, and so forth? And more to the point, if someone is strapped into the contact experiment against their will, what kind of crazy Eva would that produce? Would it berserk instantly, the mother horrified that not only is she trapped inside, but they put her child in there as well? dzzthink: It was previously highlighted that Toji and Kensuke don't have moms, which might suggest none of the other children have moms either. However, it would be highly suspicious and unsettling if there was an entire classroom of children with missing moms who were involved in top government contact experiments, so it remains quite unclear what the selection process was for 4th level candidate pilots.
	039	IKARI (OFF):“Then I'll leave it to you.” RITSUKO (OFF):“Yes, Sir.” IKARI (OFF):“Rei, you can come out now.” REI:“Yes, Sir.” IKARI (OFF):“Let's eat.”
	040	REI (OFF):“Yes, Sir.”
	041		Mr. Tines: Ritsuko looks jealous here of the attention Rei is getting.

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