Story: Rei Swarm

This is the last Evangelion story from that fatesplit. I've been told that the first part is perhaps a little too long and should be cut a little bit somewhere. Does anyone else agree with this assessment? And if so, do you have any suggestions on how it should be cut down?

Adam. Lilith. The First Angel. The Second Angel. The Fruit of Life. The Fruit of Knowledge. Two mighty beings with similar end goals and entirely different methods of accomplishing it. Both had the intention of populating the planet with beings of their own design, and yet their methodologies in this regard varied wildly. Analysis of these methods may perhaps permit us a brief glimpse into their alien psychology and offer a rare chance to understand them a little better.

Adam’s plan was blunt and straight to the point. Adam would create a number of beings, each of which would take on a particular racial aspect and in the process become species unto themselves. These beings would be powerful. Mighty. Large. Almost impossible to kill.

From this we can determine that The First Angel favoured strength, and would permit each of its children the capacity to develop however they desired. Adam would create lesser gods that would rule their own portions of the planet.

In contrast to this is The Second Angel. Lilith adopted a rather unusual strategy with an eye for the longer game. Rather than develop might and power in its children right from the word “go”, Lilith would content itself through the process known as evolution.

Now, this is where the issue gets a little bit tricky. You see, science fiction (if not fiction in general) has often mischaracterized exactly what evolution is, how it works, and so on. Let us start by erasing a few of the key misunderstandings. Evolution does not have a set path that can be predicted or calculated. An individual does not evolve (at least, not in this context); a species does. Evolution is not a mystical force, but more a name given to an observable process. It also took a long damn time for evolution to result in worldwide biodiversity.

No, I don’t think that quite expresses enough just how long it took.  I mean, given the way that the process works it kind of makes sense that this would take a long time but the simple fact of the matter is… It did. It took billions of years.

Think about it like this. The process of reproduction is a necessary component of evolution. This process inevitably requires creating a copy of certain genetic information and using that copy to create new life. How this occurs depends on the species. Combination of genetic material, direct copy of the parent, those are the most common. Trick is, that copy may well grow up to reproduce as well. Meaning that we wind up with a copy of a copy. And a copy of a copy of a copy. Somewhere along the line something’s gonna inevitably copy wrong for any of a billion reasons, introducing a mutation into the mix…

But the trick is that each generation can take a considerable amount of time. The new life has to mature enough to reach the point where it is even capable of reproducing. This could take days, months, years or decades depending on too many variables to be worth covering. Worse yet, a mutation will not arise within each generation. A new mutation may not occur within a hundred generations. A thousand. A million. Or maybe one will crop up every generation. It depends upon the species and it depends upon the environment. Those mutations may wind up being harmful to the capacity to reproduce - thus lowering the likelihood of the mutation surviving long enough to become widespread throughout the species. You see now? Evolution can take a bloody long time to achieve anything remotely worthwhile, and it certainly took an incredibly long time for the human race to develop.

The other factor in evolution is often erroneously described as “survival of the fittest”, which oversimplifies the matter to absurdity. Truthfully, it is more to the point to say something along the lines of “that which is able to pass on its genetic material to the next generation is more likely to introduce dominant traits to the species.” This is a rather obvious truth that humans have long taken advantage of by way of selective breeding in various plants and animals. These people are taking advantage of half of what makes evolution work.

With all this in mind, evolution being Lilith’s preferred method tells us two things about it:

The first is a tendency towards patience.
The second is a preference towards fertility.

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Dr Ritsuko Akagi never particularly cared for this room. It was by some considerable measure the second most secure in the Geofront, followed only by the one which happened to house - well. <b>That</b> thing. In at least one sense it could be said that this room did as well.

Security was tight. The number of people that had clearance throughout the entire facility could be counted on a single hand. Even if that hand had been caught in a wood chipper accident. The room was so secure, so secretive that they didn’t even risk putting security cameras inside just on the off chance the feed wound up being hacked by someone. Outside the room, in the corridor leading to it? Sure. Yep. Just to make sure nobody tried breaking in, or at least if they did break in they’d be caught long before they could even dream of reaching an exit.

What was in here? Not much. Hardly anything at all. Unless you count a tank full of enough LCL to drown a sports team of your choice and twenty cloned, smiling, naked, <u>smiling</u> girls. Did she mention the smile? It was like they had discovered joy for the first time and didn’t want to give it up, then forgot and discovered it all over again. Creepy was one words she could use to describe it. Unsettling was another. How about nightmare fuel? Not so much for her these days. She’d had her last nightmare some time ago. In this job either you controlled your reaction to traumatic events or you went completely insane and jumped off the nearest walkway.

The reason she was here was simple maintenance. Weekly, mandatory maintenance. Each of them would do it at some period over the course of the week, just to make sure everything was running. After all, both the Commander and Sub-Commander were scientists back in the day.

Outside the three of them… Nobody else could be trusted to keep the secret.

“That should do it,” she said with a sigh. The hatch slid back into place with a satisfying snap, signifying she was done for another week. Ritsuko wiped at her brow, and then her eyes flicked upwards.

Right into the wide eyes of one of the clones, bobbing along in the water. Smiling right at her without a care in the world.

The first time this had happened was the closest she’d ever come to a heart attack. By now she was officially jaded. “Well, you just keep on floating along in there,” she deadpanned in response to the stare. The clone tilted its head, almost as though it was responding to what she was saying. Which it couldn’t. No soul. Just a mindless husk. “Are you really that happy to see me?”

While she chuckled to herself, the clone placed its hand upon the glass. Odd reflexive action. She’d never seen them do that before. Nor had she seen them move their lips as though they were speaki-

And suddenly, horribly she realised that her lip reading skills were sufficient to fully understand the soundless words coming from the clone’s mouth. “Yes. I am happy to see you. Dr Akagi.”

A quick two steps away from the tank later, and she composed herself a little bit better. Okay. So one of the clones appeared to have developed sentience, and probably read her name tag or something. That was all. It learned how to read and how to talk, which was a pretty terrifying realisation. She had to alert the Commander immediately, and -

And a dull wet sounding thud attracted her attention. On the other side of the tank, a different clone had just landed on the floor outside the tank. It was dripping LCL all over the place and staring at her with that same damnable smile. “St-stay away from me,” she stammered, continuing to walk backwards. What the hell was going on?! This should be impossible! Without a soul, they should be docile!

“I just wanna pla~ay,” the clone said in a sing song voice. It was eery how much it sounded so like Rei, yet so unlike her all at once. “Don’t you want to pla~ay with me?”

“No, I don’t! Get back in your tank right this instance, or -”

“Or wha~at?” a voice said right next to her ear. She was barely able to turn around in time to see one of the clones hanging from the top of the tank by her legs before a pair of slender, powerful arms encircled her neck and head. “Don’t struggle,” the clone whispered. “You’ll only hurt yourself. Just sleep… Sleep… Sshhhh…”

In spite herself that was exactly what started to happen. Her eyelids felt so heavy, far heavier than they had in recent memory. The grip was blocking the oxygen to her brain, draining her of strength and draining her ability to con-cen-tra…

The very last sight she saw as her mind went into a state of forced unconsciousness was each of the clones, one by one climbing out of the tank. Some helped the others out, others helped them land. They were all smiling and laughing, and for the first time in years Ritsuko Akagi had a rather terrible nightmare.

1. Ritsuko wakes up later on, having been restrained by the Reis.
2. While she’s unconscious the Reis have a conversation. They all have the same personality.
3. Same as above, except they all have different personalities. (after all, Lilith also likes diversity)
4. Ritsuko is left where she is while the Reis break out of the Geofront.
5. Something else