Thus:

-----

The most wonderful thing about BBs
Is BBs are wonderful things
Their sides are made out of iron
Their guns are made out of pain
They're crashy smashy bashy flashy fun-fun-fun-fun-fun
But the most wonderful thing about BBs
Is there is more than one
The~re is more than one!

I rather thought that was the logo, but it's been awhile since I played EW that I couldn't remember it off the top of my head. It was immensely satisfying when I could finally track the bastards down and wreck them for good. Especially with end-game gear, which included wiping out the final pod with a blaster launcher round.

--------------------------
CdrMike, Overwatch Reject

Oooooooooooooooooohhhh fuck. This is gonna be goooooooood.

Aha. I've never played any of the XCOM games*, so I had no idea what that reference was.

Peter Eng
--
* - I did try playing X-COM, with predictable results involving trooper death, failure to save Earth, and occasional crashing to desktop.

... which is most suspicious: Lilith-the-AI was supposed to have been destroyed at the end of the movie.

... by Durandal, who may or may not have taken over the throne of Hell.

... I'm just going to leave that there.

Hm! I didn't remember that that was Lilith's logo; I was thinking of a stylized representation of Dominic.

Interesting.

Peter Eng
--
Insert humorous comment here.

I'm pretty sure it is meant to be a stylized (bal)seraphic face, but not any particular one. Which of course raises the additional question of why AI Lilith was using that logo in the first place. (Original-flavor In Nomine Lilith is human, despite also being a Demon Princess; how this is even possible is, iirc, never explained. There is, as far as I can tell, no available information on whether that Lilith or her children exist in NXE-verse.)

It's not meant to represent her face (she was a computer, she didn't have one); it's the insignia of the organization she {worked for|belonged to}.

--G.
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In DJ's defense, let's see how well you do when you're jetlagged to hell and haven't driven a giant robot in five years. :)

>13 years... Really?
>...jesus

I know, right?

--G.
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Poor Jon continues to have the worst luck when it comes to giant robots...

Also, while Rei was commenting on why they weren't deploying the Arcangelions, all I could think was 'yup, never fails. The movies Super Mode is always out of action for the sequel series.'

Matrix Dragon, J. Random Nutter

For cross-reference purposes, the title track on that album is the same "Thick as Thieves" that is Laura Kinney's de facto theme music over in UF. Which would also have made a good opening for the original NXE if it had existed back then, particularly when all the shit in the fan in late season 2/early season 3:

We'll never fall in line
And walk the roads you followed
We are the ones who rise
Just open up your eyes
Fight the hand that feeds you lies
It's time we make it right
Don't need a reason tonight
So sick of waiting for something to change my life

>So I had to google that, not being quite up to speed on whatever the
>hell a "Ubaid" is. That is... exceedingly interesting, especially
>given some of the associated imagery and the reappearance of a certain
>enemy type in XCOM.

I suspect DJ and Asuka spent some time during the inter-series period over in that part of the world, preventing people from blowing up precious antiquities (possibly by blowing them up, in some instances).

>I have to admit I never did quite understand the whole Geo-Front
>concept. I suspect it's because I've never actually watched the
>original Evangelion show, so I'm lacking visuals that the text
>(unconsciously) assumes I have.

Basically, Worcester-3 (and Tokyo-3 in the original, come to that) was built on top of a gigantic artificial cave that had another city in it. When a Really Serious Emergency occurred on the surface (which happened... a lot), most of the major buildings of the above-ground city would retract until they were flush with the ground (whereupon they would become a sort of Revolutionary Girl Utena hanging castle above the underground one), and thus be mostly not destroyed by the giant monster combat going on up above.

This is not perhaps terribly efficient, but it's at least a bit less of a handwave than, for instance, King of Braves Gaogaigar's Dividing Driver to explain why the city is mostly not destroyed every week. :)

>> "Central, this is Big Sky. We are inbound with the goodies—
>> requesting landing clearance on Pad One."
>> Another man's voice, closer to a baritone, replied with a
>> carefully precise Midwestern accent, "Copy, Voodoo 3-1. Pad
>> One approach confirmed—we'll see you on the ground."
>
>Is there some method to the callsigns? Central makes rather obvious
>sense, as does Big Sky (though in this context I'd think that'd be
>more appropriate for the Antonov transports), but where does "Voodoo
>3-1" come from?

The Skyranger in XCOM: Enemy {Unknown|Within} always has the callsign Voodoo 3-1, and its pilot identifies himself as "Big Sky" in comm traffic. The exact callsign convention XCOM uses is not entirely clear, but it's worth noting that in the cutscene where a Raven interceptor shoots down a UFO for the first time, Bradford congratulates the Raven in question on the kill and addresses it as Voodoo 3-7.

My assumption has been that Voodoo 3 is a group code for the aircraft based out of XCOM HQ (though why the Interceptor is 3-7 I don't know, since the base can only ever have five aircraft, the Skyranger and up to four interceptors, in it). I don't believe we ever hear any of the interceptors assigned to the other bases addressed by callsign in the game, so it's unclear whether they're, for instance, "Voodoo {some other number}-x", or something else altogether. The game's designers probably didn't spend that much time developing it; "Voodoo three one" sounds cool on the radio, and that's most likely all that really mattered to them. :)

I can't remember what callsign the Firestorms (reverse-engineered UFOs which replace the Ravens as XCOM's go-to interceptors later in the game) get, if it's even mentioned. Been a while since I played that deep into the game.

>I like it, even if it's just copied verbatim from the games, but it's
>just something I've always wondered about. Googling "call signs" and
>other such things hasn't helped, but I can't help but feel there's an
>underlying scheme here. Later on "Menace 1-4" is used, which just
>reinforces that notion.

Again, this is something adapted from the games. The Skyranger in XCOM 2 is always called Menace 1-5 in the radio chatter (pilot's callsign "Firebrand", who appears in this story as DJ's Antonov pilot), and Central and Firebrand both refer to the squad as "Menace" from time to time. In this context, Menace 1-4 and Menace 1-5 are the An-602s carrying EVA-01 and EVA-02 respectively; if there is a Menace 1-1 through Menace 1-3, they're probably the older An-411 aircraft we didn't see in this episode.

>Awww. I mean, that's still much better than a poke in the eye, but
>see above re: MiB!Asuka.

I shall take it under advisement. :)

>> "Lord Langley-Croft; Lady Langley-Croft," said the new
>> arrival cordially, offering a hand. "Special Agent Phil
>> Coulson, MIB Southwestern US. Welcome to Fort Alcatraz."
>
>Oh you glorious bastards.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should note here that while at least one of my colleagues has, I haven't actually watched Agents of SHIELD past the first episode. My esteem for Special Agent Coulson is derived entirely from his appearances in the first two Iron Man films, Thor, and The Avengers. Which is enough, really, 'cause... Phil Coulson, man.

>> Like Jon, she looked tired, her already normally pale
>> face a bit drawn. She was also, the Langley-Crofts were
>> mildly alarmed to see, injured; her right arm was
>> bandaged from wrist to elbow and suspended in a sling,
>> her left knee bound up in an Ace bandage.
>
>Hi Rei! Is it some cosmic rule that you must start out every
>adventure injured?

It's in her contract. Got to keep the bandage-freak fandom happy.

(Seriously, what is up with that?)

>(Also: isn't she a fully-vested angel now? Given how many times the
>bad guys made use of the Song of Restoration, you'd think she'd be
>able to lean on it once in a while.)

Rei's funny about celestial stuff. It's like she feels like it's cheating. She spent long enough as a strictly corporeal being that she still feels more at home that way, bumps and all.

Mind you, if she'd been really seriously hurt, I'm sure she'd have made an exception, but, meh, a bunged-up arm and sprained knee? She's had worse.

>> The imminent, immanent eschaton
>> hadn't even made that list.
>
>There are times I suspect you guys engage in clever wordplay for the
>sake of clever wordplay. Not that I'm complaining!
>
>It took me a few to parse that successfully, though.

It's an Illuminatus! reference; they talk about "immanentizing the eschaton" a lot in that.

>I'm hoping this gets explored a bit more, just because I'm curious.
>Is it because Jon is half-demon and the Evas are based on angels?

Unlikely to be that, precisely; after all, Michael is not only an Archangel but an Archangel particularly devoted to the kicking of demon ass, and they got along fine. Something else in play there. We'll come back to it.

>> He was interrupted then, as just when he reached point
>> blank range, AE-02 hauled off and clobbered him with the
>> wreckage of the Leopard 2 tank it had been holding when
>> the two EVAs arrived.
>
>Now, I don't *know* that this is the case, but I'm picturing AE-02
>holding the tank by the cannon barrel and just thwacking the EVA with
>it.
>
>Like a kaiju-scale El Kabong.

Pretty much, yeah. (Even though I'm pretty sure that wouldn't actually work, as I sincerely doubt a tank's gun barrel could support the weight of the whole tank, and most tanks' turrets aren't even really attached to the hull. Poetic license. :)

>> "Do we have any information as to who their pilots
>> are?" asked the woman seated to the chairman's right.
>
>You're really not impressing me with your intelligence (both senses of
>the word), Shadowy Figures.

Well, there are six children listed in the Marduk Report, plus at least two, maybe three, possible EVA pilots not categorized by said report but documented in other information to come out of the Halifax Incident. The chairman is right in noting that the Langley-Crofts are the most probable operators for those particular two units, and an analysis of their combat behavior would tend to reinforce that probability, but they don't really know.

(Although he doesn't do them the courtesy of recognizing that they're married, but that might have been a deliberate slight.)

>I'm super-excited about this (if that wasn't clear already). One
>thing I was a bit letdown by? I'd grown to love the post-credits
>context-less teaser bits back in the NXE days. As I scrolled through
>the credits I was looking forward to that, and... it wasn't there.
>Minor sadness.

Huh. I clean forgot about that. For that matter, it had slipped my mind that the original series didn't really have ending credits.

--G.
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From this, I guess we can assume that Voodoo 3 is the designation Central gives to units in the air at any given time, regardless of their official designation?

I think the "Raven" designations are just what the aircraft themselves are called (cf. Fulcrum, Eagle, et al.), though in that case why "Demon" I don't know. Maybe because Firestorm doesn't fit. :)

>From this, I guess we can assume that Voodoo 3 is the designation
>Central gives to units in the air at any given time, regardless of
>their official designation?

Could be. Like I say, I doubt the game designers gave it a ton of thought beyond sounding badass. It's pretty clear from context that "Big Sky" is the Skyranger pilot's callsign, not the aircraft's, though.

--G.
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So the pattern seems to be:

External: <designation> <squad>-<unit>
Internal: <callsign>

where <designation> is the Central-assigned name (Voodoo, Menace, etc) and <squad> and <unit> are numerical designators, only used if applicable. If Central is telling everyone in the detachment to get a move on, they'd just say "Menace, get moving".

Then there's just regular old <callsign>, which seems to be used for personal identification.

So "Big Sky" is the callsign of the pilot for the Menace operational group and thus might be "Menace 1-1" from the outside -- though numerous "Central, this is Big Sky" messages kinda put the lie to this. A squaddie might be referred to as "Warhorse" within the unit but from outside the unit could be Menace 1-3.

I'm probably overthinking this but I just like knowing how these things work. :)

--sofaspud
--

Also, the joke belatedly occurs to me that she might've been involved in an accident on the set of UF: The Fulcrum of Fate #5, which is filming concurrently on the next soundstage over. Lost an argument with part of the Cipher Zero interior or something. :)

--G.
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I rather like the way NXE has this meta-continuity where it's an actual TV show and UF is another show put out by the same studio. (Or perhaps a bunch of interrelated shows and movies.) The UF part has only ever come up in a few one-off gags like this, but it makes the meta-continuity feel, I dunno, more grounded in reality? And we can imagine that all the other Eyrie properties are also involved, maybe even the ones that never really got off the drawing board, like Her Majesty's Sky-Fortress Macross.

-Droken

I liked the short "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Thor's Hammer."

>>Now, I don't *know* that this is the case, but I'm picturing AE-02
>>holding the tank by the cannon barrel and just thwacking the EVA with
>>it.
>>
>>Like a kaiju-scale El Kabong.
>
>Pretty much, yeah. (Even though I'm pretty sure that wouldn't
>actually work, as I sincerely doubt a tank's gun barrel could support
>the weight of the whole tank, and most tanks' turrets aren't even
>really attached to the hull. Poetic license. :)
>

You mis-spelled "AT Field" in that last sentence there. Hope this helps. :)

Peter Eng
--
Insert humorous comment here.

Well, sure, except we had already established that the AEs don't have them, as such.

--G.
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So anyway, just for you, I've gone back and put one on.

--G.
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<goes and reads>

So... same old, same old, eh? <grin>

-- Bob
-------------------
My race is pacifist and does not believe in war. We kill only out of personal spite.

Now... now it feels like NXE. Yer the best, sir. :D

--sofaspud
--

You raise a fine point.

>
>> Jon grimaced slightly, and Asuka took note of a pained
>> look in Rei's eyes as she turned back to face their
>> old partners. Turning, Jon put his opposite hand over
>> DJ's, holding it for a moment before gently sliding it
>> off. "I tried syncing with EVA-03 after we brought it
>> out of storage. It... didn't go well. During the war, I
>> always had my best sync with Moloch, or Michael. In an
>> EVA that didn't have a spirit of its own... it wasn't
>> the same."
>
>*wince* Ow, dammit. Poor Jon.
>
>I'm hoping this gets explored a bit more, just because I'm curious.
>Is it because Jon is half-demon and the Evas are based on angels?

A distinction that didn't stop San, or any of their respective siblings, back in the day. Whatever it is that's messed with his mojo, it's definitely Jon-specific.

~Silv'

That assumes it was the people who lived there that named the Gulf, which, well... in the immediate aftermath of the Second Impact, they probably had other things to worry about. It probably seemed like a good idea to somebody in Omaha.

--G.
What, you thought Washington was still there?
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Hey now, Washington is not just Seattle, there's a whole half of the state over on the other side of those mountains!

No, seriously! We matter too!

--sofaspud
--heyyyy, this isn't so bad, I'd have beachfront property after Second Impact...

The District of Columbia, y'fool, not the state. :)

--G.
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Okay, I deserved that.

In my defense, all the action's happened over on the west coast so far, so, y'know...

--sofaspud
--and due to this discussion I looked up a shoreline map w/200 foot water increase and Seattle would survive, sadly. No beachfront bungalow for me.

Well, just for the record, the joke was that the people living in the vicinity of the Gulf of Portolá probably didn't name it because the federal government did, from its dread citadel in Omaha, because DC isn't there any more. But the Omaha part is probably not actually true. :)

>--and due to this discussion I looked up a shoreline map w/200 foot
>water increase and Seattle would survive, sadly.

Heh, I should probably have done that at some point, either in the course of the original series or now? But I've always preferred to just wing it, particularly since Evangelion's Coastline Apocalypse thing has always been kind of bullshit anyway.

That said, re-reading the original series in the course of preparing for this has been an interesting case study in the state of my authorial research back in the days before a) I really cared about it and b) Wikipedia. For example, at one point in season three, DJ mentions a football score between Arsenal and Croydon, which implies a massive post-Second Impact shakeup in the English Premier League. :)

(It's really because I didn't know a thing about English football at the time; I'd heard of Arsenal someplace and I just used the first random place name I could think of for the other team, which happened to be one mentioned in a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy quotation.*)

--G.
* Paraphrased from memory, "This is Zaphod Beeblebrox the President of the Galaxy, not bloody Martin Smith from Croydon."
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(yes, both states would probably be pissy about having their major suburbs being annexed like that, but they're effectively part of the DC/Baltimore Metroplex ANYWAY, so it's not like it'd be much of a difference in actual living and work conditions.)

--- Philip

	Philip J. Moyer Contributing Writer, Editor and Artist (and Moderator) -- Eyrie Productions, Unlimited CEO of MTS, High Poobah Of Artwork, and High Priest Of the Church Of Aerianne -- Magnetic Terrapin Studios "Insert Pithy Comment Here" Fandoms -- Fanart -- Fan Meta Discussions

DC would be boned, as would Seattle (so my map was just plain wrong, there), but I still wouldn't have an oceanfront view.

--sofaspud
--and that's all that really matters, right?

Imagine that, an XCOM Technical Services operative in California is not well-versed in British aristo etiquette.

--G.
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Good point. I imagine the only place where he might have learned the proper usage isn't exactly a going concern, either; who needs the SCA when they're rebuilding society?

Peter Eng
--
Insert humorous comment here.

If you believe Leslie Fish, everyone. (I find Fish's attitude towards the police as revealed in "Serious Steel" alarming, but that doesn't keep me from being entertained by the song.)

You've lead a sheltered life then?

-VR
Surely you don't think the movie trope of the corrupt sheriff is completely imaginary?
"They copied all they could follow, but they couldn't copy my mind,
And I left 'em sweating and stealing a year and a half behind."

Not the place.

--G.
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Did you see that mention of fusion-powered desalination plants in the description of post-Impact San Francisco? :)

Also, I should note that the specific callout of Pleasanton as a seaport way back in Exodus 1:3 was an inside joke; at the time that scene was written, Zoner and I worked in Pleasanton, and the thought of it being anywhere near the sea amused us too much to pass up.

--G.
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It's been a long time since I read NXE, that must have slipped by high school me. =)
It being in the middle of a valley threw me this time.

My guess: When NERV went black budget, they had to cut some things. Jet Alone was one of them.

Peter Eng
--
("Look, we can build a new Jet Alone if we have to, preferably one that isn't a total kludge. I'll just copy the last code image.")

Either still in storage, or being replaced by a new mecha project, codename: Jaeger. :)

Matrix Dragon, J. Random Nutter

Now I'm imagining a horrid cross between Jet Alone, Jet Jaguar, and Pacific Rim's Jaegers.

Peter Eng
--
"Jet Jaeger?!"
"I wanted to go with Jet Alone II, but noooo..."

As a B-movie aficionado, that implies something else entirely in my mind.

THIS SUMMER...

THE EPIC STORY CONTINUES...

Jet Alone II: Alone Harder

--sofaspud
--because JA2: Solo Operations would make too much sense and the studio would never go for it

At least it isn't the spinoff featuring the covert operations and infiltration model, Jet Black.

cue the Looney Tunes "sneaking on tiptoes" piano tinkle

"This is probably a stupid question, but . . ."

I can neither confirm nor deny rumors about the Jet Alone Enhancement through Guided Energy Research project.

--G.
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Perfect in every way.

Not at all. I had the very same set of flashbacks. Plus the image of DJ, Asuka and Rei on a trandem, biking their way to the next kaiju.

(And for those for whom the Wikipedia article is a bit... dry... there's always this.)

-- Bob
-------------------
My race is pacifist and does not believe in war. We kill only out of personal spite.