In the last installment (Part 1), we broke down the First Ancestral Race's "seeding project," which looked flawless on paper.

But on Earth, this plan triggered a catastrophic accident. This time, we're talking about that miscalculation.

The Day the "One Planet, One Seed" Rule Was Broken

The First Ancestral Race's rule was simple.

Only one of the two Seeds may land on any given planet.

But as bad luck would have it, two Seeds ended up falling on Earth.

How the Accident Unfolded

  1. Adam's Arrival: First, the "White Moon (Adam)" crashes at the South Pole. Earth was supposed to become the "planet of the Angels."
  2. Lilith's Impact (First Impact): Then, through some mix-up, the "Black Moon (Lilith)" also slams into Earth. The force of that collision gave birth to the Moon as we know it.
  3. Adam's Sealing: By the rules, the latecomer should have been eliminated — but the impact caused Lilith's Spear to go missing. In its place, Adam's Spear malfunctioned and ended up stabbing and sealing its own master, Adam.

In other words, Earth — which was supposed to be the "planet of the Angels" — became the "planet of humanity" purely by chance, thanks to a Spear malfunction.

Question ①: Why Did Two Seeds Collide on the Exact Same Planet in This Vast Universe?

This is a question a lot of fans have.

With hundreds of billions of stars in the universe, the odds of two Seeds randomly landing on the same one are about as likely as two needles fired from opposite ends of the Pacific Ocean colliding mid-air. Wasn't this intentional?

As it turns out, the leading theory is that this was not intentional — it was an "unfortunate system error."

Cause ①: All Units Shared the Same Navigation Settings

It's theorized that the AI aboard each of the seven Seeds didn't have individually assigned destinations. Instead, they all ran the same "ideal planet search algorithm."

Search criteria:

  • Distance from a star
  • Gravity
  • Size
  • Presence of water and resources

They could have used different criteria for Lilith's unit versus Adam's — but they didn't. As a result, both navigation systems spat out the same answer: "The highest-scoring planet in this sector is Earth."

It's like two cars in a big parking lot both zeroing in on the same "easiest spot to park" and crashing into each other.

Cause ②: The "Collision Avoidance Communication" System Was Offline

And this was the fatal flaw. The seven Moons were never equipped with a communication system to track each other's positions and avoid collisions.

It was pure normalcy bias — "space is infinitely vast, so statistically they'll never collide." The First Ancestral Race fired off their Seeds and never once planned for any coordination or course correction afterward.

Cause ③: There Are No "Straight Roads" in Space

Even if the Seeds had been launched in perfectly spread-out directions, it's physically impossible to travel in a straight line for hundreds of millions of years through space.

  • The gravity of massive stars and black holes bends trajectories.
  • Gravitational slingshot effects can fling objects in unexpected directions.
  • The galaxy itself is rotating, so the destination is always moving.

After billions of years of being bounced around like a pinball, two units that started off heading in completely different directions were drawn like magnets toward the brightest star in the neighborhood — Earth.

It's like telling seven taxi drivers to head in different directions, then having them all hear over the radio: "There's a huge festival over that way — tons of fares!" They all end up steering toward the same venue anyway.

Question ②: Shouldn't the Arrival Times Have Been Millions of Years Apart?

Here's another sharp question.

After traveling through space for hundreds of millions of years, how could two units arrive within what amounts to a rounding error of each other? That makes no sense.

Fair point. It's far more natural to assume the actual gap between arrivals was anywhere from a few million to a few hundred million years.

So why didn't that gap matter?

After Arriving, Adam Entered a Long "Standby Mode"

Adam didn't start producing Angels the moment it touched down.

  1. Settling into a landing configuration
  2. Assessing the environment
  3. Taking root

It spent a long time working through this initialization process.

And it was during this "setup phase" that Lilith came crashing down on top of it.

Even if Lilith arrived 100 million years later, Adam had spent that entire time preparing beneath the ice — meaning "when Lilith arrived, Adam had not yet finished establishing dominion over Earth."

Question ③: How Did the White Moon and Black Moon Survive for 4 Billion Years?

Geologically speaking, this is also puzzling.

Over 4 billion years, plate tectonics would normally drag the crust down into the mantle, and meteor impacts and erosion would erase any trace of them. How did they survive intact with their contents (Adam and Lilith) preserved?

Reason ①: They Aren't "Rocks" — They're Ultra-Durable Spacecraft

They're called "Moons," but they aren't lumps of rock — they're artificial structures built by the First Ancestral Race.

A civilization far beyond humanity's scientific level designed them to withstand "billions of years of drifting through space" and "a direct impact with a planet." They're harder than any material on Earth, and they won't melt even if submerged in the mantle.

Reason ②: Antarctica (White Moon) Is Geologically Stable

The Antarctic continent where Adam's White Moon landed is one of Earth's most tectonically inactive regions — a "craton" (stable continental shield). Buried under a thick ice sheet, it was essentially a natural deep freezer.

Reason ③: The Black Moon Was Too Hard to Subduct

The Black Moon (located under Hakone) sits in a zone of intense tectonic activity where four plates converge.

The leading theory here is that the Black Moon was simply too hard and too massive to be dragged down with the plates — it remained lodged in the crust as a foreign object. Over vast stretches of time it drifted along on a plate, and by the modern era it happened to be sitting beneath Hakone, Japan.

NERV built its headquarters there simply because "that's where it was buried."

Not some grand act of human destiny — just a pre-existing vacancy they moved into.

Question ④: How Did Humanity Get Inside That Indestructible Shell?

If the shell won't melt even in magma, how did humanity manage to build the massive NERV headquarters inside it?

The answer: they didn't break through the shell — they entered through parts that were already broken.

① The Top Was Already Open

The force of the impact 4 billion years ago cracked open the upper portion of the Black Moon and packed it with debris. Humanity simply excavated that debris and reopened the space.

② It's a Spacecraft, So It Has Hatches

Since it's a vehicle and not a rock, it naturally has entry points. The long shaft descending from the 3rd New Tokyo City into NERV HQ was most likely an original cargo access route on the spacecraft that they discovered and fitted with an elevator.

③ The "22 Layers of Armor" Are a Lid Humanity Built Later

The "22 layers of special armor" depicted in battles like the one against Ramiel aren't actually the original shell of the Black Moon — they're an artificial lid built by humanity afterward. The holes used as entry points were sealed with multiple layers of super-alloy plating to keep out groundwater and potential intruders.

In short, the Geofront is an "accident property where humanity cleaned out an abandoned spacecraft and moved in uninvited."

"Couldn't the Angels Have Just Lived on Another Planet?"

With their S² Engines (infinite power sources), the Angels could theoretically survive on Mars or inside Jupiter's gas clouds. So why did they insist on Earth, which already had prior occupants (humans)?

There were three reasons they simply couldn't "move away."

① Their Ship (White Moon) Was Broken and Couldn't Travel

The White Moon was rendered non-functional by the collision 4 billion years ago. Even if individual Angels could launch themselves into space, there was no way to transport all their kin and their parent (Adam) several light-years away. They were stranded.

② Their Programming Commanded "Conquer This Planet"

The Angels aren't wild animals — they're closer to biological weapons designed by the First Ancestral Race. The absolute directive to "rewrite the reached planet's ecosystem into Adam's" is encoded in their genes. They have no capacity for flexible thinking like "Mars next door is empty, let's go there instead."

③ Both Their Parent (Adam) and Their Enemy (Lilith) Were on Earth

The Angels instinctively seek "union with their parent." Since Adam was on Earth, leaving Earth was simply not an option.

Summary: A "Traffic Accident" on a Cosmic Scale

To recap what happened on Earth:

  • Because both units shared the same navigation settings, they both aimed for the same planet.
  • Because there was no communication system, they couldn't avoid the collision.
  • Adam's Spear malfunctioned and sealed its own master.
  • Even so, the shell was so durable that after 4 billion years, the contents were still intact.
  • As a result, humanity renovated that "accident property" and moved in.

A plan that looked perfect collapsed because of just two bugs: "lazy navigation settings" and "no collision avoidance system."

Next time is the grand finale.

So in this cosmic-scale tragedy — who was ultimately most at fault?

The First Ancestral Race, Seele, Gendo, Shinji — we'll be ranking the culprits.