"In the end, who's actually to blame in Evangelion?"

To reach that answer, you first need to know the story of certain aliens — the root cause of everything.

When talking about Evangelion, there's one piece of deep lore you simply can't skip: the "First Ancestral Race." Almost never mentioned in the anime itself, their full story was first revealed through classified intel in the game Neon Genesis Evangelion 2 — making them, in essence, the creators of the universe (at least in Eva's world).

In this post, we'll start by breaking down what exactly they were scheming — their grand "seeding project."

Who Were the First Ancestral Race?

Put simply:

"Gods who created the gods — the ones who made Adam and Lilith."

Even Adam and Lilith, who are considered "gods" within Eva's world, are nothing more than "copies (seeds) of themselves" from the First Ancestral Race's perspective.

Long ago, somewhere in the universe, they were a highly advanced humanoid civilization. But one day, their home planet reached the end of its lifespan — its destruction became inevitable.

So they devised a grand plan to leave their legacy scattered across the cosmos.

Plan ①: The "Seven Moons" Project

The First Ancestral Race decided to send copies of themselves out in every direction across the universe.

Here's how they did it:

  • Prepare giant carriers called "Moons"
  • Place a "Seed of Life (an Ancestor)" inside each one
  • Bundle in a Spear of Longinus (a management tool) and the Black Moon Scrolls (an instruction manual)
  • Launch them in every direction across the universe

A total of seven were sent out. Two of them ended up at Earth: the White Moon (Adam) and the Black Moon (Lilith).

In other words, the Moon isn't just a natural celestial body — it's a spacecraft built by aliens.

Plan ②: Splitting Power into "Two Fruits" as a Safety Measure

This is the core of their design philosophy.

The First Ancestral Race split their own perfect abilities into two parts and gave each part to a different Seed. It was essentially a failsafe to prevent any single being from monopolizing god-like power.

Fruit Effect Holder
Fruit of Life (S² Engine) Infinite energy and an immortal body Adam (progenitor of the Angels)
Fruit of Knowledge The intelligence to create science, civilization, and emotion — at the cost of mortality Lilith (progenitor of humanity)

And they laid down this rule:

"Only one Seed may land on any given planet."

The reason is simple. Possessing both Fruits would make something a "god" — completely beyond control. From the creators' perspective, the last thing they wanted was an equal spontaneously coming into existence on its own.

Plan ③: "Seeds Can Renovate Their Own Planet" — An All-Purpose Design

Here's where it gets interesting. The planets they chose as destinations didn't need to be comfortable right from the start.

That's because Seeds like Adam and Lilith aren't just settlers — they also double as heavy construction equipment for terraforming.

  • Even if the planet they land on is a barren wasteland, they can reshape the entire world using their own power
  • They possess a kind of nanomachine-like terraforming ability
  • Think of it less as "move-in ready" and more as "fixer-upper — renovation expected"

In fact, before the Moon arrived, Earth was a hellscape covered in oceans of magma. Even so, the First Ancestral Race's navigation system flagged it as viable — not because of how it looked at the time, but because it evaluated its potential (the possibility that oceans would eventually form).

As long as the location was smack in the middle of the habitable zone (the distance where liquid water can exist), the interior could be sorted out later — that was their thinking.

Plan ④: "The Instruction Manual for the Seeds" = The Black Moon Scrolls

They also left behind all information about the Seeds in a document called the "Black Moon Scrolls."

What was written inside:

  • When the Angels would awaken
  • How to control the Seeds
  • The forbidden act of merging the two Fruits

The fact that this manual was later discovered on Earth by a human organization called Seele becomes the trigger that sets the entire story of Eva in motion (more on that next time).

"Why Didn't They Just Move There Themselves?" — A Fair Question

A pretty natural question comes up here:

If they had technology that advanced, why bother launching Seeds at all? Why not just build a spaceship and move there themselves?

As it turns out, there were reasons they couldn't.

① The distances were too vast — they'd die of old age before arriving

The candidate planets were billions of light-years away from their home world. Even with cryosleep, no physical body could survive that kind of drift through space.

② Their home planet was already confirmed to be doomed

This was an emergency evacuation with the clock already ticking — their home world was about to disappear. Even if their navigation system sent a signal back saying "Earth looks great!", there'd be no one left to receive it by the time it arrived.

③ The Seeds *were* them

This is where it gets philosophically juicy. They didn't send "someone else" — they compressed their own souls and genetic information and loaded it onto the Seeds like a USB drive.

Humanity (the Lilin), born from Lilith, inherited the genes and souls of the First Ancestral Race — making us, in a sense, "their reincarnation (a downgraded copy)."

The very fact that we humans are alive on Earth right now is proof that the First Ancestral Race's migration plan succeeded — just in a very different form than they imagined.

When you think about it that way, it's kind of romantic, isn't it?

Summary: A Plan That Looked Perfect

Here's the First Ancestral Race's plan laid out neatly:

  1. Load copies of themselves onto seven Moons and launch them into space
  2. Split their power into the "Fruit of Life" and "Fruit of Knowledge" to prevent runaway scenarios
  3. Establish the rule of one Seed per planet
  4. Include the Spear of Longinus as a safety device
  5. Provide the Black Moon Scrolls as a complete operations manual

Advanced technology, failsafes, an operations manual — it all looks airtight, right?

And yet, on Earth, this seemingly perfect plan falls apart in the worst possible way. Next time, we'll talk about those "miscalculations and accidents."

Why did two Seeds end up landing on Earth?
How did they manage to collide in the vastness of space?
Was that probability truly just "coincidence"?

Stay tuned for the next one!