So we’ve gone through the premise of the story and some of the choices for the setting. Shall we maybe start looking at the characters themselves?
This’ll be a somewhat light look as I don’t want to reveal too much, but there might be a few spoilers here and there so be warned.
Anyway, let’s dive in with our pilots!
Shinji Ikari
Our ‘main character’!
The chosen pilot of Evangelion 01. Shinji was a weird one to pin down. As with all the characters in Frontier, he’s been aged up to early 20s, around the perfect time to graduate from the Academy if you follow that path of straight out of school, into the academy and straight through to a posting.
Originally I was going to have him as a fresh Ensign aboard the USS Tokyo. His story was going to be similar, abandoned by his father at a young age, brought up by his aunt and uncle in a loving home but he still had depression, he still had abandonment issues and he still had low confidence. He still just lived day to day, doing what he thought was expected of him rather than what he wanted. That fear or being abandoned again always being there.
It was that background that brought me into conflict with him going into Starfleet and becoming an Ensign, because even if that was expected of him. I just couldn’t picture my version of Shinji going into Starfleet. So instead I reworked it that he worked with his Aunt and Uncle in their restaraunt in San Francisco.
I could still have gone the Ensign route, after all the Star Trek canon has shown us that even if the person plays it safe and doesn’t necessarily push themselves they can still have a career, Picard in Tapestry as an example.
Still, there was another side of it. I had already decided NERV wasn’t going to be part of Starfleet at this point and thought it’d be a bit much for them to just summon an Ensign to their colony, so decided to have him as a civillian who’d go on to be a noncom for the USS Tokyo for a time.
Of course, even there I’m playing a bit fast and loose because Shinji will become an Ensign in time. I looked up if a Starfleet officer can achieve such ranks without attending the academy, it seems unusual but it apparantly has happened in canon, and besides… it’s just a TV show 😉
So yeah, Shinji isn’t too different to what we see in the TV Show, he’s a bit older, a little bit more mature perhaps but he’s still the reluctant pilot who fears being hurt. He still saw, but repressed the memory of, his mother dying when he was a kid. He was still abandoned by his father and he still hurts because of it. He can be stubborn at times, but he has a good heart.
Asuka Langley Soryu
Asuka wasn’t to difficult to crack, there is a huge secret about her but I won’t be revealing it here just yet. You’ll have to read the story to find out.
Asuka’s story, much like Shinji’s, didn’t require too much reworking. I think this version of her is maybe a little bit softer. She’s not as big of a bully as she can be in the show, but she is still just as quick to show her arrogance, confidence and call people an idiot.
For Asuka there was no issue with her going to the academy and of course she is a wunderkind. Top grades and best pilot of her year, perhaps one of the best pilots to come through the academy. She works hard, she is driven and ambitious with a desire to be a legendary captain one day.
It’s just a shame she isn’t very good with people. She rubs people the wrong way and keeps herself to herself. She had one friend in Hikari Horaki and even then it’s a little bit of a one way street. One her own she is brilliant but many of her instructors see her arrogance and isolationist tendancies as a major block to her development in Starfleet. With many predicting problems for her in the future.
Asuka knows this of course and she doesn’t care, determined to prove her naysayers wrong. Of course, instructors aren’t the only people who have their doubts.
Like the show Asuka had a tragic upbringing. When she was barely a kid, she saw her mother die in front of her. Like the show it was horriffic and haunts Asuka to this day. Asuka doesn’t know the full details, all she can remember is seeing her mother hooked up half alive and covered with Borg implants, imploring Asuka to join her, even at one point attacking Asuka and nearly taking out Asuka’s eye.
Since then Asuka has had a deep fear of anything Borg related, and suffers intense nightmares.
This combines with the way her father, and remaining family treat her. They blame her for the death of the mother, they look down on Asuka and take pleasure in telling her she can’t make it.
Asuka is determined to prove them wrong, but her biggest fear, beyond the Borg is “What if they’re right?”
Rei Ayanami
Rei Ayanami, our enigmatic third pilot. She is already at NERV by the time Shinji and the crew of the Tokyo arrive. Much like the show she was severely hurt in an activation test and much like the show, she was used to get Shinji to pilot his ship.
I decided early on to have Rei be a ‘liberated Borg’, liberated by Gendo Ikari some years prior to the stories beginning. That’s not quite Rei’s full story, but again, I don’t want to give too much away as of yet but the parallels with NGE will still be there for her.
One thing I wanted to do with this was tap in a bit more to how and why Rei feels isolated from others. At NERV she is alone aside from Gendo, Fuyutsuki and Dr Akagi who do care for her. Others treat her coldly, with many hating her because of who she was and not who she is. Gendo protects her by keeping her isolated, but also protects his plans by keeping her isolated. Not wanting her to explore her humanity too much.
Dr Akagi however, encourages her to explore that side of her but it’s not until the USS Tokyo arrives that Rei gets a real opportunity.
The other thing I wanted to tap into was the dynamic between Rei and Asuka. Asuka fears and hates the Borg, but she is forced to work with one in Rei. Rei is aware of Asuka’s fear and hate and can sense it which makes her wary and even sad. I wanted to develop the friendship between the two in Frontier, to show that people can overcome prejudice like that if they work at it.
A big part of it too is that these characters are older and the dynamic because of Starfleet is different. Asuka isn’t going to act the same way she does in NGE because she isn’t a teenager, she’s more disciplined. Rei is going to act differently too, because again, age and she is maybe getting more of a push.
Rei is, as a liberated Borg, facing prejudice and struggling to find her place in the world. She does not really know how to express emotion and feeling and doesn’t know the right things to say or do. She is awkward but willing to learn and loyal to Gendo Ikari. She is also loyal to her mission, sometimes disregarding her own safety to achive her orders.
She is learning.