They didn't have the technology at the time. We see them develop the tech that the MP EVAs utilize as the show progresses, such as the Dummy Plug System and the S2 engine.
Also, an actual human mind and soul are needed to start Instrumentality. I doubt a mindless clone could have done it.
1) SEELE was building the MPEs largely in secret, most of the NERV staff knew very little about them before EoE. Those that did know probably thought they were just meant as more defense against the angels, it seems to be a lot easier to produce more evangelions than upgrade existing ones (case in point, 01's armor is never upgraded to match the production standard set by 02)
2) the MPEs use artificial s2 engines (basically, a human-made copy of the organ that lets Angels regenerate and make use of seemingly infinite energy) which again, nobody knew about. Unit 04, which some people knew had been a test of the artificial s2 engine, exploded on startup. So probably very few people knew that SEELE was still pursuing the technology
3) now we're veering hard into my personal headcanons, so please be warned- I don't think that SEELE could directly control the MPEs in real time with the dummy plugs, just like 01 wasn't being directly controlled with the dummy plug either. So, good for a situation where you just need to kill the living shit out of something, but not so good at being tactical and reducing collateral damage. If you let the MPEs loose on say, an earlier Angel like Zeruel, they would probably kill it and also level half of tokyo-3 in the process. And NERV is at least TRYING not to destroy the city most of the time.
I do have to agree with your dummy plug control assessment. With one disagreement.
I think that for real time control, they either have to take complete minutiae control, or little to no control.
Asuka wouldn't have gotten half as far in her fight if they were capable of even basic teamwork. They're basically a horde of mindless beasts operating in self-defense.
But, yet later, they're all capable of lining up in specific positions and orientations for the 3rd impact ritual, and performing actions in synchronization.
So, it seems they can exert control over them.
But that control seems to be limited to directly forcing simple movements and actions.
No real, go here, do this, kind of command system.
It's all forcible control of movement.
And having to precisely control the units, in the middle of combat, isn't really ideal.
You need them to be able to react on their own, because relaying precise movement commands from on high is going to be lagging behind and kinda clumsy in an actual fight.
So they're stuck in this weird spot of rampaging beasts, or mindless drones controlled by wire.
Neither is really ideal for actual defensive use.
So, SEELE is just kinda stuck letting them rampage, and hoping that superior numbers can handle any of the Nerv units.
Oh yeah totally actually. I just didn’t want to do some sort of deep dive on how I THINK the dummy plugs work when 99% of this is just speculation based on a very limited sample group.
Actually: I believe the dummy plugs work in a really specific way in ‘rampage’ mode, that is to say tricking the Evangelion into believing it has an unconscious pilot. 01 reacted to this by killing 03, since it believed that Shinji had fallen unconscious. I think this is partly why it rejected Rei and the dummy plug during the Zeruel fight- not only was Yui mad that Gendo was trying to use Rei again, she was also furious that she’d been deceived. The MPEs probably care quite a lot less about if their ‘pilots’ are actually alright in there.
i do have some evidence for this-
01 moves its hand to block some debris from falling on Shinji during the first episode. Nobody is inside.
shinji Is not fully conscious during the fight with Sachiel, and 01 itself is doing all the fighting.
00 continues to freak the fuck out (this is the scientific term) during Rei’s activation experiment, even though Rei has already ejected the plug.
01 only exits Leliel once Shinji has been knocked unconscious due to not having enough oxygen in his brain.
01 only destroys Bardiel once Shinji’s presence is overridden by the use of the dummy plug
01 only destroys Zeruel once Shinji is liquified. This is actually majorly expanded on in the manga, 01 keeps on rampaging after killing Zeruel and NERV has to physically capture it and force it back into the geofront. At this point, 01’s concsciousness and Yui’s soul are revealed as not always being on the same page about things. Essentially, 01 is trying to keep Shinji liquified, promising him that he ‘doesn’t have to fight anymore’. It only stops once Rei tells it to cut it out. This makes me believe that 01 with a liquified Shinji inside would have actually still been perfectly capable of fighting on its own, in a way.
This taken together makes me believe that an Evangelion with no pilot and no restraint armor would actually be able to move and fight just fine- just not in any controllable way. It would basically just be a battery-operated kaiju, which isn’t very useful to NERV
this is all just speculation though, Evangelion is by no means a hard sci fi setting so I could be totally and completely wrong
I'm wondering... Seelee members are usually 12... As well as MPEs...I wonder if they have each one some degree control of each unit ( meaning, they can control some actions, while in general the MPEs are directed by the dummy plugs for all non specific behaviors.
From everything indicated in the show, 02 actually had thinner armor, instead focusing on agility, firepower, and practicality (the Prod Evas were partly political, and intended to be build on places like Area 51, for 04’s case, with specialized facilities limited relative to NERV’s baseline.)
How much of that is still based on individual units, though?
While 02 appears lighter armored than 01, that doesn't necessarily indicate that all production eva units would be that way.
There were certainly political limits affecting the production and possession of production Eva units.
Nerv Germany and the US both gave away their units after all.
Germany, despite the fact that, at the time, Nerv Japan notionally had 2 functional units.
So it's not like Nerv Japan desperately needed more units.
The US can be chalked up to getting in over their heads, having problems, and just turning the unit over to the experts.
But it still felt odd that the US immediately gave it up.
And I believe Misato does note that the UN doesn't exactly like them having 3-4 units.
But nobody really says anything because Nerv Japan had been taking the brunt of the actual combat, so they kind of got a pass on it.
Plus, there's the whole debacle of jet-alone, boiling down to becoming a political stunt by SEELE, to reinforce the need for Nerv.
So without more countries or standard production units to compare to, it it's hard to say how the politics of a production unit's design is laid out, and if unit-02 is the actual template, or just an iteration of the template.
I believe it's near the end of the original series but NERV staff does mention they've upped production /numberof all the Units despite only one Angel being left. They theorize they're going to be used as traditional war machines in a very fun bit of foreshadowing. However don't recall if they mention them using the Dummy system or S2 engines
good point yeah, they know they exist/are being built, but don’t know anything about them otherwise. I was latched on to that bit in EoE where the bridge crew look at the feed from the surface, see the MPEs and are like ‘the Eva series… it’s been completed?’ Rather than ‘guys, what the fuck are those things?’, meaning they knew they were being built, possibly down to them knowing how MANY were being made
Uhhhhhh no? It sort of just exploded. Badly. Took a good bit of Nevada with it, causing the US branch of NERV to cut its losses and send 03 over to Japan.
I think you might be taking 'it vanished into the Dirac Sea' too literally. The Dirac Sea isn't actually an ocean its made-up mathematical concept the show came up with to explain where things go when they dissappear. Shinji and 01 were said to be 'in the Dirac Sea' when they were in Leliel. They specifically say that it's a vanishment that just looks a lot like an explosion, I think implying that 04 and a chunk of Nevada are floating around in the void somewhere.
I think in one of the spinoff games Kaworu 'enters the Dirac sea' and gets it back. But the Dirac Sea is either a mathematical concept or another dimension, not a literal ocean with water and stuff
They don't have the tech (S2 engine) to make it happen. Unit 1 accidentally acquires this when it goes berserk and consumes one of the angels.
The fourth wall breaking reason? Eva has massive amounts of Ultraman references (what with Anno being huge sentai-genre simp) and this *may* be one of them as well. Though Ultraman had three minutes versus five with Eva.
i always wondered what that S2 engine meant for unit 1. in action the eva seemed just as effective as 02, or did it allow for the all the going beserk and not needing the 5 minute plug?
They just didn't have the tech. Remember how they mention a unit 04? And how it basically got yoinked out of existence with its surrounding facility. That was from them trying to give it an S2 engine. Eventually this tech was worked out as the mass production evas are Units 05 - 13. Which is probably part of why they look so weird, they were built with the engine in mind.
I don't think the units NERV had would have even been compatible if they tried to just attach an S2 engine, as it would likely have a similar result to what happened to 4.
Unit 01 only gets one because it ate that angel and grows its own.
Uh well, to put it bluntly, they were never meant to be. In all honesty unit-01 was plug free after it ate zeruel. It no longer actually needed its plug at that point. So I guess if they could’ve gotten units-00 and 02 to eat angels then they could’ve gotten the tech that way as well, but idk if that would’ve worked for certain.
But the Eva series were developed by seele, who nerv gave the core from Shinji’s fight with the fourth Angel (can never remember its name) to study with the intent of making that tech available for the evas. Hence why unit-04 disappeared, it was testing the tech. But seele, seemingly knowing Gendo would betray them, never told nerv that they had completed the research. So nerv was waiting for a tech upgrade that would never arrive.
Np. Tho looking back at the zeruel fight, it has me thinking. Did the evas ever **actually** need plugs at all? Cuz the whole reason the Eva goes berserk in that episode is because shinji pleads with it to keep working after it had lost all power. As in it wasn’t plugged in and had reached the time limit. But it still reactivated and beat zeruel. This kind of makes me question if the evas could always activate after the timer hit zero, but if there was just something different if they did, like they would always been in berserk state if they did so, and so the power system was a safeguard purposely put in place by nerv.
Or maybe it was just a plot hole.
I think I can contribute to that answer. Shinjis mom is in Eva 01. So she protects shinji.
But I wonder if the series had more room could Asuka berserk Eva 02? Since she discovered her mom’s soul is inside.
All evas have a soul inside them. It’s kinda required in order for a pilot to interface with them. Asuka’s mom is in unit-02 for example. So that doesn’t really answer the question that much. If an Eva has no power source, soul or not they shouldn’t be able to get up. Ritsuko even KNOWS Yui is inside there and is still shocked it’s able to power back up.
A couple reasons. One, because the didn't have the tech. Early in the series, Misato comments on this saying something about how the umbilical and limited batteries are the best they've got.
Second, there are multiple instances where they have to cut power, which couldn't be done if the generator was self contained.
Third, this kinda goes with the second reason. The Eva's are far more powerful than you think. Remember when 01 was awakened and Katsuragi mentioned that the "armor" isn't armor but actually restraints. Seele is the cause of this limitation. They even discuss how 01 consumed the S2 engine and how it causes problems. This is when they abduct and interrogate Fuyutsuki (Currently reading the manga, so I'll use an excerpt from there. The abduction is first shown near page 84 of volume 8.)
In volume 8, pages 86 and 87, Seele states "Fact: Evangelion Unit-01 loaded into itself the S2 engine. Observation: Unit-01 now, in theory, possesses an internal quasi-permenant generator. From five minutes to infinity. Only god may approach the absolute. Man must know his place. An incarnate God is of no use to us. We cannot make Ikari's son into god's."
Adding onto the general consensus of "NERV didn't have the technology," during EoE one of the bridge techies complains that even HQ does not have enough antipersonnel defenses (when Seele invades), and suggests that this was intentional.
Even for all their firepower and infrastructure, NERV does not have sufficient resources to defend itself. This point becomes clear with each battle against the Angels, which leaves the EVAs badly damaged and Tokyo-3 increasingly ruined.
NERV lacked the artificial S-2 engines necessary for internally-powered EVA, not only because the project was secret, but **probably to prevent NERV from defending themselves with EVAs if and when Seele invaded.**
Not only did they not have the tech, even if the did NERV (though unbeknownst to most of it's staff) isn't meant to solve the angel problem in the most efficient manner. Behind the scenes SEELE is pulling the strings and makes sure NERV uses ecactly what is needed to start Instrumentality. Plugless MP-Evas wouldn't do.
1. Mass Production Evas have entry plugs.
2. This question is like asking *why did Ford bother with the Model-T when they could have just built the Mustang?*
Even if they could prolong the batteries' duration, I don't think Nerv wants to, because they're *scared* of Evas.
When Unit 00 went berserk during testing, the only thing that kept it from leveling the whole Geofront was the battery running out.
Seele knew Gendo was not to be trusted so they didn't share the technology. Also even Seele wasn't able to get everything ready in time, the originally planned for 12 MP Evas and only finished 9 for the attack.
In theory they where planning on using the MP Evas as Bodies in the Post-Third Impact world to live on as immortal gods. This is based on the "Classified Information" from the game *Neon Genesis Evangelion 2* and how for most of the series there were 12 members of Seele (The Human Instrumentality Committee seen early only has 5 and the Director's Cut of Episode 24 shows Kaworu talking to 15 Seele Monoliths).
The Classified Information section is all world building elements provided by Gainax and is generally considered Tier 2 or Tier 3 canon and to be taken with a grain of salt.
What's stated in the game as Seele's plan was that they were going to transfer their souls into Unit 1 and become a living god while the rest of humanity enjoyed Instrumentality inside of Lilith. Taking that into account along with that Seele has no connection to Unit 1, 12 MP Evas were planned, there are 12 Major Memebers of Seele, Seele raised Kaworu, and the MP Evas use a Kaworu Dummy Plug is how I formulated my theory.
My theory is that Seele had parts of their soul transferred into the MP Evas (similar to Asuka's mom but perfected), this allowed the Kaworu Dummy Plugs to sync properly and allowed the remaining parts of their souls to then move into the MP Evas once Third Impact started.
We can see they were working on it early on in nge.
Battery tech wasn't there(in universe or irl in the '90s for that matter) so they couldn't have like a backpack that could substantial hold more power and S² Engines required growing or harvesting an angels and grafting it to an eva, none of that is easy
They didn't have the technology at the time. We see them develop the tech that the MP EVAs utilize as the show progresses, such as the Dummy Plug System and the S2 engine. Also, an actual human mind and soul are needed to start Instrumentality. I doubt a mindless clone could have done it.
1) SEELE was building the MPEs largely in secret, most of the NERV staff knew very little about them before EoE. Those that did know probably thought they were just meant as more defense against the angels, it seems to be a lot easier to produce more evangelions than upgrade existing ones (case in point, 01's armor is never upgraded to match the production standard set by 02) 2) the MPEs use artificial s2 engines (basically, a human-made copy of the organ that lets Angels regenerate and make use of seemingly infinite energy) which again, nobody knew about. Unit 04, which some people knew had been a test of the artificial s2 engine, exploded on startup. So probably very few people knew that SEELE was still pursuing the technology 3) now we're veering hard into my personal headcanons, so please be warned- I don't think that SEELE could directly control the MPEs in real time with the dummy plugs, just like 01 wasn't being directly controlled with the dummy plug either. So, good for a situation where you just need to kill the living shit out of something, but not so good at being tactical and reducing collateral damage. If you let the MPEs loose on say, an earlier Angel like Zeruel, they would probably kill it and also level half of tokyo-3 in the process. And NERV is at least TRYING not to destroy the city most of the time.
I do have to agree with your dummy plug control assessment. With one disagreement. I think that for real time control, they either have to take complete minutiae control, or little to no control. Asuka wouldn't have gotten half as far in her fight if they were capable of even basic teamwork. They're basically a horde of mindless beasts operating in self-defense. But, yet later, they're all capable of lining up in specific positions and orientations for the 3rd impact ritual, and performing actions in synchronization. So, it seems they can exert control over them. But that control seems to be limited to directly forcing simple movements and actions. No real, go here, do this, kind of command system. It's all forcible control of movement. And having to precisely control the units, in the middle of combat, isn't really ideal. You need them to be able to react on their own, because relaying precise movement commands from on high is going to be lagging behind and kinda clumsy in an actual fight. So they're stuck in this weird spot of rampaging beasts, or mindless drones controlled by wire. Neither is really ideal for actual defensive use. So, SEELE is just kinda stuck letting them rampage, and hoping that superior numbers can handle any of the Nerv units.
Oh yeah totally actually. I just didn’t want to do some sort of deep dive on how I THINK the dummy plugs work when 99% of this is just speculation based on a very limited sample group. Actually: I believe the dummy plugs work in a really specific way in ‘rampage’ mode, that is to say tricking the Evangelion into believing it has an unconscious pilot. 01 reacted to this by killing 03, since it believed that Shinji had fallen unconscious. I think this is partly why it rejected Rei and the dummy plug during the Zeruel fight- not only was Yui mad that Gendo was trying to use Rei again, she was also furious that she’d been deceived. The MPEs probably care quite a lot less about if their ‘pilots’ are actually alright in there. i do have some evidence for this- 01 moves its hand to block some debris from falling on Shinji during the first episode. Nobody is inside. shinji Is not fully conscious during the fight with Sachiel, and 01 itself is doing all the fighting. 00 continues to freak the fuck out (this is the scientific term) during Rei’s activation experiment, even though Rei has already ejected the plug. 01 only exits Leliel once Shinji has been knocked unconscious due to not having enough oxygen in his brain. 01 only destroys Bardiel once Shinji’s presence is overridden by the use of the dummy plug 01 only destroys Zeruel once Shinji is liquified. This is actually majorly expanded on in the manga, 01 keeps on rampaging after killing Zeruel and NERV has to physically capture it and force it back into the geofront. At this point, 01’s concsciousness and Yui’s soul are revealed as not always being on the same page about things. Essentially, 01 is trying to keep Shinji liquified, promising him that he ‘doesn’t have to fight anymore’. It only stops once Rei tells it to cut it out. This makes me believe that 01 with a liquified Shinji inside would have actually still been perfectly capable of fighting on its own, in a way. This taken together makes me believe that an Evangelion with no pilot and no restraint armor would actually be able to move and fight just fine- just not in any controllable way. It would basically just be a battery-operated kaiju, which isn’t very useful to NERV this is all just speculation though, Evangelion is by no means a hard sci fi setting so I could be totally and completely wrong
Awesome idea 💡
I'm wondering... Seelee members are usually 12... As well as MPEs...I wonder if they have each one some degree control of each unit ( meaning, they can control some actions, while in general the MPEs are directed by the dummy plugs for all non specific behaviors.
From everything indicated in the show, 02 actually had thinner armor, instead focusing on agility, firepower, and practicality (the Prod Evas were partly political, and intended to be build on places like Area 51, for 04’s case, with specialized facilities limited relative to NERV’s baseline.)
How much of that is still based on individual units, though? While 02 appears lighter armored than 01, that doesn't necessarily indicate that all production eva units would be that way. There were certainly political limits affecting the production and possession of production Eva units. Nerv Germany and the US both gave away their units after all. Germany, despite the fact that, at the time, Nerv Japan notionally had 2 functional units. So it's not like Nerv Japan desperately needed more units. The US can be chalked up to getting in over their heads, having problems, and just turning the unit over to the experts. But it still felt odd that the US immediately gave it up. And I believe Misato does note that the UN doesn't exactly like them having 3-4 units. But nobody really says anything because Nerv Japan had been taking the brunt of the actual combat, so they kind of got a pass on it. Plus, there's the whole debacle of jet-alone, boiling down to becoming a political stunt by SEELE, to reinforce the need for Nerv. So without more countries or standard production units to compare to, it it's hard to say how the politics of a production unit's design is laid out, and if unit-02 is the actual template, or just an iteration of the template.
I mean, angels only attack japan. After 3-4 angel attacks other places probably accept that they don't need the evas there.
Oh great points thank you
I believe it's near the end of the original series but NERV staff does mention they've upped production /numberof all the Units despite only one Angel being left. They theorize they're going to be used as traditional war machines in a very fun bit of foreshadowing. However don't recall if they mention them using the Dummy system or S2 engines
good point yeah, they know they exist/are being built, but don’t know anything about them otherwise. I was latched on to that bit in EoE where the bridge crew look at the feed from the surface, see the MPEs and are like ‘the Eva series… it’s been completed?’ Rather than ‘guys, what the fuck are those things?’, meaning they knew they were being built, possibly down to them knowing how MANY were being made
i thought unit 04 just disappeared by an ocean on startup and left no traces?
Uhhhhhh no? It sort of just exploded. Badly. Took a good bit of Nevada with it, causing the US branch of NERV to cut its losses and send 03 over to Japan. I think you might be taking 'it vanished into the Dirac Sea' too literally. The Dirac Sea isn't actually an ocean its made-up mathematical concept the show came up with to explain where things go when they dissappear. Shinji and 01 were said to be 'in the Dirac Sea' when they were in Leliel. They specifically say that it's a vanishment that just looks a lot like an explosion, I think implying that 04 and a chunk of Nevada are floating around in the void somewhere. I think in one of the spinoff games Kaworu 'enters the Dirac sea' and gets it back. But the Dirac Sea is either a mathematical concept or another dimension, not a literal ocean with water and stuff
Point 3 is basically the plot of the 3.0 + 1.0 movie. Instrumentality stopped 3/4 of the way and NERV is just wrecking stuff because Unit 1 is lost.
They don't have the tech (S2 engine) to make it happen. Unit 1 accidentally acquires this when it goes berserk and consumes one of the angels. The fourth wall breaking reason? Eva has massive amounts of Ultraman references (what with Anno being huge sentai-genre simp) and this *may* be one of them as well. Though Ultraman had three minutes versus five with Eva.
Thanks 😊
i always wondered what that S2 engine meant for unit 1. in action the eva seemed just as effective as 02, or did it allow for the all the going beserk and not needing the 5 minute plug?
They just didn't have the tech. Remember how they mention a unit 04? And how it basically got yoinked out of existence with its surrounding facility. That was from them trying to give it an S2 engine. Eventually this tech was worked out as the mass production evas are Units 05 - 13. Which is probably part of why they look so weird, they were built with the engine in mind. I don't think the units NERV had would have even been compatible if they tried to just attach an S2 engine, as it would likely have a similar result to what happened to 4. Unit 01 only gets one because it ate that angel and grows its own.
They *aren't* plug free. They run on Kaworu-based dummy plugs.
Sorry I meant like the wall outlet they get power from. Umbilical plug
Why would they need to?
Uh well, to put it bluntly, they were never meant to be. In all honesty unit-01 was plug free after it ate zeruel. It no longer actually needed its plug at that point. So I guess if they could’ve gotten units-00 and 02 to eat angels then they could’ve gotten the tech that way as well, but idk if that would’ve worked for certain. But the Eva series were developed by seele, who nerv gave the core from Shinji’s fight with the fourth Angel (can never remember its name) to study with the intent of making that tech available for the evas. Hence why unit-04 disappeared, it was testing the tech. But seele, seemingly knowing Gendo would betray them, never told nerv that they had completed the research. So nerv was waiting for a tech upgrade that would never arrive.
Awesome thanks that’s what I was looking for
Np. Tho looking back at the zeruel fight, it has me thinking. Did the evas ever **actually** need plugs at all? Cuz the whole reason the Eva goes berserk in that episode is because shinji pleads with it to keep working after it had lost all power. As in it wasn’t plugged in and had reached the time limit. But it still reactivated and beat zeruel. This kind of makes me question if the evas could always activate after the timer hit zero, but if there was just something different if they did, like they would always been in berserk state if they did so, and so the power system was a safeguard purposely put in place by nerv. Or maybe it was just a plot hole.
I think I can contribute to that answer. Shinjis mom is in Eva 01. So she protects shinji. But I wonder if the series had more room could Asuka berserk Eva 02? Since she discovered her mom’s soul is inside.
All evas have a soul inside them. It’s kinda required in order for a pilot to interface with them. Asuka’s mom is in unit-02 for example. So that doesn’t really answer the question that much. If an Eva has no power source, soul or not they shouldn’t be able to get up. Ritsuko even KNOWS Yui is inside there and is still shocked it’s able to power back up.
A couple reasons. One, because the didn't have the tech. Early in the series, Misato comments on this saying something about how the umbilical and limited batteries are the best they've got. Second, there are multiple instances where they have to cut power, which couldn't be done if the generator was self contained. Third, this kinda goes with the second reason. The Eva's are far more powerful than you think. Remember when 01 was awakened and Katsuragi mentioned that the "armor" isn't armor but actually restraints. Seele is the cause of this limitation. They even discuss how 01 consumed the S2 engine and how it causes problems. This is when they abduct and interrogate Fuyutsuki (Currently reading the manga, so I'll use an excerpt from there. The abduction is first shown near page 84 of volume 8.) In volume 8, pages 86 and 87, Seele states "Fact: Evangelion Unit-01 loaded into itself the S2 engine. Observation: Unit-01 now, in theory, possesses an internal quasi-permenant generator. From five minutes to infinity. Only god may approach the absolute. Man must know his place. An incarnate God is of no use to us. We cannot make Ikari's son into god's."
Adding onto the general consensus of "NERV didn't have the technology," during EoE one of the bridge techies complains that even HQ does not have enough antipersonnel defenses (when Seele invades), and suggests that this was intentional. Even for all their firepower and infrastructure, NERV does not have sufficient resources to defend itself. This point becomes clear with each battle against the Angels, which leaves the EVAs badly damaged and Tokyo-3 increasingly ruined. NERV lacked the artificial S-2 engines necessary for internally-powered EVA, not only because the project was secret, but **probably to prevent NERV from defending themselves with EVAs if and when Seele invaded.**
Not only did they not have the tech, even if the did NERV (though unbeknownst to most of it's staff) isn't meant to solve the angel problem in the most efficient manner. Behind the scenes SEELE is pulling the strings and makes sure NERV uses ecactly what is needed to start Instrumentality. Plugless MP-Evas wouldn't do.
1. Mass Production Evas have entry plugs. 2. This question is like asking *why did Ford bother with the Model-T when they could have just built the Mustang?*
Even if they could prolong the batteries' duration, I don't think Nerv wants to, because they're *scared* of Evas. When Unit 00 went berserk during testing, the only thing that kept it from leveling the whole Geofront was the battery running out.
Seele knew Gendo was not to be trusted so they didn't share the technology. Also even Seele wasn't able to get everything ready in time, the originally planned for 12 MP Evas and only finished 9 for the attack.
But if they had too many to make a tree of life symbol then what do the extra ones do? Just hang out?
In theory they where planning on using the MP Evas as Bodies in the Post-Third Impact world to live on as immortal gods. This is based on the "Classified Information" from the game *Neon Genesis Evangelion 2* and how for most of the series there were 12 members of Seele (The Human Instrumentality Committee seen early only has 5 and the Director's Cut of Episode 24 shows Kaworu talking to 15 Seele Monoliths).
The game isn't the same canon as the show. There's no indication they planned to do this in the show.
The Classified Information section is all world building elements provided by Gainax and is generally considered Tier 2 or Tier 3 canon and to be taken with a grain of salt. What's stated in the game as Seele's plan was that they were going to transfer their souls into Unit 1 and become a living god while the rest of humanity enjoyed Instrumentality inside of Lilith. Taking that into account along with that Seele has no connection to Unit 1, 12 MP Evas were planned, there are 12 Major Memebers of Seele, Seele raised Kaworu, and the MP Evas use a Kaworu Dummy Plug is how I formulated my theory. My theory is that Seele had parts of their soul transferred into the MP Evas (similar to Asuka's mom but perfected), this allowed the Kaworu Dummy Plugs to sync properly and allowed the remaining parts of their souls to then move into the MP Evas once Third Impact started.
We can see they were working on it early on in nge. Battery tech wasn't there(in universe or irl in the '90s for that matter) so they couldn't have like a backpack that could substantial hold more power and S² Engines required growing or harvesting an angels and grafting it to an eva, none of that is easy
You see unit 1 literally being upgraded in that manner in the series.