"But what the hell d'you need -me- for?" [DJ Croft] asked, running a hand over his thick black thatch of hair. "I mean, granted, I -am- the world's most handsome and sophisticated fourteen-year-old boy, but what good is that to NERV?"
Neon Exodus Evangelion
is a Neon Genesis Evangelion Fan Fic by the good people at Eyrie Productions Unlimited. It is an Alternate Continuity fic where Shinji, the Third Child, ran away after watching Eva-00's disastrous synchronization test, so they bring in the Fifth Child, the son of Lara Croft and Fox Mulder, Derek Joshua "DJ" Croft.
While not a Script Fic, NXE is structured to simulate the episodic format of a TV series; it is broken down into three "seasons" of nine "episodes" each: The Gathering Storm, Balance of Terror, and Revelations in Real Time. The third season ends on a cliffhanging sequence, which left the story unresolved for several years of real time until EPU released a final installment called Neon Exodus Evangelion The Motion Picture: Apotheosis Now. This novel-length story caps the entire series with a suitably epic-level conclusion that fulfills all the potential exhibited by the previous 27 chapters. Starting in the third season it also includes the infamous Bonus Theater segments, which showcase short humorous pieces, bizarre Spin-Off ideas and lighter, often Fourth Wall-breaking, views "behind the scenes" of the production.
As of March 2016, the series is being continued, with even more crossovers.
As a Mega Crossover series, NXE contains elements from or references to — at the minimum — the following works:
- Neon Genesis Evangelion
- Neon Genesis Evangelion: Iron Maiden
- 2001: A Space Odyssey
- 2010: The Year We Make Contact
- Ah! My Goddess
- The works of Dutch mystery writer A.C. Baantjer
- Babylon 5
- The Blues Brothers
- Doctor Who
- Emergency!
- Firefox
- Full Throttle
- Ghostbusters
- Half-Life
- In Nomine
- Iron Man
- The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
- Marathon 2: Durandal
- The Marvel Cinematic Universe
- Men in Black
- Pacific Rim
- Paradise Lost
- Pink Floyd
- Real Genius
- Sailor Moon
- SportsCenter
- Star Wars
- System Shock and System Shock 2
- Tech Romancer
- Tempest
- Terminator
- Thunderbirds
- Titanic (1997)
- Tomb Raider
- TRON
- Uncle Buck
- Wipe Out
- XCOM, both classic and the 2012 reboot
- The X-Files
This fanfic series contains examples of:
- All There in the Manual: The Terminals, basically blog posts about the progress of Apotheosis Now, contain plot points that might be missed by just reading the fic itself. Also, a number of revelations are made on the Eyrie forum.
- All Your Base Are Belong to Us: SEELE's invasion forces NERV to move from Worcester-3 to Halifax.
- Animated Actors: Several of the "Bonus Theatre" segments purport to show the reader what goes on "backstage" at the EPU studios; plus there's at least one "interview" with a "performer".
- And I Must Scream: Gendo was fully aware of all the dickish things his demon handlers made him do while he was under their control.
- Arc Words: "I have been Roland, Beowulf, Achilles, Gilgamesh." Later expands into an I Have Many Names Badass Boast.
- It's also a shout-out to and direct quote from the Marathon games.
- Area 51: Given a throwaway mention as an X-COM base they are forced to abandon
- Artificial Human: Jon Ellison; Rei Ayanami is thought to be one but is really something quite different; their clones.
- Artistic License – Nuclear Physics: Nuclear reactors (like the one on Jet Alone) don't explode.
- Ascended Fanboy: Ken, who does not pilot an Evangelion, but instead pilots Jet Alone.
- Author Avatar: Inverted with John Trussell, whose avatar shows up in the series before he became a co-author.
- Despite accusations that DJ Croft and Jon Ellison are "disguised avatars",
Word of God says no.
- Despite accusations that DJ Croft and Jon Ellison are "disguised avatars",
- Badass Boast: DJ's speech in his last moments on screen in the last episode of season three
- BFG: The Positron Cannon; Zashchitnik's antimatter beams; and on a more personal scale, the Blaster Launcher from X-COM
- Book Dumb: DJ is not very good at algebra or computer programming.
- Chekhov's Boomerang: The Positron Cannon gets used again in The Motion Picture.
- Dissonant Serenity: "Shinji. You were actually listening. I'm... I'm proud of you."
- Doing In the Wizard: Followed by Doing in the Scientist, regarding the origins of the Angels, and later the X-Com aliens.
- Domed Hometown: San Francisco is described as having a dome over it.
- Fun with Acronyms: The Military Intelligence Bureau
- General Failure: Despite having the entire armed forces of the United States and much of the rest of the world at her disposal, Natlateth is unable to destroy the railroad that NERV uses to escape Worcester.
- Hate Fic: Created in response to Gryphon's disgust with the "pointless nihilism" of Neon Genesis Evangelion
- I Have Many Names: "I have been Roland, Beowulf, Achilles, Gilgamesh. I have been called a hundred names and will be called a thousand more before the world goes dim and cold."
- Lock and Load: Before raiding a SEELE installation, DJ tosses Shinji a pistol and is a little surprised to see Shinji do the full badass guncheck routine.
- Massive Multiplayer Crossover: The whole fic is a crossover between Neon Genesis Evangelion and a bunch of other franchises.
- Missing Mom: Subverted: Lara Croft was only trapped off-screen for the first few episodes.
- Mythology Gag
- The Men in Black agent Jim Edwards wields "a deceptively tiny concussion blaster", which is a reference to the Noisy Cricket from Men in Black.
- No One Gets Left Behind: Why the Angels are really attacking Worcester-3 — to rescue the comatose Lucifer from the (unwitting) agents of Hell and complete his Redemption.
- Nuclear Weapons Taboo: Averted. According to Word of God, N2 mines are "next-generation nuclear" weapons, not "non-nuclear" ones. Also, Zashchitnik carries a nuclear cruise missile.
- Omake: Bonus Theatre segments. All Those Stars. Plus, arguably, the NXE "apologia", Encounter at Shamrock House
- Our Angels Are Different: The Angels NERV fights are fairly standard for NGE; however, later ones are more like angels from In Nomine.
- Over Nine Thousand: Averted; the highest synch ratio is 100%.
- Phobia: DJ Croft is claustrophobic, This comes back to bite him in his battle against Leliel.
- Psychic Nosebleed: Gendo Ikari gets one of these while trying to shake off alien mind control.
- Real-Person Fic: Jeff "YaK" Minter plays an unexpectedly large role. Also, the late Derek Bacon, a college friend of the authors, appears in the last episode of season three and plays a large role in Apotheosis Now.
- Reincarnation: DJ turns out to be the reincarnation of Longinus.
- Royals Who Actually Do Something: Mentioned in 1:9 that Great Britain decided to go this route after Second Impact, after the example of "poor old Elizabeth".
- Running Gag: The EPU "Taco Night" gag makes a mandatory appearance; also, a repeated riff on NGE's "unfamiliar ceiling" line.
- Satan Is Good: Lucifer's and Moloch's attempt to repent is what starts everything off.
- Sequel Series: Neon Generation: Exodus 2035, a teaser for which was posted in the EPU forums in late 2005. Gryphon didn't promise it would be soon, but did promise it would appear someday.
- As of 2016, it has appeared in the form of a Pacific Rim slash Rebuild of Evangelion form, especially if the first chapter title note is anything to go by.
- Series Continuity Error: Although early in the third "season" Misato was completely briefed on what's actually going on, complete with demons running NERV and Rei being a genuine angel right out of Heaven, she seems to have forgotten this entirely in a later episode where Rei and Moloch go to town on a SEELE base and reacts with disbelief when she is told again. Acknowledged by Word of God.
- Shown Their Work: In the space episode, the Apollo 13 book is referenced. Artistic License – Space is thus massively averted.
- Smite Me, O Mighty SmiterAsuka: Do You hear me, God, in Your ivory tower? Do my words offend You? Well, TOO BAD! I'M NOT AFRAID OF YOU! I'm already IN Hell - SO WHAT CAN YOU DO TO ME?! YOU made this world of conflict and suffering and hate! YOU let this happen to Your children who Your Scriptures claim You love so much! You must be DEAD! Or CRUEL! Or You just DON'T CARE! Either way I - DON'T - FUCKING - NEED YOU!
- Taking You with Me: Natlateth tries this twice. And fails epically both times.
- Theme Naming: Rei's clones are named in numerical order: Ichi, Ni, San... ("rei"="zero", "ichi"="one" and so on); NERV Security personnel are often named for Red Sox pitchers; similarly, SEELE security personnel are named after ice hockey players.
- The Undead: The first two EVAs are the corpses of Moloch and Lucifer. Except it turns out Lucifer is Not Quite Dead...
