Dummy System

Dummy Plugs are Entry Plugs reworked to run without a human occupant, and the Dummy System is the software soul inside them. While dormant, such a plug behaves like any ordinary one; once engaged, it seizes the Evangelion outright and locks the human pilot out of the controls.

Every regular Eva unit is eventually refitted to operate under either a live pilot or the dummy. Ritsuko Akagi confirms that NERV's plugs are built on the personal data of Rei Ayanami, and in The End of Evangelion the Mass Production models reveal their own template: plugs labeled with the name Kaworu.

The system imitates a pilot's thought processes and feeds the resulting signals to the Evangelion, substituting simulation for a human mind. The imitation is imperfect in a telling way: a dummy-driven Eva fights with an almost bestial ferocity, a milder cousin of full Berserk Mode.

The Rebuild films flesh out the hardware. Built at NERV's Golgotha base and shipped to Tokyo-3 ahead of Unit-03's delivery, the Rebuild dummy plug is tinted green, displays the label DMYSYS, and deploys an expanding control unit that closes over the pilot, blinding them and clamping both joysticks so they cannot interfere.

Unit-01 receives the system's combat debut. When Bardiel possesses Unit-03 and Shinji refuses to destroy a machine with his friend inside, Gendo orders the dummy engaged despite its unfinished state. The autopilot annihilates Unit-03 and bites down on its entry plug, leaving pilot Tōji Suzuhara gravely wounded. With Shinji refusing to pilot afterward, the dummy becomes Unit-01's designated backup, but when Zeruel attacks, the Eva itself repeatedly refuses to activate under it, and once Shinji returns the system never runs in Unit-01 again. In The End of Evangelion, the Kaworu-based plugs drive the Mass Production Evangelions sent to destroy Unit-02.

The Rebuild continuity repeats the pattern: against the Ninth Angel, Unit-01's dummy takes over from an unwilling Shinji, kills the Angel, and mangles its pilot. By Evangelion: 3.0, most NERV Evas operate autonomously, implying dummy technology or something like it throughout the fleet, though the claim that Mark.06 had been made autonomous proves to be a lie. One production flourish: the mechanical audio during the takeover scene in Evangelion: 2.0, played backwards, becomes a line from the film Colossus: The Forbin Project about domination by machine being easier on human pride than domination by other humans, and the system audibly cries out when Unit-01 rejects it.