First Ancestral Race

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The First Ancestral Race (第一始祖民族、Dai'ichi Shiso Minzoku), usually abbreviated as "FAR", are ancient, extraterrestrial progenitors of life. They were likely a humanoid species with hyper-advanced technological capabilities. The First Ancestral Race was responsible for the creation of the Seeds of Life, their Moons, the Lances of Longinus, and the Dead Sea Scrolls. They are also the ultimate source of life for both humans and the Angels.

Profile

The First Ancestral Race were inhabitants of an unknown world within the Milky Way Galaxy billions of years ago. It is possible that they were the first intelligent life in the Milky Way. At some point, their world faced imminent destruction, and their species confronted extinction.

However, in the face of termination, the members of the First Ancestral Race took measures to ensure the preservation of their legacy. They sent seven progenitor life forms, called Seeds of Life, to spread life descended from themselves in specified planets across the galaxy. Each Seed was imbued with the soul of a member of the First Ancestral Race, and placed aboard a carrier vessel known as a "moon." Each Seed was accompanied by a Lance of Longinus, which can control and incapacitate a seed in case of any exigencies. This included enforcement of a rule implemented by the First Ancestral Race that only one Seed of Life could populate a given planet.

The surviving members of the First Ancestral Race were united into seven singular life forms, each of which boarded a "moon" carrier. Presumably the members of the First Ancestral Race were reduced to their souls, and collected within the Chambers of Guf aboard each "moon" carrier. These souls would await rebirth on another world, meaning that both humans and the Angels possess the souls of members of the First Ancestral Race.

The First Ancestral Race are also the authors of the what are known as "Dead Sea Scrolls." A copy of the Scrolls was placed in each "moon" carrier transporting a Seed of Life. The Scrolls are, essentially, a manual detailing the functionality of the Seeds of Life and the Spears of Longinus. They also contained prophecies about future events that would occur in the event that a Seed of Life is awakened.

Since the First Ancestral Race are the ultimate creators of humans, as well as Angels, they could be considered "gods" from the perspectives of both.

Conceptual History

The First Ancestral Race is never directly mentioned within the series itself, although the concept of a progenitor race was present from the very beginning. Two (First and Second Ancestral Races) were considered in an early planning meeting and later included in the Neon Genesis Evangelion Proposal, produced a full two years before the series aired.

In the Sore o Nasumono: Neon Genesis Evangelion Concept Design Works, Ikuto Yamashita, the mecha designer stated that in the original setting there were two advanced technological civilizations before humanity. The first civilization created the Evangelions and were destroyed by it. The second created the Spear of Longinus as a way to contain the Evangelions. They also put the Angels to sleep in a way to counter the Evangelions in case they were woken up again. This idea was eventually changed later.

The race also nearly received a mention, rebilled slightly as "First Indigenous Race", in Episode 20. The final show settled for more ambiguous cues, restricted mostly to Episode 21, but these were generally not picked up by fans. It was not until the release of the Neon Genesis Evangelion 2 video game for PS2 (followed by an expanded PSP version, subtitled Another Cases), the production of which was informed heavily by interviews with Anno and other staff, that the First Ancestral Race were "restored" to the mythos. The information about them comes almost exclusively from their Classified Information files and from Kaworu's "good" PSP ending.

Trivia

• The First Ancestral Race is thematically similar to the "Firstborn" aliens from 2001: A Space Odyssey^WP, the alien race that created the Monoliths. While the Firstborn did not outright create life, they were the first race in the galaxy to achieve sentience, and in their travels across space set up experiments to try to encourage the development of sentience on planets where they encountered life (e.g. with proto-human apes on prehistoric Earth).