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This might all be caffeine and sleep deprived fueled speculation, so take this all with a grain of salt:
So, NERV Montreal's logo is: "Sic Nos Sic Sacra Tuemur," or , "Thus We Defend our Sacred Rights." Suitably NERVy, but its originally the motto of the McMahon family of the Thomond sept, a native British isles clan that was eventually defeated and emigrated to France. Not a lot to go on, but some information, and NERV is knowingly using the motto of a clan that was defeated but survived and had to become something else.
Things get more interesting when we take into account NERV Montreal's Longinus equivalent, the Crocea Mors, or "Yellow Death." According to legend, the Crocea Mors was Julius Caesar's sword that, during the invasion of Britain by the Romans, stuck in the British prince Nennius' shield. Nennius used the sword himself, killing everyone it struck, before he himself died of a head wound inflicted by Caesar during the same battle he took the Crocea Mors.
This is where I go officially off the deep end. The Crocea Mors is taken from the writings of Geoffrey of Monmouth, who also wrote the Prophetiae Merlini. Purely speculation, but as we haven't seen Montreal's Dead Sea Scrolls yet and we've already used some of Geoffrey's terminology, I'm willing to bet that this might be it. In the Prophetiae Merlini, two dragons fight, a red dragon, the British, and a white dragon, the Saxons, and Merlin predicts the Saxons win.
My theory is that whoever has our Dead Sea Scrolls equivalent reads that the Angels win and humans are doomed despite using Angel tech and weapons against them. NERV is an attempt to stall the invasion while EVAs, the Human Abiogenisis Project, being dicks to Anna, Vancouver Angels, and whatever the egg is are all attempts to elevate or merge humanity to Angel status. Ophelia, pre-head wound Major, and allies either disagreed or found another way.
