(GUNTAI) Misato Katsuragi said that, viewed from the Instrumentality Project, humankind is "a colony of flawed and separate entities". Colony means a group of individual organisms linked to each other, with new individual organisms produced by splitting or budding. Each individual organism within the colony has the capability to live independently.

Source: The End of Evangelion : Glossary contained within The End of Evangelion - Theatrical Program.