Tachikoma

From Multiversal Omnipedia
Jump to: navigation, search

Tachikoma are a type of robotic mecha that feature in Ghost in the Shell.

Contents

History

===Original Tachikoma (Japanese: タチコマ)

Stand Alone Complex

One slightly-malfunctioning Tachikoma goes on a joy-ride through the city where it meets a young girl named Miki who is looking for a lost dog. The episode is mostly comedy but turns serious, with the Tachikoma attempting to understand sadness and death. In a later episode, the Tachikomas argue among themselves over which met Miki, since they all have the same memory.

Batou has the most affection for the tanks, picking out one tank as "his" and spoiling it with natural oil instead of synthetic. This is what causes his to go haywire later, when the natural oil dissolves some of the proteins in the Tachikoma's AI neurochip. On the other hand, Togusa, the least cyberized of the Section 9 staff, holds a more dim view: "they're just machines." Aside from leading to an indignant outburst from the Tachikomas (who accuse Togusa of bigotry), it sets up something of an antagonistic relationship between Togusa and the tanks, which is revisited in an episode in season two. Major Motoko Kusanagi holds the most pragmatic view of all. Her only regret following the Tachikomas' suicide attack is that she didn't get a chance to dive their AI, and discover whether or not what they had acquired was really a "ghost". In the manga, she expresses concern over the evolution of the Tachikomas' AI and orders it monitored to catch any undesired emotional developments or an unwanted "rise of the robots."

A group of Tachikomas came to confuse a Section 9 operator with the same self-referential logical paradox which featured in the Star Trek episode, I, Mudd, wherein Kirk and Harry Mudd confuse an android with a statement along the lines of "Everything I say is a lie, and I am lying." The Tachikomas likewise use the Epimenides paradox to get the admin drone stuck in a logic loop. Interestingly, the drone is unaffected until the Tachikoma explain why the statement is a paradox. They then steal a piece of equipment left in the drone's care and ridicule it for being fooled.

The Tachikoma fleet start approaching sapience and all are sent back to the lab for dissection, amidst fears that they are no longer fit for combat duty. The use of natural oil in Batou's personal Tachikoma (all other units used synthetic lubricant) acted as a catalyst for the behavioral anomalies that began to manifest as sapience. Major Kusanagi subsequently bans the use of natural oil prior to the later decision to halt deployment of Tachikomas in field ops.

Arise

Overview

In appearance, Tachikoma were large mechanical constructs that were the size of an average sedan that had the form of a spider type multi-legged combat vehicle equipped with artificial intelligence. They had four 'eyes' fitted on the surface of their bodies with three of these being located on the dome-shaped 'head' and one beneath the abdomen. Each eye had three pinholes, loosely resembling a bowling ball where they could be somewhat expressive. Tachikoma were controlled by individual AIs with them capable of speech where they generally exhibited a childish, curious, joyful and active personality although were consummate professionals in the field. They normally operated as independent units and received orders from human agents but could be directly piloted from a cockpit in their abdomen. The Tachikoma's design was implicitly based on that of the jumping spider in terms of bio-mechanical modelling, and system technical design was based on the Fuchikoma.

Tachikoma had two arms and four legs where they could move by walking or by driving at high speed by using the wheeled footpads on each of their four legs. Each wheel appeared to be angled and omnidirectional allowing the Tachikomas to move in any direction with their drive system, which could control all degrees of freedom in its task space. Other abilities of the Tachikoma include jumping great distances, sticking to vertical or inverted surfaces, engaging a thermoptic camouflage mechanism, and grappling/rappelling using their adhesive string launchers. Tachikoma maintain control of their legs while using wheels to drive down a road, and shift their weight around turns. They can also roll briefly on to two legs while driving to avoid an obstacle or pass through a narrow space. To make balance easier, they can move their heavy abdomens with a ball joint.

Standard Tachikoma equipment included a 7.62×51mm light machine gun mounted in the right arm, a secondary weapon hardpoint in the 'snout' with this being a 50 mm grenade launcher able to both explosive and gas grenades or be replaced by a six-barrelled 12.7×99mm Gatling gun. In addition, they had a universal cybernetic connector on an extensible, prehensile cable in the left arm, liquid wires that can be used for grappling, rappelling or for restraining purposes and a built-in thermoptic camouflage system.

Though they possess individual artificial intelligence, every night they synchronized so they start the next day with identical consciousnesses that were each the sum of their total collective experience and development. This led to identity confusion, since each Tachikoma had the same memories. Though the Tachikoma have identical memories, their personalities and opinions were distinct with their curiosity allowing them be different from each other.

Notes

  • Tachikoma were created by Masamune Shirow where they featured in the setting of Ghost in the Shell.

Appearances

  • Ghost in the Shell:

External Link

This article is a stub. You can help Multiversal Omnipedia by expanding it.

Personal tools
Namespaces
Variants
Actions
Navigation
Toolbox