Tachikoma
Tachikoma are a type of robotic mecha that feature in Ghost in the Shell.
Contents |
History
Original
Fuchikoma (フチコマ) were 1-man tank (walker/roller) used by members of Section 9 of the National Public Safety Commission.
Stand Alone Complex
Tachikoma (Japanese: タチコマ)
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.
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.
Dr. Asuda is the government researcher who single-handedly developed the neurochip used in the Tachikomas' AI and is considered by the Tachikomas to be their father. In the episode "Afternoon of the Machines – PAT," Asuda tries unsuccessfully to defect from Japan, because as a state-funded scientist, he is not allowed to hold patents on his inventions. Following his re-capture, the Tachikoma who is with The Major and Batou asks whether Dr. Asuda is its father. Desiring to leave a record of his achievement, Asuda inserted a trace of himself in the Tachikomas' memory during their reconstruction post-season 1. To prevent another collapse in the AI structural integrity, he decided to delete this last bit of sentimentality.
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.
Three Tachikoma survive the lab analysis, (one blue, calling itself "Batou's Personal Tachikoma", and two others, repainted yellow and silver) and prove their worth when they abandon their new civilian jobs to save their imperiled comrades, without explicit orders to do so. The silver Tachikoma is destroyed on sight when it finds Batou under attack by an Armed Suit, a bipedal power-actuated armored exoskeleton. The blue and yellow Tachikoma combine their efforts to save him, and conduct a desperate and ultimately suicidal attack against the Umibozu, while Batou watches from a nearby terrace with a stricken look on his face. This selfless act is the last thing they ever do. Because of their devotion, the collective Tachikoma consciousness is restored from the backups made during the dissection process and loaded into a new fleet.
After Tachikoma and their AI were destroyed due to their sacrifice in order to prevent a nuclear detonation, they were replaced by Uchikoma (ウチコマ).
Arise
Logicoma (ロジコマ) were a type of walker tanks developed by the Japanese government.
A Logicoma from Section 9 came to be assigned to Motoko as a bodyguard before she starts constructing her spec-ops team. Motoko is surprised at how old the Logicoma is when on first encountering it, when the Logicoma attempts to use two signal lamps to communicate with her. More Logicomas later appear in the series and are often used by Section 9. It was revealed later in the series that Section 9 use these outdated models of spider tanks, as Aramaki does not have the budget to procure newer ones.
Togusa was seen piloting the customised Logicoma, with pilot capsule and improved armament.
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. Tachikoma were lightly armored, resisting small-caliber firearms, though heavier automatic weapons or explosives can easily wreck them.
Fuchikoma possess artificial intelligence and can act independently to support a user in combat. Their AI does not include typical safeguards as they are military hardware, but because they possess emotions.
Uchikoma was a 1-man tank (walker/roller) used by members of Section 9 of the National Public Safety Commission.
The Logicoma resembles other spider tanks where they feature 4 legs capable of highway speed using wheels, a spherical optic unit, frontal manipulators and rope-like launchers. Unlike the other spider tanks, the Fuchikoma and Tachikoma, the Logicoma does not have a crew compartment, instead it has a rear-mounted storage bay used for handheld munitions storage. An improved model had increased number of weapons, and a makeshift pilot capsule. Later in the same film, a new batch of Logicomas are seen with purpose-built pilot capsules and improved armament, making them functionally similar to Tachikomas.
Notes
- Tachikoma were created by Masamune Shirow where they featured in the setting of the Ghost in the Shell universe.
- Production I.G was unable to use the Fuchikoma design in the 2002 Stand Alone Complex anime television series due to copyright conflicts.
- However, Masamune Shirow was able to design a legally safe equivalent to the spider-tanks for the new show, which he named the "Tachikoma". There are distinct differences in the design, most significantly in the eye-equivalents and the vertically oriented abdomen. Still, the tanks are easily recognizable as descendants of the original Fuchikoma. Their AI personalities and roles in the SAC series are indistinguishable from their predecessors in the manga.
In other media
Films
Video games
- In Ghost in the Shell, a playable Fuchikoma appeared in the setting of the 1997 third person shooter video game.
Appearances
- Ghost in the Shell:
External Link
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