Tachikoma

A Tachikoma (タチコマ) is a fictional AI walker tank in the Ghost in the Shell universe.

Tachikoma are as large as an average sedan, are painted blue and have four "eyes" fitted on the surface of their bodies. They are controlled by individual AIs, are capable of speech and generally exhibit a childish, curious, joyful and active personality, although they are consummate professionals in the field. They normally operate as independent units and receive orders from human agents, but they can also be directly piloted from a cockpit in their abdomen.

Tachikoma have four legs and two arms. They can move by walking, or they can drive at high speed by using their wheeled footpads, and are apparently street legal. Other abilities of the Tachikoma include jumping great distances, sticking to vertical or inverted surfaces, and grappling/rappelling using their adhesive string launchers.

Standard Tachikoma equipment includes a light machine gun mounted in the right arm, a secondary weapon in the "snout" (either a rocket-propelled grenade launcher or a six-barreled minigun), and a built-in optical camouflage device.

Though they possess individual artificial intelligence, every night they are synchronised, so they start the next day with identical conciousnesses that are each the sum of their total collective experience & development.

Stand Alone Complex

Tachikoma were introduced in the Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex TV series. Template:Spoiler By the end of the series, the Tachikoma fleet started approaching sentience; all were sent back to the lab for dissection, amidst fears that they were no longer fit for combat duty. It was the use of natural oil in Batou's personal Tachikoma (all other units used synthetic lubricant) that acted as a catalyst for the behavorial anomalies that began to manifest as sentience. The Major (Motoko Kusanagi) subsequently banned the use of natural oil prior to the later decision to halt deployment of Tachikomas in field ops.

However, the three surviving Tachikoma (one blue, calling itself "Batou's Personal Tachikoma", and two others, repainted yellow and silver) prove their worth when they abandon their new civilian jobs to save their imperiled comrades, without explicit orders to do so. The silver Tachikoma was destroyed on sight when it found Batou under attack by an Armed Suit. The blue and yellow Tachikoma combined their efforts to save him, and performed a successful suicide attack against the Suit. This selfless act was the last thing they ever did. Because of their devotion, the collective Tachikoma consciousness was restored from their smoldering hulks and loaded into a new fleet, which appeared in the second season.

In the second season, S.A.C. 2nd GIG, the enforced synchronizations among Tachikomas were aborted, since Motoko Kusanagi allows them to preserve their own personality after acquiring sentience in the first season. They can still share information and sensation with synchronization if they want to, and also specify which area to share. The Tachikomas were also outfitted to perform complex networking tasks, including netdiving, to aid Section 9.

It is possible that Tachikoma units have ghosts. During the finale of 2nd GIG, while ordered to create a repository in cyberspace for the memories (and hopefully, ghosts) of all refugees of Dejima, they secured instead their own memories within the netspace and selflessly sacrificed their AI satellite to prevent a nuclear explosion. This resulted in them being permanently destroyed and replaced by the Fuchikoma/Tachikoma hybrid, Uchikoma. Whether or not their memories will resurface in a future season (if indeed, there is one) is pure speculation.

Each Tachikoma that appears and is voiced has a certain personality. The blue one, "Batou's personal Tachikoma", has the silliest personality. He often comes up with stupid plans, or ideas, and tends have bad ideas, including attempting to play fetch, or frisbee, with a data disk. Another Tachikoma serves as his foil, and tries to point out his bad ideas. One Tachikoma is an intellectual with a love of books. He only appears in a few scenes, and he does not appear in the 'sacrifice' scene (it is mentioned that he was dismantled at an earlier time).