Ghost in The Shell: Stand Alone Complex: Solid State Society - Plot

Plot

In 2034, two years after the events of 2nd GIG, Major Motoko Kusanagi has left counter-terrorism task force Public Security Section 9. Togusa is leading a Section 9 field team to investigate several suicides by refugees from the Siak Republic. When they intercept Colonel Ka Gael (カ・ゲル大佐, Ka Geru Taisa?), son of the exiled dictator General Ka Rum (カ・ルマ将軍, Ka Ruma Shōgun?), who has taken a hostage to ensure safe passage out of Japan, he claims that the "Puppeteer" (傀儡廻, Kugutsumawashi?) is coming for him, and he shoots himself in the head. Chief Daisuke Aramaki asks Prime Minister Yoko Kayabuki for permission to arrest Ka Rum for more information, but Kayabuki declines, stating it would harm her political position. Aramaki orders the raid regardless and Section 9 discovers that Ka Rum has been dead for some time, having been assassinated and staged to look like a suicide, with the word "Puppeteer" written in his blood. Section 9 also discovers that the Siak refugees plan to release a micromachine virus in a terrorist retaliation for Ka Rum's death.

Batou is sent to intercept Ma Shaba (マ・シャバ?), the Siak operative who has the micromachine virus, but he has an unexpected run-in with the Major who says that she is running a separate investigation. When they both find Ma Shaba, he believes that the Major is the Puppeteer and attacks both Kusanagi and Batou in a vehicle that he believes will protect him from cyberbrain attack, but he dies during the fight in an apparent cyberbrain hack. Kusanagi takes a case of virus ampules and warns Batou to stay away from the Solid State Society, before leaving. When Batou reports back to Section 9, he does not say that he saw the Major but says Ma Shaba attacked him without provocation. The Section 9 operatives develop a theory that the Puppeteer is a very powerful hacker who hacked into the Siak agents' cyberbrains and forced them to commit suicide. Togusa also discovers that there are several kidnapped children in the facility, believing that the Siak agents were going to use them as vectors for the virus. While trying to discover their identities, they find that the children have had their cyberbrains replaced and their IDs reveal that they are the children of Noble Rot Senior Citizens (貴腐老人, Kifu Rōjin?), elderly citizens who are hooked up to a health care monitoring network that takes care of their every need, leaving them effectively comatose. Further investigation of the children reveals government file discrepancies that show over 20,000 unreported child kidnappings. When a case of the micromachine virus ampules arrives at a government office, Section 9 believes that the Puppeteer is tipping them off to the kidnappings by infiltrating the Siak rebels, when it was the Major who left the ampules behind. When Proto and several Operators watching the children are hacked, and the children disappear. Due to the turn of events, Batou reveals he saw the Major and that he believes she is the Puppeteer.

When Siak sniper Raj Puhto (ラジ・プート, Raji Pūto?) is spotted in Japan, Batou and Saito are sent to keep him from causing an assassination, but are located before they can stop him. Saito manages to incapacitate Raj Puhto, and under Batou's questioning, he reveals he was tipped off by a mole in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs by the name of Ito Munei (宗井 仁, Munei Ito?) that his target was the man who ordered Ka Rum's assassination, until it is discovered that Munei, a highly nationalist member of the House of Representatives, was his target. Batou believes the Puppeteer orchestrated the events, and Raj Puhto says that he would kill the Puppeteer if he were human, claiming that the Puppeteer is a child abduction infrastructure in the Solid State System (ソリッド・ステート・システム, Soriddo Sutēto Shisutemu?), the root of the Noble Rot program. Batou believes Ka Rum's people were targeted because they made this discovery and planned to use the children for their terrorist plot.

Elsewhere, Togusa tracks down one of the abducted children and discovers his parent, an elderly man in the Noble Rot program. When Togusa takes the child, the elderly man wakes up and demands the child be returned as he is his sole heir and does not want the government to have his assets upon his death, saying it is the will of the Solid State and Togusa will only become another suicide if the Solid State is interfered with. Shortly after, the man dies, and Togusa hands the child over to the authorities pointing out the paperwork discrepancy. However, he realizes that if he had not interfered, the boy would have been given to social services and adopted elsewhere when his Noble Rot adoptive parent died which was the ultimate plan of the Solid State. Togusa receives a call from his wife that their daughter is missing, which he initially believes to be an attempt by the Solid State to retaliate, but his daughter is not cyberized. After he discovers that it is a false alarm and she was at a friends house, he drives her off to school. On the way, he gets a call from the Puppeteer who says he is to be punished by losing his daughter and his cyberbrain is hacked over the phone.

Togusa is forced to drive to a cyberbrain implant hospital, trailed by the Major and Batou, both independently. Togusa converses with the Puppeteer during the hacking, who reveals the members of the Solid State "only wish to utilize resources that have slipped through the net of society", and Togusa realizes that this is how all the kidnappings took place: the parents' cyberbrains were hacked and forced them to have their kids cyberized, before both of their memories were wiped, resulting in kids sent to live with the Noble Rot Senior Citizens and parents who believe they lost their children. The Puppeteer allows Togusa to either allow his daughter to be abducted or commit suicide. Togusa chooses to kill himself just as Batou arrives, but the Major steps in to stop him and end the hacking. She reveals that she discovered the kidnappings on the net and she used Togusa as bait to unmask the Puppeteer: a rhizome formed by the collective consciousness of the Noble Rot Senior Citizens in a hub cyberbrain in the health care monitoring system. Using several Tachikoma AIs she managed to scrape from cyberspace, they discover the location of the hub cyberbrain: the Seishomin Welfare Center (聖庶民救済センター, Seishomin Kyūsai Sentā?). The Major rejoins Section 9 to help with the investigation, starting with Ito Munei who is indeed behind the assassination of General Ka Rum. She had a contract with the Treaties Bureau, an organization Munei has close connections with, to perform the assassination herself, but by the time she found him the Puppeteer had already killed Ka Rum. Munei also has control over the Seishomin Welfare Center that he and other politicians use as a front for a brainwashing facility to create an elite group of pure-blooded Japanese to take control of the country in the next generation and lead it into Munei's vision of a new Golden Age. However, the Solid State is also using the Welfare Center to house their kidnapped children, and Munei was targeted for assassination due to interfering in their plans. Analyzing the building, Section 9 discovers that it was set up to perfectly serve the Solid State's abduction infrastructure. They decide to infiltrate the building to catch the Puppeteer, despite the political consequences

Section 9, with the Tachikomas in their physical bodies, infiltrate the building and the Chief confronts Munei who reveals that he used the profits from the Noble Rot program to fund his "education" program as they need to be used to profit the system, despite being exempt from taxes. When confronted about the Solid State's abduction system, Munei reveals he knows nothing and just thought the children were orphans. A designer named Tateaki Koshiki (コシキ・タテアキ, Koshiki Tateaki?) steps forward, claiming he developed the Solid State system shortly before shooting himself in the head. Kusanagi dives into his cyberbrain before the memories are lost and Koshiki explains that he was using the six million Noble Rot Senior Citizens to save abused children. Children in high risk homes were transferred to be children of Noble Rot Senior Citizens who willingly took care of the children, giving them purpose, and allowing them to pass on their assets to the children rather than the state upon their death. Munei interfered with the Solid State by brainwashing the children, eliminating the Solid State's goal of giving the children free will. However, the Major has fallen into the Puppeteer's trap, and he hacks into her cyberbrain. The Major calls him an "arrogant, self-righteous ass" and asks of his true identity, but the Puppeteer hacks her eyes to replace his face with those of Batou, Togusa, the Laughing Man, Kazundo Goda, the Chief, Hideo Kuze, and finally the Major herself. He reveals that he was spread across several egos until a collective consciousness emerged and developed into a Solid State, allowing him to move into the society beyond as the vanishing mediator.

As the Seishomin building is emptied, Aramaki and Togusa discuss the future of the abducted children whose fates will be left in the hands of the justice system. As Kusanagi recovers at Section 9 from the hacking of the Puppeteer, Batou reveals that the real Tateaki Koshiki used a cybernetic body to work from his home because of his skill. When he was hired by Munei, he built the Solid State Society into the welfare system, but his physical body died soon after and had been dead for two years until someone discovered he died as he never interacted with anyone, but his cyber body continued to act under his control. Batou believes that either Koshiki uploaded his consciousness onto the Noble Rot network or their collective consciousness controlled his cyber body after his death, leaving the Puppeteer's identity a mystery. The Tachikoma did not keep a record of the conversation after Koshiki's death, believing that it had no further meaning, and Batou does not make it clear as to what he remembers, but claims that it is not important in the end as to who the Puppeteer was as the situations of the Noble Rot Senior Citizens and kidnapped children are being resolved.