GitS power source

[Sentient6]

So I've been wondering about this for a while. Do any Ghost in the Shell fans out there know how the prosthetic bodies in that show are powered? I mean, presumably they should have to recharge periodically or have a reactor or something (any WildC.A.T.S. fans out there know how THAT can go wrong). I can't remember any point in the TV series or movies where this issue is ever addressed or find anything online. Anyone know if it's ever mentioned in the original manga? (I've never read it all the way through, but I know Shirow is known for having some pretty extensive footnotes in his comics).

[smalk]

I remember that the characters are often shown eating and drinking (in particular i remenber gatou drinking beer, and complaining on the fact that he can't get drunk).

I would assume that their body are powered by normal food, only better assimilated compared by human

[wjbaines]

Yeah, Batou drinks beer and liquor. Also, he was shown eating some kind of crispy white knobby candy-bar-looking thing. I'm pretty sure the Major drinks wine in a few episodes. But I think that's just cosmetic. Here's why:

There is an episode in the second SAC season (i.e. not in the movies... not sure if there are "cannonical" vs. "non-cannonical" issues here) where the bad-guy/suspect turns out to be a pathetic loser who lost his junk in some war to VD. He is plotting obsessively to kill the corporate suit he was working for as a chopper pilot chauffeur. He has this whole fantasy with crazy-ass "honor" this and "duty" that, self-sacrifice, etc., even though his boss was a totally innocent scapegoat, as far as I can remember. In the crazy man's mind, I guess he represented an unfair system or whatever. The Major looks in on him and realizes that he's not the would-be assassin they're looking for. He's just some delusional chump.

In one scene, though, he's in the breakroom with the guys he worked with. Fellow pilots, mostly vets like him now making a living basically as helo taxi-drivers. Some of them were fully cyborg, and he has a fit of violent nausea and makes a break for the bathroom. He kept saying something like "Why do they still eat? They don't have to. Their bodies don't need it. It's just an artificial way for them to reconnect with what they lost and can never get back." Basicially, it was reminding him that his ding-dong was long gone.

Dunno if he was right or just making that up. It's one of my favorite episodes, though.

If I really wanted to know, I'd check the opening titles from the original movie where it shows the construction process of a cyborg body. Might show some kind of "power source."

[csoloist]

From Wikipedia (inb4 wikipedia).

Prosthetic bodies

People who undergo extensive cyberization ("cyborgs") have bodies that consist mostly of synthetic parts. These prosthetic parts can be exchanged or replaced when damaged. Cyborgs do not eat normal food; rather, they eat special processed protein bars which provide nutrients for their remaining organic parts. This "food" does not taste good to those who still have organic taste buds due to an inability to manipulate taste input cybernetically. The most heavily cyberized individuals, such as Major Kusanagi, have only their brain remaining as their sole organic parts. As Kusanagi muses in the original film, she is basically a fist-sized clump of brain cells wired into a robotic body.

I think in one of the GITS continuities they mentioned artificial guts containing some sort of nano disassemblers which would break the cyborg food up into everything the body needed. Don't know if that includes power for prosthetics or if it was just to feed residual organic components. Borgs and robots in GITS are all pretty hard though, so I'd assume electrically motivated, but can't recall anything having to be recharged.

But really, one probably shouldn't examine the tech in GITS too closely... Plenty of it doesn't make *any* sense.