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Ghost in the Shell/Headscratchers: Difference between revisions
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* On a completely different topic: there seems to be either no or remarkably little communications/net lag time in the series even when a small amount of such lag would be significant in affecting how things worked and/or when such lag would seem to be indicated by communications being fundamentally limited by the speed of light. The biggest example of this that comes to mind is {{spoiler|the satellite containing the Tachikoma AI's and presumably transmitting actions to the Tachikoma units and receiving sensory input from the Tachikoma units.}} Does this mean that there is an unsung FTL communications technology in Ghost in the Shell or that the writers didn't do their science homework? Or am I off somewhere?
** The speed of light isn't ''that'' slow. Information can circumnavigate the surface of the Earth in roughly .18 seconds. Communcation with a low orbiting satellite only a few hundred kilometers up (the only possible scenario give 2nd Gigs finale) wouldn't even need that long depending on exact position. While not insignificant from an engineering perspective with regards to absolute effieciency Ghost in the Shell as a rule operates at human speeds at which under a second is still rather fast. Even in combat being able to intelligently formulate a response to a stimuli would likely take more time then transmitting the order. Predator
** Indeed, let's say the satellite is 35 786km up (the approximate height of a geosynchronous satellite, or so says Wikipedia.) The round-trip transmission time would then be 0.23 seconds. Not ideal, indeed, but also unlikely to be fatal. One can also assume that the Tachikomas have a limited on-board AI, rather like how the Mars rovers do.
** Of course, as is noted, for the finale to make sense their satellite can't be high enough to be geosynchronous either, it's significantly lower, so that transmission time gets cut down to essentially zero. That does raise some other problems, though.
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