<span class="SFPTagline"> From SCIFIPEDIA </span>

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex Solid State Society is an anime film based on Masamune Shirow's Ghost in the Shell Manga/comic series. It serves as a sequel to the GitS TV series, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, taking place after SAC's second season ("Ghost in the Shell: S.A.C. 2nd GIG").

It was first aired on Japanese TV September 1st, 2006.

It premiered on the Scifi Channel on June 11th, 2007, to kick off Scifi's new Ani-Monday programing block.

Solid State Society is set in the continuity of the Ghost in the Shell TV series, not the movie series. Essentially, Solid State Society was produced instead of a third season of the TV series, and is not the third entry in the movie series; it is not a sequel to Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence.

Setting

The story of the Ghost in the Shell series is set in the 2030's, after World War III and World War IV. Solid State Society is set in 2034.

World War III involved a nuclear exchange between several world power blocks but thanks to the "Japanese miracle" -- nanomachines that can clean up radioactive fallout -- the world physically recovered. World War IV, alternatively labelled the Second South-Asian Conflict, was a smaller-scale conflict fought in various third world countries that had collapsed after the events of the previous global conflict. Many of the characters in the series met during WW IV. By the 2030's most of the world's countries have balkanized into smaller warring states, and on the whole international politics are much more dangerous. Japan is one of the few stable and prosperous countries still in existance, while the American Empire (what's left of the United States) dominates the western hemisphere. International terrorism, including new acts of cyber-terrorism, are a bigger problem than ever before in this fragile geo-political situation.

In the Ghost in the Shell storyline, by the 2030's cybernetic implants have become commonplace, to the point that essentially everyone is outfitted with a cyber-brain. A cyberbrain is at the least, essentially a cell-phone sized implant surgically inserted into the back of everyone's skull. This allows anyone to make wireless internet communications with other people in real-time (for transfering large amounts of information, hardline jacks can be inserted into the back of the head).

While cyberbrains are the most commonplace cybernetic advancement, many have also been upgraded with cybernetic implants making them far stronger than the average human.

Public Security Section 9 was founded as a secret, elite counter-terrorism squad by the Japanese government to combat new acts of cyber-terrorism. Many of its members are former military agents who have extensive, top-of-the-line cybernetic implants (their field commander, Major Motoko Kusanagi, has been almost completely cyberized; her only remaining organic matter is a fist-sized mass of brain cells in her head).