Kôkaku Kidôtai: Stand Alone Complex

Major Motoko Kusanagi:
Look at the bright side, if this doesn't work, we can all go drown our sorrows at a nudie bar.

Daisuke Aramaki:
There has never been reported stomach aches or related medical trauma that takes place after swallowing your pride.

[about the terrorist,Hideo Kuze]

Batou:
What the hell kind of delusions does this guy have?

Major. Motoko Kusanagi:
Frankly speaking, I guess you could call it world domination.

Batou:
Say what?

Ishikawa:
Got himself a serious case of megalomania, huh? Its not like you to let something like that get to you.

Batou:
Geez, you look like some teenager who's just met the man of her dreams.

Major. Motoko Kusanagi:
Right. But we know one thing for sure now. And that is although he has manifested symptoms of the Individual Eleven virus, his current actions are driven by the personal qualities and idiologies that he had before he was infected. His delusion might be a cliche, but the reason I can't laugh it off is that he genuinely believes he can bring peace to the world by becoming a dictator. Thats the sense I got from him. Plus, his adrenaline secretion levels were high enough to kill an ordinary man. I think we can assume he is already out of touch.

Batou:
What do you mean, out of touch?

Major. Motoko Kusanagi:
I'm sayin that he's becoming obsessed. Looking back on history, men like him have weilded unbelievable power. For instance, Che Guevara, Malcom X, and Cassius Clay are text book examples.

Batou:
You teling me that he's not the same as Hitler?

Major. Motoko Kusanagi:
He's the same in a certain sense, but ideologically, he's closer to Ghandi or Martin Luther King.

Major Motoko Kusanagi:
[Section 9 is disbanding after being attacked by Government forces] Public Security Section 9 is hereby disbanded. That is all.

Laughing Man:
A basic rule of thumb about hackers is that we live to peek at things that others have hidden, it's our nature. But, the depth of darkness in the hotbed of corruption that I had tried to challenge defeated me, and all I could do was become a deaf-mute, and avert my eyes from it all. Just as you've done these past six years.

Laughing Man:
The Laughing Man, hmm, that was a catchy name they came up with. And here I've been thinking that if I was unsuccessful in persuading you, I'd simply follow Holden's quote and disappear. They went with the Salinger angle, too, good grief...

Laughing Man:
You haven't changed a bit, Superintendant-General Daidoh. Pleased to meet you. But you already know who I am, don't you? You know, Mr. Daidoh, I tried to avoid this. I didn't want to be involved in your world any longer. I was honestly fed up with you people and your rotting rubbish heap of a world. So I haven't involved myself in this little farce of yours since the incident occurred. Even though I know everything. In a word, I was exhausted from my fruitless exertions, unfortunately. But I've changed my mind because, well, this show you put on today is pitiful. A farce should be funny, but this one hasn't made me laugh even once. So, with the utmost reluctance, I must challenge you once again. You and your comedy troupe are going to reconvene in three days, right? When you do, tell the truth this time, won't you? Because when the curtain goes up, and you put on another performance that rings as false as this one, I will be forced to remove you from the stage.

Togusa:
It's not like I had aspirations to be a hero or anything. However, I'm positive we followed a code of justice that all of believed in without condition or compromise. Laughing Man, you were the one who first tried to shed some light on the black abyss of this case and bring it to the world's attention. Is it possible that at this moment, you're feeling the same as I am? Nah, you wouldn't. Your not the type to go in for that stuff. You must've had a revelation of something and you're watching this with eyes that see the big picture. Isn't that right? I could tell.

Laughing Man:
Welcome. You took longer than I expected.

Major Motoko Kusanagi:
Don't give me that. You didn't even send me an invitation.

Laughing Man:
"If you stay right where you are, then people will eventually come to you."

Major Motoko Kusanagi:
I believe it was Doisneau who said that?

Laughing Man:
Yes.

Laughing Man:
I'll tell you. It was a simple piece of mail I stumbled across on the net that began the whole thing. What I'd found was a blackmail document that had probably been sent to Serano Genomics. It was armed with a thesis that was a comparative of the inadequacy of Serano micromachines versus the effectiveness of the Murai vaccine.

Major Motoko Kusanagi:
Then the original Laughing Man was the person who authored it?

Laughing Man:
You could put it like that, I suppose. "I am the machine that reveals the world to you as only I alone am able to see it."

Major Motoko Kusanagi:
Dziga Vertov. He was a Russian filmmaker, wasn't he?

Laughing Man:
Yes. I was kidding myself by thinking it was my personal mission to prove and circulate that information, vital data I alone had happened upon.

Major Motoko Kusanagi:
Failing spectacularly, the pure innocent mediator grew dejected at the base nature of the social system and he turned mute.

Laughing Man:
Who knew that copies could still be produced despite the absence of the original? If you had to give a name to this phenomenon, what would you label it?

Major Motoko Kusanagi:
It would be "Stand Alone Complex".

Laughing Man:
Yes, it's the Stand Alone Complex. From the start the very nature of our current social system has contained the mechanisms to trigger such an amazing occurrence. Personally however, I feel this marks the beginning of a new era of despair. What's your opinion?

Major Motoko Kusanagi:
I don't know, it's impossible for me to say. Although I have found one thing that is capable of restoring your individuality after all your information has been synchronized.

Laughing Man:
Oh, really? And what's that?

Major Motoko Kusanagi:
Everyday human curiosity.