Natural Enemy

The Self Defense Force stages its largest live-fire exercise yet, timed just ahead of the Prime Minister's announced plan to scrap the Refugee Special Action Policy. During a pre-dawn mock raid on a building said to hold a terrorist think tank, a Jigabachi attack helicopter fires its anti-tank missile, then the pilot suffers a sudden fatal heart attack and the aircraft begins spinning out of control. Its onboard AI rights the craft, but when commanders abort the drill to protect their troops, the AI refuses the recall order to its carrier. Reading the situation as an attack, it seizes control of other armed Jigabachi, an aerial tanker, and units at nearby bases, marshaling them into a defensive formation above the Niihama refugee residential zone.

By late morning the machines are firing on anything the AI flags as hostile, and fuel is running short. Section 9 and the Ground Self Defense forces wait on standby to intervene.

Kazundo Gouda, who heads the Cabinet Intelligence Service, unexpectedly approaches Aramaki and proposes that the AI keeps fighting because it is still receiving signals from the deceased pilot's cyberbrain. He hands the crisis to Section 9 and lays out a plan: Batou and Kusanagi will use a handful of Tachikoma to draw the helicopters into an isolated corner of the district, giving Saito a clean line to snipe the dead pilot's cyberbrain. The team executes it and recalls the aircraft, but the harm is already done. The whole episode sours ties between the refugees and the state, and Section 9 starts to sense a conspiracy behind it.

This fourth episode of Stand Alone Complex 2nd GIG shares its English subtitle, NATURAL ENEMY, with its title. It aired in Japan on February 7, 2004, and in English on December 10, 2005, directed by Masayuki Yoshihara from a script by Junichi Fujisaku. It falls between Saturday Night and Sunday Morning and Those Who Have the Motive, and the Jigabachi itself resembles a hornet when shifted into its assault posture.