Simex, as a
technology, is similar to
simstim. However the important difference between Simex and Simstim is the duration of the imposed
experience. Simstim ends when you take off the
trodes ( unless you got fried by
black ice ). Simex can be permanent.
In
Ghost in the Shell, the prevalence of
mechanically-enhanced brain functions makes it necessary to refer to someone's '
consciousness', or core
personality, as their '
Ghost'. The 'Ghost' is what makes you you, inside your
cyber-enhanced brain.
It is possible, in GiTS, to replace someone's memories with a Simex
recording. The process is referred to as
Ghost-Hacking. It is commonly used in the series to turn someone into a
patsy for you, by 'reprogramming' them to do your bidding. It seems to only be necessary to overwrite some key points about the person's
memory:
the natural capacity of humans to ignore what dosent fit into their worldview takes care of the rest.
In GiTS, a man was convinced his
wife was cheating on him. She'd left with their little
daughter, and the man was determined to find out why. He used a ghost-hacking program to try and find out what was going on. When the
police caught him, they informed him that he wasnt hacking into his wife, he had been hacking into
government officials. His program would have turned a secretary into an
assassin. Indeed, he actually had no wife or daughter. When presented with the picture of his family the man carried, he finally saw the
truth: It was a picture of him and his dog. The man had himself been hacked. Then, he is told that there is no
technology that can handle a Simex erasure.
Suck.