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PLOT-
In the ninth episode of Serial Experiments Lain called Protocol, a female voice says, “If you want to avoid the pain, you should believe in God. Whether you believe in God or not, he is always with you.” (Lain episode 9)Then a male voice begins to speak over what looks like a newsreel. The story is about the Roswell NM crash. The story ends with him saying, “It has still not been proven what it was. Guesses became facts and rumors became histories.” (This is a sign of the times that Lain was written. Most people now accept it was a balloon experiment the army was conducting. See: Roswell) After this we see Lain working at her computer. There is a sound like someone is entering her room. Lain asks who is there and when she turns around, she sees what appears to be an alien in her doorway. After seeing this, Lain, wearing a bear suit, curls up on her bed.
After this, the newsreel announcer keeps talking and says, “It was said that following the Roswell incident, twelve people made a secret promise with extra-terrestrials under President Truman’s direct orders. Roscoe Hillenkoetter, Director of the CIA at the time, was among the twelve people. Now it is well known that President Truman’s signature was only copied from another document. Vannevar Bush, the head of the department at MIT, was also of the twelve ‘MJ-12’ members.” (Lain episode 9) This is said while showing a classified envelope and photos of men overtop of it. These newsreels and stories I believe are information available on the Wired that Lain is investigating, and perhaps the alien was a hallucination she had, or she really saw an alien and later went seeking more information on the Wired about aliens. But that is just my interpretation.
After this is shown, Lain has a bizarre experience in the Wired where she is speaking to three other users or beings, one is only a mouth, one is an eye, and the third is only an ear. Lain asks them how to make something that has happened reversed and not happened. The beings are not very cooperative, and Lain wonders how they seem to know her, even though she has not spoken with them before. The beings explain that information does not always flow both ways and that since the creation of the Wired, Lain has been there and is free to do what she wants there. Lain explains that it is not her who they are thinking of. The beings argue and say that the truth cannot be measured in time and space. There are other beings in the room and one that is just an arm, and a hand says that Lain is still “just a child”. Lain says not to worry about her, and with that all the other users/entities disappear, leaving Lain frustrated. After this, we are shown another newsreel about the creation of Memex.
Lain then goes to the club she has gone to with Alice and the group of girls at her school, Cyberia. The DJ gives her a small envelope, telling her she forgot it the last time she was there. Lain does not remember this and asks if it was for sure she was the one who left it. The DJ tells her he is sure. She opens it and there is a small computer part there. After this, there is a hard cut to another story about John C. Lilly’s experiments.
Back at the club, three kids that we had already been introduced to before, Myu-Myu, Masayuki, and Taro, are hanging out. Lain comes up to them and tells Taro she wants to do what she told him she would. The three are confused until Lain clarifies that she promised to go on a date with him. Taro explains he does not want to date the person Lain is now, but the “other” her. Lain gets a little mad and says, “She is the same as me. I am myself. I am only one person.”(Lain episode 9)
We cut again to Lain’s house and Taro is impressed with Lain’s Navi computer setup. Lain tells him to sit down and when he does, she shows him the chip the DJ gave her at Cyberia. She tells him, “I think you know what this is”. (Lain episode 9) He seems nervous, but eventually, Lain gets him to admit he is in contact with the Knights but is not a full member yet while playing a techno track. She lightly threatens him and sticks the chip in his mouth as she questions him. Lain's parents overhear the music downstairs and discuss how it is “almost over” and then they kiss “while there is still time.”. Mika Lains’ older sister is sitting almost catatonic and raises her hand shaped like a phone to her head and says, “beep beep beep…” Taro explains that if Lain had installed the chip from the club it would erase memories, but he doesn’t seem to know much other than that. He also tells Lain that the Knights aren’t just “crackers” but they are fighting to make only one truth real. Before Taro leaves, he kisses her, leaving his gum in her mouth. After this, there is more newsreel.
There are disjointed memories of Lain wearing her school uniform, and being pushed into her house by the two men in black, where her whole family is waiting. Her Father takes her to her bedroom and at the same time, Lain is sitting at her Navi watching herself and her father open the door. She wonders who the other girl is, and the other Lain says, “Yes. This is me.” Lain at the Navi wonders, “Who are those people?” The other “Lain” answers, “I don’t know because I’m you.” Lain’s face falls, “It’s not true…everything must be a lie. Why do you do that?”
There is another newsreel about strange electromagnetic waves. They explain that the bizarre frequency is “called the Schumann Resonance. It is a brainwave of the Earth. However, we still don’t know how it affects humans. The human population of the Earth will become the same number as the number of neurons in the brain. Douglas Rachov claims it will awaken the consciousness of the Earth itself by connecting humans to each other via a network. The network has spread so quickly, it has become like a neural network in the brain. Therefore, the Earth itself will become one neural network of electromagnetic synapse signals." (Lain episode 9)
Lain is alone again in her room and she asks the Wired, “The one truth, God." a voice on the Wired replies, “Yes, it is me.”. After this, we see a document in the same type of newsreel format that has run through this entire episode. The announcer says, “Eiri Masami was a chief research worker for Tachibana Lab.” The male announcer explains that Eiri Masami “improved the theory of the neural network of the Earth itself. He said that the unconsciousness of all humankind would be connected to a wireless network without devices by means of the Schumann Effect.” (Lain episode 9)Then the newsreel shows two men, one of them is Eiri Masami and the other looks exactly like Lain’s father. The announcer continues and explains more about Masami, “He added a function to use the Schumann Resonance to the 7th protocol in code by his own discretion.” (Lain episode 9) Then the newsreel shows a railway in the rain, the new announcer says that when Tachibana Labs realized this, they fired him and a week later he was found dead because he had been hit by a train at Yamanote Line railway. Then we see investigators collecting his body. Along with his obituary, there is a picture of Masami.
Lain is seen standing outside under the never-ending hum of the power lines. There is a person who is looking at her, who appears to be Masami with face paint and tape around his bare chest revealed under an open lab coat. He just stares at her, and the episode ends.
Analysis-
This episode explores sci-fi and cyberpunk tropes in even greater depth. Explaining the Wired’s infrastructure is the purpose behind the newsreel segments in the episode. The Wired, although a sci-fi invention, is the focal point of the episode’s exploration of Protocols, which serve as the foundational components that govern the operations of the Wired, resembling advanced versions of real-world internet protocols, hence the episode title. The question of “Who owns the Wired?” arises when examining the focus on the imaginary protocols of the Wired.” or “Who controls the Wired?” which is another theme that runs through this whole series, different people trying to control others by controlling the “Wired”. Lain is a major player in these power struggles throughout the series, but she doesn’t appear to understand why in her current form. This is a worry that many in our reality have considered and it is a worry that many people have that whoever owns the internet owns the world because of our dependence and obsession with the Internet. Just recently we saw how dependent the world is on the Internet with a July 19th, 2024 incident when the CrowdStrike cybersecurity company uploaded a faulty update to their software and caused massive issues to the computers who used the software and ran Windows. Planes were grounded and many important companies could not go to work. It’s easy to see the frailty of our systems and also to worry about what a bad person or company or government or group of black hat hackers could do with power over the internet. It is only natural in Sci-Fi and specifically, cyberpunk stories that the power struggles over the powerful technology would be a major theme. In Cyberpunk literature, the tech in the stories is often even more powerful than our current-day tech and therefore even more powerful to the person or persons who wield its power. The character Masami, having changed the Wired, of course, could be considered a threat if he can manipulate the Wired.
One of the other things that is found in Serial Experiments, Lain is the idea that powerful companies are also involved in the power struggle of who owns the Wired. An evil or mysterious company or organization is a pretty common trope in many types of sci-fi and there are many mysterious players in Serial Experiments. There are the men in black, the knights Tachibana Lab and Masami who seemingly come back from the dead to assert his power over the Wired. It is also often common for the main characters of Cyberpunk stories to be in the middle of the intrigue and power struggles of several shadowy players who all want power over someone or something. Lain is more powerful than the average Wired user, but she still doesn’t understand fully what she is involved in. The narrative of the story is interesting because it’s fragmented and, in a way, we are learning what is going on at the same time as Lain. I believe all the little newsreels and cutaways are supposed to represent Lain searching the Wired for answers, or perhaps these are pieces of information she does not know she knows. That Lain appears to have either a split personality or forgets things she does on the Wired, or someone is impersonating her only adds more suspense to the story. We as an audience are not sure who to trust, and a watcher may even suspect that Lain is not on the right side of the fight.
The Series, Serial Experiments Lain, especially in episode 9 does a lot of world-building and convincing explanations of the technology in the anime. In many sci-fi stories, the author or authors may choose to make up explanations for the tech in their stories. Sometimes the explanations of the tech will be important for the reader to know, sometimes it’s just details to make the world or tech seem more plausible or alive. Two examples of this are Star Trek, which is famous for its “techno-babble”, and “Story of Your Life” by Ted Chiang, where knowing how the alien writing works and what their mindset is allows the reader to understand the ending and other elements of the story better. Serial Experiments, Lain is one of those stories where the extra flavor helps you understand the story better, but also adds an element of realism because of its tech being explained in such detail, it seems like this tech, in theory, could work, and the tech holds that element of realism even with the more fantastical elements that happen in the series. The consistency of the writing goes a long way.
The idea of technological determinism is also something that is found between the lines of the show. The idea that the Wired is its own thing, that it shapes the surrounding society, rather than society shaping the Wired, is a constant overtone to the show. How technology forms or changes the society around it is a very popular theme to explore and is found in numerous works of sci-fi. Some popular examples I am familiar with (without over-thinking it) are Neuromancer by William Gibson, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and The Matrix shows a very extreme example of technology literally taking over the world and changing the lives of everyone on Earth. In Lain, the protocols of the Wired are shown as being able to shape reality, which aligns with our real-world fear that technology could become unstoppable, or that we may lose control of it. In our current times, with the spread of AI, there have been many concerns raised about technology taking over, or somehow tainting our way of life. For artists and writers, the case of AI affecting their lives is already a reality because AI can make art and write (albeit not very well.) In this series, Lain goes from a normal girl to something akin to a God, and this shows an example of technology changing human existence and human nature in a very extreme way. But perhaps Lain’s journey and supposed metamorphosis is just a way of considering the way technology has and will change our individual lives, and how power over this tech bleeds over into the real world earlier when discussing the power struggles over the Wired or in our world, the person who owns the tech has a certain power over others.
Another theme in Serial Experiments, Lain, is the function, rules, and dangers of the collective conscious. By following certain protocols, the Wired can become a separate reality. The Wired is shown as more of a physical space people can meet and exist in than a network of computers. The collective consciousness of the Wired is also hinted at being a new evolution of humanity, and human life. Another idea that is introduced in this episode is the idea that there might be a “god” of the Wired. If there is a god in the Wired, that god would belong to the collective consciousness. We see also that Lain seems to be unique in her role with the collective group, and has some sort of special abilities while interacting with them. Most members of the collective can only manifest as one or two body parts, but Lain can appear in her whole form and seemingly can travel anywhere she wants. But sometimes she appears as part of the collective around her. This raises the question of individuality versus collective existence and if it is better to remain outside the collective, with it, or some mixture of both. Sometimes there are individual voices of other users of the Wired, but as we see at the beginning of this episode, sometimes all the voices blend, literally causing their communication to sound like a single voice. This episode explores the sci-fi ideas of a technological singularity or how the connectivity of the Wired (internet) can affect human thoughts and behaviors. The ideas of the functions of a collective consciousness stem not only from sci-fi examples like Star Trek’s The Borg but were fully defined and expanded upon by Carl Jung in the early to mid-twentieth century. Jung believed that all of humanity shared an inherited subconscious and this, he felt, explained the similarities behind myths and ideas across different societies and peoples. Lain’s inherited subconscious is found in the Wired when you log on, and dangerously can be expanded, changed, or even erased.
Another popular trope in Sci-Fi is things not being as they appear or people objects or situations not being what they appear. Serial Experiments, Lain takes this idea and runs with it. Almost nothing is what it seems. In episode nine, we discover that Lain’s father (or someone who looks like him) worked or works at Tachibana Lab with Masami, which only deepens the mystery as to why Masami is somehow alive and interacting with Lain at the end of episode 6. The constant shifting of meaning and symbolism as well as the normality of the world around Lain does lead to more flux in her identity and our understanding of the show's plot. Also, an alien appears to Lain at the beginning of the episode, and it is never explained how why, or if it’s something that actually happened. Because the Wired is affected by the Schumann Resonance, a watcher might wonder if aliens had something to do with the bizarre frequency.
Also, an interesting thing to note is that the Schumann Resonance is a real phenomenon. It is a little complex, but the Schumann Resonance is a set of unusual spectrum peaks in the lower electromagnetic field spectrum of Earth. One thing that makes this anime feel like it could almost be real or one day happen is how the story throughout the anime weaves in events, science, and technology from our real world. Examples of this are the Roswell crash, and Xanadu, and also other concepts found in the study of neuroscience in the 1990s when the anime was released.
Episode nine had numerous deep ideas put together and honestly, I could probably go on for a thousand more pages, but I am going to save the discussion of the other tropes, ideas, and sci-fi and cyberpunk plot points for my analysis of the final episode I will discuss, the season finale, episode 13, Ego.