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In the anime it is said that if you try to remove the helmet it would destroy
the brain - so what if you pull it off quick enough that it doesn't have a
chance to?

Certainly, it's not impossible; and on that note, why did they not just use an
EMP on the device to begin with, frying the circuits so there is no way for
the battery to power the microwave transmitter?

Is there some law of physics I am missing here?


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sword-art-online
What would happen if the NerveGear was yanked from someone's head?


I can think of two reasons:

  1. Plot. 
  2. They wouldn't want to risk someone's life for an experiment with EMP, who knows what kinds of backups does the NerveGear has, and EMP can be guarded against.

As for yanking, a computer would have a much faster reaction time than you.


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It was mentioned that the machine intercepted their nervous system so they
can't walk around when telling their brains to walk in the VR world (Why
they're usually in bed when playing).

I would think the removal process involved restoring those neural connections.
Yanking or disrupting this process probably resulted in permanent
paralysis/neurological issues.


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I have to assume that some people at least **tried**.

For your initial examples, there simply isn't any canon information to help
us. I am quite certain that there would be a huge political backlash which
would attract attention, and the families of the trapped players would also be
seeking out help. However the entire story was told from the point of the
players, and there was no announcement that anyone made it out alive
otherwise. That means details of various failed experiments simply added to
the near 4k dead by the end of the experiment.

However I believe that it was entirely possible to release all of the players,
but then a very delusional man named
[Sugou](http://swordartonline.wikia.com/wiki/Sugou_Nobuyuki) came along.

The biggest thing that I want to stress is that the brain-frying function of
the NerveGear was understood very little. While it was explained to everyone
within SAO, we have no idea how much information was given on the outside.

Except we know that the company who developed SAO,
[Argus](http://swordartonline.wikia.com/wiki/Argus), went bankrupt due to the
SAO incident. Their assets were acquired by [RECT Progress
Inc.](http://swordartonline.wikia.com/wiki/RECT_Progress_Inc.), who formed a
Fulldive division headed by Sugou to overlook the SAO servers and assets
including the [Cardinal
System](http://swordartonline.wikia.com/wiki/Cardinal_System). Furthermore, we
can tell that they have the direct source code to the system based off the
modifications that they have been able to make. This includes upgrading the
system to improve on things that it couldn't do before, and also modifying the
Logout function to redirect 300 users to their own server.

Here we're dealing with a team of people that has access to the full server
software, the hardware that it runs on, and the connection that goes out from
it. On top of that, this team has full documentation on the NerveGear (they
did co-develop the NerveGear's successor), and they have shown to be able to
modify the existing SAO game. This means that this team, with time and
patience, could have done any of the following:

  * Restore the logout button
  * Forcibly log everyone out
  * Modify the "death" script to no longer instruct the NerveGear to fry the brain
  * Disable the NerveGear remotely

However this didn't happen. Instead, 300 unlucky people were transferred from
the hands of one madman to another.

Now remember that this one small division of people were responsible for the
lives of many thousands of people, and they had nefarious plans. It was in
their interest to keep the players inside the game in order to avoid any
attention to their true goals. They were so good about keeping secrets that
they were able to design an entire game world around the very place they did
the experiments in, and not one person in the company found out. Remember that
this was such a commercial success that Sugou was to inherit the company,
however nobody else in the company figured out what was going on.

What's even worse about this secrecy is that this treasure-trove of
information is kept from the public. The "experts" in the field are the exact
same people who want to keep everybody in the game. Now if you wanted to free
your relative from a death game, would you put your trust in Joe Schmoe who
has a theory but no solid evidence? Or would you trust the kind team of
dedicated individuals who are experts in this area and tell you that nothing
can be done?


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