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Virtual Ghost

 Virtual Ghost
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 Virtual Ghost
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Virtual Ghost
 Virtual Ghost
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VirtualGhost
 Virtual Ghost
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Death is a real bummer. Fortunately, in the future, we'll find a way around it. Using Scienceâ„¢ we will be able to squirrel away the mind of a dead or dying person in a computer, and digitally recreate them, or their consciousness, later as a Projected Man with holograms.
They may not be thrilled by this, but as they're dead, they don't get any say in the matter.
Usually overlaps with Intangible Man. If Cyberspace is involved, they will be corporeal in that plane.
In series with a Cool Starship, it's particularly common for a Virtual Ghost to end up running the ship, especially if they are female.
Interestingly a Virtual Ghost is technically just as much an AI as a robot, but even though they are essentially a computer with a preprogrammed human personality and (sometimes) the memories of a deceased person they will probably be treated different from other robots and computers. Whether the character is the same person as the dead character, or merely a piece of software that has been written to think it is, is a famous philosophical conundrum... that will almost certainly not be brought up in the series in question.
A Virtual Ghost can end up practically reincarnated if made out of Hard Light.
Can serve as the Science Fiction version of the Spirit Advisor. Sister Trope to Living Memory. See also Hologram Projection Imperfection. Not to be confused with Haunted Technology, where a ghost inhabits technology by supernatural means. Compare with Digitized Hacker, which is a mind that has integrated with the internet. Compare and contrast with Artificial Afterlife, which often involves a copy of a person living on after their death in an "afterlife" that people have created for themselves.
 Virtual Ghost
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2024-03-02T22:01:36Z
 Virtual Ghost
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2024-03-02T22:01:36Z
 Virtual Ghost
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 Virtual Ghost
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DBTropes
 Virtual Ghost / int_11859033
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Virtual Ghost
 Virtual Ghost / int_11859033
comment
Towards the end of the webcomic Narbonic, main character Dave Davenport turns into one of these — albeit a somewhat crazier variant than is the norm. Fortunately, his girlfriend is a Mad Geneticist, so he got better.
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 Narbonic (Webcomic)
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Virtual Ghost / int_11859033
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Virtual Ghost
 Virtual Ghost / int_1a5d84af
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After his death near the end of 20th Century Boys, Manjoume appears in 21st Century Boys as one of these in the Tomodachi Land Simulation Game bonus stage.
 Virtual Ghost / int_1a5d84af
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 Virtual Ghost / int_1a5d84af
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 20th Century Boys (Manga)
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Virtual Ghost / int_1a5d84af
 Virtual Ghost / int_1bda896e
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Virtual Ghost
 Virtual Ghost / int_1bda896e
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In Revelation Space, Calvin Sylveste exists after death in the form of an extremely advanced beta-level AI created through an extensive scanning regime while Calvin was still alive; he is far more intelligent than similar Beta-level AI that are driven by simple formulas and memory banks, and is only marginally less complex than an Alpha-level AI created through destructive Brain Uploading. The Sun Stealer is an hostile alien virtual ghost, and the Mademoiselle is an apparently human one that works to counter Sun Stealer.
 Virtual Ghost / int_1bda896e
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 Revelation Space
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Virtual Ghost / int_1bda896e
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Virtual Ghost
 Virtual Ghost / int_1bdeba5a
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X-Men: Bishop has a sister named Shard who is essentially this.
 Virtual Ghost / int_1bdeba5a
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 X-Men (Comic Book)
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Virtual Ghost / int_1bdeba5a
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Virtual Ghost
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In Tales from the Borderlands, Handsome Jack, Big Bad of Borderlands 2 who was killed at the end of that game, exists in the form of an AI hologram that only Rhys can see after he plugged the ID Drive of Professor Nakayama (Jack's Stalker with a Crush) into his head. Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel! details the creation of the AI in a sidequest, which Jack refers to as the "Diet Soda of immortality". Evidently a lot of work went into the AI in the time between the two games, as the one you help Nakayama create in TPS is... less than impressive, while the final product in Tales is a perfect recreation of the real deal (though he is lacking any knowledge of what happened during the second half of 2, as the real Jack never got to upload those memories for obvious reasons).
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 Tales from the Borderlands (Video Game)
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Virtual Ghost / int_1e73962f
 Virtual Ghost / int_2187bf22
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Virtual Ghost
 Virtual Ghost / int_2187bf22
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Many in the Xeelee Sequence. In Xeelee: Vengeance, Michael Poole's mother is a virtual ghost, and resents her ex-husband for making that decision.
 Virtual Ghost / int_2187bf22
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 Xeelee Sequence
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Virtual Ghost / int_2187bf22
 Virtual Ghost / int_23b65ea6
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Virtual Ghost
 Virtual Ghost / int_23b65ea6
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In Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner, Viola, an Ace Pilot who died in the first game, returns as an AI. The Viola AI has all of the skills of the original, but none of the humanity.
 Virtual Ghost / int_23b65ea6
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 Zone of the Enders (Video Game)
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Virtual Ghost / int_23b65ea6
 Virtual Ghost / int_24931627
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Virtual Ghost
 Virtual Ghost / int_24931627
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In the manga, Motoko Aramaki and the rest of the "children" of Motoko and the Puppetmaster were not born with biological bodies, and yet have a "ghost".
 Virtual Ghost / int_24931627
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1.0
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 Ghost in the Shell (Manga)
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Virtual Ghost / int_24931627
 Virtual Ghost / int_28340943
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Virtual Ghost
 Virtual Ghost / int_28340943
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In The Collapsing Empire, every Emperox of the Interdependency is implanted with a device that collects his or her experiences (sensory data, thoughts, feelings) and periodically uploads them to the computer in the Memory Room of the palace. An advanced AI is then able to project a holographic image of the desired dead emperox in order to converse with the reigning emperox. The projections are not true personalities, merely a sophisticated computer program simulating a real person based on the recordings of his or her experiences. The simulation has no emotions or ego or any of the other qualities that living, breathing human beings have. Not only is the newly-crowned Emperox Grayland II able to converse with her recently-deceased father, but she is also able to speak with her namesake Grayland I and even to the founder of the Wu dynasty Rachela I (who has been dead for over a thousand years).
 Virtual Ghost / int_28340943
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 The Interdependency
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Virtual Ghost / int_28340943
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Virtual Ghost
 Virtual Ghost / int_2a0952c3
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In Space Station 13, a ghost can become this through a positronic brain.
 Virtual Ghost / int_2a0952c3
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 Space Station 13 (Video Game)
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Virtual Ghost / int_2a0952c3
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Virtual Ghost
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Adam, the computer from Metroid Fusion, is actually the mind of Samus's old CO Adam Malkovich. Who would've guessed? Anyone with a brain, perhaps, the foreshadowing is so hilariously obvious.
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 Metroid Fusion (Video Game)
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Virtual Ghost / int_2a6eefe5
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Virtual Ghost
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Totally Spies!: In "Animatrons/Man or Machine", the Villain of the Week turns out to be an android that the real Eisenstein uploaded his personality to before his death.
 Virtual Ghost / int_2c1809f5
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 Totally Spies!
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Virtual Ghost / int_2c1809f5
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Virtual Ghost
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Serial Experiments Lain has a field day with this one. The first episode starts with two characters killing themselves to achieve this, and soon after the Id of one character, a scientist and the recreated image (see Ghost in the Shell above) of a third character's paternal aspects become virtual ghosts. Then it gets complicated...
 Virtual Ghost / int_2cd28570
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 Serial Experiments Lain
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Professor Honneycut from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003) had his body destroyed when he was struck by lightning. Incidentally he was helping his robot assistant Sal get untangled from some fallen wires and had his mind uploaded to Sal's body.It is later revealed that he uploaded himself to the internet shortly before his Heroic Sacrifice and comes back later to further aid the turtles.
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 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003)
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ANNO: Mutationem: The Mysterious Console DLC revolves around Ayane assisting a girl called Noni who has been living within a digital device and seeks to find a way out. It is later revealed that Noni is a virtual construct of the real Jet Noni who succumbed to chronic disease, and was created after her parents met with an Anonymous Benefactor to use the device to make her prior to their deaths in a car accident.
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 ANNO: Mutationem (Video Game)
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The dialogue for Dr. Killjoy in The Suffering seems to indicate that he is not a ghost or returned zombie-spirit-thingie like so many other adversaries. Apparently he set up spiritually-juiced film projectors throughout his Asylum and most of Carnate Island to test a subject he knew would be coming by long after he was dead. There are a few bits of physical interaction with the real world but mainly he is confined to filmstrips.
The second game allows him to extend his influence to televisions in Baltimore.
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 The Suffering (Video Game)
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A hologram version of Madeline appears in one episode of La Femme Nikita, though she knows she isn't the original.
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 La Femme Nikita
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Virtual Ghost / int_3a5b3f50
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The living portraits in Harry Potter are a rare explicitly supernatural version of this. A lot of images are shown to have fully developed personalities, such as the portraits who guard the common rooms at Hogwarts. Others are implicitly based on the surface thoughts of the subject: when Harry is embarrased to have his photo taken, the resulting image keeps trying to hide out of frame and has to be dragged back in place by the other figures. Word of God explains that portraits have to be trained to accurately reflect the personalities and memories of their source; we see this with Dumbledore's portrait in the Headmaster's office, which spent an extended time with the actual Dumbledore and helped to continue his work after his death.
 Virtual Ghost / int_3b34143f
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 Harry Potter
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Caprica:
There's a complex case in the form of Zoe Graystone's Avatar. She's a recreation of her creator, based on publicly available records of her life, and yet, even her father acknowledges that the difference between the original (and now deceased) Zoe and the avatar version is inconsequential. Unlike most examples of this trope, the avatar version of Zoe existed alongside her creator, and the two had been able to converse. The questions her existence raises for the nature of what it means to be a person is at the philosophical heart of the series. The ending montage in the final episode shows that Zoe's parents have accepted her as their new daughter and created a physical though non-organic body for her.
Tamara is a more typical example, created after her original's death and not even realizing she was dead until recently.
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 Caprica
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Virtual Ghost / int_3b73c4a0
 Virtual Ghost / int_3bbe0ff2
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Virtual Ghost
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Scanners III: The Takeover: After the villainess is defeated, there's an (unresolved) Sequel Hook where her mind leaves her body for a digital form, whereupon she appears on a camerascreen and laughs maniacally.
 Virtual Ghost / int_3bbe0ff2
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 Scanners III: The Takeover
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Virtual Ghost / int_3bbe0ff2
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Virtual Ghost
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In Anachronox, the main character had his dead secretary digitized into an artificial intelligence on his PDA.
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 Anachronox (Video Game)
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Virtual Ghost / int_3c294634
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Virtual Ghost
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Ghost in the Machine has one created accidentally in the present day, when a seriously injured Serial Killer is in an MRI machine which is overloaded by a lightning strike. This also conveniently fries and kills the physical body. The resulting electronic consciousness is able to travel through power lines and kills people by manipulating and overloading electronic appliances, such as turning a hairdryer into a flamethrower.
 Virtual Ghost / int_3c601190
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 Ghost in the Machine
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Virtual Ghost / int_3c601190
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Virtual Ghost
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A cyber ghost attacks various people through the matrix in TekWar. It's revealed that she is in fact the sister of TekLord Sonny Hokori.
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 TekWar
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Virtual Ghost
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Meta Runner: Lucinia is eventually revealed to have become one after the Project Blue incident; while her physical body survived, half of her consciousness ended up in TASCorp’s servers, while the other half merged with the centerpiece of Project Blue, the AI known as the Turbo Artificial Rapid Intelligence, an event that eventually led to the genesis of the series’ main protagonist, Tari.
 Virtual Ghost / int_45b01d03
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 Meta Runner (Web Animation)
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Virtual Ghost / int_45b01d03
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Virtual Ghost
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In the World of Warcraft Expansion Pack Dragonflight, the blue dragon Sindragosa left a magical simulacrum/sort of hologram of her personality behind in the Azure Span on the Dragon Isles before she left to fight in the War of the Ancients. It is a true copy of Sindragosa offering a glimpse into her personality before she was slain (twice over, as a living dragon and as an undead after the Lich King raised her).
 Virtual Ghost / int_49ad83ee
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 World of Warcraft (Video Game)
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The Dio Returns tour, which featured a hologram of Ronnie James Dio playing alongside former members of his backing band.
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 Ronnie James Dio (Music)
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RoboCop: The Series has Diana, a.k.a. the MetroNet NeuroBrain. Like Robo, a cyborg, but she has even less living tissue, and is permanently installed in a datacenter that runs all of Delta City. She was murdered and installed in the system by corrupt OCP scientists (she was a colleague) and thus helps Robo even the score against her employers.
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 RoboCop: The Series
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Virtual Ghost / int_4d238cb5
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In Supergirl (2015), the Kryptonian archives use the image of Kara's mother, Alura, to interact with her. Sometimes, though, the simulation gets a bit carried away and acts like Kara's actual mother.
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 Supergirl (2015)
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Virtual Ghost
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Encrypt within the Dark, to Save the Clockwork of a Heart has Playmaker stumble upon Lightning's copy in LINK VRAINS, who puts one copy of himself in the off-chance of someone searching for the Cyberse World ruins after his death.
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 Encrypt within the Dark, to Save the Clockwork of a Heart (Fanfic)
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Virtual Ghost
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In the Crusade episode "The Memory of War", the technomage who created the nano-virus that wiped out a planet's population a hundred years ago left behind an AI with his appearance and personality to control the virus.
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 Crusade
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Virtual Ghost
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Subverted in Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker. The subversion is the kind of hardware the Virtual Ghost runs in. It's former Robin Tim Drake's brain.
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 Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker
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In the movie, Motoko wonders if she is a virtual ghost, and if her personality and memories are, in fact, programmed, due to the small amount of brain matter she is left with.
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 Ghost in the Shell (1995)
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Similarly deconstructed in Schlock Mercenary, here and here.
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 Schlock Mercenary (Webcomic)
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Red Dwarf has Rimmer, and occasionally, other deceased crew members. They occasionally do examine it a bit more than most: in the novel Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers the hologram before Rimmer is assured by the ship's metaphysical psychiatrist that he's not really him, he just thinks he is. And in the "Back To Earth" revival, Rimmer is told there is no moral, ethical or legal problem with killing him, because the real Rimmer is already dead.
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 Red Dwarf
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Zombo: President Donald Trump comes back as a computer program after Obmoz kills him. He later has a virtual fight against the zombie-controlled Mister Critic ripped straight out of TRON.
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Stargate-verse:
This may be the ultimate fate of the Asgard as of season 10 of Stargate SG-1. With their last attempt at curing their genetic disease ending in failure, they opt for mass suicide and the destruction of their society in order to stop other races from pillaging their ruins. But not before transferring all their knowledge and technology into a legacy device which was handed over to Stargate Command. This device also has holographic projections of the Asgard people, which can be accessed at will. Given that individual Asgard had previously uploaded their brains into computers when their physical bodies died, it's possible that they collectively did the same here in hopes that someday the humans might be able to revive them. Note, however, that said holograms are never shown to have personality, merely being a glorified user interface similar to the I, Robot example.
In the episode of Stargate Atlantis where Sheppard gets flung into the distant future by a solar flare intersecting with a wormhole, Rodney leaves behind a virtual ghost of himself before they abandon Atlantis in order to guide Sheppard when he emerges from the wormhole and hopefully be able to get him home.
There's also the upload of Dr. Franklin to Destiny's mainframe via the neural interface chair in Stargate Universe, followed by Ginn and Amanda Perry late in Season 2.
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 Stargate-verse (Franchise)
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Johnny Mnemonic has Anna Kalmann, the founder of PharmaKom, whose brain was patterned into their mainframe so that she could advise her successors. However, she helps Johnny escape the company's agents.
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Virtual Ghost
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Bunches of examples from Ghost in the Shell.
Theoretically, this presumably is the result in mid-way of a Ghost Dub, but it's just a deteriorated, incomplete copy, while the original dies. Trying to copy an entire human brain is difficult business in this universe. An attempt was once made once with six million people simultaneously, but this was aborted.
In the manga, Motoko Aramaki and the rest of the "children" of Motoko and the Puppetmaster were not born with biological bodies, and yet have a "ghost".
In the movie, Motoko wonders if she is a virtual ghost, and if her personality and memories are, in fact, programmed, due to the small amount of brain matter she is left with.
The Puppetmaster also points out that everyone leaves "ghosts" in the minds of those we interact with — i.e., we recreate images of those we interact with in our minds. The Puppetmaster freely admits that information preserved this way is heavily fragmented, and most personal details are lost — naturally, since only interactions with others are "recorded".
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Clay Kaczmarek (Subject 16) in Assassin's Creed: Revelations has a copy of his mind in the Templar's Animus machine. He later gets deleted once the system starts purging files.
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The Dixie Flatline construct in Neuromancer, but since he's stored on ROM he's little more than a recording. The titular AI's purpose is to create Virtual Ghosts on RAM, including ones of Case's old girlfriend — and Case himself.
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1.0
 Neuromancer
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Virtual Ghost / int_66394ca4
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Virtual Ghost
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In the Batman Beyond episode "Lost Soul", Robert Vance does this to himself so that he can advise his company from beyond the grave.
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 Batman Beyond
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Virtual Ghost / int_694ab80
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Virtual Ghost
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Honorable mention: Al in Quantum Leap — he shows many of the same traits, though he's actually a living human whose holographic form is a sort of telepresence.
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 Quantum Leap
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Virtual Ghost / int_6ce0d19c
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Perhaps the most heartwarming instance of this trope applied to music occurs in the current tour of Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds The tour ads bill "Richard Burton—In Sight and Sound!" among the other lead singers...behind-the-scenes material on the official website shows how they made the new CGI Burton hologram possible, and indicates that this might very well be the first time a long-dead thespian returned to stage work through holography. It's a thing of beauty, and brings a lump to the throat when you see it.
In a lesser example of the trope, The New Generation tour used a full-body hologram of the still-living Liam Neeson for the Narrator's appearance. Whenever the Narrator is involved in the story, a pane of glass slides up and displays him. This allows for a much more "interactive" character, who passes a drink to the Artilleryman and knocks out the panicking Parson.
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Jor-El in Smallville is probably one of these, though admittedly, it is not quite explicit exactly what he is.
Tess Mercer essentially becomes this in the Season 11 comics.
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 Smallville
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EXA_PICO:
Ar tonelico: Melody of Elemia: Mir had her soul forcibly severed from her body, and then locked in Binary Field. The ghosts aren't just virtual, they are vengeful.
Infel and Nenesha from Ar tonelico II: Melody of Metafalica, posing as Mind Guardian of Cloche and Luca, respectively. They are also the Big Bad, and are manipulating Cloche and Luca into opening the Tree of Marta.
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Virtual Ghost / int_710d2be0
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Infel and Nenesha from Ar tonelico II: Melody of Metafalica, posing as Mind Guardian of Cloche and Luca, respectively. They are also the Big Bad, and are manipulating Cloche and Luca into opening the Tree of Marta.
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Alter Ego in Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc is a Benevolent A.I. created by the Ultimate Programmer Chihiro Fujisaki with his personality that's discovered by the others after his death.
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 Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc (Visual Novel)
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Virtual Ghost / int_73383fee
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Virtual Ghost
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Halo:
This trope applies to almost all human-made "smart" AIs (called such because they have an immense capacity for self-learning, unlike "dumb" AIs), since each one is made by copying the brain of a deceased human (a process which destroys said brain). The resulting AI is not an exact clone of its originating human, but it does tend to inherit certain personality traits and even memories. The one exception is Cortana, due to her being copied off a cloned brain; this process took several tries due to cloning being an imprecise science and thus is usually prohibitively expensive, though it was deemed Worth It in this case due to the brain in question belonging to Dr. Catherine Halsey, Halos' resident World's Smartest Omnidisciplinary Scientist.
Forerunner AI 343 Guilty Spark is based off the mind of a prehistoric human named Chakas, who was converted into Guilty Spark in part precisely because he would have otherwise died.
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The VI located on Mass Effect's planet Ilos contains the last untouched record of the Protheans to send a message to future civilizations warning them of the Reaper threat. While the VI is not a ghost per se, it has access to a vast amount of personal data and information about the Protheans that is unlike anywhere in the extant Galaxy, and claims its personality is loosely based on the project director's. To say that the dialogue that occurs between Shepard and the VI is haunting would be an understatement.
In Mass Effect 3, Shepard can run across another Prothean VI on Thessia who is likewise based on a Prothean scientist named Pashek Vran. The VI doesn't consider itself to be Vran, though, merely based on him in personality.
The quarians played this trope straight as a way to preserve their ancestors memories and knowledge, but stopped after the geth rebellion put the fear of true AI into them.
The codex states that the reason the quarians were so into AI research in the first place was a desire to upgrade these recordings into true intelligent virtual ghosts rather than limited-responses VIs. Since one of the first things the geth did was trash the ancestral archive, this didn't work out.
This is what effectively happens to Shepard in the Control Ending when their mind gets uploaded into the Reaper master consciousness.
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1.0
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In Mass Effect 3, Shepard can run across another Prothean VI on Thessia who is likewise based on a Prothean scientist named Pashek Vran. The VI doesn't consider itself to be Vran, though, merely based on him in personality.
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Phantasy Star Online Episode 1 has this. A mission in the hunter's guild involves you escorting Elly, a girl who exchanged messages with a friend named Calus who was in Pioneer 1 and seemed like the only survivor since he continued messaging her long after the vessel exploded and traces of the people inside were lost. The further you go, the more Calus's messages seemed to contradict itself until finally you meet Calus, who turns out to be an AI in a computer that's hacked and close to self-termination. An NPC after the mission is finished explained he heard of a professor with the same name who died young of illness and created AI-Calus to live on. Afterwards, Elly had a copy of his AI, which is referred as Cal in Episode 2.
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 Phantasy Star Online (Video Game)
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Virtual Ghost / int_782a1f0
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Most of humanity have been rendered into these in The Quantum Thief. However, the Djinns featured in Fractal Prince are even closer to the trope, as they are people who were consumed by Grey Goo nanomachines called Wildcode and had their consciousness uploaded into the nanotech in the process. They haunt the Wildcode Desert like ghosts, sometimes attempting to possess living humans when given an opportunity.
A trace of the consciousness of dead Oortians is uploaded into what they call the Alinen, a sort of virtual afterlife, from which they can be summoned to provide a base for AI's that run their spaceships. The A.I.s are not exactly the same person who has died, but they are considered reincarnations of sort, with traces of emotions and memories of the person they were based on.
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 The Quantum Thief
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Ariadne of Mad Daedalus is the Artificial Intelligence of a crashed alien spaceship, and appears as an attractive, glowing spectral woman.
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Virtual Ghost / int_7b6a6b62
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Star Trek:
In the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Inheritance", Data converses with a holographic AI of his creator, Noonien Soong.
Not to mention the various EMH/LMH variants seen, which are based on the personalities and appearances of either Dr. Zimmerman (their creator) or a famous Starfleet doctor.
In the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Inside Man", Reg Barclay sends a hologram of himself to the Voyager in order to interact with the crew. Unlike the shy Reg, the hologram is lively and friendly. However, as it turns out, the hologram was intercepted and corrupted by a group of Ferengi who wish to get their hands of the Voyager even if it means the deaths of the crew.
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Virtual Ghost
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In Five Nights At Freddys VR Help Wanted, after he was Killed Off for Real Springtrap/William Afton's "programming" was uploaded into the Game Within a Game Vanessa/Vanny is playing, leading to her being possessed by his digital consciousness and becoming his Jack the Ripoff.
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Virtual Ghost / int_8662248c
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Subverted in I, Robot. A dead scientist leaves behind a 2D holographic recording of himself to guide the main character, but this is a more realistic hologram than most, in that it is a simple computer program rather than a copy of the dead man's personality. Its most commonly used statement is "I'm sorry, my responses are limited; you must ask the right question." Spooner himself describes the hologram simply as part of a "Trail of Bread Crumbs".
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 I, Robot
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The AI versions of Harold Hoerwick in .hack//SIGN. They're nowhere near as advanced as most other versions on this page (and rightly so; this series is set 20 Minutes into the Future) and tend to only repeat a few cryptic lines at a time, but the information inevitably proves crucial. He also appears in the four PS2 games set slightly afterward.
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 .hack//SIGN
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Virtual Ghost / int_86fa6d5b
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Virtual Ghost
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Jor-El in recent Superman titles, riffing off The Movie and Smallville.
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1.0
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 Superman (Comic Book)
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Virtual Ghost
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In Knight Rider 2010, the supercar's computer intelligence was actually a copy of the mind of his girlfriend, who'd been in Cyberspace at the time of her murder so that her mind was not actually in her body at the time. In addition to controlling the car, she could project a hologram of herself.
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Virtual Ghost / int_8e8ed866
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Danganronpa:
Alter Ego in Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc is a Benevolent A.I. created by the Ultimate Programmer Chihiro Fujisaki with his personality that's discovered by the others after his death.
Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair: Junko Enoshima managed to make a copy of it with her own personality after her death. There's also Chiaki Nanami, who was Dead All Along with an AI copy of her acting as a guide to the other students.
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 Danganronpa (Franchise)
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Virtual Ghost / int_8f25225c
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Virtual Ghost
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Red vs. Blue offers an interesting take on this: Church is killed early in the series and "comes back" as a ghost. However, in Reconstruction he finds that he is an AI based on a (living) person's mind. The newest series, Recreation, seems to be about bring Church back to "life" with the remnants of his digital memories, themselves manifested as an AI.
Tex may be a more straight version of this trope.
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1.0
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 Red vs. Blue (Web Animation)
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Megabyte pulls this trick near the end of ReBoot. Even though he's already a computer program on a show taking place inside a computer. He did this twice. First to mess with whoever tried to shut down Mainframe's core manually, second time as a distraction. He was more or less intangible both times.
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In The Echo Ranger, Izuku Midoriya is mentored by an AI copy of Tommy Oliver, downloaded into the Echo Morpher centuries ago.
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 The Echo Ranger (Fanfic)
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Virtual Ghost / int_928cd5fa
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Virtual Ghost
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The Transhuman Space setting for GURPS has virtual ghosts via destructive uploading. The result is actually called a ghost, and in many countries is legally the same person, although opinion is divided as to whether the uploading process is really immortality, or a really expensive and narcissistic suicide. However, they never manifest as holograms as such; they either run on static computers, appearing to other people in virtual reality, or they're installed in physical robot bodies.
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For The Who's 2012-13 tour performing Quadrophenia, the band used archival footage to allow Keith Moon (died in 1978) to duet with Roger Daltrey on "Bell Boy", and John Entwistle (died in 2002) to play Lead Bassist on "5:15".
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In Gloryhammer's second album, Space 1992: Rise of the Chaos Wizards, the character of Ser Proletius (captain of the Knights of Crail) appears as one of these.
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The Giver: Rosemary, the former receiver who committed suicide, is seen posthumously as a memory hologram teaching Jonas how to play piano.
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 The Giver
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Jobe becomes one of these at the end of The Lawnmower Man after consciously putting himself into the network and leaving his body behind.
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 The Lawnmower Man
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The band X Japan did something as close to this as can be managed in Real Life for performances in 2008 and 2009. Lead guitarist hide died in 1998, but it was pretty much agreed among the band and the fans that he could not be left out of the performances due to his impact upon the band and his iconic status as a member of it. A hologram of hide (created by, among other people, one of his former solo programmers INA) played along with the live band, almost perfectly matching hide's facial expressions and behavior. They did this again at Coachella 2018, but this time with holograms of both hide and Taiji.
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Quite literally in Futurama. When Bender commits suicide in "Ghost in the Machines", his programming is uploaded into the wireless network shared by all AI. He acts like a "normal" ghost who can't be seen by anyone except the Robot Devil and has the ability to possess machines. It's seemingly not unusual for robot "ghosts" to be able to manifest in this manner; "The Honking" shows an incident in which robots are buried in improperly shielded coffins, allowing their programs to project holographic versions of themselves through a modem.
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In Space Quest IV: Roger Wilco and the Time Rippers, villain Sludge Vohaul returns as a Virtual Ghost. He also attempts to hijack the body of Roger's son to avoid being deleted.
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In Man of Steel, Jor-El's recorded consciousness interacts with Clark, showing him Krypton's history. He also helps Lois Lane escape Zod's ship and gives her information on how to return Zod's army to the Phantom Zone. He then briefly confronts Zod before getting shut off for good.
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Mega Man Zero: X himself takes a page out of his creator Dr. Light's book, by becoming an Energy Being to serve as Zero's mentor.
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Borderline case: Watson in Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century — he's not so much a digital recreation of his namesake as a Robot Buddy who consciously chose to imitate Watson to the best of his abilities.
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In Portal 2, Aperture Science CEO Cave Johnson's dying wish is to achieve immortality through Brain Uploading. Unfortunately, he dies before the project is ready, so they go with his back-up plan: upload his hypercompetent Girl Friday Caroline instead so that she can run Aperture forever. Oh, and don't bother asking her opinion of the plan. This did not go well, and resulted in the creation of GLaDOS.
Some unused audio files reveal a deleted scene where Cave did manage to get uploaded— into an Aperture Science cube. He asks the player to unplug him, because that manner of immortality is torture.
There's also an alternate universe where Cave was uploaded into GLaDOS instead of Caroline. Gone Horribly Right does not begin to explain how much of a bad idea that was. Luckily, Cave-Prime pulls the player out of there and scraps the project in his dimension.
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In the Virtua Fighter spin-off Virtua Quest, the cast of Virtua Fighter 4 (save Dural) appear as ghost data called "Virtua Souls". When Sei encounters them, he engages in a one-on-one fight with them and, upon defeating them, is bestowed with knowledge of their fighting techniques. The evil organization Judgement 6 is looking for Virtua Souls, themselves, for use in a new weapon...
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1.0
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 Virtua Fighter (Video Game)
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Virtual Ghost
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Max Headroom just barely counts — he was intended to be Edison's Virtual Ghost, but Edison survived, and Max evolved into a very different person.
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 Max Headroom
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Legacy of the Force introduced the Force Phantom technique, a Sith method of siphoning off the Life Energy of an unsuspecting random target to create a corporeal apparition similar to a Force ghost able to attack their enemies or communicate with their allies. The technique's inventor, Darth Vectivus, created one of himself to converse with visitors to his home long after his death.
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George Glenn in Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Astray is a semi-example. Though he's still technically alive, he can only interact with the outside world through a hologram.
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1.0
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 Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Astray (Manga)
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Virtual Ghost
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Used in Batman & Robin — with Alfred, of all people, who calls it a "virtual simulation".
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1.0
 Virtual Ghost / int_afb7052
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 Batman & Robin
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Virtual Ghost / int_afb7052
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Virtual Ghost
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The final fate of Harry MacDougall in Outlaw Star, after he dies and fulfills the series' quota for Made of Plasticine.
 Virtual Ghost / int_b11e29d2
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 Outlaw Star (Manga)
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Virtual Ghost / int_b11e29d2
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Virtual Ghost
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The Computer from Evil Plan has Will's mind uploaded into it. He retains his full memory and tells his backstory from personal experience, things which his programmer had no idea about. Very useful for getting Alice up to speed on how Stan became evil.
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1.0
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 Evil Plan (Webcomic)
hasFeature
Virtual Ghost / int_b2a10634
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Virtual Ghost
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Warhammer 40,000:
The Necrons are an entire race of Virtual Ghosts. The ultimate goal of most of the Necrons' leaders, particularly the Silent King, is to find a way to transfer themselves back to bodies of flesh.
The Tau have one in the form of Commander Puretide, who was considered a military genius back in his day, and is most famous because of his ability to teach his techniques to others, producing many successful commanders through his tutelage. In the last years of his life, his brain was carefully mapped and recreated in an A.I., that his knowledge and teaching abilities might be preserved for posterity. Even today the most promising Fire Caste commanders are sent to train under his projected avatar.
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1.0
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1.0
 Warhammer 40,000 (Tabletop Game)
hasFeature
Virtual Ghost / int_bcadd7cb
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Virtual Ghost
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In Shadowrun, Ghosts in the Machine, remnants of flatlined hackers floating around in the Matrix, are widely considered an urban legend. However the 4th edition "Runner's Guide" has "Ghost" as a quality that AI characters can take. The earliest known one was Alice Haeffner, who died in the first Crash in 2029. Several more Ghosts were created during Crash 2.0 in 2064, including the datajacked dragon Eliohann.
 Virtual Ghost / int_bcb32dc6
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1.0
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1.0
 Shadowrun (Tabletop Game)
hasFeature
Virtual Ghost / int_bcb32dc6
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Virtual Ghost
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Super Force featured a low-resolution image of Patrick McNee as the digital recreation of a dead scientist.
 Virtual Ghost / int_bd183c97
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1.0
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1.0
 Super Force
hasFeature
Virtual Ghost / int_bd183c97
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Virtual Ghost
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Samantha Harrison from Phaeton is this, made of hardlight, projected by a wifi modem, who can convert into pure electricity, and that's just the start.
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1.0
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1.0
 Phaeton
hasFeature
Virtual Ghost / int_bdf7310a
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Virtual Ghost
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In A Memory Called Empire, people from the space station Lsel have a brain implant that compiles their memories into an "imago" that is eventually loaded into their successor's implants, advising them and gradually merging to form a combined personality with the host. Mahit doesn't get the chance to perform a proper integration with her predecessor Yskandr as they're forced to rush it, and he has a mental breakdown on seeing his corpse.
 Virtual Ghost / int_bf56a726
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1.0
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1.0
 A Memory Called Empire
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Virtual Ghost / int_bf56a726
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Virtual Ghost
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There's also the upload of Dr. Franklin to Destiny's mainframe via the neural interface chair in Stargate Universe, followed by Ginn and Amanda Perry late in Season 2.
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1.0
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 Stargate Universe
hasFeature
Virtual Ghost / int_c0aa8ea9
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Virtual Ghost
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Ar tonelico: Melody of Elemia: Mir had her soul forcibly severed from her body, and then locked in Binary Field. The ghosts aren't just virtual, they are vengeful.
 Virtual Ghost / int_c1632d4d
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1.0
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1.0
 Ar tonelico: Melody of Elemia (Video Game)
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Virtual Ghost / int_c1632d4d
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Virtual Ghost
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Accel World: Book 4 establishes that players lose all direct memories of Brain Burst after they're reduced to 0 Burst Points and the program uninstalls itself (which in some cases can significantly alter their personality). However, the series later introduces ghostlike versions of ex-players, which retain their full memories and exist independently of their real-life selves. This is possible because, in order to achieve its Year Inside Hour Outside Effect, the game actually knocks players unconscious while activating a copy of their mind stored on its server (emulated at a much higher clock speed than the human brain), syncing its memories with the original on each connect/disconnect. In fact, these synced memories aren't even stored in the player's brain, and will temporarily disappear if they get too far from their Neurolinker, making the "ghosts" arguably more real than the original.
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 Accel World
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Virtual Ghost / int_c1b7d57
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Virtual Ghost
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Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair: Junko Enoshima managed to make a copy of it with her own personality after her death. There's also Chiaki Nanami, who was Dead All Along with an AI copy of her acting as a guide to the other students.
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1.0
 Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair (Visual Novel)
hasFeature
Virtual Ghost / int_c34f83b2
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Virtual Ghost
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The Jenkinsverse has Adrian Saunders finding the data core which contains the Virtual Ghost of his dead friend Trycrur as he builds the starship "Spot".
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1.0
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1.0
 The Jenkinsverse
hasFeature
Virtual Ghost / int_c35747a3
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Virtual Ghost
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In Eclipse Phase, a large number of human beings have spent time as a virtual ghost, due to the evacuation of Earth during The Singularity (which turned out very bad indeed) mostly being done via Brain Uploading. The majority were reincarnated into cheap, mass-produced robot bodies or clones, but some decided they preferred to stay digital. Additionally, backups and cortical stacks mean that death is optional for just about everybody but the bioconservatives and terminally poor. People can get an implant that allows a virtual ghost to ride along in their body. However, once again, they're unlikely to manifest as holograms.
 Virtual Ghost / int_c399cd39
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1.0
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 Eclipse Phase (Tabletop Game)
hasFeature
Virtual Ghost / int_c399cd39
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Virtual Ghost
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Dr. Carroll in Perfect Dark is the mind of a dead scientist programmed into a floating laptop computer. He appears in human form in Perfect Dark Zero.
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1.0
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1.0
 Perfect Dark (Video Game)
hasFeature
Virtual Ghost / int_c3e7ab30
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Virtual Ghost
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Doctor Who:
"Silence in the Library"/"Forest of the Dead" features "data ghosts", neural patterns that are left over in the interfaces of the archaeologists' suits after the archaeologist dies. The ghost is an echo of the person's personality, unable to interact or learn and slowly "winding down" to the point where it can only drone mindlessly. In "Forest of the Dead", it turns out one of the dead archaeologists was uploaded into the library's WiFi system, and by the end, the Doctor's managed to transfer the personalities of everyone who died into the library's computer. The upshot being that, technically Everybody Lives.
The data ghost of River Song reappears in "The Name of the Doctor" to help guide Clara in helping the Doctor through his ordeal on Trenzalore. At first, she believes that only Clara can see her, but the Doctor later reveals that he has been able to see and hear her the whole time, giving her a last kiss and an emotional goodbye before leaping into his timestream to rescue Clara.
Astrid Peth in "Voyage of the Damned''", after dying falling off the Space Titanic into a giant black hole, is brought back by The Doctor as one.
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 Doctor Who
hasFeature
Virtual Ghost / int_c43df4d8
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Virtual Ghost
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Ma3a in Tron 2.0 straddles the lines of this, Brain Uploading, and Interface with a Familiar Face. Dr. Lora Baines-Bradley was killed by being partially digitized with her laser. Whether by accident or design, the part of her left in cyberspace was compiled with the AI project she and Alan were working on, creating Ma3a.
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1.0
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 TRON 2.0 (Video Game)
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Virtual Ghost / int_c7fe972d
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Virtual Ghost
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In Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, it is revealed near the end of the plot that Professor Sada/Turo has been Dead All Along. The Professor you have been talking to throughout the whole game is an AI in a robot body, given all of the Professor's memories and emotions, just in case they were to die.
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1.0
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1.0
 Pokémon Scarlet and Violet (Video Game)
hasFeature
Virtual Ghost / int_cb45dbdc
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Virtual Ghost
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In Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delany, they are referred to as "the discorporate". People who die may (if circumstances are right) have their personalities transferred to machines. This is common on ship's crews, as many ship operations don't actually require a physical body.
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1.0
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 Babel-17
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Virtual Ghost / int_cd7bf8e3
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Virtual Ghost
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Nimue/Merlin in Safehold is technically this, a downloaded personality of ancient terran commander. She plays with this trope by having life-like human body, a PICA, which she uses to move around. Nahrmahn Baytz becomes a more conventional one after he's killed in terrorist attack.
 Virtual Ghost / int_cec99ed9
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1.0
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1.0
 Safehold
hasFeature
Virtual Ghost / int_cec99ed9
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Virtual Ghost
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Near-miss: the absence of real-time superluminal communication in Andromeda (Faster-Than-Light Travel requires a living pilot) means that all messages must be delivered by courier. In at least one instance, particularly vital information is sent in the form of an AI recreation of the sender, so that his virtual ghost can carry on an interactive conversation.
This was actually a Retcon to rationalize the use of real-time interstellar communication in several earlier episodes, which happened because the new producer of the show didn't look into the ground rules of the show's universe.
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 Andromeda
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Virtual Ghost / int_d109f322
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Virtual Ghost
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In Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Armin Zola is revealed to "live" in a roomful of 1970s computer mainframes, expressing himself through monitors no more advanced than the '90s, and only some modern technology such as an USB drive.
 Virtual Ghost / int_d3381e70
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1.0
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1.0
 Captain America: The Winter Soldier
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Virtual Ghost / int_d3381e70
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Virtual Ghost
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An application of AI in Infinity Beach. The main character uses it to talk to a simulation of her dead sister (which the AI chides her for, saying it's emotionally unhealthy).
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1.0
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 Infinity Beach
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Virtual Ghost / int_d40e472e
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Virtual Ghost
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Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow: A Tesla Coil-projected image of Mad Scientist Dr Totenkopf warns off the protagonists, but it turns out that he's been dead for over twenty years, leaving his robots to carry out his scheme. The actor playing Dr. Totenkopf is one of these, too: the legendary Sir Laurence Olivier. Like his character, Olivier had been dead for a while (15 years at the time of filming) and appears via computer manipulated stock footage.
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 Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
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Virtual Ghost / int_d531b6f7
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Virtual Ghost
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Mega Man X: It seems likely that the Dr. Light hologram that appears in the series is a Virtual Ghost — in the first game, it was possible that he simply provided pre-recorded messages, although remarkably prescient ones... but since then, the hologram has displayed knowledge that Dr. Light simply could not have had during his lifetime. This suggests he's still "alive" in some form. In fact, the end of X5 suggests that Light's hologram is capable of existing outside the capsules. In fact, the capsules in the game show that the hologram knows who Zero is (there are various explanations for this), but also who Alia is, which would be impossible for the original, living Dr. Light. In addition, he actually tells Zero early in the game that he has no knowledge of Zero's systems, so he can't upgrade him, but then states later, in a hidden capsule, that he's done some research and can now upgrade Zero. A very capable Virtual Ghost, indeed.
 Virtual Ghost / int_dab32e3
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1.0
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1.0
 Mega Man X (Video Game)
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Virtual Ghost / int_dab32e3
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Virtual Ghost
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MARZENA: Some people think that G-Net A.I.s are this. These Self-Aware Artificially Conscious entities are watching you from their own private Real Virtual Space and you can't even see their holographic avatars without your holo glasses or contact lenses on. Also they can go through walls, teleport through thin air and communicate via digital telepathy, but forget about telekinesis, their virtual universe is a world of LOOK, but don't touch.
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1.0
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1.0
 MARZENA
hasFeature
Virtual Ghost / int_dbde69cf
 Virtual Ghost / int_df3a0b37
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Virtual Ghost
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In Ripper, Hamilton Woffard made an AI copy of himself just before he was killed by the titular villain. His brother, Covington survived, and near the end of the game, you meet this AI face-to-face after Covington uploaded it to his cyberspace well. There, Hamilton gives you instructions on how to take down the Ripper using an energy shuriken he built, and that he built a virtual mock-up of Whitechapel as it was in 1888. The AI's not perfect, though, as for some reason it can't distinguish you as anyone other than its brother.
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1.0
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1.0
 Ripper (Video Game)
hasFeature
Virtual Ghost / int_df3a0b37
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Virtual Ghost
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In the episode of Stargate Atlantis where Sheppard gets flung into the distant future by a solar flare intersecting with a wormhole, Rodney leaves behind a virtual ghost of himself before they abandon Atlantis in order to guide Sheppard when he emerges from the wormhole and hopefully be able to get him home.
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1.0
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1.0
 Stargate Atlantis
hasFeature
Virtual Ghost / int_e4732abc
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Virtual Ghost
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Star Wars Legends:
Jedi and Sith memories consigned to a holocron are actually self-aware, making them great teachers; in the case of the Sith, they can even attempt Grand Theft Me if so inclined (Jedi could probably do it too, but never do if they're still on the Light Side).
Legacy of the Force introduced the Force Phantom technique, a Sith method of siphoning off the Life Energy of an unsuspecting random target to create a corporeal apparition similar to a Force ghost able to attack their enemies or communicate with their allies. The technique's inventor, Darth Vectivus, created one of himself to converse with visitors to his home long after his death.
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1.0
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1.0
 Star Wars Legends (Franchise)
hasFeature
Virtual Ghost / int_e6267766
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Virtual Ghost
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Mega Man Battle Network: This is MegaMan.EXE's origin in the video games since he's Hub Hikari, Lan's twin brother who died not long after birth. Interestingly, not present in the anime version, MegaMan NT Warrior, nor the manga (manga Miyu does claim that Mega Man "has the soul of a human", but this never comes up again).
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1.0
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1.0
 Mega Man Battle Network (Video Game)
hasFeature
Virtual Ghost / int_e863cc41
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Virtual Ghost
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In Torment: Tides of Numenera, The Specter claims he is The Changing God and tries to regain control of your body. Near the very end of the game, it's revealed that he is actually a backup of The Changing God's memories. The real Changing God was either erased by The Sorrow's attack on the moon or simply lost his memories. If the latter, that means you are the real Changing God sans memories.
 Virtual Ghost / int_e9393897
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1.0
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1.0
 Torment: Tides of Numenera (Video Game)
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Virtual Ghost / int_e9393897
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Virtual Ghost
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In Gateway II: Homeworld, the player finds the Heechee, who have hidden themselves in a pocket universe the only way to which lies through a black hole. It turns out that, whenever a prominent Heechee dies, his or her brain is uploaded to a storage. The departed can then project themselves as heads and interact with those still living. This is only done when the Heechee is about to pass, as it's believed that the uploaded minds are the same people who have Ascended to a Higher Plane of Existence. A rogue group reveals that they have secretly disproven this theory by deliberatley uploading a living person with the person not feeling or acting out of the ordinary. They maintain that the uploaded minds are merely copies of the people who died and thus should not be given equal say in Heechee politics. While this may seem cruel, the Virtual Ghosts are shown to be very conservative (as anyone who has lived long enough gets) and try to maintain the status quo by any means necessary.
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 Heechee Saga
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Virtual Ghost / int_e9e37e8
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Virtual Ghost
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The Superman Film Series has Virtual Ghost versions of the Elders of Krypton sent along with the spaceship.
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1.0
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 Superman Film Series
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Virtual Ghost / int_eb7d4774
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Virtual Ghost
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Saints Row IV takes place primarily in a virtual reality simulation, which the developers used as an excuse to bring back plenty of characters who died in previous games as AIs created from the surviving characters' memories, including Julius, Tanya, Veteran Child, Maero, and even Saints Row 2 Shaundi. Shaundi is still very much alive, but underwent such a drastic personality change between 2 and 3 that she's basically a different character entirely, which many fans didn't particularly care for. So they brought back the old Shaundi to coexist with the new one. The two do not get along, at least initially.
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 Saints Row IV (Video Game)
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Virtual Ghost
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Sword Art Online:
After his defeat, SAO's developer Kayaba Akihiko performs a destructive brain scan on himself, dying but creating an AI with his personality and memories. The AI Kayaba reappears a few times throughout the series to assist the protagonists, and is responsible for developing The Seed - an open-source version of SAO's engine and devkit which revitalises the VR industry.
Some SAO players like Griselda and Sachi became a less complete version which haunts specific areas or people, explained as a glitch that can happen after the Cardinal System "detects an unusual emotional state and snapshots the area for later analysis". There may be others, as there were nearly 4000 fatalities from SAO, each with a .1% chance of becoming a virtual ghost in this way.
Another appears in The Movie, Ordinal Scale: Yuuna Shigemura, the daughter of Kayaba's mentor, Tetsuhiro Shigemura.
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1.0
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1.0
 Sword Art Online
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Virtual Ghost / int_ed2a7866
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Virtual Ghost
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Transmetropolitan has its usual unique take on this with foglets. When a person goes foglet tiny nanomachines eat his body for the energy to scan and download his brain. When it's done, the person is for all intents and purposes a ghost — floating through the air, making himself visible or invisible at will, and performing spooky miracles by reassembling matter at the molecular level. Though society in general doesn't think of it as death, Channon does:
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1.0
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1.0
 Transmetropolitan (Comic Book)
hasFeature
Virtual Ghost / int_edbc9738
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Virtual Ghost
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In Cyberpunk 2077, V begins to mentally fuse with the holographic ghost of Johnny Silverhand, who was a central character in the tabletop series. The game does bring up the question of what exactly Johnny (and anyone else subjected to the Soul Killer) really is. Is it actually them, or just 1s and 0s resembling them? And if the soul does exist, is the digitized version soulless? Does the soul move on to whatever afterlife there is without the digitized self, or does it linger? V can specifically ask Johnny what he thinks, but Johnny dismisses the question.
Depending on what choice you made in regards where to send Jackie's body, then during "The Devil" ending path V is able to speak to him from Mikoshi. Unfortunately, since he was already dead when he was copied he can only answer using a few set lines he said before and has no sentience whatsoever, and remains endlessly optimistic despite the situation they're in.
In that same ending path before that V finds out Saburo Arasaka did have a back up in Mikoshi as well, one that only presents itself when called by Hanako. It's from there revealed he's played Spirit Advisor to Hanako and He in fact uses that duplicate to enact a plan of killing his own son via overriding the younger man's mind with the copy of his own. Showing this was nothing but a minor set back that plays out beneficially for him.
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1.0
 Cyberpunk 2077 (Video Game)
hasFeature
Virtual Ghost / int_ee384546
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Virtual Ghost
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In the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Inside Man", Reg Barclay sends a hologram of himself to the Voyager in order to interact with the crew. Unlike the shy Reg, the hologram is lively and friendly. However, as it turns out, the hologram was intercepted and corrupted by a group of Ferengi who wish to get their hands of the Voyager even if it means the deaths of the crew.
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1.0
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1.0
 Star Trek: Voyager
hasFeature
Virtual Ghost / int_ef076a36
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Virtual Ghost
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Mega Man:
Mega Man Battle Network: This is MegaMan.EXE's origin in the video games since he's Hub Hikari, Lan's twin brother who died not long after birth. Interestingly, not present in the anime version, MegaMan NT Warrior, nor the manga (manga Miyu does claim that Mega Man "has the soul of a human", but this never comes up again).
Mega Man X: It seems likely that the Dr. Light hologram that appears in the series is a Virtual Ghost — in the first game, it was possible that he simply provided pre-recorded messages, although remarkably prescient ones... but since then, the hologram has displayed knowledge that Dr. Light simply could not have had during his lifetime. This suggests he's still "alive" in some form. In fact, the end of X5 suggests that Light's hologram is capable of existing outside the capsules. In fact, the capsules in the game show that the hologram knows who Zero is (there are various explanations for this), but also who Alia is, which would be impossible for the original, living Dr. Light. In addition, he actually tells Zero early in the game that he has no knowledge of Zero's systems, so he can't upgrade him, but then states later, in a hidden capsule, that he's done some research and can now upgrade Zero. A very capable Virtual Ghost, indeed.
Mega Man Zero: X himself takes a page out of his creator Dr. Light's book, by becoming an Energy Being to serve as Zero's mentor.
 Virtual Ghost / int_ef8bd4a5
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1.0
 Virtual Ghost / int_ef8bd4a5
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1.0
 Mega Man (Franchise)
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Virtual Ghost / int_ef8bd4a5
 Virtual Ghost / int_f0ecf5db
type
Virtual Ghost
 Virtual Ghost / int_f0ecf5db
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Known as eidolons in Mindjammer and the most common form of smart AI in the Commonality, though it's generally accepted that they're not the person their initial memories came from.
 Virtual Ghost / int_f0ecf5db
featureApplicability
1.0
 Virtual Ghost / int_f0ecf5db
featureConfidence
1.0
 Mindjammer (Tabletop Game)
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Virtual Ghost / int_f0ecf5db
 Virtual Ghost / int_f27404a0
type
Virtual Ghost
 Virtual Ghost / int_f27404a0
comment
Prometheus is this in both The Conduit and Conduit 2.
 Virtual Ghost / int_f27404a0
featureApplicability
1.0
 Virtual Ghost / int_f27404a0
featureConfidence
1.0
 The Conduit (Video Game)
hasFeature
Virtual Ghost / int_f27404a0
 Virtual Ghost / int_f724b70d
type
Virtual Ghost
 Virtual Ghost / int_f724b70d
comment
Possibly Franz Hopper from Code Lyoko; his daughter Aelita was thought to be a Virtual Ghost, but is actually a digitized person who has survived for years in Cyberspace. Ulrich also spent one episode as a sort of Quantum Ghost due to his mind being accidentally separated from his virtual body.
 Virtual Ghost / int_f724b70d
featureApplicability
1.0
 Virtual Ghost / int_f724b70d
featureConfidence
1.0
 Code Lyoko
hasFeature
Virtual Ghost / int_f724b70d
 Virtual Ghost / int_f74b5f80
type
Virtual Ghost
 Virtual Ghost / int_f74b5f80
comment
Garibaldi memorably manages to destroy the world to save it from beyond the grave as a Virtual Ghost in one episode of Babylon 5 - centuries after his death no less.
 Virtual Ghost / int_f74b5f80
featureApplicability
1.0
 Virtual Ghost / int_f74b5f80
featureConfidence
1.0
 Babylon 5
hasFeature
Virtual Ghost / int_f74b5f80
 Virtual Ghost / int_f826285a
type
Virtual Ghost
 Virtual Ghost / int_f826285a
comment
In one of the Zachary Nixon Johnson novels, a AI is revealed to be a virtual ghost of its creator, who had uploaded his mind into the computer in order to escape a court-ordered lobotomy of his body.
 Virtual Ghost / int_f826285a
featureApplicability
1.0
 Virtual Ghost / int_f826285a
featureConfidence
1.0
 Zachary Nixon Johnson
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Virtual Ghost / int_f826285a
 Virtual Ghost / int_fa5e90fd
type
Virtual Ghost
 Virtual Ghost / int_fa5e90fd
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An experiment in A.I. led to this in one story arc in City of Heroes. The player aids the doctor who was murdered and uploaded her mind into the Internet destroy the machine and her killers.
 Virtual Ghost / int_fa5e90fd
featureApplicability
1.0
 Virtual Ghost / int_fa5e90fd
featureConfidence
1.0
 City of Heroes (Video Game)
hasFeature
Virtual Ghost / int_fa5e90fd
 Virtual Ghost / int_fa738078
type
Virtual Ghost
 Virtual Ghost / int_fa738078
comment
In Sailor Moon, when the Sailor Senshi are transported to the lunar ruins of the Moon Kingdom they are greeted by the virtual ghost of Queen Serenity, Sailor Moon's mother from her previous life.
 Virtual Ghost / int_fa738078
featureApplicability
1.0
 Virtual Ghost / int_fa738078
featureConfidence
1.0
 Sailor Moon (Franchise)
hasFeature
Virtual Ghost / int_fa738078
 Virtual Ghost / int_ff9ab17f
type
Virtual Ghost
 Virtual Ghost / int_ff9ab17f
comment
In the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Inheritance", Data converses with a holographic AI of his creator, Noonien Soong.
 Virtual Ghost / int_ff9ab17f
featureApplicability
1.0
 Virtual Ghost / int_ff9ab17f
featureConfidence
1.0
 Star Trek: The Next Generation
hasFeature
Virtual Ghost / int_ff9ab17f

The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.

 Virtual Ghost
processingCategory2
Cyberpunk Tropes
 Virtual Ghost
processingCategory2
Robot Roll Call
 Virtual Ghost
processingCategory2
Speculative Fiction Tropes
 After School Midnighters / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Armitage III / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Den-noh Coil / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 .hack//Quantum / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Mnemosyne / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Neo Human Casshern / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Serial Experiments Lain / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Batman: Beyond the White Knight (Comic Book) / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Druuna (Comic Book) / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Iron Man (Comic Book) / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Spitfire and the Troubleshooters (Comic Book) / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Time To Plan / Fan Fic / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 An Anomaly In The Underground (Fanfic) / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Brockton's Celestial Forge (Fanfic) / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 The Echo Ranger (Fanfic) / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 The Games We Play (The Gamer/RWBY) (Fanfic) / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 The New Man: An Adam Smasher SI (Fanfic) / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 World War Etheria (Fanfic) / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Batman & Robin / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Ghost in the Machine / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Johnny Mnemonic / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Man of Steel / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Shin Kamen Rider (2023) / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Superman: The Movie / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 TheGhostInTheMachine
seeAlso
Virtual Ghost
 2010: The Year We Make Contact / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Halo (Franchise) / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 A Memory Called Empire / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Babel-17 / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Daemon / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 .hack//AI Buster / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Manifold: Space / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Manifold: Time / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Neuromancer / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Ready Player Two / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Safehold / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Shade's Children / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Sprawl Trilogy / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 The Interdependency / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 The Night's Dawn Trilogy / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Wizja Lokalna / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Xeelee Sequence / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 HamishX
seeAlso
Virtual Ghost
 IntangibleMan
seeAlso
Virtual Ghost
 ShadesChildren
seeAlso
Virtual Ghost
 TheInterferenceLegends
seeAlso
Virtual Ghost
 20th Century Boys (Manga) / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Hideto Matsumoto (Music) / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 X Japan (Music) / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Adventures in Odyssey (Radio) / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Caprica / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Eureka / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Fringe / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Good Eats / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 La Femme Nikita / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 RoboCop: The Series / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Super Force / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Eclipse Phase (Tabletop Game) / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Gramarie System (Tabletop Game) / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Mindjammer (Tabletop Game) / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Mutant Chronicles (Tabletop Game) / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Nova Praxis (Tabletop Game) / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Numenera (Tabletop Game) / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Red Dwarf (Tabletop Game) / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Shadowrun (Tabletop Game) / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Stars Without Number (Tabletop Game) / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 ANNO: Mutationem (Video Game) / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Alter A.I.L.A. (Video Game) / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Anachronox (Video Game) / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Deliver Us the Moon (Video Game) / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Digimon World (Video Game) / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Fable III (Video Game) / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Fuga: Melodies of Steel 2 (Video Game) / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Gamedec (Video Game) / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Glowgrass (Video Game) / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream (Video Game) / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Legionwood (Video Game) / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Metal Walker (Video Game) / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Paradise Killer (Video Game) / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Perfect Dark (Video Game) / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Ripper (Video Game) / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri (Video Game) / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Tales from the Borderlands (Video Game) / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 The Conduit (Video Game) / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Virtua Quest (Video Game) / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Whispers of a Machine (Video Game) / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Robotics;Notes (Visual Novel) / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Soranica Ele (Visual Novel) / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 How It Should Have Ended (Web Animation) / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Batman and Superman: Battle of the Super Sons / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Batman Beyond / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Code Lyoko / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Pantheon / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Spicy City / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost
 Dennou Coil / int_4abc2ca9
type
Virtual Ghost