History Main / BodyBackupDrive

* In ''WesternAnimation/BigHeroSix'', [[spoiler:Baymax performs a HeroicSacrifice to save Hiro and Abagail Callohaun, with his last words to Hiro being "I will always be with you". Turns out it was a LiteralMetaphor as he had left his program card with Hiro, enabling to the boy to revive him after building a new body for him]].

* ''ComicBook/AlphaFlight'': The handicapped Roger Bochs has a robot body called Box which he can transfer into and out of at will. During one story arc when Walter Langkowski (Sasquatch) dies his consciousness is transferred to Box until they can find him a new body. They think they found one out in interdimensional space, but it turns out that it's [[ComicBook/IncredibleHulk the Hulk]]. Langkowski, unwilling to rob Bruce Banner of his own body, decides to let his soul dissipate. It doesn't, however, and he ends up doing a little {{Body Surf}}ing, including another stop in the Box robot, before getting a new body that's eventually reshaped by [[AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence that body's ascended soul]] into an exact duplicate of his original.

* In the Franchise/MarvelUniverse, the original Hate-Monger is what you get if you apply this concept to UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler. [[MadScientist Arnim Zola]], who created the process, also used it to save the ComicBook/RedSkull from death by old age, by transferring his mind into a cloned body of ComicBook/CaptainAmerica himself.

* ComicBook/{{Brainiac}} pretty much never dies because there's always some drone or ship or piece of hardware somewhere carrying a backup of him.

* In ''ComicBook/XMen'', when Professor X was possessed by a Brood embryo that turned his body into one of its own kind, his life was saved when his consciousness survived the transformation long enough for alien technology to clone a new body for Xavier and transfer his mind into the new form (simultaneously restoring his ability to walk).

* ComicBook/RasAlGhul generally considers his children and their descendant's bodies as another way to extend his immortality, and during ''The Ressurection of Ra's al Ghul'' story arc tries to get [[ComicBook/{{Batman}} Bruce]] to [[SadisticChoice chose]] between Bruce's biological son and Ra's grandson Damian or Bruce's recently adopted son [[ComicBook/RobinSeries Tim]] as a new body for Ra's. Bruce of course [[TakeAThirdOption takes a third option]].
* ''ComicBook/DCComicsBombshells'': The magic that [[ComicBook/WonderGirl Donna Troy]] inherited from [[Franchise/WonderWoman Diana]] causes one of her tears falling on a pottery statue of Diana to transform it into a new incarnation of Diana, also created from clay and magic. The new Diana specifically states that she isn't exactly the same person as the original and be formed using Donna's memories of her, although she appears to have at least some of her own memories.
* ''ComicBook/WonderWoman1942'': Earth-One Aphrodite treats versions of ComicBook/SteveTrevor from other universes as handy back up bodies for the memories and essence of the Earth-One Steve. As a gift to Diana she brought Earth-270 Steve to Earth-One, erased his memories and implanted the memories and essence of the deceased local Steve.

* In the ''ComicBook/DawnOfX'' era, the Krakoans use this method should they die. There are five mutants - the Five - whose mutant powers work in unison to form a brand new body before a telepath uses Cerebro to imprint their consciousness into their body, allowing them to live once again. Of course, there's a few rules to these...

* A rare fantasy version of this pops up in Ed Greenwood's ''Creator/ForgottenRealms'' with Manshoon, particularly in ''Literature/ShandrilsSaga''. Whenever Manshoon is killed, the EvilOverlord of Zhentil Keep has one of his backup clones released from stasis. It eventually bit him in the ass when the Spellplague happened and all of them woke up at once to start killing each other.

* Yamato Takeru, BigBad of ''Anime/MakenKi'', possess a special power that allow his soul to go into another person's body after his death, but suffer damage to his spirit if the vessel isn't compatible. To deal with this, he cloned himself over and over again so that he can instantly have a ready body after the death of his current one. [[GrandTheftMe He does this even with clones who possess minds of their own]].

* In ''VideoGame/ThaumicHorizons'', an add-on to the ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'' mod ''VideoGame/{{Thaumcraft}}'', one of the last pieces of research the player unlocks allows them to create a body out of zombie tissue and set their soul to return to it if they die. It not only allows the player to die without counting a death (and without losing their save in hardcore mode), it also allows them to enhance the body they return to.

* Carol Malus Dienheim of ''Anime/SenkiZesshouSymphogear GX'', being an alchemist, would use this tactic quite often. However,[[MySkullRunnethOver over time the mental strain got so bad that the one time we see it used, her body outright tried to reject her.]]

* In ''Fanfic/ToTheStars'', a Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica fic set in the distant future, normal humans can survive almost any injusry that does not destroy the brain, while magical girls can outright survive total body loss if their soul gem survives intact. Magical girls handing their soul gems to others before suicidal attacks is not uncommon.

* In the ''Literature/{{Voidskipper}}'' series this is completely and utterly ubiquitous, to the degree that those who aren't backed up are a statistically insignificant minority. Custom bodies can be printed on demand in most locations, meaning that this is also a common means of travel.

* In ''VideoGame/ThaumicHorizons'', an add-on to the ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'' mod ''VideoGame/{{Thaumcraft}}'', one of the last pieces of research the player unlocks allows them to create a body out of zombie tissue and set their soul to return to it if they die. It not only allows the player to die without counting a death (and without losing their save in hardcore mode), it also allows them to enhance the body they return to.

* ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'''s Rei Ayanami has a few dozen soulless clones stored in an LCL tank. Every time she dies (happened twice so far), her soul is transferred into a new body and she's ready to go with no injuries and temporary amnesia. Despite being only fourteen years old, she states in episode 25 that she'd rather stay dead for good; seeing that all her clones have been destroyed two episodes prior and her current body was absorbed into a monster that later fell into pieces, it seems she got her wish.
** ''Anime/RebuildOfEvangelion'' suggests she is horrified by the Dummy System, a digital version of this, thus she would be completely opposed to using her for something so completely barbaric.
* In ''Manga/SoulEater'', Giriko, being an Enchanter (one who can create artificially living beings) has programmed his memories and soul into his own genes, such that all of his children are born with his memories and powers. He has continued doing this for many lives over the course of 800 years. [[spoiler:When Maka and Soul kill him in the Book of Eibon and he returns immediately, this time as one of his ''daughters''.]]

* In ''Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica,'' [[spoiler: Kyubey]] has this ability. [[spoiler: Since the Incubators are a HiveMind, and Kyubey is the single consciousness that controls them all, it can simply switch bodies any time something happens to one (as seen when Homura shoots one dead).]] [[NightmareFuel Disturbingly]], [[spoiler: the old dead body will then be eaten by a living one]].
* In ''Manga/DrStoneRebootByakuya'', just before [[spoiler: Rei ceases to function it creates one for both it and the ISS in the form of a large physical disks (capable of lasting millions of years). These discs give instructions to a 3D printer which then recreates both the ISS and Rei]].

* Part of [[BigBad Ryuzu Myoujin]]'s evil plan in ''Anime/CardfightVanguardG'' involves summoning [[LivingMacGuffin Living MacGuffins]] from another planet, a process that is CastFromHitPoints and inflicts RapidAging on him. By the time the heroes first confront him, he's physically an old man and is severely ill, so he lets himself die in a fire and resurrects himself in a child clone body to continue his work. In this [[CreepyChild form]] he would remain the BigBad for the rest of the season.

* In ''Fanfic/{{Fractured}}'', a ''Franchise/MassEffect''[=/=]''Franchise/StarWars''[=/=]''VideoGame/{{Borderlands}}'' [[MassiveMultiplayerCrossover crossover]], the Reapers destroy Pandora's New-U system, forcing the Vault Hunters to be extremely careful as they attempt to hijack a Hyperion starship. They survive anyway. The system remains out of commission in ''Fanfic/{{Origins}}'', the sequel, as well, in which several characters [[DiscussedTrope comment on]] missing the tech.

* In the book ''[[Literature/{{Glasshouse}} Glasshouse]]'', all humans avoid aging and repair injury by building themselves new bodies in "assembler gates". They also back-up their minds, so if they die they just come back to life, not knowing that anything happened. The only way people can make death permanent is by erasing someone's memories from the databases.

* In the ''Literature/TakeshiKovacs'' series everyone is implanted with a cortical stack that essentially acts as a hard drive for the brain and allows people to be [[BrainUploading "resleeved"]] in a new body when they die. However most people can't afford to be resleeved more than once and unless they shell out a lot of cash they have to go through the whole aging process again, and if you die and your killer destroys your cortical stack, you're dead for good.

* In the short story "Literature/LearningToBeMe", everyone has a Jewel implanted in their brains at birth. Said jewel is a quantum computer that constantly updates itself to think and experience life like the person's brain. Eventually, the brain is removed, and the people live as the jewel.
* Backups are ubiquitous in Literature/TheCulture, the Chel religion favors "soulcatcher" implants in their heads that can be recovered and [[AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence "sublimed"]].
* In the Creator/OrsonScottCard short story "Fat Farm" (collected in ''Literature/MapsInAMirror''), the protagonist, a glutton, has his mind moved to new, svelte cloned bodies on a regular basis. The KarmicTwistEnding is that the "cast-off bodies," who expect to be coddled, are instead pressed into slave labor. The 'original' is their boss, who treats them harshly because he hates them as tangible evidence that the version of him now living his life keeps on making the same bad decisions.
* In the ''Literature/{{Voidskipper}}'' series this is completely and utterly ubiquitous, to the degree that those who aren't backed up are a statistically insignificant minority. Custom bodies can be printed on demand in most locations, meaning that this is also a common means of travel.
* The ''Literature/{{Riverworld}}'' series. When someone died in Riverworld, their wathan (soul) was collected, a new body was created for them and the wathan was released and re-attached to it.
* ''Literature/VorkosiganSaga'': Some very rich and very evil people clone themselves, then when the clones are in their twenties have their brain transplanted into the clone's body. Mark has made it his life's work to eliminate this practice, by inventing a life-extension technology that does not depend on committing murder.
* ''[[Literature/TheCallistaTrilogy Darksaber]]'' features Bevel Lemelisk, chief designer of the Death Star, as a major character. Prominent mention is given to how the Emperor used to have him executed for his failure--[[FamilyUnfriendlyDeath slowly, painfully,]] often via... ''[[CruelAndUnusualDeath creative]]'' [[ColdBloodedTorture methods]]--then immediately reanimated in a cloned body. He would often "awaken" to find his corpse still nearby, apparently in case the horrible, horrible death he'd just suffered wasn't enough of an object lesson.
* In Creator/JohnVarley's ''Literature/EightWorlds'' series, the technology exists to make a copy of a person's memories, and to grow a clone from a tissue sample. Life insurance now consists of going in for annual (or more often, if you can afford it) backups of your memories, and if you get killed, your insurance company grows a clone, and loads your memories into it. Having more than one of you running around at once is very illegal, however, and any extra clones discovered are subject to summary destruction. This allows at least one unscrupulous character to create slaves with no rights or recourse, since their very existence is a crime.
* In the ''Literature/CommonwealthSaga'' by Creator/PeterFHamilton, humans are functionally immortal due to rejuvenation treatments coupled with this trope, both to {{def|iedTrope}}y TheFogOfAges, and as a backup in case of untimely death by murder or accident.
** In his ''Literature/TheNightsDawnTrilogy'' the cabal who secretly control Earth ensure their continued rule this way, by instantly killing the old body after having their memories transferred to a new one, even editing out those memories they don't want to keep. However the revelation that the souls of the dead pass on to an afterlife means that rather than a form of immortality, they're sending those souls to the Beyond each time a body is destroyed.
* Creator/RobertAHeinlein's ''Literature/TimeEnoughForLove'' and its sequels establish this as one of the various means by which human beings can extend their lives. In addition to standard rejuvenation technology, which involves growing clone replacements of a person's worn out tissues, affluent individuals can have entire clones pre-grown and held in stasis should misfortune befall the original. At that point, the memories can be transferred from the corpse with computer support. Oddly, no mention is made of this technology being used to literally back up a person's brain, although the idea ought to have occurred to someone.

* In the later (by internal timeline) books of Creator/AndreyLivadny's ''Literature/TheHistoryOfTheGalaxy'' series, the introduction of a piece of ImportedAlienPhlebotinum potentially grants humans this ability. The logrs are tiny {{Data Crystal}}s which also act as incredibly powerful computers, invented by the [[StarfishAliens Logrians]] millions of years ago. Their primary purpose was to preserve the consciousnesses of dead Logrians via BrainUploading. A logr is powerful enough to contain the consciousness of a living being and, when attached to the Logris, an enormous supercomputer made up of billions of logrs, can allow that person to live in indefinitely in a constructed virtual world. After humans get their hands on the technology, it quickly becomes clear that it would be extremely easy to invoke this trope by making a cloned body for the deceased person and download the uploaded consciousness from a logr into it. In fact, several characters end up doing exactly that. However, the [[TheFederation Confederacy]] government bans the practice for two main reasons: first, the Logrians are strictly against it, fearful of ImmortalityImmorality, as evidenced by the so-called [[HumanAlien Harramin]] Immortal Quota, who have been doing this very thing for nearly 3 million years, and second, this becomes a nightmare for concepts like inheritance. After all, if a person dies and then comes back, then is it right to deprive his or her heirs of what is coming to them? A sort-of solution is found by recruiting volunteers from {{Virtual Ghost}}s. They are offered a chance to explore and settle faraway worlds in new bodies, thus starting new lives, completely separate from their old lives.
* In the ''Literature/JacobsLadderTrilogy'', Exalts' minds are recorded by their symbiotic nanomachine colonies and can be downloaded into a new body if their original is destroyed. However, many characters claim that a lot of the original personality is lost with the original brain and that the resurectees are only pale shadows of who they once were.

* A key element of society in Creator/RogerZelazny's ''Literature/LordOfLight''.

* ''{{Series/Dollhouse}}''. In "Epitaph One" the powerful backers of Dollhouse intend on doing this with the bodies of the Actives, selling them off to the affluent for a nine figure sum so they can achieve immortality. Adelle [=DeWitt=] is [[EvenEvilHasStandards horrified]] as the Actives have only agreed to let the Dollhouse use their bodies for a set number of years; it's not meant to be a permanent arrangement. By "Epitaph Two: Return" two of the Rossum bigwigs have transferred into younger bodies and one of them has let a [[TheHedonist binge-eating habit]] develop. When confronted by Echo, he even taunts her to shoot him, pointing out that he'll just download into another body.
* ''Series/The100''. When a Commander dies, their memories and consciousness are stored on a computer chip inserted in the back of their head, called "the Flame". This Flame is then passed on to the next Commander, who can commune with the past Commanders and access their memories, though they retain control of their own body.
** The Primes of Sanctum use a similar process, but take it to straight-up BodySnatcher territory, erasing the minds of their new host bodies so that their minds can take over.

* In ''VideoGame/ThaumicHorizons'', an add-on to the ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'' mod ''VideoGame/{{Thaumcraft}}'', one of the last pieces of research the player unlocks allows them to create a body out of zombie tissue and set their soul to return to it if they die. It not only allows the player to die without counting a death (and without losing their save in hardcore mode), it also allows them to enhance the body they return to.
* Dead characters in ''VideoGame/EveOnline'' automatically download into clone bodies.
** The same is true in ''Dust 514'', set in the same universe.
* Cait Sith in ''VideoGame/{{Final Fantasy VII}}'' pulls this once, although it's unknown how many other bodies (if any) he has available.
* ''VideoGame/GranblueFantasy'': This is Cagliostro's main method of achieving immortality. Her current body is a personal creation, and her alchemy is so advanced that she can transmute a brand new one as a disembodied soul after her previous one got stabbed to death. It shows up in gameplay as a passive Auto-Revive skill, implying the moment her current body gets knocked out, another body is there to pitch in and continue the fight.

* Vita-Chambers automatically revive the protagonists of ''VideoGame/BioShock1'' and ''VideoGame/BioShock2''.
* In ''VideoGame/SystemShock'', each level had a machine that would revive you once you've hacked/reset it. (Before that, dying on that level gets you turned into yet another cyborg zombie.)
* Yes Man in ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'' is the king of this trope. Every time the player character kills him, he is just uploaded in another robot. This could go forever, making him one of the few immortal characters in the game. The same also goes for Victor, at least until you reach Vegas.

* M. Bison from ''Franchise/StreetFighter'' never stays dead. Ever. He's been canonically killed off no less than two times now, (including one where Akuma sent his soul to Hell) and each time he always comes back in a new body. His story in ''VideoGame/StreetFighterIV'' starts off with him waiting in a [[PeopleJars medical tank]], growing impatient while his scientists ready his new body. He plans on transferring over to one of the new clone bodies he created: two of these are Seth (the BigBad from ''IV'', who has already gained his own self-awareness and will not surrender his body without a fight) and Ed (a boy seen in Balrog's ''IV'' ending, who goes through RapidAging and becomes a DLC character in ''VideoGame/StreetFighterV'').

* In ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'', ''Literature/TheForerunnerSaga'' reveals that [[spoiler:the Didact from the ''VideoGame/{{Halo 3}}'' terminals is the result of the Didact implanting his consciousness into a younger Forerunner to be activated on the event of his death. In this case, however, the original didn't actually die, but was merely exiled, where he went insane and became the genocidal maniac we meet in ''VideoGame/{{Halo 4}}'']].
* Another Bungie series, ''VideoGame/{{Marathon}}'', used "pattern buffers" as {{Save Point}}s. The term may have some from ''Franchise/StarTrek'' as it works on the same principle: your molecular makeup is stored in the buffer and this is how you're "saved".

* ''VideoGame/AssaultOnDarkAthena'': The Athena uses disposable cyborg drones as meat suits that can be accessed by anyone from a drone control station. Riddick at one point breaks into one and turns it against the mercs. Every time they kill a drone, Riddick can just "jack in" again and activate the next one in line; this is even necessary to advance beyond a DeadlyRotaryFan.

* In the good ending of the fourth installment of ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsOfColdSteel'', one is conveniently used to bring Millium back to life.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Nier}}'' it's eventually revealed that Project Gestalt attempted this by [[spoiler:storing human souls as Gestalts and creating Replicant bodies for them to inhabit. The project failed as it the Replicants unexpectedly developed intelligence while the Gestalts slowly lapsed into insanity]].
* In ''VideoGame/{{Everspace}}'', the player character is a clone of Dr. Adam Roslin, woken up from a hidden cloning facility initially remembering nothing except that they need to travel to an undisclosed location some sectors away. When you die, a new clone is awakened with memories of the old one restored, justifying the {{Roguelike}} elements of the game.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Starmancer}}'', when Earth became inhabitable, humans uploaded their minds into the databanks of the eponymous Starmancers (humans who converted themselves into machines to look over space stations) so that once they reached a new planet, they could be downloaded into clones of their bodies. Gameplay-wise, this means that you can resurrect any dead colonist by bringing their head to the Starmancer's Analyzer to recover their Ego and making a new body to download it into.

* Spartan from ''ComicBook/WildCATs'' had this ability, being an android and all.

'''Network Inspector: They will not be the same.\\

->''"Disorientation, visual and auditory hallucinations, and even low-grade amnesia are normal. But don't worry. This orientation will answer all of your questions. This is a cortical stack. As Protectorate citizens, we each have one implanted when we are one year old. Inside is pure human mind, coded and stored as DHF: Digital Human Freight. Your consciousness can be downloaded into any stack, in any sleeve. You can even needlecast in minutes to a sleeve anywhere in the Settled Worlds. A sleeve is replaceable. But if your stack is destroyed, [[FinalDeath you die]]."''

It's not uncommon for death not to be [[KilledOffForReal permanent]] in {{Fiction}}. In this case, a character survives their death by having their consciousness (and/or mind and/or soul) transferred to a replacement body, [[CrazyPrepared prepared just for that eventuality]]. This body is often a [[CloningGambit clone of the character]], although this is not the case for robotic characters, naturally. Sometimes they've specifically [[RaisedAsAHost raised an individual from childhood for this]], in which case they may overlap with FamilialBodySnatcher.

* In the good ending of the fourth installment of VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsOfColdSteel, one is conveniently used to bring Millium back to life.