History Main / CorruptedData

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* In [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fVZ3edfV8s&feature=youtu.be&t=1h29m15s the climax]] of the British detective dramedy ''Film/TheHouseInNightmarePark'' (1973), the hero, detective Foster, is confronted by NotQuiteDead Verity pointing a gun at him. She demands [[MacGuffin the diamonds]] and he unwraps the package, throwing the covering paper into the fire. However, the document inside reveals the covering paper was actually the map to the diamonds hidden in the estate, by the time they realize the map is already burned away. The film ends with a camera shot [[FlyAwayShot moving away from Foster]] as he starts to dig in the large grounds outside the house to find the diamonds.

* ''Series/StarTrekVoyager''. In Season 4, Voyager is able to make use of a LostTechnology communication network to briefly make contact with Earth. The network is destroyed, but they're able to receive a communication package containing mail from home and a lengthy encrypted message from Starfleet, which unfortunately has become damaged due to being relayed over thousands of light years, so they can't decode it until they get the help of an alien translation expert. [[spoiler:He reveals it's directions to a Starfleet experimental vessel that's been sent to them on autopilot. Janeway however suspects this is TooGoodToBeTrue, and is able to use the translator's work to decode the message herself. Turns out the Starfleet message is just an InfoDump of maps and other data on the Delta Quadrant, and the alien is luring them into a trap.]]

* In ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamOrigins'' the opening level has Batman finding a smashed surveillance drone. He retrieves the memory chip from the wreckage, but finds that it's badly damaged. He takes it back to the Batcave to restore it, when allows him to find out about the 50 million dollar bounty and the eight assassins coming after him.

* ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic'': Several cases. One is where sabotage on the part of an angry wife leaves her philandering husband stranded in the Tatooine desert. Your call as to whether or not you fix his droids or [[StuffBlowingUp "fix"]] his droids. The other notable case is when using T3-M4 to stage the breakout. The Sith droid tries a memory wipe and T3-M4 uses the opening to corrupt the other droid's data.
* ''VideoGame/{{Marathon}}'': Various Terminal messages.

* In ''[[VideoGame/SuperAmazingWagonAdventure Super Amazing Wagon Adventure]]'', a random event in the great plains will cause the game to pretend to glitch out, starting with upside-down buffalo, possibly leading to giant upside-down buffalo, and culminating in a fight against a mass of random sprites against a background similar to TV static. Upon defeating the glitch, the game will pretend to reboot, and you will unlock a glitched wagon.
* ''[[VideoGame/TronTwoPointOh Tron 2.0]]'': This trope is encountered all over the place. Virus-infected Z-Lots will have garbled names. Attacking with a certain weapon will cause the Program to convulse and stammer error messages. If a virus infects Jet's [[StatOVision Profiler subroutine]], then the input for enemy names and stats are garbled. Considering the universe we're dealing with, all of it is perfectly Justified.

* ''LightNovel/SwordArtOnline'': Depending on how you look at it, how Kirito lost nearly all of his Aincrad items or how he kept his stats and one particularly important item when he started ALO. Also, why he [[spoiler: happened to meet Leafa, of all people, when starting ALO.]]

* Multiple incidences in ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'' entries including [[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-586 SCP-586]].

* ''Anime/GarakowaRestoreTheWorld'': This is the true identity of [[spoiler: the 'computer viruses'. They are the fragmented information of deleted backup data. Since Mother considered them flawed, she had them deleted and then flagged their remnants for the Wisdom Box's antivirus software.]]

* In [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fVZ3edfV8s&feature=youtu.be&t=1h29m15s the climax]] of the British detective dramedy ''Film/TheHouseInNightmarePark'' (1973), the movies the hero detective Foster is confronted by NotQuiteDead Verity pointing a gun at him. She demands [[MacGuffin the diamonds]] and he unwraps the package, throwing the covering paper into the fire. However, the document inside reveals the covering paper was actually the map to the diamonds hidden in the estate, by the time they realize the map is already burned away. The film ends with a camera shot [[FlyAwayShot moving away from Foster]] as he starts to dig in the large grounds outside the house to find the diamonds.

* ''[[VideoGame/TronTwoPointOh Tron 2.0]]'': This trope is encountered all over the place. Virus-infected Z-Lots will have garbled names. Attacking with a certain weapon will cause the Program to convulse and stammer error messages. If a virus infects Jet's [[StatOVision Profiler subroutine]], then the input for enemy names and stats are garbled. Considering the universe we're dealing with, all of it is perfectly Justified.

* ''VideoGame/{{Marathon}}'': Various Terminal messages.
* In ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamOrigins'' the opening level has Batman finding a smashed surveillance drone. He retrieves the memory chip from the wreckage, but finds that it's badly damaged. He takes it back to the Batcave to restore it, when allows him to find out about the 50 million dollar bounty and the eight assassins coming after him.

* All over the place in ''VideoGame/AlienIsolation'', as the Sevastopol station has been thoroughly damaged ever since the Xenomorph started running amok, causing most of its computer and maintenance systems' files to be corrupted. Also, Amanda's goal in the game, her mother Ellen's flight recorder, has corrupted data that must be restored before Amanda can learn what happened to her.
* In ''VideoGame/TheSpectrumRetreat'', one of Worrall's logs mentions that following some sort of scandal, all of Spectrum's logs have been corrupted or wiped out, meaning the company has no idea [[spoiler:who's in their retreats.]]

* ''Webcomic/{{Galaxion}}'' has [[JurisdictionFriction two major organisations]] that work in space, using different encryption protocols. So when out [=TerSA=] heroes find an IP crashsite, there's no way to read the logs.

While many of the things shown to corrupt data in fiction are capable of doing so (viruses might be designed to corrupt a file or may do so by accident while copying themselves into one, damage to storage media obviously risks damaging the data on it, etc) most corruption tends to be the result of a computer malfunction (such as the write head of a Hard Drive miswriting the data to its disc, or a poor Internet connection causing data to be wrongly transmitted) or user error (such as yanking out a USB drive while it's being written to[[note]][[AndKnowingIsHalfTheBattle Always eject your drives before unplugging them, kiddies.]][[/note]]). Many data storage devices are designed to prevent this sort of thing through a number of techniques. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_corruption Read more about it]] on Wiki/TheOtherWiki.

* In [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fVZ3edfV8s&feature=youtu.be&t=1h29m15s the climax]] of the British detective dramedy ''The House in Nightmare Park'' (1973), the movies the hero detective Foster is confronted by NotQuiteDead Verity pointing a gun at him. She demands [[MacGuffin the diamonds]] and he unwraps the package, throwing the covering paper into the fire. However, the document inside reveals the covering paper was actually the map to the diamonds hidden in the estate, by the time they realize the map is already burned away. The film ends with a camera shot [[FlyAwayShot moving away from Foster]] as he starts to dig in the large grounds outside the house to find the diamonds.

* Several items in ''VideoGame/TheBindingOfIsaac'' look like they have glitched textures, some of them looking like [[GlitchEntity Glitch Entities]]. Many of these items have very random effects. Killing [[spoiler:Delirium as Tainted Eden]] unlocks the "Corrupted Data" achievement, which makes Secret Room sometimes spawn a "glitched" item[[note]]It's a completely randomized item with 2-3 effects of other items and a random trigger condition or item charge.[[/note]], which have garbled textures and text. Picking up TMTRAINER basically "corrupts" the game, making ''every'' future item a randomly generated "glitched" item.

* Corrupted data is used to [[PlayingThePlayer mess with the player]] in ''VisualNovel/DokiDokiLiteratureClub''. [[spoiler:Monika is a FourthWallObserver who had MediumAwareness... and also happens to be [[{{Yandere}} insane and in love with the player]] (not the PlayerCharacter; the person playing the game).]] As such, {{Love Interest}}s may end up deleted, corrupt or defunct images may pop up at random, and frequent broken strings of characters appear to highlight everything going way off the rails.

* In one issue of ''ComicBook/SonicTheHedgehog'', Shadow retrieves a disk that contains files from Gerald Robotnik about his true purpose. However, the disk is damaged by a Badnik attack and the thing was already 50 years old, so it was starting to decay badly. NICOLE is able to rebuild it enough for Shadow to get his answers, though.

A sub-trope of LostInTransmission, where crucial information is corrupted, whether by a virus or other means.

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

[[folder:Comic Book]]

[[folder:Live Action TV]]

[[folder:Tabletop RPG]]

[[folder:Webcomics]]

* ''KnightsOfTheOldRepublic'': Several cases. One is where sabotage on the part of an angry wife leaves her philandering husband stranded in the Tatooine desert. Your call as to whether or not you fix his droids or [[StuffBlowingUp "fix"]] his droids. The other notable case is when using T3-M4 to stage the breakout. The Sith droid tries a memory wipe and T3-M4 uses the opening to corrupt the other droid's data.

* ''AudioPlay/BigFinishDoctorWho'': In [[Recap/BigFinishDoctorWho094ID "I.D."]], the Scandroids have been infected with CorruptedData and when they interact with each other they too become corrupt.

* In ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamOrigins'' the opening level has Batman finding a smashed surveilance drone. He retrieves the memory chip from the wreckage, but finds that it's badly damaged. He takes it back to the Batcave to restore it, when allows him to find out about the 50 million dollar bounty and the eight assassins coming after him.

* All over the place in ''VideoGame/AlienIsolation'', as the Sevastro station has been thoroughly damaged ever since the Xenomorph started running amok, causing most of its computer and maintenance systems' files to be corrupted. Also, Amanda's goal in the game, her mother Ellen's flight recorder, has corrupted data that must be restored before Amanda can learn what happened to her.

While many of the things shown to corrupt data in fiction are capable of doing so (viruses might be designed to corrupt a file or may do so by accident while copying themselves into one, damage to storage media obviously risks damaging the data on it, etc) most corruption tends to be the result of a computer malfunction (such as the write head of a Hard Drive miswriting the data to its disc, or a poor Internet connection causing data to be wrongly transmitted) or user error (such as yanking out a USB drive while it's being written to[[note]][[AndKnowingIsHalfTheBattle Always eject your drives before unplugging them, kiddies.]][[/note]]). Many data storage devices are designed to prevent this sort of thing through a number of techniques. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_corruption Read more about it]] on TheOtherWiki.

* ''{{Traveller}} - The New Era'': One of the side effects of infestation by the Virus was a corruption of information transmission, such as Traveller News Service bulletins in ''{{Traveller}}'' products being replaced by random characters. One of the signs that the Virus had been defeated was Traveller News Service bulletins becoming partially and then fully readable again.

* ''Series/StarTrekVoyager''. In Season 4, Voyager is able to make use of a LostTechnology communication network to briefly make contact with Earth. The network is destroyed, but they're able to receive a communication package containing mail from home and a lengthy encrypted message from Starfleet, which unfortunately has become damaged due to being relayed over thousands of light years, so they can't decode it until they get the help of an alien translation expert. [[spoiler:He reveals it's directions to a Starfleet experimental vessel that's been sent to them on autopilot. Janeway however suspects this is too good to be true, and is able to use the translator's work to decode the message herself. Turns out the Starfleet message is just an InfoDump of maps and other data on the Delta Quadrant, and the alien is luring them into a trap.]]