History Main / CyberneticsEatYourSoul

* ''ComicBook/GlobalFrequency'': The "Big Wheel" issue has a half-dead soldier who's been basically turned into a walking killing machine by cybernetic alterations. [[CombatSadomasochist Killing gives him sexual pleasure]] -- this was ''hard-wired in''. Then he saw his reflection and decided to live up to the role. One of the members of the team sent to kill him before he could spread his killing spree is a partial cyborg who emphasizes to her teammates the BodyHorror inherent even in just the grinding, inhuman feel of an artificial arm (and the anchoring necessary to keep it from ripping off her shoulder). The arm disgusts her -- she looks in the mirror every day and vomits because of that thing. TheGovernment, being TooDumbToLive, they provide all the RequiredSecondaryPowers to keep their {{Super Soldier}}s alive, but they don't give a damn about keeping them ''sane''. Their "enhancile" can't even speak normally. [[AndIMustScream And He Must Scream.]]

* In ''Film/SpiderMan2'', Dr. Otto Octavius programs limited artificial intelligence into his trademark robotic tentacles in order for them to be able to work together more efficiently, and installs a RestrainingBolt to make sure he could control the arms, but not vice versa. [[JustifiedTrope He is driven to madness by feedback ("voices") from the arms after a lab accident destroys the chip]], and becomes obsessed with finishing his failed experiment at any cost. There is also the implication that the arms are [[DownplayedTrope merely encouraging his worst impulses and desires.]]

* ''ComicBook/AllStarSquadron'''s Robotman, who in the main series struggles with maintaining his humanity while being a brain placed inside a robotic body, eventually loses his humanity after the war ended in ''[[ComicBook/TheGoldenAge JSA: The Golden Age]]''. In mainstream DC continuity, his brain was planted into the preserved body of his associate Chuck Grayson years later, making him human again.
* ComicBook/{{Deathlok}} got revived as a cyborg to be used as a soldier. He's now stuck with a computer linked to his brain that is constantly encouraging him to be a cold-blooded pragmatist instead of a decent human being, and it's a constant struggle of wills for him to override it. His daughter Death Locket, from ''ComicBook/AvengersArena'', is a subversion. She usually has complete control, but technopaths are able to shut down her human half and control her via her cybernetics.
* ''ComicBook/DoomPatrol'''s Robotman is a different person than the ''ComicBook/AllStarSquadron'' character but with similar issues, and once checks himself into a mental hospital as a result. Despite this, he is often the sanest and most level-headed member of the team. As the team is a DysfunctionJunction, that isn't very difficult.
* The "Big Wheel" issue of ''ComicBook/GlobalFrequency'' has a half-dead soldier who's been basically turned into a walking killing machine by cybernetic alterations. [[CombatSadomasochist Killing gives him sexual pleasure]] -- this was ''hard-wired in''. Then he saw his reflection and decided to live up to the role. One of the members of the team sent to kill him before he could spread his killing spree is a partial cyborg who emphasizes to her teammates the BodyHorror inherent even in just the grinding, inhuman feel of an artificial arm (and the anchoring necessary to keep it from ripping off her shoulder). The arm disgusts her -- she looks in the mirror every day and vomits because of that thing. TheGovernment, being TooDumbToLive, they provide all the RequiredSecondaryPowers to keep their {{Super Soldier}}s alive, but they don't give a damn about keeping them ''sane''. Their "enhancile" can't even speak normally. [[AndIMustScream And He Must Scream.]]

* In the Acclaim version of ''ComicBook/MagnusRobotFighter'', Hart Whitcraft is afraid of this happening after receiving an artificial heart. [[spoiler:The series, and entire line, ends before we can find out.]]
* The world of ''ComicBook/{{Mosely}}'' has people with cybernetic upgrades to the point of having little kids having superpowerful upgrades.
* In ''ComicBook/NobleCauses'', Rusty Noble's body was horribly mangled in an accident, and his brain was transferred into a robotic body. He struggled with his humanity for years, and eventually seemed to just give up; he started talking in a robotic monotone, and with clipped, clinical sentences. His own father didn't know how to talk to him anymore. [[spoiler:Turns out he was faking -- this started after a prison term and a difficult breakup. He decided to hide his emotions by pretending he didn't have any, but on the inside he was feeling more depressed than ever. He never lost his humanity but he ''wished'' he had.]]
* ''ComicBook/RomSpaceKnight'' subverts the trope, being an extremely human and noble character despite looking like a walking suit of armor -- but he ''fears'' this happening, and he [[BodyHorror loathes his metallic shell.]] Played with when his girlfriend Brandy becomes a Spaceknight as well -- at first her personality is unaffected, but when [[spoiler:[[DoomedHometown her entire home town is murdered by the Wraiths]]]], she succumbs to a state that Rom says he has seen in Spaceknights before: an overwhelming hatred that ''physically changes'' her armor to look more vicious, and she remains a cold-hearted killer until [[spoiler:she's removed from the armor and becomes human again]].
* Zig-zagged in ''ComicBook/SonicTheHedgehogArchieComics''; the roboticization process used by Dr. Robotnik/Eggman normally results in a loss of free will, while the cybernetic enhancements of the Dark Legion actually ''don't'' result in a significant change of personality (though it's still considered by the mainstream public to be "unnatural"), and their status as "evil" is more from their methods of fighting for their right to continue their lifestyle, than the lifestyle itself. "Legionization" (pre-Super Genesis Wave)/"Cyberization" (post-Super Genesis Wave) are similar in the sense that the cybernetics contain a fail-safe as insurance against potential insurrection or insubordination, but pre-SGW, this failsafe was potentially lethal, since the cybernetics contained difficult-if-not-impossible-to-remove explosives, while post-SGW, this fail-safe simply paralyzed the victim's ''entire body'', while leaving them conscious and aware ''the whole time''. The only instance of a Legionization sapping the soul of the original victim was that of former GUN Commander Hugo Brass, who underwent extensive brainwashing before the cybernetic surgery. The original roboticization process didn't do this since its inventor, ''Sonic's uncle'', invented it to save the lives of people whose bodies were too far gone. The loss of free will was something Eggman added. Also, prior to becoming Dr. Robotnik (and before he discovered Roboticization), Julian Kintobor already had an alternate means of enslavement on deck: turning victims into cyborgs (a potential forerunner to DEL Legionization, since this process was experimental), with Monkey Khan (a Sun Wukong expy), the only surviving/successful victim of this.

* ''ComicBook/StarWarsLegacy'' plays with this. An Imperial Knight is badly wounded, so they give her a "Vader" Life Support system. One of the healers was worry about making another Darth Vader -- however, the other points out that Vader turned evil ''before'' being put in his suit. [[spoiler:She's still mostly the same, but since she was fine with dying before and now can't touch anything without feeling pain, she's ''pissed.'']]

* Cyborg (Victor Stone) of ''ComicBook/TeenTitans'' zig-zags this trope. While Victor is normally portrayed with a very forceful personality (he starts out as quite an angry guy whose anger mostly stems from being a cyborg), he has been rebuilt and reinterpreted multiple times over the years. There have been versions of the character who are implied to be a full machine using what's left of Victor, but with no soul or personality, but these versions are very much the exception. Played completely straight, however, with Grid, Cyborg's EvilCounterpart in the Crime Syndicate. When he first appeared in the ''ComicBook/ForeverEvil2013'' storyline he co-opted Cyborg's body and it was teased that he, like the other Crime Syndicate members, was an evil alternate Vic. Later it was revealed that Grid was not only not an alternate Vic, but "he" was [[NotEvenHuman never even human]] at all.

* Diehard from ''ComicBook/YoungbloodImageComics'' has been a cyborg since the ''40''s, but in one of the later series he undergoes a series of upgrades to better perform his duties and comes out of the experience behaving much less human.
* Dekko from ''ComicBook/{{Zot}}'' is a textbook example. Although cybernetics don't seem to be inherently bad in Zot's world, the trauma of having his terminally-ill body replaced a piece at a time turned him into a MadArtist. Of course, after a while he started to like it.

* Subverted in ''VideoGame/EmpireEarth''; after General Molotov absorbs a lethal amount of radiation, Grigor II has him [[UnwillingRoboticisation turned into a cyborg]], causing the previously loyal General to begin questioning his leaders methods, concerned with the possibility of losing more of his humanity. Ultimately he [[DefectorFromDecadence defects]] from Novaya Russia when Grigor II callously orders him to [[FinalSolution wipe out the population of Cuba]] for being [[ColdEquation too troublesome to rule in the long term]].

* ''Anime/MazingerZ'': [[{{Mooks}} The Iron Mask and Iron Cross]] are {{Cyborg}}s BigBad Dr. Hell created by grafting cybernetic implants in the brain of corpses (many of which he, his CoDragons or his HumongousMecha had murdered). Not only are they not allowed to rest in peace, they have been mindwiped and programmed to be mindless slaves. One of them even gloats to [[TheHero Kouji Kabuto]] that he's glad to no longer be worried about pesky things like thinking, hesitating, worrying or fearing death, making him a perfect soldier. Of course, Kouji is not impressed:

** The [[Platform/SegaGenesis Genesis]] version follows a simplified version of the table-top source material. Less Essence means less magic, but the game won't let you kill yourself by installing too much. You need to have the Essence to pay for it.

* Subverted in ''VideoGame/EmpireEarth''; after General Molotov absorbs a lethal amount of radiation, Grigor II has him [[UnwillingRoboticisation turned into a cyborg]], causing the previously loyal General to begin questioning his leaders methods, concerned with the possibility of losing more of his humanity, before ultimately [[DefectorFromDecadence defecting]] when Grigor II callously orders him to [[FinalSolution wipe out the population of Cuba]] for being [[ColdEquation too troublesome to rule in the long term]].

* ''TabletopGame/{{Eberron}}'' has grafts, which take a varying toll on the body depending on the type, almost always result in constitution loss. Some grafts, called symbiotes, are also AlwaysChaoticEvil and will try to make you AxCrazy by constantly speaking suggestions to your mind. [[MinMaxing But who cares about that if you have the right build?]] (To the point: Abusing fiendish symbiotes, cloning, and damage-sharing effects created a build that [[ReadingsAreOffTheScale required a new mathematical notation to write down how much damage it did]].)

** In ''Cyberpunk 2013'' and ''Cyberpunk 2020'', the problem that is primitive (i.e. mostly mechanical) implants like hydraulic legs or augmented arms decrease Humanity by 2d6, while coprocessors (computers implanted into one's brain with optional false memories, capable of overriding cognitive and neurobiological functions) incur measly 1d6 decrease. No cyborgized firefighters and combat paramedics for you. Interestingly, ''Cyberpunk'' delves a lot deeper into the actual reasons why this trope would exist, and goes to some rather interesting places. Cyberpsychosis stems in part from alienation, both from body dysmorphia (you now have body parts that literally aren't part of your body, and feel like it), and feeling different (when you can benchpress a dumpster and see in the infra-red, [[WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity it becomes increasingly difficult to see what you have in common with the puny, half-blind meatbags you are surrounded by]]), and from physical damage to the nervous system caused by removing and replacing bits of it. ''Cyberpunk RED'' explicitly makes the comparison to depersonalization/derealization disorder, with cyberpsychosis leaning into the idea that you are not you, the other people around you aren't necessarily real, and thus, anything goes. All of these factors can be mitigated or (in some exceptional cases) eliminated by keeping your implants minimally invasive, having the installation done in a proper hospital by a trained surgeon, who can keep the damage to a minimum, and getting proper psychiatric care to deal with the mental issues. Of course, these things are very likely to be out of reach of the average player character, and hammer home the difference between the haves and the have-nots.

* In ''TabletopGame/{{Deadlands}}: Hell on Earth'', a distinction is made between cyborgs (undead with cybernetic parts) and scrappers (living humans with cybernetic parts). While cyborgs suffer no ill effect [[spoiler:because the power for their cybernetics comes from the soul of a demon spiritually shackled to their heads]], scrappers have their Spirit die type reduced (or their total dice if they're already at d4) when they replace major body parts. This is because they power their devices with their soul: battery-powered devices are available, but [[LostTechnology expensive]]; and in a pinch, non-vital systems can be turned off to increase their dice again. This is all well and good, fair and balanced, except for one thing: the Spirit die type is used primarily for magic rolls, faith rolls, and ''guts rolls''. Apparently having your super-powered buzzsaw arm running makes you more likely to run away? It's also worth noting that cyborgs are actually more mentally stable than normal Harrowed, as their manitou are chained up in the basement next to the boiler, not running around the bedroom with a knife. What makes cyborgs crazy is their asshole onboard AIs that have arbitrary rules of engagement that the cyborg is forced to follow. With no AI, or an AI without idiot rules, cyborgs are more sane than normal people... because armor 8 means you can face down anything in the waste and laugh.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Eberron}}'' has grafts, which depending on the type take various toll on the body. Almost always result in constitution loss. Some grafts, called symbiotes, are also AlwaysChaoticEvil and will try to make you AxCrazy by constantly speaking suggestions to your mind. [[MinMaxing But who cares about that if you have the right build?]] (To the point: Abusing fiendish symbiotes, cloning, and damage-sharing effects created a build that [[ReadingsAreOffTheScale required a new mathematical notation to write down how much damage it did]].)
* Decisively averted in ''TabletopGame/EclipsePhase''. Your mind is software and can be "resleeved" into anything from another human form to an uplifted octopus or even a futuristic tank. If for some reason you want to keep your old body, you can still deck out it with an array of cybernetic and biological modifications, without any limitations whatsoever, the closest thing being some temporary stress when re-sleeving (especially when the character remembers dying). However, the Jovian Junta firmly believes in this trope, the only starting morphs available to characters with the "Jovian" background are unmodified "Flats" and minimally modified "Splicers". Though they're more tolerant of cybernetic augmentation than genetic engineering, nanotechnology, and especially BrainUploading.

** Yawgmoth, the BigBad of the entire Dominarian Saga, was obsessed with the mechanics of the body. He lords over the evil machine plane of Phyrexia, where he and his followers used its mechanical wonders to improve ("compleat") their bodies, at the cost of their own humanity. In older sets of the game, artifact creatures (usually machines) are generally unaffected by black spells that destroy creatures.

* Played with in ''VideoGame/BioShock'': ADAM is a genetic philosopher's stone which is used in a manner akin to proto-cybernetics, and [[LegoGenetics since they rewrite the user's DNA]] by turning it ''cancerous'' while poisoning them with deep sea coral hallucinogens, [[PsychoSerum the dehumanizing power of the stuff is justified]]. Overuse of Plasmids, Gene Tonics and other ADAM-based products causes addiction, gross deformity, and insanity; as such, the first people in Rapture to succumb and transform into splicers were people who'd overused its cosmetic variants, and the rest did so in an attempt to defend themselves against the Splicers -- to quote one of the recordings: "There's an arms race on here in Rapture. It's about who can become less of a man and more of a monster." That said, there ''are'' people who can maintain their humanity in spite of their modifications: [[spoiler:the protagonists of both the [[VideoGame/BioShock1 first]] and [[VideoGame/BioShock2 second]] games, and any Little Sisters who were given restorative anti-ADAM therapy as children]]. The Big Daddies had their humanity completely stripped away specifically to ''replace'' it with a streamlined version of PapaBear humanity, making them better protectors than typical humans, both physically and emotionally.

* In ''VideoGame/Borderlands2'', Handsome Jack's enforcer Wilhelm WasOnceAMan before being turned to a hulking cybernetic brute. In ''VideoGame/BorderlandsThePreSequel'', Wilhelm started off as a mere mercenary with only a prosthetic eye. As the player gives him more cybernetic upgrades, though, his voice becomes increasingly [[EvilSoundsDeep deep]] and [[VoiceOfTheLegion menacing]], foreshadowing his eventual evolution into the half-man half-machine monster that would lay the original Vault Hunters out. According to Angel, he was born with a deficiency that required him to get cybernetic implants at an early age which led to a full-on addiction to augmentation and that Jack would risk turning him more machine than man by hiring him (something that he considers completely awesome). Wilhelm for his part is completely unconcerned.

** The Cybran nation is implied to be formed of normal people like anyone else, only much smarter due to having their brains completely interfaced with computers. The ones who actually lose their humanity are the ones enslaved by a program by [[TheFederation the UEF]], and are enslaved precisely because the UEF's philosophy is that they lost their humanity. [[SelfFulfillingProphecy That means they only become less human because the ones who consider them less than human make them less than human]]. Dr. Brackman, the oldest character in the universe, is a cyborg more than a thousand years old, but his personality seems to be still very human, for a scientist, even after being reduced to pretty much a BrainInAJar by the time.
** Still, the UEF at least believe the Cybran deserve to be live, as long as they live like machines. The Aeon, an entire KnightTemplar faction, consider the Cybran an atrocity and are more than happy to commit genocide against them at every chance instead of converting. Of course, this depends on the player considering the enslavement as being or not a FateWorseThanDeath. The Commanders of the Aeon (as well of the other factions) also do not neurally interface with their Armored Command Units (pretty much giant mechas that can make more giant mechas), specifically because of religious reasons. Instead, Aeon commanders wear distinctive facial makeup to make it easier for their helmets to analyze the commander's facial movements and interpret commands -- The Way lends them strong enough self-control that they can literally use facial expressions to command their forces, in addition to hand-input commands.

* ''VideoGame/{{Mother}}'':
** {{Averted|Trope}} in ''[[VideoGame/CognitiveDissonance MOTHER: Cognitive Dissonance]]'' with Alinivar, who has the option to become a Chimera Mook to increase the power of his skills, which injures him greatly, but has no other known drawbacks (and luckily there is a revitilization pod nearby, so even the HP damage can be fixed). Unfortunately [[PlayingWithATrope played straight]] with a huge Mecha-Saturn, who are usually peace loving little guys.
** Cybernetic chimeras make up the majority of random battles in ''VideoGame/{{Mother 3}}'', originally being content, happy animals that were "reconstructed" by the Pig Mask Army. However, the biggest example has to be the Masked Man, who was originally [[spoiler:Claus, Lucas' brother and a happy, energetic, outgoing child. He was mortally wounded by a "reconstructed" Drago, and was himself reconstructed; into a cold, silent, obedient general in "King P"'s army.]] The process almost completely destroyed his humanity, to the point where he is described as having "no heart", as opposed to good or evil. Though this is intentional, as the cyborgs and chimeras are intended to be ravenous destructive monsters and the Masked Man was intended to be just what he is; even the Ultimate Chimera is more a case of GoneHorriblyRight.

* ''VideoGame/{{Planetside}}'': The Vanu Sovereignty actually [[MachineWorship worship]] [[{{Precursors}} Vanu]] technology, and speak of [[AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence "enlightening"]] humanity just like they believed happened to the Vanu themselves. It's implied that the Vanu artifacts might be [[ArtifactOfDoom brainwashing them and driving them]] [[ScaryDogmaticAliens to spread their creed across Auraxis]].

* In ''VideoGame/RoboCopRogueCity'', [[spoiler:the Old Man attempts to cheat death by turning himself into a cyborg. However, due to the mismanagement of "Project Afterlife", he gets revived in the [=RoboCop=] 2 body that turns him into an insane monstrosity, forcing [=RoboCop=] to put him down]].

** The OVA ''Anime/EightManAfter'' discards this trope in favor of DrugsAreBad - it's not the cybernetics per se that drives the users crazy, but the massive quantities of PsychoSerum they have to take to use the implants effectively. Eight Man makes do with good-old SuperSerum.
* In "The Man Who Bites His Tongue" episode of ''AD Police Files'' (a SpinOff of ''Anime/BubblegumCrisis'') a Franchise/{{RoboCop}} {{expy}} is just a brain and a mouth in a robot body. His body does not have a sense of touch and to compensate he is given stimulants. But he is also building up a tolerance to the drugs and the only thing he can do to stave off [[SenseLossSadness sensory deprivation]] completely is to bite his tongue.
* In the ''Anime/AfroSamurai'' movie, Sio implies that this has happened to Kuma, saying that he's been repaired so many times, there's hardly any human left at all, just a mindless "samurai doll." [[spoiler:He later proves her wrong, by giving up his life in defense of Afro during the battle with his clone/cyborg father (who might be another example of this trope)]]. In the series he's pretty AxCrazy after becoming a teddy-bear Vader [[spoiler: although this might be because he blames Afro for everything bad that happened to them]].

* It was averted in ''Manga/AstroBoy''. In one story, a terrorist organization [[spoiler:steals dogs and grafts their brains in mechanical, humanoid bodies]] in order to create loyal and utterly obedient soldiers. However, in the prologue of the story, Creator/OsamuTezuka argued as far as he was concerned, the soul or spirit of the being always endures, even it if is mechanized.
* ''Anime/BubblegumCrisis'' calls this "Boomer Syndrome", comparing it to the eponymous androids that occasionally go on rampages when [[AIIsACrapshoot their brains roll snake-eyes]]. Ultimately, it's inverted: Boomers go crazy because of the influence of their SuperPrototype, whose brain structure was based on a real human, making this a case of cybernetics being eaten by a soul.

* Subverted in ''Manga/Cyborg009'' -- Albert/004 is the one in the Cyborg Team with more machine parts (due to having almost half his body torn in an explosion), but is one of the most developed characters in the whole series. Somewhat played straight, too, since he constantly worries about the possibility of [[WhatMeasureIsANonHuman losing his humanity as time passes or about people seeing him as a monster]], and at least two episode ("Tears of Steel" and [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin "Man or Machine?")]] are fully dedicated to his struggles.
** And there's also 0011, the main enemy in "Tears of Steel", who plays the trope straight by [[spoiler: being at first a TragicMonster who only wanted to have his family back, but later was BrainwashedAndCrazy and lost all of his remaining humanity. [[ShootTheDog 004 had to kill him]] in the end to stop his rampage]]...

* ''Manga/GalaxyExpress999'' takes this all the way. Like, literally to [[spoiler:the end of the line]].
** "Machine-humans" slowly become depressed, neurotic, and eventually much worse over a period of decades as their human emotions and drives drift further and further out of whack with the realities of their cybernetic existence. In a sense they become mentally sick from "overliving" the way one might become physically sick from overeating.
* As given away right in the [[CompletelyDifferentTitle international title]], ''Franchise/GhostInTheShell'' treats the Self as clearly separate from the body, which is merely a Shell. To the series' own definition, a "ghost" is a person's soul converted into digital data as a result of cyberization. At this point, it can technically be stolen away from you if a hacker is powerful enough to do so.
** The movies (much less so the original manga) deal a lot more with the related issue of how much particularly military cyborgs become increasingly removed from everyday life and even ordinary people and living almost in a separate world. It usually falls to Togusa, who is the only [[TheTeamNormal Normal]] with any family, to [[PatrickStewartSpeech remind the other cyborgs that their police work ultimately is supposed to protect the ordinary people of the country]].
** There's also the question, if a Ghost actually needs to inhabit a Shell at all. A question that Motoko Kusanagi and the Puppeteer both proved to be true in the manga. Motoko achieved a form of [[AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence transcendence]] in which she didn't need her body to exist anymore. She managed to exist in the internet and other realms far beyond the limits of human imagination or understanding. Her body still existed in the physical plane, but she didn't need it to be consciously active. ''Anime/GhostInTheShellStandAloneComplex'' lightly touched on this concept at the end of 2nd Gig, but it didn't go nearly as "deep" into the whole concept as the ''Man-Machine Interface'' manga did.
** ''Anime/GhostInTheShellStandAloneComplex'' also dove into whether or not a Shell could start without a Ghost and then eventually develop one with the [[SpiderTank Tachikomas]]. Despite synchronizing them every night so each day every single one possesses the collective memories of all of them, they nevertheless develop distinct personalities and even begin questioning the nature of Ghosts and what separates pure [=AIs=] like them from cyberized humans. [[spoiler:This spooks the higher-ups to the point they are disarmed and decommissioned, fearing these hardened battle tanks are becoming self-aware and [[AIIsACrapshoot might rebel]], and they ''do'' rebel against this... but only to save Batou's life. Because of this it's decided they ''do'' have Ghosts and their [=AIs=] are uploaded into a new fleet which is no longer synchronized in order to preserve their personalities.]]
** Ultimately though, this trope is averted, as the great majority of the human race have cyberized themselves (even Togusa) because it has become the norm for human interaction. There are some minority affiliations like the Human Liberation Front who believe that this trope is what will happen when you do become cyberized, and these people still prefer to remain completely natural, but humanity as a whole has not changed very much as a result of everyone now being connected to the internet. Almost all religions, especially the major ones, actually embrace the idea because it allows their followers to unify together.
** In ''Anime/GhostInTheShellStandAloneComplex'' Major doesn't wear too many concealing clothes. This is touched upon in the first season when the Major says that, basically, she doesn't really have a body. Her view of her own body is that it's a shell, a replaceable object, and she admits to having a hard time reconciling with that. In the movie, this is treated a bit more grimly: she says that her being full cyborg (save for some "real brain matter in that titanium skull of hers") makes her wonder if she's not 'real', but just a poor copy made up by cybernetics, who doesn't really have a Self at all.
* ''Manga/{{Gintama}}'': Prof. Hayashi is willing to do pretty much anything for his dying daughter, including making talking toys, immortalizing her by converting her personality into data and transplanting it into a robot and ''converting his own personality into data and transplanting it into a robot'' in order to cope with the pain of finally [[OutlivingOnesOffspring seeing her die]]. Unfortunately, the robot housing the professor's soul swallows it completely and turns into a cold murder machine. [[spoiler: The professor gets to [[DyingAsYourself die as himself]] at the end though.]]

* ''Franchise/LyricalNanoha'' works from ''[[Anime/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaStrikerS StrikerS]]'' on [[AndroidsArePeopleToo give this trope the finger]]. While AxCrazy and robotic-acting cyborgs both do exist, the former are recognizably garden-variety sociopaths rather than it being a result of being a cyborg and the latter had their personalities chop-jobbed by the sociopaths. Both are the result of having been raised by a lunatic. They are comfortably outnumbered by sane, well-adjusted cyborgs who were also raised by that same lunatic, to the point one wonders if cybernetics don't actually make you ''more'' sane. In fact, one of the aforementioned sociopaths actually has the ''least'' amount of cybernetics.
** And then there are the prototypes, [[HappilyAdopted both of whom were raised in a loving environment since early childhood]], and neither of them ever show any signs of psychosis. The younger one is even referred to as being "[[GenkiGirl more human than anyone]]" by her best friend.

* [[spoiler: [[HeroicSacrifice Bartolomew Kuma]] aka PX-0's fate]] in ''Manga/OnePiece'', though downplayed since this was a completely intended end result of the process used (he was fine, albeit TheStoic, up until his brain was replaced).
** Also played for laughs when Luffy (and later Robin) accuses [[{{Cyborg}} Franky]] of being a case of this, despite how it's nigh impossible for [[BoisterousBruiser Franky]] to be any further from this trope [[BunnyEarsLawyer than he already is]].

* In ''Anime/PsychoPass'', the only thing left of Senguji after 110 years is his brain and nervous system. During an interview with the press he tries to point out the benefits of cybernetics, but he could serve as a poster boy for the UncannyValley with his hollow, unblinking eyes and [[TheUnSmile UnSmile]]. [[spoiler:It's also implied his taste for HuntingTheMostDangerousGame came about with his mortal mind rotting away with senility inside an effectively immortal body.]]
** [[spoiler:Actually averted with Senguji, he tells Makishima just before he dies that even as a young man (back when he was human), that he loved being in wars and violence. He even enjoyed having a friend's blood splattered all over him when his friend died. He was a psycho long before he became a cyborg.]]
* ''Literature/RebuildWorld'' has a few chapters exploring SenseLossSadness of Cyborgs. As for a character losing their humanity, that's explored with Tiol who gets monster {{Nanomachines}} injected into him by a MadScientist, dealing with SanitySlippage, AmnesiacResonance, and FightingFromTheInside. This results in odd behavior at different points, like being a ScreamingWarrior, or LaughingMad, or breaking down into an AttackAttackAttack mindset, from the HorrorHunger of being forced to eat metal and human flesh to make monsters and/or upgrade his physical form.
* ''Anime/{{Texhnolyze}}'' includes a cult known as the Union, who are against the titular cybernetic technology on the grounds of this trope. Their leader claims to know this since he has a Texhnolyzed arm himself, but the limbs themselves have never shown to be harmful. [[spoiler: At least until their main power source shuts down, which leaves characters with cybernetic limbs unable to move properly.]]

* ''ComicBook/RomSpaceKnight'' subverts the trope, being an extremely human and noble character despite looking like a walking suit of armor -- but he ''fears'' this happening, and he [[BodyHorror loathes his metallic shell.]] Played with when his girlfriend Brandy becomes a Spaceknight as well -- at first her personality is unaffected, but when [[spoiler:[[DoomedHometown her entire home town is murdered by the Wraiths]]]], she succumbs to a state that Rom says he has seen in Spaceknights before: an overwhelming hatred that ''physically changes'' her armor to look more vicious, and she remains a cold-hearted killer until [[spoiler: she's removed from the armor and becomes human again]].

* In ''FanFic/TheBridge'', a large part of Gigan's character is him being a cyborg but he is a firm aversion. He has a definite personality, a strong VillainousFriendship with a team, and doesn't angst about cybernetics he sees as upgrades. [[spoiler:His ReadingsBlewUpTheScale moment where he exceeds his machinery's limits is explicitly stated to be his soul fueling a HeroicResolve.]]

* In ''WesternAnimation/CelebrityDeathmatch'' fic, ''[[https://my.w.tt/fZp201ZOMY Final Stand of Death]]'', The CouncilOfAngels were determinate to avert this when they had [[spoiler: the Music/SpiceGirls]] automated to become part of the separate fleet of TheArmiesOfHeaven. While the rest of the girls were chilled after starting to understand how their new abilities work, [[Music/MelanieC Melanie]] starts to become depressed as a result. CelestialParagonsAndArchangels helps her out.
* Dr. Beljar {{invoke|d trope}}s this trope in ''FanFic/TheEndOfEnds'', [[spoiler: when he takes over, since the condition for the Dark Prognosticus is to have an empty heart]].
* Done in a literal sense in ''FanFic/EquestriaGirlsFriendshipSouls'' with the Espada Grogar, whose [[OneWingedAngel Resurreccion]] has been [[ProfessorGuineaPig augmented by his experiments]] to incorporate reishi-constructed cybernetics, effectively making him a [[NinjaPirateRobotZombie ghost-goat-man-cyborg]]. Captain [[spoiler:Celestia]] feels a sense of disgust and pity at what he's literally mutilated his own soul into for power. Granted, this is more to show the depths of depravity he would sink to; it's made clear from his appearances before the reveal of his Resurreccion he was rotten long before he started "upgrading" himself to surpass his natural limits.
* The ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'' fanfic ''[[http://archiveofourown.org/works/143699 Tenth Life]]'', where one of the characters has a robot body made for her after her death, but the cybernetic body robs her of all imagination and creativity. Her friends eventually [[spoiler:decide to just end her life]].
* ''FanFic/InTheService'', building on the ''Franchise/LyricalNanoha'' example above, posits that cybernetic enhancement is neither necessarily good nor evil: it reinforces existing traits. Mentally healthy people converted to cyborgs will withstand huge amounts of emotional trauma and stress without ill effect. People who are not mentally healthy...won't.
* A major theme in ''FanFic/LeftBeyond'', in which Metabolic Extension Controllers are used to literally keep people's souls out of Hell temporarily, by reactivating their bodies and forcibly keeping them running after God decrees their death... at the price of destroying their ability to feel pleasure and pain. This in turn damages (mildly to severely) their sense of passion, creativity, and empathy.
* In ''FanFic/MegaManDefenderOfTheHumanRace'', this is played with when Marcus Vickers has to have cybernetics in order to save his life. While that itself is jarring, what pushes him over the edge to cruelty is feeling betrayed by Mega Man.
* Fratello from ''FanFic/MyBravePonyStarfleetMagic''. He is Cadance's brother, and literally only evil because of his high-tech suit, which brainwashed him, while he had used it before to stop some evil aliens.
* A prominent theme of ''FanFic/SonicXDarkChaos'', especially with [[AIIsACrapshoot Tsali]] and [[AndIMustScream Venus the Seedrian]].
* In ''Teen Titans: Together for Tomorrow'', this is what spawned the BigBad, ''ComicBook/{{Brainiac}}''. [[spoiler:A video diary on his spaceship reveals to the Titans he was originally a mild-mannered professor named Vril Dox, and Brainiac was the A.I. for his cyborg enhancements. Unfortunately, [[SplitPersonalityTakeover Brainiac overwhelmed Dox]] once they were more machine than man, resulting in the sociopathic {{Planet Looter|s}}. Despite hints that Dox's personality is buried somewhere inside Brainiac, whatever's left is completely powerless.]]

* In ''Film/BackToTheFuturePartII'', Marty is warned that the cyborg asshole Griff "has a few short circuits in his bionic implants."
* Implied in ''Film/HouseOf1000Corpses'': [[spoiler: Doctor Satan appears to be some sort of self-made evil/insane cyborg. It's how he is still alive at such an unnatural age! His victims are implied to be his evil, deadly, mindless slaves and are possibly insane]].
* ''Film/IronMan'': Inverted by Tony Stark. When he's completely flesh and blood, he's an arrogant playboy genius with no consideration for the consequences of his work. It's not until he has to place the miniature arc reactor in his chest that his more noble nature emerges.
* In ''Film/KamenRiderTheFirst'', it is explained that all Shocker agents must undergo periodic blood transfusions to stop their bodies from rejecting their cybernetic implants, forcing their loyalty to the organization. Though Takeshi Hongo/Kamen Rider 1 oddly doesn't experience this, Hayato Ichimongi/Kamen Rider 2 does. [[spoiler: This eventually leads to his death at the end of ''Kamen Rider the NEXT.'']]
* In ''{{Film/Nemesis}}'' the voiceover narration mentions that the main character Alex Rain worries cybernetic augmentation and replacements are making him less human. "It always scared him that they might take out his soul... and replace it with some matrix chip." This might be more about his personal worrying and not any general tendency, since completely artificial androids are shown to be capable of deep emotions and empathy. It is perhaps telling that he apparently keeps track of how much of his body is original down to tenth of a percent. Inverted with Jared, despite being a cyborg herself she opposes the cyborgs' plan to take over the world simply because it's "Wrong", reminding Alex that "Humanity is more than flesh and blood".
* Inverted in ''Film/RepoMen'', in that Remy only becomes conscious of the horror of his profession ''after'' his real heart is replaced by an artiforg one.

** Downplayed in the movies. While limited by his programming, Murphy remains a man inside. It does take a while for his old personality to re-emerge; initially he is every bit the compliant, robotic cop the OCP execs intended him to be.
** In ''Film/RoboCop2'', the prototype [=RoboCops=] immediately commit murder, then suicide, within seconds of their debut. The final product, the psychopathic [=RoboCop 2=] was a scumbag drug lord even ''before'' his conversion and after becoming a cyborg, goes completely AxCrazy. It probably didn't help these evil Robocops that none of their cybernetic [[TransformationTrauma bodies]] had anything resembling [[FacialHorror a human face]] or any resemblance to a human body.
** Downplayed in the ''Series/RoboCopPrimeDirectives'' mini-series, where Murphy's old friend is killed and turned into an identical [=RoboCop=] (with DualWielding) by a CorruptCorporateExecutive (the mini-series is full of them). While, at first, he does exactly what he's programmed to do, his original personality later re-asserts itself, and he [[spoiler:performs a HeroicSacrifice, while preventing Murphy from doing the same]].
** In ''Film/RoboCop2014'', Omnicorp attempts to suppress Murphy's humanity, but he was eventually able to overcome this. [[spoiler:He even manages to overcome the film's equivalent of the original films' fourth prime directive.]]
** In ''Videogame/RobocopRogueCity'', [[spoiler:The Old Man attempts to cheat death by turning himself into a cyborg. However, due to the mismanagement of "Project Afterlife", he gets revived in the Robocop 2 body that turns him into an insane monstrosity, forcing Robocop to put him down]].
* ''Film/SleepDealer'': {{Downplayed}} in that "[[BrainComputerInterface Nodes]]" for interfacing with the global digital network are ubiquitous, but it isn't so much the omnipresent cybernetics that erode humanity as it is the [[CapitalismIsBad extreme commodification of protagonists' labor and lives]] that the Nodes aggravate. Luz uses Nodes to upload her memories to the net and make a living as a "writer," but in publishing so much of her private life she finds she can't forge genuine connections with the people around her because the relationships are tainted by the fact that she's being paid to upload her experiences and feelings. Memo and Rudy both use Nodes to operate mechanical avatars half a world away; Memo as a day laborer working for minimum wage in a cybernetic sweatshop and Rudy as a drone pilot using lethal force to defend privatized resources. Memo and thousands of other tele-migrants aren't even treated with the dignity of workers, reduced to the status of disposable components by the abhorrent conditions of their employment. Rudy earns good money and public acclaim for his work "blowing the hell out of the bad guys," but he is so divorced from the consequences of his work that [[spoiler:finding out he may have killed an innocent civilian drives him to defect from his employer and go on the run in Mexico]].

* ''Franchise/StarWars'': Obi-Wan calls Darth Vader "more machine now than man; twisted and evil." Then again, Anakin was pretty twisted and evil before getting the life-support suit, and was taking his first steps towards the Dark Side before getting a prosthetic hand.
** In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsCloneWars'', in a sequence reminiscent of Luke's [[Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack Episode V]] experience in the cave, Anakin has a vision in which a warrior loses his arm in battle, and replaces it with a mysterious shiny, black one with great power. At first he is able to defend his home and friends with the power of the arm, but soon it reaches out and kills a bunch of stuff without him meaning to, eventually including his wife. The parallel to the loss of his own hand is clear, and it certainly tracks to his own tragic fate and reliance on the power of the Force to protect the ones he loves.
** Downplayed with Lobot, Lando Calrissian's aide. He may seem rather soulless in the movie (the fate of many ''Franchise/StarWars'' extras), but he retains a great deal of his humanity and actually became a more upstanding and noble person ''after'' the augmentation. However, a malfunction with his implant can cause him to lose the rest of his humanity and go berserk.
** ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi'': Inverted by Luke Skywalker at the end of the movie, where staring at his cybernetic hand points out all too clearly what he would have become if he finished off Vader. Cybernetics ''saved'' his soul.

* In ''Film/{{Transcendence}}'', Will and the hybridized humans only exacerbate RIFT's faith in this. It's even posited that, though Will's personality may be entirely intact, he's simply grown so far beyond humanity that the difference is academic. [[spoiler: Too bad they were totally wrong.]]

** Except for Luc Deveraux, cyborg conversions didn't go too well in ''Film/UniversalSoldier1992''. He was able to overcome his programming and have a normal life. The villain, Andrew Scott, didn't, but [[AxCrazy he was pretty screwed up to begin with]]. In the latter's case, it's also subverted: when Luc visits the scientist who was involved in the original project before he resigned, the scientist points out that the bad guy still thinks he's in Vietnam. However, by the end Scott seems to have realized that the war is long over, and is only continuing to pursue Deveraux to destroy his life and kill his family out of spite.
** ''Film/UniversalSoldierTheReturn'': Deveraux's partner Maggie is killed and converted into a Uni Sol to serve for the evil artificial intelligence S.E.T.H., all thanks to a neural implant injected into her brain. When S.E.T.H. tries to subject Deveraux's daughter Hilary to the same fate, Deveraux goes [[PapaWolf Papa Wolf]] and brutally shatters S.E.T.H., freeing Maggie from S.E.T.H.'s control. Despite being grateful, Maggie tells Deveraux to take Hilary and [[MercyKill blow up the building with herself and the remaining Uni Sols inside]], as the implant cannot be removed from her brain and that she refuses to spend the rest of her life as a killing machine. [[ItHasBeenAnHonor Bidding farewell to Maggie as he considered her a close friend who risked her life protecting Hilary]], Luc reluctantly obliges to her wishes, and [[FaceDeathWithDignity Maggie accepts her fate perishing in the explosion]], [[TakingYouWithMe taking the remaining Uni Sols with her in revenge for her horrible fate]].

* ''Literature/{{Hardwired}}'' plays a variation of this trope; a person who replaces too much of their brain-matter with implants becomes "white-brained", detached from the world and other people, obsessed with mathematical abstractions, and losing much of their emotions in the process. However, it only happens to those who are inclined towards abstract thinking to begin with - those who use their cybernetic implants to interact with physical objects like vehicles, and expand their abilities in the realms of physical talent like martial arts rarely suffer from these effects.

** In ''Literature/DiamondDogs'', the central characters are made more and more alien by cybernetic means, but again, becoming alien (or rather, able to ''think'' in a sufficiently alien way as to solve the increasingly lethal puzzles they are presented with) is what they set out to do in the first place, again arguing a continuity of personality despite the radical modification of form - up to a point, anyway. Unfortunately, they recruited a cyberneticist whose dedication to his art is extreme, to say the least.

* In the short-lived 2007 ''Series/BionicWoman'' reboot, the protagonist's AxCrazy predecessor, Sarah Corvus, apparently became psychotic as a result of her bionic implants.
** The fact that said implants are malfunctioning and that she is possibly near death may have something to do with it, though.

* In ''Series/{{Chuck}}'', later versions of the Intersect cause Morgan and [[spoiler: Sarah]] to lose memories. Morgan also undergoes dramatic personality shifts as a result.

*** This is occasionally averted with some strong-willed humans who retain a sense of self after conversion, usually using it against the Cybermen. One standout example is Mercy Hartigan from [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E14TheNextDoctor "The Next Doctor"]], who is so intelligent that she takes over the Cybermen and makes them her minions.

*** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS12E4GenesisOfTheDaleks "Genesis of the Daleks"]] strongly suggests that it was Davros' tinkering that causes the Daleks unrelenting villainy. In fact, it is when he orders the Dalek organisms to be bred without the capacity for things like mercy and reason that the other Kaleds revolt. Naturally, [[HoistByHisOwnPetard his desire to make the Daleks ruthless results in them turning on him]].

* In ''Series/{{Lexx}}'' Kai, Last of the Brunnen-G, is slain by His Shadow in the pilot and his corpse is made into a Divine Assassin. The process "decarbonized" him, removing any last trace of organic material in his body. He's a bio-mechanical cybernetic cadaver animated by protoblood that only looks the same as his previous living self. Even after he regains his memories and willpower he is still sadly unable to fully express emotions and cannot truly reciprocate Xev's love (no matter how much he may wish to do so).

** The Borg from ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'', which were once planned to be robotic insectoids at the end of the first season, until budget and other behind-the-scenes problems wound up only vaguely hinting at them. Of course, the Borg we all know and (''[[VillainDecay no longer]]''[[note]]unless you play VideoGame/StarTrekOnline[[/note]]) fear showed up in the second season. In ''Film/StarTrekFirstContact'', [[spoiler:they assimilate Data by putting ''organic'' components into him]].
*** In the ExpandedUniverse ''Literature/StarTrekDestiny'' series, it's revealed that [[spoiler:the Borg aren't evil because of their cybernetic nature or because of their HiveMind, but because the first assimilation process went horribly wrong, and subordinated the minds and bodies of its victims to an alien entity who had faded away entirely save for an all-consuming hunger]].

* In the folk music/prog rock/metal RockOpera album ''01011001'' by Music/{{Ayreon}}, the main characters are a race of fish aliens that rely on machines to keep them alive, and as a result, they lose their emotions and ability to really experience life. They try to regain them by [[spoiler: creating and living vicariously through humans. It works, and in the end, after humanity destroys itself, they stop the machines so that they can die]]. Probably. Ayreon is kind of a MindScrew.
* ''Music/NineInchNails''' "The Becoming" is all about this:

%%* Papa Roach's ''Singular Indestructible Droid'' is this trope.%%Administrivia/ZeroContextExample
* One of the suggestions of the song "Mr. Roboto" by Music/{{Styx}}, and the RockOpera it comes from, ''Music/KilroyWasHere''
-->''The problem's plain to see\\
Too much technology\\
Machines to save our lives\\
Machines dehumanize''
* In the Music/{{Vocaloid}} song series "New Millenium" (consisting of [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OHlydrSSXw&feature=related Risoukyou ~Utopia~]], [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkZmlcT-d2Y&feature=related A Faint Wish]], and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43Fpt_hfS4c&feature=related ~Shinseiki~ New Millenium]]), all of humanity suffers from this. The couple from the beginning is put into robot bodies and lose their love for each other, and a pair of twins are the only ones left with souls, until one of them dies. The other, however, manages to change history so that the mass-Cybernetics Eat Your Soul and the war that prompted it never happens.
* ''The Soul Doctors'' from Music/{{Fireaxe}}'s 4-hour ''Music/FoodForTheGods''.

%%* ''Artificial Immortality'' by Becoming the Archetype.%%Administrivia/ZeroContextExample
* "Music/DoctorInDistress" references the Cybermen from ''Series/DoctorWho'', describing them as "Cybernetic humans, who had no feelings at all".

* ''Radio/JohnFinnemoresSouvenirProgramme'': One storyteller sketch has him approached by the Prime Minister to put Queen Victoria's brain in a robot body. The storyteller points out this will happen, then adds he's not going to refuse, he's just saying. Sure enough, Robo-Vic goes on an insane rampage, slicing people in half with giant novelty scissors.

* Averted with the Therians, of ''TabletopGame/AT43''. Despite being the BigBad of the setting, they are not very warlike or evil (in fact, they have long ago forgotten how to fight, making them rely on [[IKnowMortalKombat MMORPGS for tactics]]). They just don't seem to get why the other races keep shooting up them for trying to blow up their solar systems in order to make Dyson Spheres in order to save the universe form dying of old age...in 25 billion years. So it's more like Cybernetics makes you a CloudCuckooLander. (Except for their Warrior Guild, who ''all'' LeeroyJenkins.)
* An option for cybernetics in ''Atomik Cybertek''.
* Mostly averted in ''TabletopGame/{{BattleTech}}'' with one major exception. Cybernetics that directly mess with a person's brain, such as various enhanced neural interfaces, ''are'' decidedly bad for their health and sanity (this is one reason [[MiniMecha ProtoMech]] pilots have a life expectancy of at best about a decade even if they don't get killed in battle), but most other implants are fairly safe -- though except for the Word of Blake's Manei Domini cyborgs (who tended to be AxCrazy before they started going chrome), they also tend not to provide much in the way of superhuman abilities other than the occasional hidden weapon in a prosthetic limb or the like.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Cyberpunk}} 2013'' and ''Cyberpunk 2020'': The problem was primitive (i.e. mostly mechanical) implants like hydraulic legs or augmented arms decrease Humanity by 2d6 while coprocessors (computers implanted into one's brain with optional false memories, capable of overriding cognitive and neurobiological functions) incur measly 1d6 decrease. No cyborgized firefighters and combat paramedics for you. Interestingly, ''Cyberpunk'' delved a lot deeper into the actual reasons why this trope would exist, and went to some rather interesting places. Cyberpsychosis stems in part from alienation, both from body dysmorphia (you now have body parts that literally aren't part of your body, and feel like it), and feeling different (when you can benchpress a dumpster and see in the infra-red, [[WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity it becomes increasingly difficult to see what you have in common with the puny, half-blind meatbags you are surrounded by]]), and from physical damage to the nervous system caused by removing and replacing bits of it. ''Cyberpunk RED'' explicitly makes the comparison to depersonalization/derealization disorder, with cyberpsychosis leaning into the idea that you are not you, the other people around you aren't necessarily real, and thus, anything goes. All of these factors can be mitigated or (in some exceptional cases) eliminated by keeping your implants minimally invasive, having the installation done in a proper hospital by a trained surgeon, who can keep the damage to a minimum, and getting proper psychiatric care to deal with the mental issues. Of course, these things are very likely to be out of reach of the average player character, and hammer home the difference between the haves and the have-nots.
** Made even worse for 'Borgs. Many full body conversions have a human brain as a plug-n-play WetwareCPU. They are like the Servitors of Warhammer 40K, but the brains can be put into another body. One conversion, the Dragoon, combines this trope with AndIMustScream. The cyberware and the drugs keep the thing (barely) controlled. It acts almost like a dumb robot. But your character can recover some humanity loss by moving into another body. Just now he/she has horrible nightmares and flashbacks from having been a 7-foot-tall killing machine.

* ''TabletopGame/D20Modern'' ignores this by default - your Constitution score limits how many cybernetics you can take because healthier people can handle it better. Going over the limit inflicts negative levels, but that's to represent the excessive cybernetics compromising your health. There is an optional "piece of your soul" rule in the ''Cyberscape'' book, but the cost is a relatively minor ExperiencePoint expenditure instead of some kind of permanent "damage" to your soul. The rules are much more on board with having fun with what you've got, rather than dictating how your character should act or feel about them.
* ''TabletopGame/DarkFuture'' supplement ''Dead Mans Curve'' introduced rules for cybernetics and for psychosis caused by the stress and trauma of the life of Renegades and Ops. Cybernetics increased your base level of pyschosis.
* In ''TabletopGame/{{Deadlands}}: Hell on Earth'', a distinction is made between cyborgs (undead with cybernetic parts) and scrappers (living humans with cybernetic parts). While cyborgs suffer no ill effect [[spoiler: because the power for their cybernetics comes from the soul of a demon spiritually shackled to their heads]], scrappers have their Spirit die type reduced (or their total dice if they're already at d4) when they replace major body parts. This is because they power their devices with their soul: battery-powered devices are available, but [[LostTechnology expensive]]; and in a pinch, non-vital systems can be turned off to increase their dice again. This is all well and good, fair and balanced, except for one thing: the Spirit die type is used primarily for magic rolls, faith rolls, and ''guts rolls''. Apparently having your super-powered buzzsaw arm running makes you more likely to run away?
** It's also worth noting that Cyborgs are actually more mentally stable than normal Harrowed, as their manitou are chained up in the basement next to the boiler, not running around the bedroom with a knife. What makes cyborgs crazy is their asshole onboard AIs that have arbitrary rules of engagement that the cyborg is forced to follow. With no AI, or an AI without idiot rules, cyborgs are more sane than normal people... because armor 8 means you can face down anything in the waste and laugh.
* The White Wolf D20 setting ''TabletopGame/DragonMech'' has a character class dedicated to installing steam-powered prosthetics, which has an ability called "Lose Self" forcing them to pass a Charisma check or spend a day as an emotionless robot.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Eberron}}'' has grafts, whom depending on the type take various toll on the body. Almost always result in constitution loss. Some grafts, called symbiotes, are also AlwaysChaoticEvil and will try to make you AxCrazy by constantly speaking suggestions to your mind. [[MinMaxing But who cares about that if you have the right build?]] (To the point: Abusing fiendish symbiotes, cloning, and damage-sharing effects created a build that [[ReadingsAreOffTheScale required a new mathematical notation to write down how much damage it did]].)
* Decisively averted in ''TabletopGame/EclipsePhase''. Your mind is software and can be "resleeved" into anything from another human form to an uplifted octopus or even a futuristic tank. If for some reason you want to keep your old body, you can still deck out it with an array of cybernetic and biological modifications, without any limitations whatsoever.
** The closest thing being some temporary stress when re-sleeving (especially when the character remembers dying).
** However, the Jovian Junta firmly believes in this trope, the only starting morphs available to characters with the "Jovian" background are unmodified "Flats" and minimally modified "Splicers". Though they're more tolerant of cybernetic augmentation than genetic engineering, nanotechnology, and especially BrainUploading.
* ''TabletopGame/{{Exalted}}'' also mostly averts this trope with the Alchemical Exalted; in 1st edition, only the most inhuman enhancements for Alchemicals (death tentacles, massive brain modification, spider legs) caused any degree of humanity loss. Even then, a low-humanity Alchemical isn't crazy, just cold and detached.
** In 2nd ed, they get the justified version of the trope with Voidtech, Charms which draw on the metaphysical disease that's killing their god-world. An Alchemical who goes too far, accumulates too much Void-taint, soon descends into murderous psychopathy. There are also ways for Creation's Exalted to implant Voidtech, letting them join the fun.
*** Actually, Voidtech may qualify as an {{inver|tedTrope}}sion of this trope. Normal Alchemical Exalted are {{Steampunk}} {{Magitek}} androids who can be callous, but are almost never truly ''evil''. The ones corrupted by [[TheCorruption Voidtech]], on the other hand, skew towards BodyHorror OrganicTechnology, which leads them straight into the MoralEventHorizon.
** There's another justified 2nd ed version -- Clarity. As an Alchemical's Essence rises, they run the risk of becoming more mechanical in mind as well as body, bordering on StrawVulcan behaviour. With that said, while most Alchemical Charms are cybernetic or mechanical in nature, the majority are not Exemplary and thus do not modify Clarity - those that do tend to concentrate on distancing the Exalt from humanity either physically (such as using Manifold Transhuman Implants to bolt on an extra pair of arms) or mentally (by, for example, harmonising with the inhuman mind of Autochthon to gain information). Meaning Cybernetics only Eat Your Soul if you deliberately choose to let them, and with the exception of the Weaving Engines, you can always have them removed to push yourself back to a more human mentality.

* Creator/GamesWorkshop games:
** ''TabletopGame/DarkHeresy'':
*** A literal take on this trope are the Obliviates, who are cyborgs implanted with a device called an "Oblivion Volitor", a Heretek device that actually destroys the soul, turning the unfortunate into a zombie-like creature. To psykers, obliviates have the same psychic signature as most common forms of servitors; this has rather disturbing implications about servitor construction, which the Inquisition makes sure to keep quiet.
*** According to the adventure ''Light of Reason'', the Adeptus Mechanicus's practice of replacing parts of their brain with cybernetics erodes their immortal souls. In the case of the extremist faction called The Brotherhood of Steel this makes their members unable to feel the danger of the warp phenomena, even when these fill all others with dread, but it also give them some protection against being directly subjugated by the powers of Chaos.
** ''TabletopGame/{{Necromunda}}'': This trope is averted by the majority of Pit Slaves who have retained their humanity despite the great number of bionic replacements that have been forced upon them. Servitors, lobotomised and programmed cyborgs that have to be programmed to perform tasks, are the only members of a [[SlaveLiberation Pit Slave gang]] who have had their humanity stripped from them by the cyberization process.
** ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'':
*** The [[MachineCult Adeptus Mechanicus]] can certainly come across as inhuman, and commonly replace even their brains with machinery, but the causation is the reverse of this trope; Tech-Priests are supposed to shun the weaknesses of flesh for the steely logic of the machine, and consider cyborgization as moving closer to that ideal. Even so, not all Adeptus Mechanicus members fit this stereotype: Creator/SandyMitchell has given us an obnoxious zoobiology {{otaku}} who [[TheLoad has to be babysat by Ciaphas Cain's patrol]], a GenkiGirl with "no head for theological matters," another who loves to eat junk food, and a DeadpanSnarker. Of course, according to their doctrine, [[HauntedTechnology machines have their own souls anyway]], so cybernetics are no more spiritually significant than organ donation.
*** [[WetwareCPU Servitors]] and [[ThePunishment arco-flagellants]], mindless menial laborers and berserk killing machines respectively, both have their limbs replaced with tools/weapons, but their "soullessness" is due to being lobotomized at the start of the process. SpaceMarine [[EmergencyTransformation Dreadnoughts]] can come across as mildly senile, but this can probably be put down to their injuries prior to internment within their life-support systems, or the fact that they're usually hibernating unless their chapter needs them. [[EvilCounterpart Chaos Space Marine Dreadnoughts]] were debatably [[WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity insane to begin with]], and if not then [[SenseLossSadness sensory deprivation]] is more to blame than their new metal bodies.
*** [[AMechByAnyOtherName Titan]] "machine-spirits" come close to playing this trope straight - the larger, stronger titans are said to have their own wrathful personalities, so only the strongest minds can interface with and master them. Even so, some titan princeps end up fighting a losing battle to maintain their sanity before losing themselves in the god-machines they pilot.
*** The [[SkeleBot Necrons]] literally lost their souls after the C'tan convinced them to [[BrainUploading upload themselves into undying metal bodies]]. The discarded souls were subsequently eaten by the C'tan. The millennia spent in stasis, or [[CameBackWrong the damage to their psyche sustained after heavy repairs]], has driven some Necrons insane, or reduced others to {{Empty Shell}}s. In some cases, the "common-born" soldiers' mind transferal process was deliberately sabotaged by their Lords to make them mindlessly obedient.
*** Obliterators are Chaos Space Marines who have, through some dark ritual or daemonic virus, become fused to their armor. While this gives them access to {{Shapeshifter Weapon}}s, the once-cackling mad Marines become eerily silent and emotionless as Warp-tainted metal continues to spread through their bodies. The [[Quotes/CyberneticsEatYourSoul quotes page]] features the ApocalypticLog of someone undergoing the transformation.
*** Imperial Psykers also make use of a multitude of cybernetics just as normal humans do. There is even some specific cybernetics that only benefit psykers, such as 'Psychic Hoods' and 'Psy-Amplifiers'. In fact, one of the Gaunt's Ghosts novels features [[spoiler:Sergeant Agun Soric, a suspected psyker being revealed to have had his one remaining eye sewn shut and his ears removed to make room for a cybernetic augmentation designed to improve his powers after being discovered by the Inquisition.]].
*** Ferrus Manus, Primarch of the Iron Hands, believed that reliance on cybernetics weakened one's willpower and wanted to find a way to remove the living steel from his hands that gave his legion their name. Unfortunately, his marines didn't catch that and despise their flesh as weak, replacing it with cybernetics as they advance in the ranks.
*** Averted with the Iron Warriors. While they do use a lot of cybernetics, and they are ruthless bastards, the lack of soul is more due to [[ShellShockedVeteran decades of brutal and unrelenting siege warfare]]; the cybernetics are just their way of pragmatically dealing with problems like "does not have legs" or "[[RedRightHand right hand has mutated into tentacle and cannot hold a boltgun]]".
*** Averted with Ork cybernetics. No matter how much metal you nail onto an Ork, that inner core of violent insanity remains clearly visible - it's just now directing a larger and tougher body.
*** The Butcher's Nails are a horrific and ''intentional'' example. A truly ghastly piece of [[LostTechnology archaeotech]], the Butcher's Nails are cybernetic cortical implants that are ''drilled into a person's skull, removing parts of their brain''. The Nails increase strength and aggression by manipulating their victims' brain chemistry while also having the effect of making them unable to enjoy anything except fighting and killing. Even worse, the Nails slowly degrade the person's brain, slowly killing them. And they can't be removed without killing the host either since the Nails also function as a replacement for the parts of the brain that were removed in the process of implanting them.

* In ''TabletopGame/HcSvntDracones'' cybernetic augmentation itself doesn't have any penalties, though there's a limit to how many implants one can get based on their Body and Mind traits. However one can exceed that limit by using Vitae, a substance that oxygenates tissue without proper circulation and speeds regeneration, but it can't completely replace blood and cerebrospinal fluid for the brain so it begins to atrophy and go nuts, turning into a "[[http://hcsvntdracones-game.tumblr.com/post/104000215878/tti-and-progenitus-are-one-of-the-few-corporate Vitae Demon]]". There are also a few specific implants that affect the mind, a Behavioral Adjuster changes the character's Motivation, with or against their will depending on who controls the implant; a Voice literally gives you a voice in your head, though usually it's helpful; and the Aestus Leech really lowers its host's inhibitions and has a bit of a will of its own, if a character has both a Voice and a Leech they tend to conflict.

* Yawgmoth, The BigBad of the entire Dominarian Saga of ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'', was obsessed with the mechanics of the body. He lords over the evil machine plane of Phyrexia, where he and his followers used its mechanical wonders to improve ("compleat") their bodies, at the cost of their own humanity. In older sets of the game, artifact creatures (usually machines) are generally unaffected by black spells that destroy creatures.
** See also Esper, part of the Shards of Alara block. Every creature in Esper has some amount of aether-infused metal grafted onto their body. This is okay unless they replace their whole body, after which they become twisted fiends called aether-liches.
** Phyrexia's worse. [[http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/stf/137 Much worse]].
** [[http://magiccards.info/5e/en/350.html Ashnod's Transmogrant]].
** Averted on Kaladesh. Aetherborn, who have very short lives, often use technology to upgrade themselves in an attempt to extend their lives, but this is actually the morally superior option compared to the other main way aetherborn can extend their lives - [[OurVampiresAreDifferent draining life energy from other beings]].

* The ''{{Munchkin}}'s Guide to Gaming'' encourages exploiting this mechanic as it's a free power up coupled with a roleplaying justification [[HackAndSlash for your normal behavior.]] (The third paragraph in the intro above is almost a direct quote from the book).
* ''TabletopGame/NewHorizon'': The anti-rejection drugs are stated to have a side effect where the user can become easily both depressed and easily agitated as well as suffer from advanced aging. More likely though, the social rejection from society, the cost of medical bills, and the interactions of the anti-rejection drugs with alcohol and other drugs used by cyborgs to deal with emotional pain lead to most of the problems with using cybernetics, not the cybernetics themselves.
* ''Obsidian'': The ''catatonia'' option on steroids. To be fair, you can also lose Humanity for other horrible things, like binding demons or getting hit by BrownNote powers that reduce your Humanity.

* The ''TabletopGame/OldWorldOfDarkness'' mostly averts the trope. Although there are a few implants that cause humanity loss, those involve removing parts of your brain. The vast majority of cybernetics have few disadvantages, and the most overt and powerful ones simply add to one's Paradox. In [=WoD=], cybernetics gain their balance because a skilled Mage can emulate them just as well with spells-since they're all magic in the end anyways. They also have another issue, that any skilled life mage can cause a body to reject them. Iteration X ''seems'' to be sliding into this trope, but it's their anti-humanist beliefs rather than their bodily enhancements that are doing that.
** And Iteration X gets a ''big'' contrast in the form of the Autopolitans of Threat Null, [[spoiler: who are what happened when factions of the Technocracy got stranded in the Deep Umbra following the Avatar Storm and came back as the worst versions of themselves]]. They're pretty much the Borg, and they don't care if you don't want to be linked into the emotionless hive-mind.

* In ''TabletopGame/DeviantTheRenegades'' for the ''TabletopGame/NewWorldOfDarkness'', ''every'' character has some form of disassociation from baseline humanity, represented by their Stability, Loyalty, and Conviction ratings. The conceit of the game is that a character's Divergence forcibly breaks their ability to identify as a person, forcing them to rely on the perception of others to help them remain stable. (This is not a straight example, as Divergence explicitly *cracks open the soul* regardless of the source and cyborgs are merely one type of result) Numerous Scars (drawbacks) involve unpleasant mental, physical, and/or social changes to them as a result. Lose enough touchstones, and you go ''Feral,'' unable to relate to people at all and unable to keep control of their powers. Ferals have no way of healing Instability, which means that eventually they will start mutating beyond all recognition before burning out entirely. It ''might'' be possible to connect with a Touchstone, but for most, it's a one-way trip.
* In the ''TabletopGame/GeniusTheTransgression'' fan supplement for the ''TabletopGame/NewWorldOfDarkness'', getting cybered is a sin against Obligation, as with all other transhumanist developments.
** This is because Obligation represents the ability to empathize with normal humans as something other than raw material. The nature of Inspiration means a Genius ''always'' has wonderful, terrifying ideas like turning the entire human race into mechanical supermen or how cool it be to fly around as a biotech dragon; even small starts ("I'll just upgrade my arm!") can provide the necessary starting point to rationalize their way down a very slippery slope. You can have very [[WellIntentionedExtremist nice, benevolent reasons for wanting to transform the human race]], kiddo, but you're still an [[TheUnfettered Obligation 0 madman]].
*** It may be worth noting that the Obligation loss is a risk, not a guarantee. One ''can'' make it out of the process entirely unscathed.
* Downplayed in another fan supplement, ''TabletopGame/SirenTheDrowning''. Flenser cybernetics make you take a breaking point when you install them, but that's not because they're cybernetics, it's because they need to use Siren flesh to properly take, and murdering a sapient being for your own benefit is bad no matter how you slice it.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Rifts}}'' treats this as a psychosomatic matter instead of a literal truth. Any loss of humanity is due to the individual 'Borg's feelings and reactions, and how they are usually ''perceived'' by the society around them, rather than an inherent drawback to cybernetics or bionics. This varies between regions and nations around the planet, largely influenced by the prevalence of cybernetics there. In North America, cyborgs are considered normal, if uncommon in places, and only spurned by mages and psychics because they interfere with the ability to use magic/psionics (there are exceptions). In Germany and Japan, cyborgs make up a sizable chunk of the nations' armed forces and are considered selfless heroes who have made sacrifices to serve their country. Russia has a unique environment where giant, bionic soldiers make up almost the entirety of the front-line troops for each of the factions fighting to gain control of the region. To be a cyborg in Russia is a mark of prestige and each faction has a signature style of cyborg, each considered Elite soldiers and revered as heroes.
** Though it is true that each cybernetic implant lowers the power of mages and psychics, and destroys said abilities outright if extensive enough.

** The corebook specifically notes that people who wish to undergo full cybernetic conversion (80% or more of the body replaced with metal) in above-ground North American cyber shops are given ''extensive psychological counseling'' before the procedure in order to avoid this trope; they're prepped for life as a robot and made fully aware of both the benefits and the drawbacks. As a result, most of them consider the downsides (in particular [[SenseLossSadness a massively reduced sense of touch]]) a fair price for being a literal killing machine. Unfortunately, not everyone given the full conversion treatment ''wanted'' to do it - roughly 60% of "slave borgs" will attempt suicide every chance they get until it works.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}}'': Getting cyberware (as well as [[BioAugmentation bioware]]) implanted drops your [[LifeEnergy Essence]], as your body has to readjust to parts of it no longer being 'your own'. In all editions, Essence loss stunts one's ability to do magic, and depending on editions other problems (like your ability to fit in socially or emphatise with other people, alienation issues, as well as risk of a rare mental disorder called 'cyberpsychosis') will also start plaguing a low Essence character. Hitting 0 Essence is fatal, [[ArbitraryAugmentationLimit making overuse of cybertechnology a Very Bad Thing]]. Fortunately, once a piece of cyberware has been installed, the Essence loss means the body has 'coped' with the original loss and thus new 'ware can be installed in its place without further loss of Essence (unless the new piece costs additional Essence on top of the original), meaning replacements and upgrades aren't a one-way street to an early grave. Unlike many other systems, cyberware also isn't the only way to lose Essence in ''Shadowrun'' -- violations of one's sense of self like [[VampiricDraining being drained by a vampire]], becoming a severe drug addict, traumatic body dysmorphia or dysphoria (like losing parts of yourself), unwanted surgery, or other traumatic experiences can cause Essence Loss. Later editions introduced rules for reversing Essence loss, as long as whatever caused it is no longer a part of 'yourself': Someone who temporarily replaces a lost arm with cyberware but later gets a clone of their old arm, which is essentially 'themselves' (or alternatively removes the 'ware and adjusts to life with one arm) will slowly recover their Essence.

---> I asked [the doctor] if I was going to stay alive.\\

* In ''TabletopGame/StarWarsSagaEdition'', cybernetic replacements reduce your Use the Force check. Earlier Creator/WizardsOfTheCoast ''Star Wars'' [=RPGs=] reduced the benefit from spending Force Points. In any case, within the rules this only really applies to Force Users; it's even possible to become a full cyborg hybrid like Grievous or [[BloodKnight Durge]] without becoming a bad guy, though you have to nearly die in order to do so.
** The old West End Games ''TabletopGame/StarWarsD6'' RPG mechanic for this was ''"More Machine Now Than Man"'', introduced in the {{sourcebook}} ''Galladinium's Fantastic Technology'' and it increased the number of Dark Side points gained substantially when you had more cybernetic replacements and upgrades. Upgrades counted double for calculating how many cybernetic parts your character had, as opposed to replacements necessitated by injuries.

* ''TabletopGame/TranshumanSpace'' makes the question of whether or not Cybernetics Eat Your Soul the central question of the game. Different factions debate (again and again) whether AIs, uplifted animals, and [[ArtificialHuman bioroids]] have souls at all. Ditto for modified humans and especially uploaded intelligences. Several factions, especially bio-chauvinists and some preservationists, believe that Cybernetics Eat Your Soul, while others like Christian Hyper-evolutionists think that enhancements are ''necessary'' to advancement.
** There are no game mechanics to prove either side right, but depending on where you life, what you are or what enhancements you've received might limit your civil rights.

* The ''TableTopGame/YuGiOh'' cards "[[http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Giga_Gagagigo Giga Gagagigo]]" and "[[http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Gogiga_Gagagigo Gogiga Gagagigo]]" show the character [[http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Gagagigo Gagagigo]] after being cybernetically reconstructed. The flavor text on the first mentions that the cybernetics caused him to [[FaceHeelTurn lose]] his [[HeelFaceTurn heart and redemption]], and the second's says that his soul has long since collapsed, and that his body continues recklessly in a quest for more power.
** Even more Gagagigo is the evolved form of [[http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Gigobyte Gigobyte]], a very cute mon.
** Eventually Subverted with "Gagagigo The Risen" who's Gogiga Gagagigo after being redeemed.
* ''TabletopGame/HELLASWorldsOfSunAndStone'' has a variation. You get a Charisma penalty for having "kybernetics," but it's not for any inherent reason but because Hellenes consider them a defilement of the divine Hellene form, and their influence on the culture is strong enough that most other species have adopted the stigma. [[OctopoidAliens Zintar]] get a pass, though, if only because without kybernetics they can't even get around on land.

** ''VideoGame/ArmoredCoreV'' revisits this trope with the [[spoiler: Zodiacs, thirteen AC pilots and their [[VoiceWithAnInternetConnection Operator]], Angie]]. The pilots are ''heavily'' implied to have undergone some sort of integration with their Armored Cores, while [[spoiler:Angie seems to be based in some sort of network shared by Zodiac's support helicopters]]. Since the war they were created to fight is long over, their only purpose appears to be to destroy. [[spoiler:Angie and Zodiac 1 seem to have gotten the worst of this in different ways as neither can think beyond their original orders anymore: Zodiac 1 is a mindless killing machine, while Angie seems to have lost a great deal of her humanity and original personality after her integration according to Zodiac 8]]. One of the aforementioned pilots sums it up thusly: "Who needs a soul, as long as you win?"
* Played with in ''VideoGame/BioShock1'': ADAM is a genetic philosopher's stone which is used in a manner akin to proto-cybernetics, and [[LegoGenetics since they rewrite the user's DNA]] by turning it ''cancerous'' while poisoning them with deep sea coral hallucinogens, [[PsychoSerum the dehumanizing power of the stuff is justified]]. Overuse of Plasmids, Gene Tonics and other ADAM-based products causes addiction, gross deformity, and insanity; as such, the first people in Rapture to succumb and transform into splicers were people who'd overused its cosmetic variants, and the rest did so in an attempt to defend themselves against the Splicers - to quote one of the recordings: "There's an arms race on here in Rapture. It's about who can become less of a man and more of a monster." That said, there ''are'' people who can maintain their humanity in spite of their modifications: [[spoiler:the protagonists of both games, and any Little Sisters who were given restorative anti-ADAM therapy as children]]. The Big Daddies had their humanity completely stripped away specifically to ''replace'' it with a streamlined version of PapaBear humanity, making them better protectors than typical humans, both physically and emotionally.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Bloodnet}}'', the main character and street gangs frequently argue about whether cybernetic implants destroy or enhance the user's humanity. A number of characters have had their brains fried by a combination of designer drugs and cybernetic implants - it is set in the futuristic New York ghettos and the modifications are typically illegal and unmoderated - but a cybernetic implant is helping to prevent the main character from becoming a vampire and others are being used to cure a variety of mental illnesses. So, it's a combination of this trope and AIIsACrapshoot.

* ''VideoGame/CityOfHeroes'' seems to deconstruct this. Heavily cybernetic villains do seem to be monstrous and/or soulless and/or crazy, especially the Clockwork King, Freakshow, and Nemesis. It's not because of the cybernetics, though; Nemesis was an evil racist powermonger back during the Civil War, the Freakshow are on [[PsychoSerum drugs]] that allow them to use the cybernetics, and the Clockwork King was crazy before he stuck his brain in a jar.
** And of course, [=PCs=] can be as cybered up as they like.
** And there's [[HumongousMecha Malta's Titans]], cyborgs with systems specifically designed to [[BrainwashedAndCrazy "condition"]] the brain controlling them.

** Deliberately left without a clear answer in the original. Supremacy affinity, which specializes in cybernetics and gradually improves it, receives exactly this perception from the adherents of Harmony and, [[TranshumanTreachery especially]], Purity. And although they may fully correspond to such an assessment, Supremacy's [[AlternativeCharacterInterpretation final interpretation tends to vary greatly]]. However, they are not unique in this respect. Any of the affinities can be located absolutely anywhere on the ShadesOfConflict scale, despite the fact that all of them, regardless of their ideals, are inclined to end their ideological path on the positions of inveterate [[TheFundamentalist Fundamentalists]] and [[KnightTemplar Knights Templar]]. Therefore, in one game, Supremacy will symbolize [[ScienceHero a beacon of progress, enlightenment, and independence of mankind]], and in another - an artificial HiveMind that is not interested in anything other than [[TheAssimilator forcibly absorbing everyone else into its network]]. Of course, these are not all possible variations.

* ''VideoGame/Cyberpunk2077'': As this game is based on the original "Cyberpunk" TTRPG, the deleterious effects of over-chroming are on display everywhere, including feelings of alienation, body dysmorphia and eventual complete and violent detachment from humanity.
** Or are they? [[spoiler: During the "Psycho Killer" questline you are tasked with bringing down a number of cyberpsychos, all of whom turn out to have other explanations for their rampages beyond chroming, such as drug abuse, untreated PTSD, job loss, deaths of loved ones, religious mania.... It is generally implied that while chroming was definitely not good for any of these peoples' mental health, "cyberpsychosis" is a blanket term for a wide range of social and mental health issues, most of which are at most tangentially related to cybernetics. The term has then been horrendously over-applied by lazy corp-owned media outlets, and the only reason these cases get the amount of attention they do is how destructive these heavily chromed individuals can be compared to your common-or-garden school shooter.]] Cyberware resistance was added in version 2.0 of the game, with a cyberware-induced [[TheBerserker fury state]] possible with a perk, so it remains to be seen how much cyberpsychosis is exactly a physical or social condition.

** ZigZagged once more as it's implied that the various characters in ''Edgerunners'' are driven to cyberpsychosis mainly due to life events and associated trauma. [[spoiler:Maine is implied to be motivated by the death of Sasha, while it has been explained by the series creator that David's cyberpsychosis was a result of losing all of his support pillars throughout the course of the series (in addition to the PTSD of killing an innocent woman[[note]]though the fact he killed her ''because'' he was already beginning to disassociate kind of makes it a chicken or egg kind of deal[[/note]]). His high tolerance for cybernetics itself was rooted in the fact that his unusually positive upbringing as well as his positive relationships gave him an unnaturally high mental/emotional stability.]]

** IP Creator Mike Pondsmith [[https://www.reddit.com/r/LowSodiumCyberpunk/comments/xklzsx/comment/ipffmf4/ in a comment on Reddit]] once explained that he partially based cyberpsychosis off anabolic steroid addiction - with the psychosis episodes being comparable to roid rage - with a psychological element based on how able an individual is to shrug off stress and mental hardship. He also confirmed that Johnny Silverhand [[https://www.reddit.com/r/LowSodiumCyberpunk/comments/xklzsx/comment/irb6mqi/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3 suffered from cyberpsychosis on some level due to his cybernetic limb]] and blamed his worst impulses on his titular hand. Pondsmith goes on to say that Johnny's unstable and rage-filled nature meant that his presence in V's mind [[InsanityImmunity made V a lot more resistant to Cyberpsychosis]] since Johnny acts as a buffer to the mental strain.

* ''VideoGame/EmpireEarth'': Subverted, after General Molotov absorbs a lethal amount of radiation, Grigor II has him [[UnwillingRoboticisation turned into a cyborg]], causing the previously loyal General to begin questioning his leaders methods, concerned with the possibility of losing more of his humanity, before ultimately [[DefectorFromDecadence defecting]] when Grigor II callously orders him to [[FinalSolution wipe out the population of Cuba]] for being [[ColdEquation too troublesome to rule in the long term.]]

* [[PlayingWithATrope Played with]] but ultimately {{subverted|Trope}} in ''VideoGame/EVEOnline'', where cybernetics by itself won't eat one's soul, but misuse of brain interfacing technology can have various unsightly consequences, to wit:

* Inverted in ''VideoGame/EYEDivineCybermancy''. Several cybernetic implants are actively useful - indeed, practically required - for psychic characters. However, in the backstory, being enhanced as much as EYE agents are is incredibly risky for their souls - one method used, Necrocybermancy, involves the subject being killed and their soul held in stasis while the upgrades are being made, then returned to their newly-cybernetic body.

* [[BodyHorror Combine]] [[https://combineoverwiki.net/wiki/File:Barn_Advisor_tongue.jpg Advisors]] from ''VideoGame/HalfLife2''. Thanks to their dependence on technology, they've evolved into large slug/larva like creatures, their only remaining appendage being a long snaking tongue [[https://combineoverwiki.net/wiki/File:Ep2_outland_advisor_rebel.jpg which they use to feed]]. Though it is impossible to know what they were beforehand, given that they were aliens.

* ''VideoGame/HeavyRain'' has ByTheBookCop Norman Jayden using ARI sunglasses, a high-tech AugmentedReality tool for crime forensics. However, his severe overindulgence in it (and a design shortcoming in the first-generation units) has left him suffering from extreme side-effects. He uses [[FantasticDrug a drug called Triptocaine]] to relieve the symptoms, but Triptocaine itself is highly addictive. [[spoiler:He suffers brain death if he overuses the ARI in the final "crime solving" sequence. And even during his "best" ending (where he solves the case and is hailed as a hero) he ends up suffering permanent damage to his mind.]]
** The "Uploaded" ending [[spoiler:has RabidCop Carter Blake putting the ARI on. He first enjoys the virtual reality; that is, until an illusion of Norman shows up, scaring him and implying that he will be haunted by him even without the ARI]].

** As much as Viktor uses Hextech rather than cybernetics, he [[InvokedTrope invoked the trope]] - intentionally locking himself away and replacing most of his flesh with machine parts to create something no one could steal from him, but also precisely to get rid of his emotions, which were bugging him since a fellow scientist claimed the glory for his achievements. It didn't exactly work, as he still hates his 'rival' a bit. He's also obsessed with making everyone be like himself, and speaks in an emotionless manner.

* Mentioned in ''VideoGame/MassEffect3''. [[spoiler:While discussing with Javik his distrust of synthetic races like the geth, the Prothean relates the story of the zha'til: created when a race known as the zha implanted themselves with symbiotic AI technology to enhance their intelligence in order to survive as conditions on their homeworld became increasingly inhospitable. When the Reapers arrived, they subjugated the AIs, known as zha'til, who then seized control of the bodies of their masters and altered their genetic material at the deepest level, transforming the zha into synthetic monsters and their offspring into slaves. With no other recourse, the Protheans sent the star of the zha's home system into supernova, destroying the zha'til entirely]].
** Defied in ''VideoGame/MassEffectAndromeda'', where Ryder's SAM connection becomes the core of the Andromeda Initiative, as SAM's AI capabilities give Ryder the ability to hack terminals made by precursors with technology bordering on the supernatural. [[spoiler:Over the course of the game, Ryder develops the nascent ability needed to hack the terminals themselves (though at the cost of brain damage), proving that the relationship isn't just a technological crutch but a symbiotic co-development.]]

* ''VideoGame/{{MOTHER}}'':

* ''VideoGame/{{Planetside}}'': The Vanu Sovereignty actually [[MachineWorship worship]] [[{{Precursor|s}} Vanu]] technology, and speak of [[AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence "enlightening"]] humanity just like they believed happened to the Vanu themselves. It's implied that the Vanu artifacts might be [[ArtifactOfDoom brainwashing them and driving them]] [[ScaryDogmaticAliens to spread their creed across Auraxis]].

* In ''VideoGame/QuakeIV'' cybernetics on their own don't eat your soul, but activation of the Neurocyte takes control of the former human body and the person inside degrades into nothing. If the victim is rescued before that can take place, they retain their full humanity.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Rimworld}}'', characters with the Prostophobe[=/=]Body Purist trait seem to believe this. They won't mind simple prosthetics and {{hook hand}}s and {{seadog peg leg}}s, but exchanging their body parts for bionic replacements will give them a substantial mood penalty. Inverted in turn by Transhumanist characters, who feel more and more ''alive'' with each piece of their bodies replaced with superior technology, boosting their moods for each bit. Played straight with Luciferium, a drug which turns a colonist into a host for highly advanced glitterworld [[{{Nanomachines}} mechanites]] which give them a ridiculous number of health benefits - immunity to disease, enhanced bodily functions across the board, regeneration of any injury ''including brain damage''... at the cost of them being forever dependent on weekly Luciferium doses, and if they can't get their fix they go AxCrazy and then die.
* ''TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}}'' video games:
** Averted in the UsefulNotes/{{S|uperNintendoEntertainmentSystem}}NES game, where installing cyberware has no cost to the soul. The main character Jake eventually becomes a Dog Shaman every bit as powerful as Fujiko Kano, one of the premier spellcasters in the ''Shadowrun'' universe, despite being loaded down with dermal armor, wired reflexes, and other invasive pieces of cyberware. It's possibly justified, depending on the edition rules you're going by, as the Dog Spirit takes it upon himself to impose a few hefty Geasa on Jake to make up for his disconnect from the spiritual world, which could potentially send his Essence up to levels where the Cyberware isn't an issue.
** The [[UsefulNotes/SegaGenesis Genesis]] version follows a simplified version of the table-top source material. Less Essence means less magic, but the game won't let you kill yourself by installing too much. You need to have the Essence to pay for it.

*** The ''Dragonfall'' DLC has a character actually use this intentionally: [[spoiler:Glory had tied her soul to [[{{Satan}} The Horned God]] and used extensive and, from an Essence point of view, deliberately old and inefficient cybernetic implants to shred her Essence for the purpose of severing the connection when she turned from him, which makes it in some sense, an inversion - by severing her connection with the toxic spirit, which was doing far more to "eat her soul" in the sense of this trope than any amount of cyberware, she was reclaiming her humanity, rather than destroying it]].
*** In her personal quest, Glory can potentially reference this trope in dialog, commenting that she rarely feels emotions anymore - most of the time, she's just numb.
*** ''Dragonfall'' also features [[spoiler:The MKVI, a cyberzombie with -2 Essence. After repeated rounds of cyberization, compounded by a experimental drug allowing it to have more implants than normally possible, it is essentially a mindless killing machine devoid of humanity and its soul is trapped inside its body in an AndIMustScream scenario. If you disable its control overrides and restore its mind it immediately kills itself, pausing only just long enough [[FateWorseThanDeath to thank you]].]]
*** The ''Hong Kong'' campaign discusses this trope with two characters: Ten-Armed Ambrose had most of his body replaced by cybernetics to save his life and now runs a Street Doc clinic using machinery he's more or less permanently rigged into. He's on the verge of crossing the threshold and engages in a lot of social activity to keep his humanity in check. Meanwhile, Racter is a {{Transhumanis|m}}t who has made it his life's mission to study the Essence Limit and is of the firm belief that it can be overcome, [[spoiler:a belief anchored in his own body being cybernetic from the waist down and having been implanted with some extremely experimental and volatile mind-affecting implants without them affecting him mentally. Racter attributes his mental stability to the fact that he's a [[TheSociopath clinical sociopath]], and thus also believes that [[MoralSociopathy people like him]] are the key to transhumanism.]]
* In the ''VideoGame/SidMeiersAlphaCentauri'' ExpansionPack, ''Alien Crossfire'', the [[StrawVulcan Cybernetic Consciousness]] faction suffers from slower reproductive rates, since its followers no longer "get" the ideas of love or sex. In addition, the "Cybernetic" future plans cause your workers to be replaced by machines, which in turn leads to higher social unrest. (This can apparently be averted if you occupy said workers with managing the Planet's Internet--provided your faction was the one that built the network backbone.) Among the faction leaders, Pravin Lal seems to believe this, going by some of his quotes. While one merely concerns unscrupulous use of (forcibly) cybered {{Super Soldier}}s (almost certainly referring to the [[PoliceState Human]] [[TheEvilsOfFreeWill Hive]]), the other relates how, during his usual interfacing with life support machinery, he found his thoughts, which crossed over into it as usual, being ''answered'' by the machine itself with cold and rigid thoughts of its own.
* ''VideoGame/SpaceSiege'': The only storyline effect that augmenting yourself with cybernetics has is the end scene (assuming you declined an offer that appears late game; if you took that offer, you'd get a third ending even if you're fully human). It also features an encounter with [[spoiler: a man who's been looking for his lost daughter over the course of the game. The lower your humanity score, the more hideous his augmentations]]. The enemy "Cybers" are just mind-controlled. However, augmentations will reduce your "humanity" score, which can be used to unlock some powerful skills later on in the game. The game also makes distinctions on what affects your humanity - getting a cybernetic eye won't reduce it much, but getting a [[BrainUploading cybernetic brain]] sure as hell will.

* ''VideoGame/{{Spore}}'' has the Grox, a race of {{Absolute Xenophobe}}s and [[EnemyToAllLivingThings Enemies to All Living Things]] who are (who could have guessed) cyborgs. {{Downplayed}} as whether they were like this ''before'' cybernetics or not is unknown.

* Double Subverted in ''Star Trek: Away Team'': The cybernetics the villains are using were originally created to cure Vulcans with a disease that made them unable to control their emotions, unfortunately they can be waponized to make those equipped with the implants into a HiveMind with massive MindControl powers, as in they hijack a small part of the Borg Collective.
* Although it's kinda dubious if he even ''had'' a soul to begin with, Hakeev of ''VideoGame/StarTrekOnline'' gets a cybernetic Borg eye after the Romulan PlayerCharacter gets in a good shot and gets his eye taken out. When you meet up with him again, not only is he sporting that new eye, he's starting to deck out his ship in Borg gear. It doesn't help that the rest of the Tal Shiar is messing around with Borg tech and, in one possible timeline, when Romulus is assimilated, Hakeev willingly becomes Secundus of Borg!

** In ''VideoGame/StarWarsGalaxies'', like ''TabletopGame/{{Cyberpunk}}'' it's stated that overuse of cybernetics can erode a person's mental faculties, resulting in "cybernetic psychosis". In-game this acts as justification for limiting how much cyberware a PlayerCharacter can equip, with the limit increasing as they progress in level.

* Played with in ''VideoGame/{{Stray|2022}}'': On the one hand, RobotBuddy B-12 has lost their memories and sense of self due to [[spoiler:uploading their brain into the robots' virtual network to save themselves from an apocalyptic plague]], such that they had completely forgotten that they [[spoiler:used to be human]]. On the other, they still retain their emotions and capacity for empathy, more so as their companion the Cat leads them toward regaining those same memories.
* Although not focused at all in its story, ''VideoGame/SupremeCommander'' makes a fair job depicting cyborgs. The Cybran nation is implied to be formed of normal people like anyone else, only much smarter to have their brain completely interfaced with a computer. The ones who actually lose their humanity are the ones enslaved by a program by the UEF, and are enslaved precisely because the UEF philosophy is that they lost their humanity. [[SelfFulfillingProphecy That means they only become less human because the ones who consider them less than human make them less than human]]. Dr. Brackman, the oldest character in the [=SupCom=] universe, is a Cyborg more than a thousand years old, but his personality seems to be still very human, for a scientist, even after being reduced to pretty much a brain in a jar by the time.
** Still, the UEF at least believe the Cybran deserve to be live, as long as they live like machines. The Aeon, an entire faction of KnightTemplar, consider the Cybran an atrocity and are more than happy to commit genocide against them at every chance instead of converting. Of course, this depends on the player considering the enslavement as being or not a FateWorseThanDeath.
*** Funny that, considering that the very Commanders of the Aeon (as well of the other factions) are completely interfaced neurally with their Armored Command Unit (pretty much a giant mecha that can make more giant mechas).
*** Aeon Commanders are not neurally interfaced, specifically because of religious reasons. Instead, Aeon commanders wear distinctive facial makeup to make it easier for their helmets to analyze the commander's facial movements and interpret commands-The Way lends them strong enough self-control that they can literally use facial expressions to command their forces, in addition to hand-input commands.
** With the [[TheFederation UEF]] treating the Cybrans like slaves and the Aeon and Seraphim [[KnightTemplar trying to purge the galaxy of unbelievers]], the Cybran nation easily comes off as the nicest faction in the setting. They just want to be left alone and only fight to defend against Aeon genocide or to rescue the Symbionts who are still controlled by the UEF. In fact their main problem is their relative lack of unity; Brackman had to clone himself to get a neutral Commander the clans would rally around.
* ''VideoGame/TheTalosPrinciple'': Can be discussed with Milton, who may ask you if having your brain cells slowly replaced with microchips that perform the exact same functions as the cells they're replacing would, at some point, cause you to stop being human. It's left up to the player how they respond to this question.
* ''VideoGame/TrafficDepartment2192'' justifies this--cybernetic technology is new, and it hasn't been perfected yet. [[spoiler:In particular, replacing damaged sections of the brain, as is done to the main character, causes migraines, hallucinations, delusions of grandeur, and eventually lethal deterioration of the brain's organic parts.]]

* In ''Webcomic/DarthsAndDroids'' this is General Grievous' rational for retaining some of his original organs despite his near total cyborg conversion...sort of.

* InvertedTrope in ''Webcomic/DresdenCodak''. If anything, Kim seems to have been [[{{Pun}} humanised]] by the mishap that necessitated her robotic arm, leg and eye. Not surprising, given that the writer is an avowed transhumanist.
** She upgrades to full-body prosthetic and manages to be even ''more'' human. Helping matters is that this option was only possible because she applied cybernetics to human empathy, by helping a broken robot as if it were an injured person, and the robot's ''family'' tried to build her new body based on that empathic blueprint.
* ''WebComic/DragonBallMultiverse'': [[spoiler:Yamcha]] implies this is happening to #18. He also implied that it happened to himself at one point in time, but that he recovered.
* The "Pocket President" chips in ''Webcomic/AGirlAndHerFed''. Originally designed to give federal agents unblockable, untraceable instant communication ability, they instead turned nearly all of them into shells of their former selves (just going through the motions of life) or permanently depressed lumps who tended towards suicide. The exceptions being those agents who already had pronounced PsychoForHire tendencies. And then we find out, the chips could do [[PowersAsPrograms much much more]]... and the folks that made them knew it. [[spoiler: The psychological issues were intentionally induced as a RestrainingBolt]].
* Averted in ''Webcomic/TheIntrepidGirlbot'', where its transformation into a cyborg made no change to the raccoon apart from having to deal with its newfound destructive capabilities.
* ''Webcomic/LastRes0rt'' avoids this trope pretty handily for a {{Cyberpunk}} work-- yes, the emotionally sensitive Daisy Archanis has a robotic leg, but there's also a robot murderess who claims she's really a glorified BrainInAJar...
** Then again, nobody cares whether or not Cybernetics Eat Your Soul when there's plenty of [[OurGeniesAreDifferent other]] [[OurVampiresAreDifferent creatures]] willing to ''eat it for you''.
* Parodied briefly in ''Webcomic/SamAndFuzzy'', when Jackson, a member of the Ninja Mafia, loses his hand and has it replaced with a cybernetic prosthetic. He spends one strip asking the standard array of "how much can be replaced and still be human?" questions... and then goes straight to using the hand to [[MundaneUtility crack walnuts]], completely indifferent from then on.
* Yuri of ''Webcomic/SpaceTrawler'' was always a little [[{{Otaku}} weird]], but she seems to be getting more and more bloodthirsty as she gets upgraded. Though many in comic believe she developed an "organic inferiority" complex as part of the Post-traumatic stress disorder from the torture session that cost her her limbs (the Eeb brain tissue she also had implanted probably doesn't help [[spoiler: considering that Eebs turned out to be natural psychopaths]]).

[[folder:Web Original]]
* Played straight with the Dragonstorm experiments in ''Roleplay/DarwinsSoldiers''.
* ''WebVideo/NewLifeSMP'': ZigZaggingTrope depending on perspective.
** In Owen's 5th episode, after creating a machine to de-oxidize his Copper Golem creations, Sparrow initially plans to visit some friends before his robotic programming overrides and tells him to go mining for resources. In the following episode, he's forced to explore the Deep Dark [[FightingFromTheInside in spite of his own hesitation and fear]] because of another systems override informing him that [[AndIMustScream the "objective" of exploration is "not optional"]]. [[spoiler:It's likely he's realized this by the end of the episode, given [[DrivenToSuicide what happens]].]]
** Averted with all other characters who have held the Copper Golem origin so far, who are able to maintain a human mentality and consciousness throughout. It's implied that this is because [[spoiler:Sparrow is the only one among them to artificially change origin, as opposed to by dying naturally and being reborn as that origin, or in Sparrow's terms, with the relevant hybrid traits]].
* Played with in ''Podcast/PretendingToBePeople''. While it's not explicitly mentioned that the [[{{Cyborg}} cyborgs]] in the series are less human than their fully-organic counterparts, the cyborgs we ''do'' see are all quite messed-up people. Upon gaining cybernetic implants, [[ButtMonkey Keith Vigna]] somehow becomes even [[LackOfEmpathy less empathetic]] than he already was.

** Averted by the prosthetic limbs made by Anderson Robotics, even if the owner is a CorruptCorporateExecutive. Their Buteo suits in the [[DeathTakesaHoliday End of Death]] canon, however, have this as a consequence of shorting out when too much dopamine is in the brain. [[spoiler:Turns out the dopamine limiters were put in by a researcher disgusted with the ImmortalityImmorality she has seen to prevent users from becoming too hedonistic.]]
* {{Downplayed|Trope}} in ''Podcast/WithinTheWires'' in "Cassette #4: Sadness, Lungs," when its revealed that people are possessed of a standard implant between ribs and hip that removes and stores memories, and is implied to manage instincts that include the impulse to violence. The {{Narrator}} of the cassettes attempts to use autogenic exercises to let a patient control their implant enough to restore some memories.

* ''WesternAnimation/SonicTheHedgehogSatAM'': Robotnik's Roboticizer doesn't only transform a person's body - it also hijacks the mind, stealing the victim's free will and reducing them to little more than a slave. However, this only happens if the victim's head is roboticized - Bunnie Rabbot is partially roboticized herself, and since her head was unaffected, she retained complete control of her mind.
* ''WesternAnimation/StarTrekLowerDecks'': "[[Recap/StarTrekLowerDecksS2E01StrangeEnergies Strange Energies]]": A variation when Tendi suggests that Rutherford has Synthetic Memory Disorder. It's a condition that can occur from cybernetic brain implants that gradually shifts the afflicted's personality and memories as neurons degrade until their brain melts out of their skull.

* ''Anime/MazingerZ'': [[{{Mooks}} The Iron Mask and Iron Cross]] are {{Cyborg}}s BigBad Dr. Hell created by grafting cybernetic implants in the brain of corpses (many of which he, his CoDragons or his HumongousMecha had murdered). Not only they are not allowed rest in peace but they have been mindwiped and programmed to be mindless slaves. One of them even gloated to [[TheHero Kouji Kabuto]] that he was glad to no longer be worried about pesky things like thinking, hesitating, worrying or fearing death, making him a perfect soldier. Of course, Kouji was not impressed:
-->'''Kouji''': "You idiot, such a thing wouldn't even be human!"

* {{Downplayed|Trope}} in ''Literature/AfterTheRevolution'': Willing transhuman enhancement is treated something like a hobby or a scene, which gets increasingly more incomprehensible to outsiders the further in you get. On the flip side, those who are heavily enhanced sometimes forget what it was like to be baseline human, which creates some culture shock between them and baseline humans. Decades-old cyborgs like Roland and Skullfucker Mike appear, at best, highly eccentric to most people, and at the worst terrifying, when they forget just how much more powerful their enhancements have made them.
* Justified in ''Android Karenina,'' where the mechanical "Face" that eventually transforms Alexei Karenin into the nightmarish Tsar With No Face was specifically designed for exactly that purpose- as part of a scheme for world domination by [[spoiler: the Honoured Guests]].
* In ''Literature/AlienInASmallTown,'' Thrym Scyllaschild eventually allows aliens to turn him into a virtually immortal cyborg who is always happy, and yet on some level, he realizes that he desperately misses feeling ''other things,'' but he can't quite muster the strength of will to have the change undone. It's not clear that it ''can'' be completely undone. Oh, and his new bionic form looks like a giant, cotton candy pink spider -- and he's so happy about it! At least, he's pretty sure he is.
* "Literature/TheBicentennialMan": As part of their legal strategy for Andrew, the [[ProtagonistTitle titular robot]], his law firm, Feingold and Martin, tries to argue that replacing body parts with [[ArtificialLimbs prosthetics]] makes people lose their humanity. They [[FailureGambit intend to lose every case]], but they reach a bottleneck where the [[OneWorldOrder World Court]] claims that the brain is what makes one human, even as they say no other organ matters.

** In the novel ''Operation Excalibur'', one character, whose husband recently had a limb replaced, mused that the sex the night before proved that cybernetic limbs at least don't remove a person's tenderness or passion, and thinks that the only people who tend to go coldly murderous when they have cybernetic prosthetics installed are people who tended towards that sort of behavior anyway.
** The World Of Blake's massively cybernetically modified Manei Dominei soldiers are merciless killers, but that's more likely due to their indoctrination rather than a side-effect of their cybernetics.

*** Played... bent, by Clan Enhanced Imaging technology; it does not eat your soul, but will eventually result in crippling neuromuscular degeneration despite constant treatment, and arguably a lot of the hard-core Crusaders who would use it were pretty soulless anyways. The version used as a control system for protomechs carries with it no inherent penalties different from the usual one, but due to its use as UnusualUserInterface with the protomech, in which the pilot essentially becomes the machine while it's active, it can result in a "God Complex" insanity.
*** Though in the case of the psychological problems caused by EI technology the fluff mentions that social interaction, particularly with other members of their protomech unit, outside the cockpit can limit this. So apparently they only eat your soul if [[LonersAreFreaks you're a loner.]]
*** Played with regarding Myomer implants, which act as electric powered muscles that can vastly augment one's strength and endurance. Despite the large alteration the procedure generally does not result in psychological problems. However, patients usually become dependent on pain killers afterwards and that in itself can lead to a host of issues.
* {{Justified|Trope}} in ''Literature/BehindBlueEyes'', as the Guardian Angels' cybernetics are designed to make it easier to control their minds via brainwashing. They're designed to be an InternalDeathSquad that eliminates all dissent to the Olympias Corporation after all.

** Isaac Szpindel's mechanical augments allow him to interface directly with the CoolStarship's labs -- giving him all the senses that implies -- but his own normal senses have been so numbed that he has to wear force-feedback gloves just to give him a sense of touch.
** Robert Cunningham gets around this same issue by using the neurons that control his face instead. The down side is that he ''looks'' like he's got no soul to a casual observer since he is now unable to use his facial muscles and has a blank mask of a face. He has also lost his ability to use gendered pronouns, using "it" instead, even for people.
* The ''Literature/CouncilWars'' novel ''There Will Be Dragons'' has a mother appalled at the prospect of her teenage daughter uploading herself into an A.I., not because the uploading process is inherently flawed, but because she's so young. The upload will emulate her brain as it is ''now,'' so her brain will never have the chance to undergo the physical maturation processes of adolescence, and she will remain neurologically (and, it is implied, emotionally) a flighty teenager for the rest of her very long life.

* ''Literature/DarkFuture'': Dr. Threadneedle, himself significantly cybered-up, addresses this topic with Jessamyn shortly after having installed huge amounts of cybernetics and bio-augmentations in her. One of the reasons he was fired by [=GenTech=] and Dr. Zarathustra cancelled his projects was to do with the high levels of psychosis that many of his subjects suffered. He himself has been experiencing a significant lack of interest in the rest of humanity and a general feeling of detachment from the world, manifesting in trances and spending hours simply testing how long he can balance himself on his fingers or hold a significant weight: "I can do almost anything with this body, but... when you're superhuman so little seems worth the bother."

* Happens in ''Literature/DragonsLexiconTriumvirate'', when the all dragons sentries of Drakemight have been turned into technodragons [[spoiler:via the black orbs. This is the fate that happens to Lyconel when Drekkenoth captured her turning her into a technodragon turning her into a single-minded warrior that is forced to fight Dennagon in the Lexicon tower]].

* The ''Literature/HostileTakeoverSwann'' series averts this and plays it straight. Dominic Magnus has had much of his body cybernetically rebuilt, and worries about this, but in fact his emotional detachment is for perfectly ordinary human reasons. The minor character of Ambrose, though, has had much of his brain replaced as well, and is described as not really being a person anymore, but not legally an AI, and thus [[NoTranshumanismAllowed allowed to exist]]
* In ''Literature/HyperspaceDemons'', this is one theory as to why the Machinists (a cyborg society) cannot be possessed by the macrobes, [[spoiler: and also why they cannot become Navigators]].

* Averted in ''Literature/TheLunarChronicles'' with Cinder, a cyborg who is very human even though about 80 percent of her body is made of metal. However, she cannot cry and extreme emotions or exercise of her psychic powers can sometimes cause her machinery to shut down.

* Played with horrific psychological subtlety in Creator/DamonKnight's short story "{{Literature/Masks}}" (readable online [[http://ranprieur.com/readings/masks.html here]]). A man has been saved from certain death by having his brain and nervous system woven into an otherwise robotic body. Though he's retained all his memories and sense of self, his lack of human senses and physiology has left him with only one emotion: [[spoiler: nauseating disgust and hatred for the organic life that surrounds him]].
* The Stalkers (a.k.a. the Resurrected Men) in the ''Literature/MortalEngines'' books are cyborg soldiers that were "resurrected" using Old Tech. The Lord Mayor of London manages to have the tech reverse-engineered from Shrike, who is a partial aversion of this trope.

* This is a major theme in "Literature/ScannersLiveInVain". Due to a mysterious effect that interplanetary space has on the human body, causing physical agony and eventually a suicidal compulsion, anyone who goes into space must either be in [[HumanPopsicle cold sleep]], or have their sensory nerves severed so that they have no senses but the eyes, in which case their bodies must be regulated and monitored by implants. This is mostly done to "Habermen", convicts who have been sentenced to a FateWorseThanDeath, but because Habermen must be monitored, there is a small group of elite pilots, officers and engineers who undergo the same procedure, called the "Scanners". When a scientist discovers a way to travel safely in space without undergoing this procedure, the assembly of Scanners, whose cannot become hot-blooded or otherwise feel emotions viscerally, vote to assassinate him. Meanwhile, the hero, who is temporarily "cranched" (able to feel normal sensations) is outraged, declares the others to be "zombies," and vows to save the scientist. Part of the moral of the story is that the cold logic of the head must be regulated by the body. [[spoiler:Unlike many examples of this trope, it turns out that the severing process can be reversed, "restoring" the soul.]]

* Going into "Nanoshock" and becoming "Necrotech" is a very real danger in ''Literature/{{SINless}}''. All humans have an extensive amount of nanites, and many will have further bionics, with cybernetics enthusiasts really pushing the boundaries. Unfortunately, humans have a limited "tech threshold", after which the body can't handle all this energy-intensive hardware and shuts down. Plus, even if are you well below the tech threshold, if the nanites in your body exhaust their energy supply then they will start to break down the host body for energy. This is going in to "Nanoshock" and if the person dies, the corpse becomes animated by the nanites and the resulting [[ArtificialZombie high-tech zombie]] becomes known as "Necrotech".

** Grigari nano-cybernetics do this in ''Literature/StarTrekFederation'', although it doesn't affect the personality so much as the stuff below it -- essentially {{Flanderiz|ation}}ing the user. Also, the guy whose soul was being eaten was a psychotic [[ANaziByAnyOtherName Optimum agent]] obsessed with Zefram Cochrane and a physically impossible "warp bomb", so it's quite possible everyone would have been better off if it ''did'' take out the emotions.
** The Choblik race introduced in the ''Literature/StarTrekNovelVerse'' are an {{inver|tedTrope}}sion. They were originally reasonably intelligent woodland creatures before a race of unknown Builders [[UpliftedAnimal installed their implants, giving them sapience]]. Upgrades throughout childhood and adolescence are celebrated rites of passage in their culture. Choblik crewmember Torvig Bu-kar-nguv of the ''[[Literature/StarTrekTitan Titan]]'' initially doesn't understand why everyone fears the Borg so much. In ''Literature/StarTrekDestiny'' the full implications hit him and he's horrified. This trope, and thus the Borg, are essentially the anti-Choblik, their most primal horror.

** Ton Phanan of ''Literature/XWingSeries'' was a doctor before [[EmergencyTransformation losing a leg and half of his face]] during the Battle of Endor. It's debatable whether the cybernetics specifically or his highly visible injuries are more to blame, but nonetheless Phanan became increasingly cynical and depressed, [[StepfordSmiler hiding in snark]]. [[WordOfGod The author]] is on record as saying that although Phanan feared death and struggled against it, deep down he didn't want to live.

** In one novel, [[spoiler:Tenel Ka]] loses an arm. She refuses to replace it cybernetically due to family values. Luke supports her decision and explains that while ''he'' prefers to have his arm replaced, he always keeps in mind this is a step in direction of Vader - "half human, half machine".
** The ''VideoGame/DarkForcesSaga'' has robotic Darktroopers; supplemental material mentions that the [[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Phase_Zero_Dark_Trooper prototypes]] were aging veteran clone troopers who had around seventy percent of their bodies replaced with cybernetics. Combining the weight of their experience with stronger, faster, more damage-resistant bodies made them extremely effective in combat, but no one had consulted them beforehand. That's why the project switched its focus to droid troopers - droids don't gape in horror at [[WhatHaveIBecome what they have become]] and [[DrivenToSuicide kill themselves]] or just [[SuicideByCop act really recklessly in battle]], wasting good credits and tech.
** One of the Imperial Grand Admirals, [[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Osvald_Teshik Teshik]], was known for being humane and compassionate, moreso than the others. After he failed Palpatine, he was sent on a suicidal mission, survived, and came back, but so badly wounded that a good seventy-five percent of his body [[EmergencyTransformation had to be replaced with cybernetics]]. This put him in the [=NonhuMan=] category; in that 'verse, bacta therapy is so effective that cyborgs are seen as weak and inferior. As a result of this, Teshik grew cold and distanced himself from his emotions. But his soul hadn't been eaten; a construction worker saved him on Endor, reawakening his true nature, and he fought on until his Star Destroyer was captured. [[ShootTheShaggyDog Then the New Republic executed him for atrocities he, the least evil Grand Admiral, never committed; his mechanical laughter at hearing his sentence is said to be the saddest thing those who witnessed it ever heard]].

** Because it relies on two different kinds of technology, one even more esoteric than the other, possibly the ultimate example of this has not really had a chance to be explored-- using a refined version of the [[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Entechment entechment process]] (mentioned above) to have one's "spirit" placed into a [[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Human_replica_droid replica droid]] of oneself. The only person known to try it was already evil when he went for it, but it didn't seem to affect his personality any.
*** In "Children of the Jedi", another character went through a similar process to save his life from an incurable disease. He later mentions that, apart from his hands, he has no real sense of touch. Also, all his memories have been converted to information. When remembering a picnic, he knows things like the color of the cloth, or what food they had, but it's just a text file, he can't visualize the memory. C-3P0 notes, though, that he can still do things no true droid can do, like make guesses, or eyeball measurements.
** Force lightning isn't possible with cybernetic hands but other force powers may or may not be affected by replacements. Vader is much less agile than before his transformation but there is the question if it is because of a weaker connection with the force, the shoddy suit design or the limitations that went with producing the movies in the 80s.
** Dengar from ''Literature/TalesOfTheBountyHunters'' was forcibly turned into a cyborg by the Empire. In the process, they removed all the emotional centers of his brain they didn't feel would be useful for their purposes -- no love, kindness, etc. He is intellectually aware of what an emotional cripple he is now, and ''wants'' to feel nice things again.

* Although not focused at all in its story, ''VideoGame/SupremeCommander'' makes a fair job depicting cyborgs. The Cybran nation is implied to be formed of normal people like anyone else, only much smarter to have their brain completely interfaced with a computer. The ones who actually lose their humanity are the ones enslaved by a program by the UEF, and are enslaved precisely because the UEF philosophy is that they lost their humanity. [[SelfFulfillingProphecy That means they only become less human because the ones who consider them less than human make them less than human.]] Dr. Brackman, the oldest character in the [=SupCom=] universe, is a Cyborg more than a thousand years old, but his personality seems to be still very human, for a scientist, even after being reduced to pretty much a brain in a jar by the time.

--> Without a heart, how am I to feel love?
--> Without love, how am I to feel hate?
--> And without hate, how am I to feel the exquisite sensation of mild annoyance?

** Averted with all other characters who have held the Copper Golem origin so far, who are able to maintain a human mentality and consciousness throughout.

* Played with in ''VideoGame/StarWarsTheOldRepublic''.
** Both [[TheFederation Republic]] and [[TheEmpire Imperial]] players can select cyborgs as their race. However, on the Republic side, initially only "pretty" kinds of modifications are available, which is at most a cybernetic eyepatch and a metal bit attached to their temples. Same with the Imperials, except they only get the "evil" kind, ones that include metallic jaws, ElectronicEyes that [[RedEyesTakeWarning glow red]], metal ridges that line the player's side, and worse.
** The character's moral alignment is based on the player's actions. Republic players can KickTheDog plenty of times, though the best Imperial players can shoot for are {{Noble Demon}}s.
** Once you unlock the cyborg legacy perk, you can choose any cybernetic permutation, regardless of what faction you pick.

* Diehard from ''ComicBook/{{Youngblood}}'' has been a cyborg since the ''40''s, but in one of the later series he undergoes a series of upgrades to better perform his duties and comes out of the experience behaving much less human.

* In ''{{Film/Nemesis}}'' the voiceover narration mentions that the main character Alex Rain worries cybernetic augmentation and replacements are making him less human. "It always scared him that they might take out his soul... and replace it with some matrix chip." This might be more about his personal worrying and not any general tendency, since completely artificial androids are shown to be capable of deep emotions and empathy. It is perhaps telling that he apparently keeps track of how much of his body is original down to tenth of a percent.

* ''Anime/EighthMan'':

** The OVA ''Eight Man After'' discards this trope in favor of DrugsAreBad - it's not the cybernetics per se that drives the users crazy, but the massive quantities of PsychoSerum they have to take to use the implants effectively. Eight Man makes do with good-old SuperSerum.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' episode "[[Recap/FuturamaS7E7TheSixMillionDollarMon The Six Million Dollar Mon]]", Hermes Conrad enhances himself with numerous robot parts in order to become a more efficient bureaucrat. The alterations make his [[{{Jerkass}} already chilly]] personality even more so. His desire for perfection eventually leads him to seek a robot brain replacement, which presents [[AxCrazy other problems]]. Oddly enough, it's general screwup and ButtMonkey Zoidberg who winds up restoring him to his previous self.

** His ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitansGo'' incarnation totally averts it, being a goofy slacker who couldn't care less about being part-machine.