History Main / MeatSackRobot

A defining trait of this type of robotic entity is that the thoroughly machine AI governing an entity that is partly biological. As a result of such a reversal of an artificially created intelligence directly controlling tissues that were of naturally evolved beings (or possibly synthetically created living tissue in some cases), it is a creation that displays [[BuffySpeak machinely]] unnatural tendencies despite being composed of biological tissue and thus likely to invoke UncannyValley from some of the audience.

* In ''Series/{{Andromeda}}'' Rommie's android avatar has realistic cloned human skin, presumably designed by Harper for his own benefit.
* The humanoid Cylons in ''Series/BattlestarGalactica2003'' were initially believed to be just skin deep, hence the nickname "skinjob", but later episodes showed that their organic components extend a bit further, to reproductive systems even.

* The Replicants of ''Film/BladeRunner'' and its sequel ''Film/BladeRunner2049'' are alluded to be this, but WordOfGod is that they're {{Artificial Human}}s.

* ''Film/BladeRunner'' and its sequel ''Film/BladeRunner2049'': The Replicants.

* In ''Film/StarTrekFirstContact'', the Borg queen grafts living skin tissue onto Data's arm (Data being a purely artificial android), allowing him to feel human sensations, something he has longed to do but was not capable of. This was an attempt to lure him over to her side. (A more limited example than most others, in that we're talking about a small patch of skin, and Data was fully functional without it, but it still fits the "reverse cyborg" definition)

* In ''Film/StarTrekFirstContact'' the Borg Queen tempts Data to join her with grafts of human skin, making him more human. [[spoiler: They get burned off when he vents the reactor onto the Borg.]]

* Tje creators deliberately use the skeletal, flesh, and nerve remains of a biological being as a faster way to assemble a robot, both in using the skeleton and muscles to provide a base to build on and exploit the use of preexisting nerve structures to make creating the CPU of such a machine easier. The Evangelions from ''Franchise/NeonGenesisEvangelion'' and Borg from ''Franchise/StarTrek'' are varying degrees of examples of this variant.

* Humans deliberately take the skeletal, flesh, and nerve remains of a biological being as a faster way to assemble a robot, both in using the skeleton and muscles to provide a base to build on and exploit the use of preexisting nerve structures to make creating the CPU of such a machine easier. The Evangelions from ''Franchise/NeonGenesisEvangelion'' and Borg from ''Franchise/StarTrek'' are varying degrees of examples of this variant.

* Humans deliberately take the skeletal, flesh, and nerve remains of a Human being as a faster way to assemble a robot, both in using the skeleton and muscles to provide a base to build on and exploit the use of preexisting nerve structures to make creating the CPU of such a machine easier. The Evangelions from ''Franchise/NeonGenesisEvangelion'' and Borg from ''Franchise/StarTrek'' are varying degrees of examples of this variant.

Everyone knows that a {{Cyborg}} is a living being with technological components of one sort or another grafted onto his/her body. Though sometimes in fiction, it is done in the opposite direction in which a AI controlled machine grafts biological tissue (either by another individual or of its own volition) into its being. How such a robotic entity is created can be for one of or a combination of a variety of reasons:

* ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'': The titular Evangelions piloted by Shinji, Asuka, and Rei, and etc. were made from organic bodies cloned from [[spoiler:"Adam" and (in Eva-01's case) "Lilith", the Seeds of Life that respectively serve as the progenitors of [[StarfishAliens the Angels]] and humanity]], with armor, weapons, computer networks and other technological features grafted on to them. They were intended to be this, but some of the Evangelions themselves subvert this trope by managing to develop their own consciousnesses, with the case of EVA-01 (Shinji Ikari's) being due to [[spoiler:having the soul of his mother Yui Ikari due to her body being merged into it]].

* A human with cybernetic implants that have a highly advanced AI (internal or external) that, upon its host's death or presumed lifelong incapacitation (e.g. a coma), takes over the biological mass of its host for its own purpose and continued independent existence. If this process is committed by an AI by a still living and conscious living host, this results in WetwareBody and/or UnwillingRoboticization.

* Humans deliberately take the skeletal, flesh, and nerve remains of a Human being as a faster way to assemble a robot, both in using the skeleton and muscles to provide a base to build on and exploit the use of preexisting nerve structures to make creating the CPU of such a machine easier). The Evangelions from ''Franchise/NeonGenesisEvangelion'' and Borg from ''Franchise/StarTrek'' are varying degrees of examples of this variant.

** The Cyber Lin Kuei under Sektor in the rebooted continuity were all slaved to the Lin Kuei network. The network had to be controlled by a central grand master, who naturally was Sektor himself. [[spoiler: Once Kuai Lang beat the crap out of Sektor, the network defaulted to the next sentient cyber ninja: Cyrax, which caused all of the cyber ninjas to stop attacking Kuai Lang. Later on during Kronika's plot, the factory would be restored, but this time the cyborgs would be slaved to Frost.]]

* ''Franchise/MortalKombat'': Triborg, introduced in ''VideoGame/MortalKombatX'', is a robot, but X-ray attacks and Fatalities done on it, as well as at least one intro dialogue with Cassie Cage reveal that it is built on some unknown person's body. Its Arcade ending [[spoiler:has it do the same thing to the humans at the Special Forces base, and vows to do the same thing to other kombatants as well.]]

* In ''ComicBook/{{Runaways}}'', Victor Mancha is an Ultron construct whose body was designed so that over time, his organs would reconstruct themselves in ways that would enable them to mimic organic material, until his cybernetic nature became impossible to detect.

See also OrganicTechnology. Overlaps with certain variants of ArtificialHuman. Compare AmbiguousRobots, LivingBattery, WetwareBody, and WetwareCPU. Not to be confused with RidiculouslyHumanRobot, though Meat Sack Robots acting like Ridiculously Human Robots are not precluded.

* Creator/IsaacAsimov:
** In "Evidence", the penultimate story of the ''Literature/IRobot'' collection, a candidate for a political office is suspected of being a robot. The United States Robotics claim they did create an artificial body for a robot as an experiment, but it never had a brain. It was stated to be flesh grown upon a plastic skeleton.
** The more advanced RidiculouslyHumanRobots featured in the later ''{{Literature/Foundation}}'' books might be of that type (instead of the older plastic over metal design), but it's never made explicit.

* ''Film/{{Virus}}'': The titular virus starts as an extra-terrestrial storm cloud that is transferred into a oceanic ship with advanced robotics but not more advanced than the body parts that make up the pesky human crew cue body horror.

* In ''Webcomic/SchlockMercenary'', the character Doythaban Gyo has an AI called Haban built into his cyborg implants; they do not fit this trope. However [[spoiler: after a gate clone of Gyo is [[ItMakesSenseInContext created by an alien race who want to torture it for information]], the clone Gyo is shot in the head; medical intervention is able to save the copy of Haban, [[WetwareBody leaving only the AI in control of the clone body]].]]

* ''TabletopGame/GammaWorld'' 1st Edition. In the adventure [=GW1=] ''Legion of Gold'', the {{PC}}s will explore an Ancient base that has been taken over by androids. They will discover some {{People Jar}}s with androids growing inside of them. The androids consist of an underlying metallic framework with electronic wiring (the "robot" part) covered by a normal human body (flesh, muscles, etc.).

* The vorg of Literature/TerminalWorld are sapient robots that have learned how to supplement and replace parts and systems damaged by the zone shifts with more error-tolerant biological tissues. While they aren't great at making or maintaining these tissues themselves, they have found that these materials can be easily harvested from living organisms as needed. Humans in particular have large amounts of useful neural tissue inside their skulls, for instance.

* ''Film/{{Virus}}'': The titular virus starts as a extra-terrestrial storm cloud that is transferred into a oceanic ship with advanced robotics but not more advanced than body parts the pesky humans that crewed the ship cue body horror.

* ''Franchise/MortalKombat'': Triborg, introduced in VideoGame/MortalKombatX, is a robot, but X-ray attacks and Fatalities done on it as well as at least one intro dialogue with Cassie Cage reveal that it is built on some unknown person's body.

* ''Franchise/StarTrek'':
** The Borg [[TheAssimilator assimilate]] various species (via injecting {{Nanomachines}} into their victims) into its [[HiveMind AI's unifying conscious]] called "the Collective" [[UnwillingRoboticization whether their victims consent or not]].
** In ''Film/StarTrekFirstContact'', the Borg queen grafts living skin tissue onto Data's arm (Data being a purely artificial android), allowing him to feel human sensations, something he has longed to do but was not capable of. This was an attempt to lure him over to her side. (A more limited example than most others, in that we're talking about a small patch of skin, and Data was fully functional without it, but it still fits the "reverse cyborg" definition)