History Main / PeopleJars

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

* In the ''VideoGame/TalesOfSymphonia'' {{O|riginalVideoAnimation}}VA, the Asgard ranch have these.

* This trope is used metaphorically in ''Literature/TheBellJar'' to describe alienation.

* ''Series/ICarly'': A comedic version is used for Stu Stimbler's kid in "[[Recap/ICarlyS01Ep20IStakeout iStakeout]]". "Watch me spank your daddy!"

** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'' has espers... in jars.

* ''VideoGame/{{Mother}}'':
** ''VideoGame/EarthBound1994'' has a scene in an alien base in which you stumble across a bunch of characters who have been recently kidnapped, stuck in glass tubes. From the dialogue, it's implied that the aliens forgot to include air holes. Killing the boss [[LoadBearingBoss shuts down the facility]], which [[NoOntologicalInertia frees all the captives]] with no discernable damage to the tubes, despite the fact that there's no apparent means of egress whatsoever from the tubes. One [[FridgeLogic has to assume]] that they'd automatically release as a failsafe, in case any of their own workers got caught inside.
** In ''VideoGame/Mother3'', [[spoiler:Porky]] puts people and animals in tubes filled with a bizarre green fluid [[spoiler:in order to brainwash them into loving him]].
** ''VideoGame/EarthBoundBeginnings'' also has people who have been kidnapped by aliens stuffed in tubes, making this a series-wide trope. Weirdest of all, you can talk to them despite there not being air holes. In the first two games, they'll mostly just seem irritated with the whole circumstance. In the third game, their dialogue is ''chilling.''

** In ''[[VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon Pokémon Sun, Moon]]'', ''[[VideoGame/PokemonUltraSunAndUltraMoon Ultra Sun]]'', and ''[[VideoGame/PokemonUltraSunAndUltraMoon Ultra Moon]]'', Lusamine has a private collection of Pokémon frozen and suspended in tanks. For all her talk about loving Pokémon, she doesn't seem too concerned whether the Pokémon she loves are actually alive.
* In ''VideoGame/Portal1'', Chell starts out in one of these. She does in ''VideoGame/Portal2'' as well, and at the end of the co-op mode, [[spoiler:Atlas and P-Body discover thousands of them]].

* ''VideoGame/UnrealIITheAwakening'' features bits of people in jars. You can push buttons to make them twitch...

[[folder:Visual Novels]]
* In ''VisualNovel/BionicHeart'', we learn that Richard, the CorruptCorporateExecutive who the main character works for, has captured and preserved some of the greatest minds from the last 50 years into People Jars so that [[spoiler:he can place their brains into android Prototypes and use them for personal gain]].
* In ''VisualNovel/InvisibleApartment'', Sleepers are put in tanks which keep them alive, but in a coma. This is supposed to be done for medical purposes but is revealed to also be done to people who are inconvenient to the government.
* In ''VisualNovel/{{Policenauts}}'', [[spoiler:all of the kidnapped people are being kept in suspended animation in a secret base on the moon so that [[OrganTheft their organs can be harvested]] whenever they are needed]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Webcomics]]

* In the ''WesternAnimation/{{Amphibia}}'' [[Recap/AmphibiaS3E01TheNewNormal season 3 intro]], shown after the credits of the season 2 finale "[[Recap/AmphibiaS2E36TrueColors True Colors]]", [[spoiler:after having been stabbed by King Andrias, Marcy is kept in a [[HealingVat healing pod]] for whatever evil purposes King Andrias and his master plan for her]].

* In ''WesternAnimation/ExoSquad'', Neosapiens are created in [[UterineReplicator "birthing tubes"]].

* The [[spoiler:reserve clones of Dean and Hank Venture preserved in glass jars within the Venture compound]] in ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBrothers'', which is naturally PlayedForLaughs (using the BananaPeel gag on a "liberated" clone).

* In the final arc of ''Webcomic/BobAndGeorge'', George finds [[spoiler:the Author]] trapped inside tubes in all three eras. [[spoiler: The Author is fine. He can get out any time that he wants, but stays to maintain the illusion that Bob has successfully captured him.]]

* The severed [[LosingYourHead but living]] head of Jonathan Joestar resides in a jar in ''FanWorks/SapphireHeartverse''. The fluid inside is a magic elixir that keeps him alive and nourishes him, though he is able to leave his jar for some time and bounce around. This trope also applies to the rest of the resurrected heads of deceased characters like Erina, Speedwagon and Zeppeli, as well as Steely Dan amd Alessi who are reduced to severed heads as punishment.

Compare BrainInAJar, UterineReplicator, HealingVat, SoulJar, LivingMuseumExhibit and CrystalPrison. Contrast to ManInTheMachine, in which the subject (while still physically constrained by a container of some sort) is typically conscious, mobile, and/or able to express autonomy. See OurHomunculiAreDifferent for a common application of this trope. SubTrope of JarOfTheBizarre.

* ''ComicBook/SpiderMan'': In ''Amazing Spider-Man'' #622, after [[ComicBook/WerewolfByNight Jack Russell]] is infected with [[spoiler:the zombie virus]], ComicBook/{{Morbius}} keeps him in one of these until he can find a cure.

* In ''Film/{{Unrest}}'', a large tank of formaldehyde is used to hold an autopsy lab's cadavers between med students' dissection exercises. This being a horror movie, some living people get dunked as well.

* CABAL from the ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerTiberianSeries'' [[FunWithAcronyms stands for]] 'Computer Assisted Biologically Augmented Lifeform'. Nod's MasterComputer derives much of his/its intelligence and computing power from [[WetwareCPU the brains of numerous humans]] suspended in fluid cylinders. The Nod ending from the ''[[VideoGame/CommandAndConquerTiberianSun Tiberian Sun: Firestorm]]'' expansion shows Kane in one of these tubes, raising further questions about exactly who or what he is. Later games reveal [[spoiler:that he is a millennia-old alien and was recovering at the time]].

** Human clones are grown in "Spaarti cylinders". It's generally accepted that it takes three to five years or a year at the ''very'' most to grow a trained, battle-ready clone whose [[CloningBlues life sucks immeasurably]]; any less than a year and the clone tends to be unstable and develop Clone Madness, though if a [[PowerNullifier ysalamiri]] is nearby, the process can be shortened to under thirty days. In the ''Literature/HandOfThrawn'' duology, [[BattleCouple Luke and Mara]] find a clone of Thrawn floating in a cylinder under a base. After ''Film/AttackOfTheClones'' came out, things were retconned a little -- the Republic and the early Empire used Kaminoan-style clones which needed about ten years of raising, and as time wore on, they were replaced by quicker-growing Spaarti clones and, eventually, normal recruits.

[[quoteright:312:[[VideoGame/{{Mother 3}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mother3_peoplejars.png]]]]

-->-- '''[[WebAnimation/HomestarRunner Strong Bad]]''', ''WebAnimation/StrongBadEmail'' #168: [[Recap/StrongBadEmailE168YourFuneral "your funeral"]]

* In ''Literature/ACertainMagicalIndex'', Aleister Crowley floats upside-down in one, having his entire body save his consciousness rely entirely on machinery. In Volume 22 of the novels, however, [[spoiler:it's revealed that he may be capable of omnipresence, appearing before Fiamma of the Right to [[CurbStompBattle defeat him]] while simultaneously still being in his jar]].

* In ''Literature/{{Durarara}}'', Celty's ''[[HeadlessHorseman head]]'' is kept in a little jar.

* In ''Literature/ScrappedPrincess'', Lord Renard plans to used followers from the Browning Church to power a WaveMotionGun to annihilate the city of St. Grendel, home to the Church of Mauser. [[spoiler:He himself is actually a Mauser inquisitor, and promptly [[LeftForDead leaves them all for dead]] when he finds out that Pacifica and her party are in the area.]]

* ''ComicBook/DeKiekeboes'': The characters are put in jars in the album ''Kiekebanus''.

* In ''Amazing ComicBook/SpiderMan'' #622, after [[ComicBook/WerewolfByNight Jack Russell]] is infected with [[spoiler:the zombie virus]], ComicBook/{{Morbius}} keeps him in one of these until he can find a cure.

** ''ComicBook/DeathAndTheFamily'': When Gangbuster breaks into Insect Queen's hive, he finds Supergirl encased in a jewel-like pod and floating in an orange liquid.

** In ''ComicBook/TheOtherSideOfDoomsday'', Linda Danvers, Flash's wife Iris Allen and Atom's fiancée Jean Loring are abducted by villain T.O. Morrow and teleported into three transparent cylindrical tubes.

** In ''ComicBook/TheLifeStoryOfSuperman'', Lex Luthor grows a Superman clone inside a transparent vat filled with a greenish substance.
** "ComicBook/SupermanAndSpiderMan": Doctor Doom manages to capture and put Hulk and Wonder Woman in transparent stasis tubes.

* The severed [[LosingYourHead but living]] head of Jonathan Joestar resides in a jar in ''FanWorks/SapphireHeartverse''. The fluid inside is a magic elixir that keeps him alive and nourishes him, though he is able to leave his jar for some time and bounce around. This trope also applies to the rest of the resurrected heads of deceased characters like Erina, Speedwagon and Zeppeli, as well as Steely Dan amd Alessi who are reduced to severed heads as punishment.

* The 1986 Ozploitation thriller ''Film/TheBigHurt'' ends with the IntrepidReporter confronting the people behind a GovernmentConspiracy to develop a mind-control drug in a laboratory with nude women trapped inside glass cylinders filled with water and kept alive by scuba-style breathing apparatus.

* [[http://web.archive.org/web/20120724192436/http://www.movie-theatres.info/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/daybreakers.jpg A version of this]] is used to store the humans being harvested for blood in ''Film/{{Daybreakers}}''.

* Lindsey's HeelFaceTurn in ''Series/{{Angel}}'' is caused by the discovery of people in jars for organ harvesting.

* [[Franchise/StarWars Boba Fett]] takes plenty of bacta tank baths in Series/TheBookOfBobaFett.
* ''Series/DarkAngel'': Max spent some time in a jar.

** The Face of Boe is a giant (human-sized) head floating in a jar, said to be as old as the Universe.
** The Sisters of Plenitude in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E1NewEarth "New Earth"]] keep thousands of infected humans(ish) sealed in tanks.

* ''Series/ICarly'': Comedic version used for Stu Stimbler's kid in ''iStakeOut''. "Watch me spank your daddy!"
* ''Series/KyleXY'' spends the first 16 years of his life in one of these, [[spoiler:powering some clandestine organization's supercomputer. He hijacked their computer system after realizing that they were using his brain for war purposes and wiped out all their data. He was supposed to be disposed of, but a defector turned him loose instead.]] That's about where the series starts up.

** Also the prisons in ''Series/PowerRangersTimeForce''.

* ''Series/SpaceAboveAndBeyond'' featured a number of scenes (mostly flashbacks) of [=InVitros=] in the tanks they were "bred" and developed to physical maturity in.
* In the ''Series/StargateUniverse'' episode "Space", two crew members are rescued from these.

** The Borg assimilate children as young as newborns by placing them in Borg Maturation Chambers until they've grown into adulthood. While inside, the assimilation process makes them more cybernetic than if they were assimilated as an adult, and feeds them more Borg programming.
** ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'': In the episode "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS1E25TheNeutralZone The Neutral Zone]]", Data finds a cryogenic pod containing three frozen American humans from the early 21st century.
** ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'': In the episode "[[Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS2E1The37s The 37's]]", the ship finds pods containing people kidnapped from Earth in 1937. One was [[spoiler:UsefulNotes/AmeliaEarhart]].

*** "[[Recap/StarTrekS1E22SpaceSeed Space Seed]]" shows Khan and his followers in cryogenic storage.
* The Visitor ships in ''V'' store thousands of encased humans in suspended animation [[spoiler:so they can be shipped to the aliens' home planet as food]].

* The Music/FrankZappa song ''"Sleeping In A Jar": "It's the middle of the night and your mommy and your daddy are sleeping (...) in a jar/ the jar is under the bed."''

* In ''Pinball/TalesOfTheArabianNights,'' the evil genie keeps the [[SaveThePrincess princess]] trapped in a glass bottle.

* ''Radio/{{Earthsearch}}''. While in a LadyLand society, Darv forces one of the women to show him where the men are kept. She takes him to the [[HumanPopsicle suspended animation chambers]] where all the males are kept until [[BabyFactory needed for breeding purposes]].

* ''TabletopGame/BattleTech'''s Clans prize members are known as Trueborns, who are artificially conceived, gestated and born in growth cylinders. Conversely, Clansmen conceived and born the natural way are termed Freeborn (or [[FantasticSlur Freebirths]] if a Trueborn is feeling particularly contemptuous) and are generally held in contempt by Clan society.
* Are we ''really'' to believe that there is a squicky trope that ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' hasn't turned up to eleven at some point? No: New [[SuperSoldier Space Marine]] Chapters are created by force-culturing gene-seed in cloned humans in jars, each of whom has to go through the agonising process of having the auxiliary organs implanted so they (the organs, not the clones) can go through their natural life-cycle and produce two Progenoids for each set implanted, doubling and testing each "generation" until there's 1000 "pure" gene-seed sets ready for implantation into the ''real'' soldiers. Naturally, this only works on pubescent children because it keys off their natural hormonal changes.
** SpaceMarine Dreadnoughts are essentially heavily armed and armoured people jars, serving as life support for the mortally wounded marines they're piloted by.
*** Ork dreadnoughts are similar, although in their case the occupants are not usually mortally wounded ''before'' being wired into the machines.
** There's also the [[TheFairFolk Dark Eldar]]. Most of them are grown artificially, whereas having normally conceived children, the "trueborn" as they're called, is a privilege only afforded to the higher-ranking Dark Eldar nobles. This explains why the Dark Eldar are actually ''thriving'' while their good-[[GoodIsNotNice er]] Craftworld cousins are a DyingRace.

* ''TabletopGame/{{GURPS}} Bio-Tech'' has stats for this item.
* ''TabletopGame/{{Paranoia}}''. In early editions, clones were created inside liquid-filled tubes and stayed in the tubes until they grew to baby size. They were then decanted and allowed to grow up normally. In the most recent edition (''TabletopGame/{{Paranoia}} XP''), clones are kept in tubes until their previous active member is killed, and are then decanted, have their previous active member's memories implanted in them and become the new active member.
* ''It Came from the Late, Late Show II'', adventure "Mummy Dearest". In Dr. Morbachev's laboratory, there are test tubes the size of people along a wall. They hold three or four of the innocent people kidnapped by Dr. Morbachev, kept in computer-controlled suspended animation.
* ''TabletopGame/VillainsAndVigilantes'' adventure ''Devil's Domain''. In the Science Room, the {{PC}}s will discover grisly looking mutant babies growing in glass vats. The Devil plans to use these mutant demonic monsters as his servants when they attain their full growth.

%%* Aquapets. Google it. How this toy made it into production in its original form is anyone's guess, but when someone finally asked "DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything" a redesign was hastily commissioned.

* ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic'' has a [[BossBattle boss]] who captures Jedi and keeps their pretty-much-dead bodies in jars as an emergency power source. Both he and the player character can draw on these human batteries in the fight.
** In both ''[=KotOR=]'' games, injured people recuperate in [[HealingVat tanks of healing fluid]], and prisoners are kept in cells of a similar design.
* ''VideoGame/{{Xenosaga}}'' has mutants... in jars. Realians are test-tube babies on a larger scale, although there is little evidence to suggest that they ever go back in after their initial awakening.
* ''VideoGame/{{Xenogears}}'' could arguably be based on this trope. The "[[{{Nanomachines}} Nanomachine Colony]]" [[ArtificialHuman Emeralda]] was sealed in a containment tank in Kim's lab, deep within the Zeboim Ruins, four thousand years before the game. [[spoiler:Long before that, the mother of humanity, Elly was created by Abel's [[AmplifierArtifact imagination]], [[AppliedPhlebotinum science]], [[DeusExMachina "God"]], or some combination thereof, and she awakens from a capsule, Kadomony, ejected from the Zohar during the Eldridge crash. Presumably, Cain and the Gazel are also created from the same device. Also, after being heavily injured by Ramsus, Fei and Elly end up in healing tanks in Melchior's house. Ramsus himself was created in a test tube by Krelian. Krelian's lab and the Soylent system also contain various human/humanoid parts floating about, some of which are in river-sized tubes.]]
--> '''Melchior:''' Hey! Stop staring at the naked girl in the tank!
* ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'':
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'' has espers... in jars.
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'' has Zack and Cloud stuck in tanks during their years of experimentation at the hands of MadScientist Hojo.
*** In the spin-off game ''VideoGame/DirgeOfCerberus'', Vincent gets this treatment as well when [[spoiler:he is put in a tank by Lucrecia to save his life. This one's a more benign example, but he wouldn't be in that tank in the first place if it weren't for Hojo shooting him and performing horrendous experiments on his half-dead body]]. Especially jarring in that the cutscene is shown in first-person POV from Vincent's perspective, so essentially [[AndIMustScream the player is the one inside the tank, looking out of it and unable to move]].
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX'' had the Genome, some of whom are seen in jars. They also have creepy tendencies, but (since [[{{Squick}} it's already canon that Zidane is male]]) they aren't clones since they have sex.
* ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsI'' saw the Princesses kept in transparent crystal-like coffins in the topmost room of Hollow Bastion.
* ''VideoGame/MetalSlug 6'' have your player infiltrating a Invader hive in the final mission. In the core of the Invader base, you can uncover dozens and dozens of pods containing enslaved Martians, the Invaders' natural enemies, presumably as food supply. Shooting and destroying those jars will release the Martians, who will then summon their [=UFOs=] to drop supplies and weapons for you before they leave.
* ''VideoGame/MapleStory'' has a scene like this -- when the player selects a Resistance character and goes through the introductory cutscenes, they at one point end up in a laboratory where children are kept in jars by the evil scientist Dr. Gelmer. The player ends up [[spoiler:rescuing one of these tests subjects, called Vita, and later has several storyline quests involving Vita's recovery and contribution to the Resistance.]]
* To show just how evil Jon Irenicus is in ''VideoGame/BaldursGateII: Shadows of Amn'', one of the first big rooms the party can find themselves in is full of jars of the man's previous servants put in there when they entered a forbidden room or asked too many questions. They are trapped and alive in the tanks, and completely forgotten by him. In another room, there's another man put there, supposedly until Jon gets around to healing him (and like before, the man either forgot or didn't care anymore). He begs to be put out of his misery, implying that he was alive and in pain for ''years''. [[TheWoobie Imoen]] remarks "The things in these tanks...they used to be people."

* In ''VideoGame/CastleCrashers,'' after you're abducted by the aliens (from ''VideoGame/AlienHominid''), if you go to the left at the start of the level (as opposed to the right) there is an EasterEgg that features the ''Castle Crashers'' development team contained by the aliens in individual jars.
* ''VideoGame/DukeNukem3D'' contains a number of naked women in creepy organic jars, who quietly moan for the player to kill them if approached. They are so contained because MarsNeedsWomen.
* In ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'', right before the boss battle in TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon, you see all the playable characters floating in the tanks (except the OptionalPartyMember). It's rather creepy, even if it's mostly unexplained.
** It ''is'' explained: [[spoiler:these are the memories of the party, which Zeal obtained via her timebending Black Omen. She even says that when you'll lose to her, she'll use them to [[RetGone erase you from the timeline]], thus preventing your comeback by some TemporalParadox]].
** ''VideoGame/ChronoCross'' has a scene in which [[spoiler:Serge switches bodies with Lynx. This leads to a sequence where Serge-as-Lynx has to clone himself and take over that body. We see that body grow in a jar until, at Serge's exact age, the jar shatters.]] This scene was [[{{Fanservice}} popular with the female fans]].
* Between ''VideoGame/GalaxyAngel: Eternal Lovers'' and ''Galaxy Angel II: Zettai Ryouiki no Tobira'', Vanilla discovers Nano-Nano, an ArtificialHuman made of {{Nanomachines}}, in a jar.
* A number of ''Psionic Games'' use this trope.
** The first ''VideoGame/BeingOne'' game begins with you waking up inside such a jar, and manually unlocking it from the inside.
** ''VideoGame/KillerEscape 3'', tied into ''Being One'''s storyline, reveals that [[spoiler:Dr. Rycroft and Weston Carnodyne had enlisted the help of aliens to collect hundreds of creatures in jars for Rycroft to study, be it vampires, lycans, or dinosaurs, all in his research into immortality]].
** ''Urbex'' has white metal pods that [[spoiler:were meant to hold the mutated fly creatures until some of them got smart and released even more of them]].
* ''VideoGame/EarthBound1994'' has a scene in an alien base in which you stumble across a bunch of characters who have been recently kidnapped, stuck in glass tubes. From the dialogue, it's implied that the aliens forgot to include air holes. In one of the weirdest examples of NoOntologicalInertia in videogame history, killing the boss frees all the captives with no discernable damage to the tubes, despite the fact that there's no apparent means of egress whatsoever from the tubes.
** Didn't killing the boss [[LoadBearingBoss shut down the facility]]? One could assume they'd automatically release as a failsafe, in case any of their own workers got caught inside.
** ''VideoGame/Mother3'': [[spoiler:Porky]] puts people and animals in tubes filled with a bizarre green fluid [[spoiler:in order to brainwash them into loving him.]]
** ''VideoGame/EarthBoundBeginnings'' also has people who have been kidnapped by aliens stuffed in tubes, making this a series-wide trope.
** Weirdest of all, you can talk to them despite there not being air holes. In the first two games, they'll mostly just seem irritated with the whole circumstance. In the third game, their dialogue is ''chilling.''
* JC Denton finds a few people in tanks during the course of ''VideoGame/DeusEx'', along with the implication that [[spoiler:he may have started as one]].

* ''VideoGame/DeadSpace'' has some in the Ishimura's [[CloningBodyParts body-part cloning farm]].

* In ''VideoGame/TotalDistortion'', teleporting in or out of dimensional planes requires the use of a steel tube filled with nutrient-rich liquid, as any organic beings are sent into a six-week coma when teleported. Since you paid to be teleported into the Distortion Dimension, you wake up in one of these as well at the start of the game.
* In ''VideoGame/TalesOfInnocence'', a government project tries building HumongousMecha powered by [[{{Reincarnation}} Tenseisha]] who have special powers derived from their status as the rebirth of heavenly beings. The battery, located in the back of the robot, is essentially a tube with a human suspended in green liquid. You get a party member by raiding a lab and destroying the machine she's powering; at the end of the game, [[spoiler:the research director himself gets popped into one]].
* In a mission midway through ''[[VideoGame/{{Crusader}} Crusader: No Remorse]]'', the Silencer finds a facility where a bunch of Silencers are apparently being cloned to adulthood. In the last area, there are fully-grown (or nearly) naked people in jars. He kills the scientist who was working on them--but not before the scientist taunts him, implying he might have been in such a tank. Then he's ordered to kill them. He ''shoots the jars'', and the people, ''still attached to the inside of the jar'' by wires or cables or feeding tubes, ''fall out and hang limply in space''. [[MoralEventHorizon Because he's unfeeling like that]].
* ''VideoGame/ScourgeOutbreak'' has the Nogari Corp's cloning facilities, an area filled with clones in stasis tanks. [[spoiler:It subtly foreshadows that the player character is a clone, revealed near the end]].
* ''VideoGame/SuperCatboy'' introduces your titular hero in the FMV, floating in a stasis tank in the dogs' laboratory aboard a transport plane, when a malfunction casues him to unexpectedly wake up. Catboy then breaks loose, forcing the plane to crash, and cue gameplay.
* In the Subspace Emissary mode of ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosBrawl'', several Subspace creatures can be found in tanks during one of the Halberd stages (including one who [[UniqueEnemy isn't found anywhere else in the game]]).
* In ''VideoGame/GearsOfWar2'', Dom and Marcus enter an [[AbandonedHospital empty "research" facility]] with the hopes of finding vital information on the Locust's whereabouts. What they find is a building full of booby traps and an [[AIIsACrapshoot A.I. in control of the facility that's... less than friendly to them,]] not to mention cryo chambers full of "Sires" in jars (humans who were born while their parents were being affected by the Imulsion. Needless to say, [[BodyHorror they suffered horrible birth defects,]] and they were also completely savage). [[spoiler:Obviously, they start breaking out of the cryo chambers once you get there, and you then have to fight off wave after wave of them.]] Not exactly the information they were looking for...
** Apparently, the Sires [[spoiler:are the so-called "Forefathers of the Locust", although the Locust only ''seem'' savage but are highly organized, whereas the Sires are completely savage themselves]].

** ''VideoGame/Fallout3'': [[spoiler:The residents of Vault 112 are kept alive in stasis while their brains live on inside a LotusEaterMachine.]]
** The mutated creatures in vats at Raven Rock, some of which are never encountered anywhere else in the game, leave their purpose to speculation.
** The cryotubes on ''Mothership Zeta'', in addition to housing various human captives, also contain Raiders, Feral Ghouls (possibly [[DemonicSpiders Reavers]]), and Super Mutants.

** Played straight in The Glow from the original ''VideoGame/Fallout1''. The lower levels of the bombed-out facility held about 100 human-sized or bigger jars, with logs dating the process of the [[TheVirus Forced Evolutionary Virus]]. Most of the jars were broken, even in the parts of the facility that escaped the bombing...
* CABAL from the ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerTiberium'' series stands for 'Computer Assisted Biologically Augmented Lifeform'. Nod's MasterComputer derives much of his/its intelligence and computing power from the brains of numerous humans suspended in fluid cylinders. The Nod ending from the ''Tiberian Sun: Firestorm'' expansion shows Kane in one of these tubes, raising further questions about exactly who or what he is. Later games reveal [[spoiler:that he is a millennia-old alien, and was recovering at the time]].
* ''Franchise/StarTrek: Voyager: Elite Force'' had a level where it turned out that everyone "killed" on an alien ship were transported into PeopleJars to recuperate.

* The capsuleers (read: players) in ''VideoGame/EveOnline''. The most efficient way of controlling a ship in the 'verse is to put the pilot into a jar and then plug all of the ship's sensors and controls directly into the pilot's nervous system. In addition, capsuleers have one or more clones standing by in jars in case they are killed and need a new body.
* In ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil5'', the bad guys, for some random reason, have two massive chambers full of people to experiment on, which also act as elevator shafts. [[spoiler:Jill Valentine spent some time in one of those jars.]]
* ''VideoGame/UnrealIITheAwakening'' features bits of people in jars and buttons you can push to make them twitch...

* One of the fighters in ''VideoGame/{{Cyberbots}}'' is a girl in a jar, who hijacked a robot to escape from the government facility where she was stored. She beats up everyone she comes across due to fear and extreme misunderstandings.

** Alien stasis tanks also appear in [[VideoGame/XCOMEnemyUnknown the 2012 reboot]] and [[ShopFodder can be sold freely]][[note]]they're worth less if damaged[[/note]]; in the fangame ''VideoGame/XCOMLongWar'', you can use a number of these alongside alien surgery tables in a research project to speed up the wound recovery rate of your troops.
* ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'' has the Collectors, who abducted humans and placed them in stasis pods/jars. When you come across them during your final assault on the Collector base, you learn just what they're being used for: [[spoiler:the people are horrifically [[ImMelting liquefied alive]] by nanites (including several members of your crew if you're not fast enough to save them) and used as [[HumanResources building material]] for a new kind of [[EldritchAbomination Reaper]]]].
* ''VideoGame/BreathOfFireDragonQuarter'' had headless clones of its WingedHumanoid [[LivingMacGuffin Nina]] (in a departure from the usual ''Franchise/BreathOfFire'' [[RecurringElement Nina character]], ''not'' a princess but a mutilated, [[GeneticEngineeringIsTheNewNuke genetically-engineered]] little girl who is ''legally'' considered an experimental animal)... IN JARS. Even worse, the plan was to use the headless Ninas in PeopleJars as essentially ''living air filters'' to remove the pollution accumulated by people living 1000 years underground in a CrapsackWorld.
* ''VideoGame/CyberStorm'': Vats are used to grow, maintain and [[HumanResources recycle Bioderms]] while they're still alive. It's like an immoral, compact hospital.
* The first generation of ''Franchise/StarCraft'' has these things, which you can put on custom maps. One hidden level uses them to create Hybrids -- the first viable example being a High Templar/Zergling.
* In ''VideoGame/Portal1'', Chell starts out in one of these. She does in ''VideoGame/Portal2'' as well, and at the end of the co-op mode, [[spoiler:Atlas and P-Body discover thousands of them]].
* ''VideoGame/TheClueFinders5thGradeAdventuresTheSecretOfTheLivingVolcano'' has both humans and animals being kept in a type of these [[spoiler:by [[ToServeMan aliens who want]] to [[BrainFood eat their brains]]]].
* In ''VideoGame/StarControl II'', [[CollectorOfTheStrange Admiral ZEX]] keeps the last female Shofixti in [[HumanPopsicle cryogenic pods]] in his menagerie.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Starbound}}'', these are a staple of any Miniknog research facility -- both filled and empty jars. Practically every race will be revulsed by the sight.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Battleborn}}'', the various Mike clones are grown and kept in large glass vats before being "born".
* ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'':
** In ''[[VideoGame/PokemonDiamondAndPearl Pokémon Diamond/Pearl/Platinum]]'', you find Uxie, Mesprit, and Azelf trapped in jars while [[BigBad Cyrus]] extracts the components needed to craft [[MacGuffin the Red Chain]] from their bodies. Examining them tells you that they're in great pain, and the scientists nearby are [[NotWhatISignedOnFor disturbed by the process]].
** In ''[[VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon Pokémon Sun, Moon]]'', ''[[VideoGame/PokemonUltraSunAndUltraMoon Ultra Sun]]'', and ''[[VideoGame/PokemonUltraSunAndUltraMoon Ultra Moon]]'', Lusamine has a private collection of Pokémon frozen and suspended in tanks. For all her talk about loving Pokémon, she doesn't seem too concerned whether the Pokémon she loves are actually alive.

* In ''VideoGame/InvasionTheAbductors'', [[MarsNeedsWomen women]] are being kept in tubes throughout the Lab section of the alien mothership. Break the tubes to free them for bonus health and points.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Warframe}}'', the current specimens of [[EvilutionaryBiologist Tyl Regor]]'s aptly-titled "Tubemen" project can be seen all around the [[UnderwaterBase Grineer Sealab]] tileset. A variation of the Sabotage mission type involves destroying some of these to slow down his progress on completing them, as a major weakness of the [[CloneArmy Grineer Empire]] is the CloneDegradation that affects them all, which the Tubemen are intended to solve.

* From ''WebAnimation/HomestarRunner'': In the WebAnimation/StrongBadEmail "[[http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail168.html your funeral]]", Strong Bad proposes keeping his own body preserved in a jar, "fetal-pig-style", so there will be something to resurrect during the ZombieApocalypse.

* In ''Webcomic/{{Terinu}}'', the Ferin were placed in "Power Cells" up to ten at a time to act as [[PoweredByAForsakenChild living fusion reactors]] for the Dominion. [[http://www.terinu.com/Galleryimage/details/78 They seem to have]] [[HappinessInSlavery regarded it as pleasurable]], though Teri would disagree.

* ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'' has [[http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=003671 giant chess pieces in jars]] in the meteor laboratory (implied to be one of many), it's apparently how both armies are created.
* The ''Webcomic/GirlsInSpace'' adventure "The Pickled Past" has alien people in jars.
* In ''Webcomic/OurLittleAdventure'', it's revealed the Souballo Empire are creating humans to be used as their soldiers. These soldiers were [[DesignerBabies grown]] in jars such as these.
* One of these serves as a prison for Michael Kappel in ''Webcomic/Collar6''.
* {{Deconstructed|Trope}} in ''Webcomic/{{Spinnerette}}''. The title character wakes up in one run by Dr. Universe when she was suffering from PhlebotinumOverload. Dr. Universe lampshades the drawbacks when Spinnerette almost drowns.
* ''Webcomic/SuperMassiveBlackHoleAStar'' has [[FemmeFatale Selenis Zea]] operating [[http://smbhax.com/?e=0011&d=0003 a cloning facility]] that had her clones grown in transparent vats. [[spoiler:In addition, she also had one of these used to clone [[http://smbhax.com/?e=0025&d=0002 an accomplice who crossed her]].]]

** [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-395 SCP-395 ("The Bottle Baby")]]. SCP-395 is a human fetus that lives in a specimen jar filled with formaldehyde. It is fed a mixture of milk and blood once per week.
** [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-1637 SCP-1637 ("The Army of the Future")]]. SCP-1637-3C is a robot that controls SCP-1637 warbots. Its control unit is a fetus suspended in a liquid nitrogen solution.

[[folder:Other Sites]]
* ''Website/SCPFoundation'':
** [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-395 SCP-395 ("The Bottle Baby")]]. SCP-395 is a human fetus that lives in a specimen jar filled with formaldehyde. It is fed a mixture of milk and blood once per week.
** [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-1637 SCP-1637 ("The Army of the Future")]]. SCP-1637-3C is a robot that controls SCP-1637 warbots. Its control unit is a fetus suspended in a liquid nitrogen solution.
[[/folder]]

So just like most everything else people find creepy for various reasons, writers like putting people in jars. Experimentation, containment, study, [[DesignerBabies incubation]], medical reasons or just plain old sucking out their LifeEnergy. Some writers just love putting people in jars and especially love comparing them to insects or pickled specimens.

Compare BrainInAJar, SoulJar, LivingMuseumExhibit and CrystalPrison. Contrast to ManInTheMachine, in which the subject (while still physically constrained by a container of some sort) is typically conscious, mobile, and/or able to express autonomy. See OurHomunculiAreDifferent for a common application of this trope. Subtrope of JarOfTheBizarre.

* In the story "The Op" of the ''Literature/WhateleyUniverse'', the heroes launch a scout mission into the destroyed city, to find rooms full of horribly organic people pods. Full of women impregnated by the alien horror that has devastated the city. Things go downhill from there.
* In the CreepyPasta ''Dyscrasia,'' the narrator, a genetically-engineered superhuman girl, goes into her teacher's laboratory and sees some of his failed experiments floating in these, along with cultured limbs and organs.

* ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'': Victor Fries aka Mr. Freeze kept his wife, Nora, [[HumanPopsicle frozen]] in a jar until he can find a cure for her SoapOperaDisease. His ''Film/BatmanAndRobin'' incarnation does the same thing.
* ''WesternAnimation/DannyPhantom'' In the episode ''[[Recap/DannyPhantomS2E17KindredSpirits Kindred Spirits]]'', the clones of Danny are kept in cloning chambers full of ectoplasm.
* The [[spoiler:reserve clones of Dean and Hank Venture preserved in glass jars within the Venture compound]] in ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBrothers'', which was naturally PlayedForLaughs (using the BananaPeel gag on a "liberated" clone).
* The movie ''WesternAnimation/HulkVs Wolverine'' features the Weapon X program cloning babies in jars. Deadpool is creeped out by them and idly mentions [[WouldHurtAChild wanting to kill them when they're done]]. ComicBook/{{X 23}} [[MythologyGag is one of those babies]].
* In an episode of the ''WesternAnimation/{{Dilbert}}'' TV series, Dogbert explains that computers are going to take over the world, but fortunately, he has found a way to save humanity. After Dilbert compliments him, Dogbert clarifies that it's in the same way you might save postage stamps, and opens a closet door showing the jars he's saving people in.
* In ''WesternAnimation/DextersLaboratory'' in the episode Momdark, the show's BigBad, Mandark, abducts Dexter's mother and imprisons her in a suspended animation tank, where she is a state of blissful slumber, being completely unaware of what was occurring. She wakes up after hearing Dad say that Mandark "Missed a spot," and breaks out of her prison to clean up the spot. Strangely, she seems to be unaware of her kidnapping as she never questioned what happened to her.
* All the celebrities of our time are kept alive as heads in jars in ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}''.
** Bob Dole and UsefulNotes/BillClinton are put into these in a ''[[HalloweenEpisode Treehouse of Horror]]'' episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons''.
** And Clinton implies this is a common occurrence for him...
** Another episode has them going on a tour of the newspaper industry. The tour guide leads them to a chamber where they store Dear Abby and Ann Landers in jars, keeping them in suspended animation except for one hour per week to dispense homespun wisdom.
-->'''Dear Abby:''' My advice is to free us or let us die!
** Cryonics tubes like the one Fry was preserved in are depicted as whole-body jars.
* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans2003'' has all the heroes but Robin frozen in jars after they're captured by the VillainOfTheWeek.
* In ''WesternAnimation/ExoSquad'', Neosapiens are created in "birthing tubes."
* ''WesternAnimation/InvaderZim'' kept a number of abducted human children in jars for his various experiments. One of whom had the reoccurring gag that, because Zim had operated on the pleasure center of his brain, was completely and profoundly happy. [[NightmareFuel All the time.]]
** ''All'' [[DesignerBabies Irkens]] are born this way. [[UnusuallyUninterestingSight Giant tubes probably don't seem so horrific to them...]]
* In a season 6 episode of ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'', Roger and Stan go to Area 51. In the background, an old woman can be seen floating in a jar. (this is actually a CallBack to a season one episode where agents were chasing Roger but Stan removed the wig from the old woman and convinced the agents that she was the alien.)
** It was seen more prominently in the season 3 premiere, "The Vacation Goo," when Stan puts his family in jars filled with [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin goo that gives them false memories that they went on vacation]].
* One BadFuture in ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'' has kids being stored in jars until adulthood [[KnightTemplarParent for their protection]].
* In ''WesternAnimation/PinkyAndTheBrain'', TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture has [[UsefulNotes/BillClinton Bill and]] UsefulNotes/HillaryClinton still as acting as [[IncrediblyLamePun heads]] of the US as heads in a jar.
* In the Season 2 finale of ''WesternAnimation/{{Kaeloo}}'', [[spoiler:Olaf [[HarmlessFreezing freezes Kaeloo and Mr. Cat alive]] and puts them in People Jars.]]
* In the series finale of ''WesternAnimation/Ducktales2017'', Beakley, Scrooge, Webby, Dewey, and Louie discover May and June in Pods while they were interering a F.O.W.L. secret Lab in Funzos. [[spoiler:However, it was all part of FOWL'S plan for them to find them so they captured the [=McDuck=] Family and their Friends]]
* As of the Season 3 Intro of ''{{WesternAnimation/Amphibia}}'' Shown after the credits of the Season Two Finale, [[spoiler:After being stabbed by King Andrias, Marcy is being kept in a Healing Pod for whatever evil purposes King Andrias and his Master planned to do to her.]]
* In ''WesternAnimation/BigHero6TheSeries'' The City of Monsters Arc, ArcVillain Di Amara is creating Monsters in attempt to cure a patient that's in a cryostasis Pod, [[spoiler:The person she is trying to cure is the real Liv Amara who put herself in Stasis after infecting herself with a virus and she created her clone Di to find a cure. She is later cured and awakens just in stop Di.]]
* The Changelings from ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' seems to be capable of producing these as a means of immobilizing their enemies as show in the season 2 finale, the season 6 finale and "Frenemies".

* ''WesternAnimation/DannyPhantom'' In the episode ''[[Recap/DannyPhantomS2E17KindredSpirits]]'', the clones of Danny are kept in cloning chambers full of ectoplasm.