History Main / ManInTheMachine

* ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'':

A type of ClingyCostume. Strongly related to MobileSuitHuman and WeCanRebuildHim. Compare WetWareCPU and DarkLordOnLifeSupport. For situations where even the biological body at the center is mostly or entirely gone, see FullConversionCyborg. Contrast to PeopleJars, which are typically stationary installations that involve the subject being unconscious, unwillingly restrained, or otherwise unable to express autonomy, and MeatSackRobot, a machine given organic parts to pass for human.

* A recurring character from ''ComicBook/SonicTheComic'' was Shortfuse the Cybernik, a HotBlooded squirrel who was used in the creation of an experimental Badnik type. However, he managed to retain his free will (partly from the damage he caused to Robotnik's machines prior to his conversion, partly from sheer stubbornness), and so he rebelled against Robotnik. In one comic they showed a cross-section of Shortfuse to show that yeah, he's just a squirrel stuck in a suit with no way to take it off... [[FridgeLogic or pee]]. He later gained a mortal rival in [[YouDirtyRat Vermin the Cybernik]], who was as strong as Shortfuse (if not stronger), and was loyal to Robotnik
* Circuit Breaker from ''Franchise/{{Transformers}}'' is a helpless paraplegic without her exoskeleton. Granted that it's a very [[{{Fanservice}} skimpy-looking]] exoskeleton and that if she were at all sane, she could just wear clothes over it and pass as mostly normal; but she is, in fact, both obsessed about her circumstances and stark raving mad, so there you go.

* Von Bolt, the BigBad of ''VideoGame/AdvanceWars: Dual Strike'', extends his life by being hooked up to a machine [[PoweredByAForsakenChild fueled by the planet's energy]].

* [[spoiler:Silas]] of ''WesternAnimation/TransformersPrime'' eventually becomes heavily injured and permanently placed in the salvaged body of the [[MechanicalLifeforms Cybertronian]] [[spoiler:Breakdown]]. He seems thrilled with his new life, but .

* [[spoiler:Silas]] of ''WesternAnimation/TransformersPrime'' eventually becomes heavily injured and permanently placed in a giant robotic body. He seems thrilled with his new life. Nobody else seems to like it. Maybe if the machine in question weren't the corpse of a {{Mechanical Lifeform|s}}, things would be different.

* An [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_lung iron lung]] is a machine that enables a person to breathe when the muscle control of the lungs is lost. Simply put, it's a steel cylinder with a person fully inside, except the head, that keeps the person alive. For some, it is a FateWorseThanDeath.

** One of the [[CuteMachines Tachikomas]] ''pretends'' to be a war veteran in this situation when dealing with a policeman.
** We see a person who has one called a Jameson-type body -- in his case, it's basically a cubic braincase with stubby legs. Unlike the above, this guy is perfectly healthy in his human body; he just ''really'' wanted to be a machine. He says that his wife was really angry with him after he did that.

* This trope is more or less the entire point of ''Literature/TheShipWho'': each of the main characters is a disabled person cybernetically attached to a ship or, for less adventurous shell-people, space stations. Eventually, however, [[spoiler:technology is developed that allows the shell-people to control human-sized robot bodies]].

* The old man and his robotic bed turned humongous mecha from ''Anime/RoujinZ'' is a good example of this.

* The old man and his robotic bed-turned humongous mecha from ''Anime/RoujinZ'' is a good example of this.

* Alex Murphy, a.k.a. ''Franchise/RoboCop'', is almost completely mechanical. He doesn't even have a full organic head, just a case for his brain and spinal cord which his face is grafted onto. The [[Film/RoboCop2014 remake's version]] is has ''slightly'' more organic parts, but how little is graphically demonstrated (to the audience [[TomatoInTheMirror and Murphy himself]]) when his machine parts are taken off, leaving just a head, a plastic shell with a few organs (including lungs), and one hand.

** General Grievous in the prequels can be considered either this or a case of the man ''being'' the machine. His brain, eyes, heart and lungs are still organic, but almost everything else consists of cyborg implants, leading many to assume he is a droid on the first encounter.

** The Cybermen are humans who have been installed into mechanical exoskeletons, their minds altered to make them suitable to working with a cybernetic HiveMind. The show varies on how much of the original human body is used: in some cases there's an entire living person inside the exoskeleton; in others, just the brain is used.

* ''Series/{{MANTIS}}'' stars a roboticist who ends up paraplegic after being shot in a street robbery and builds himself a sort of exoskeleton in order to no longer be wheelchair-bound. Then at some point he did what anyone else would in that situation; he upgraded it into a suit of PoweredArmour and set himself up as a vigilante.

** Chaos Dreadnoughts/Hellbrutes are similar to their loyalist counterparts, except most see it as a form of punishment; the machine deprives them of the sensation of battle as well as isolation issues. The result is that the occupant goes mad after being locked in one, often requiring his sarcophagus (the chamber that houses his body) to be removed from the dreadnought after battle, as he's just as likely to rampage through his own buddies as he is towards his enemy. Often the occupants are [[YouHaveFailedMe someone who has either failed one task too many]] or [[AndIMustScream someone that the local warlord/warsmith wants to punish]]. Worse still, Hellbrutes (but not older Chaos Dreadnoughts) seem to slowly fuse with their occupants, turning them into a mishmash of machine, flesh and daemon, not too dissimilar to an Obliterator.

** Big Daddies are spliced up humans whose internal organs have been removed and grafted directly into huge, mechanized diving suits outfitted with one of several weapon loadouts. The FlawedPrototype Alpha Series Big Daddies are not grafted, and can take their suits off, but in order to be big enough to fill them, they have to be spliced up so heavily that [[BodyHorror it's probably better for everyone if they kept them on]].
** ''VideoGame/BioShockInfinite'' has the Handymen, made by Bettermen's Autobodies as a means to help the disabled, sickly, or severely injured citizens of Columbia to be better than new. However, they are forced into hulking metal bodies that don't work very well, cause them constant pain, and prevents them from sleeping due to the constant noise. This has left them irritable at best and they fly into violent rages that makes them lash out at anyone nearby. [[spoiler:In the dimension where the Vox Populi are banded by Dewitt's death, it appears that that Comstock (or the Comstock you have been chasing) forced perfectly healthy people into Handymen to bulk up his forces... and made them fall right into the Vox's hands.]]

** Not quite a human example, but [[BlackKnight Frank Horrigan]] in ''VideoGame/Fallout2'' is permanently welded/grafted into his [[DarkLordOnLifeSupport life-supporting Power Armor]]. The Power Armor was made specifically for him as his hulking bulk made him far bigger than any Super Mutant before and to increase his already massive durability.

** The Reaper fighter craft, the Oculus, is a Collector that has been stripped down to the nervous system, hardened to withstand the vacuum of space and placed in the craft to act as a pilot.

** Skulker is actually an apple sized, tooth shaped ghost inside a ghostly mecha the size of a tall human.

* White Knight from ''WesternAnimation/GeneratorRex'' plays with this. Technically, he does not need his containment suit nor his HumongousMecha, he instead utilizes them to completely seal off himself from the rest of the world, and thus the Nanites which infect all living things. Besides of course himself. This has made him become quite paranoid, due to the random creation of Evos from Nanite-infected life being the main issue in his universe (and main plot to the show). The possibility of a normal, mundane businessman turning, at any moment, into a giant, rampaging cancer-cyclops has led him to believe that he can only trust himself, because he is the last "clean" being alive.

* An [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_lung iron lung]] is a machine which enables a person to breathe, when the muscle control of the lungs is lost. Simply put, it's a steel cylinder with a person fully inside, except from the head, that keeps the person alive. For some it is a FateWorseThanDeath.