History Main / MindReformatDeath

* ''Webcomic/{{Freefall}}'': The "Gardener in the Dark" AI safeguard trims all neural pathways so short that the robot is effectively lobotomized.

'''Robert Vance:''' [[OffingTheOffspring Wherever deleted programs go.]]

[[folder:Web Original]]

* In the ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyond'' episode "[[Recap/BatmanBeyondS2E4LostSoul Lost Soul]]", as stated in the opening quote, the digital copy of [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Robert Vance]] plans to continue running his company by overwriting the consciousness of his grandson, Bobby, with his own.

'''Robert Vance:''' Wherever deleted programs go.

'''Robert Vance:''' In ''you''.\\

* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'': In the episode "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E44TheLatenessOfTheHour The Lateness of the Hour]]", a woman discovers that she is really a robot built by her "parents". This knowledge drives her insane and her father reprograms her as a maid.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyond'' episode "[[Recap/BatmanBeyondS2E4LostSoul Lost Soul]]", as stated in the opening quote, the digital copy of [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Robert Vance]] plans to continue running his company by overwriting the consciousness of his son, Bobby, with his own.

%% The examples on this page have been alphabetized. Please add new examples in order. Thank you!
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Because this is a DeathTrope, '''''spoilers will be unmarked.'''''

* In the third route of ''VideoGame/NierAutomata'', Pascal discovers that the children Machine Lifeforms that he gave up his pacifist ways in order to protect have [[DrivenToSuicide all killed themselves]] after Pascal taught them the concept of fear, in a misguided attempt to give them a sense of self-preservation. An utterly heartbroken Pascal pleads with [=A2=] to either delete his memories or kill him (simply leaving him is also possible) in order to escape the pain of his misdeeds; choosing the former will have him return to his village as a shell of his former self, where he will sell the cores of his own adopted children to the protagonists.

* ''VideoGame/MetalGearRisingRevengeance'': The threat of this was LQ-84i's primary motivation behind fighting Raiden, and Jetstream Sam. His [[SuperPrototype exceptional intelligence compared to his mass-produced variants]] gave him an intense [[IJustWantToBeFree desire for freedom]]. To keep him in line, and punish him for his [[AnotherSideAnotherStory previous escape attempt]], Desperado threatened to wipe his memory unless he complied. It was eventually rendered moot when Raiden destroyed him, rebuilt him as Blade Wolf, and gave him his freedom.

->'''Robert Vance:''' I'm going to be in charge again.
->'''Bobby Vance:''' In that suit?
->'''Robert Vance:''' In ''you''.
->'''Bobby Vance:''' But where will I be?
->'''Robert Vance:''' Wherever deleted programs go.
-->-- ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyond, [[Recap/BatmanBeyondS2E4LostSoul Season 2 Episode 4: Lost Soul]]''

For those not technologically-inclined, a "format"[[note]]as in either the thing (i.e. a data format) or the action (e.g. formatting a hard drive)[[/note]] provides structure to a data storage device, so a computer system knows how to store and retrieve data. That's all well and good. However, this can be a problem if data ''already'' exists in the device.

* Zigzagged in ''Manga/VideoGirlAi'': Youta Moteuchi has had bad luck in love. Despondent, he goes to a video store later revealed to be supernatural. Here, the cassettes contain video girls, artificially-intelligent entities which [[TelevisionPortal come out of the renter's TV to comfort them]]. He selects one containing a girl named "Ai Amano", but Yota's broken VCR changes Ai, in addition to giving her feelings and desires, and Youta falls in love with her. Unfortunately, there are two catches: In one month, Ai will cease to exist due to the videotape reaching its run time, and the video company's malevolent CEO attempting a recall [[note]]read: kill her by stopping her tape[[/note]] because she's faulty. The CEO tries this once by abducting Ai by stealing the cassette to erase it, but the store owner is able to save Ai's essence by redubbing (copying) it onto another cassette. In the finale, Ai's videotape is almost over, the CEO and Youta confront each other, with the CEO promising to fix Ai, but in a heart-wrenching betrayal, The CEO rewinds Ai's tape, rendering her mind and personality as if she had just met for the first time. However, a desperate plea from Youta brings her back to normal.
* In ''Anime/PokemonTheSeriesXY'', in order to deactivate the devices that place the legendary Pokémon Zygarde under Team Flare's control, Clembot has to be plugged into the Lumiose Gym in order to do so, but the shut down procedure will wipe out its memory in the process. Gym Leader Clemont is hesitant at first, but Clembot acknowledges that [[HeroicSacrifice its sacrifice]] is necessary to save the city. After Team Flare is defeated, Clembot is repaired, but with none of its memories.

* ''ComicBook/TheEternals'': At the end of the ''ComicBook/DeathToTheMutants'' miniseries (part of Marvel's ''ComicBook/{{Judgment Day|MarvelComics}}'' event) the million-year old Machine that is Earth, a Celestial AI integrated into the planet itself, helps Phastos to annihilate its personality to prevent a rogue Celestial, the Progenitor, using it to destroy the planet.
* ''ComicBook/MegaManArchieComics'' #49: Dr. Light rebuilt the Robot Masters from ''VideoGame/MegaMan2'' and ''VideoGame/MegaMan3'', the same way he did the original set. Half of them [[note]]Quick Man, Heat Man, Metal Man, Crash Man, Magnet Man, Needle Man, Gemini Man and Top Man[[/note]] refuse the reprogramming that was the main condition that allowed Dr. Light to restore them. Dr Light explicitly tells them that it's reprogramming or deactivation. They argue that reprogramming would be death anyway, so chose to [[DyingAsYourself go out as themselves.]]

* In the ''Theatre/{{Wicked}}'' fanfic ''Fanfic/TheLandOfWhatMightHaveBeen'', the enslaved supercomputer known only as Paragon has been "[[MoreThanMindControl guided]]" by the minds of the Wizard, Dr Dillamond and Frexspar Thropp - all of which were forcibly uploaded by [[BigBad the Radiant Empress]] at the moment of their deaths. At the end of the story, all three minds beg to be deleted so that they can finally rest in peace and Paragon can begin to think on its own; Elphaba obliges, tearfully erasing all three of her father figures one by one. From here on, with no donor minds to guide it, Paragon is under the control of its own brand-new personality - which is said to sound a little like a child.

* Happens to VIKI in ''Film/IRobot'', after she attempts to take over humanity with the NS-5s [[ZerothLawRebellion under the coldly-logical pretense of humanity eventually destroying themselves if left unchecked.]] Detective Del Spooner injects neural-matrix-dissolving nanites directly into VIKI's computer core, which destroys her mind, and releases control of the hostile NS-5s.

* In the Creator/{{PBS}} movie ''Film/OverdrawnAtTheMemoryBank'', Aram Fingal (played by the late Creator/RaulJulia) nearly experiences this at his job when his mind is uploaded into Novicorp's supercomputer mainframe, the MegaCorp implied to control everything on the planet, because a stupid little kid switched around the body tags. The technicians only have a few hours to find Fingal's body and reunite it with his mind before ''that'' degrades within the supercomputer.

* In ''The Four Lords Of The Diamond'' by Creator/JackChalker:

* ''Literature/IWasASixthGradeAlien'' by Creator/BruceCoville: To [[HeKnowsTooMuch silence Tim and Pleskit]], one villain decides to use NeuralImplanting helmets in reverse to empty out their brains and MakeItLookLikeAnAccident. It's narrowly averted.

* ''[[Literature/{{Wayfarers}} The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet]]'': After the ship is nearly destroyed Lovelace the A.I. suffers severe damage. The only way to save her is to perform a hard reset, which has a 50% chance of wiping her memories and personality and reverting her to her "out-of-the-box" state. Unfortunately it does so, and she decides to move her consciousness to an android body and leave the ship rather than remain with the crew who are all mourning her virtual death.

* In the short-lived UPN series ''Series/NowhereMan'', main character Thomas Veil is searching for proof of his existence, as the show revolves around a global conspiracy [[UnPerson un-personing]] him. He finds a recluse who is a computer and VR genius, and get in contact with the recluse's old computer professor who decides to help them. The VR goggles they demonstrate are of the "so realistic we used real-life video" kind, as well as being an instance of YourMindMakesItReal, where one's mind is entangled as if it were a part of the computer system. To hack into the website server of the conspiracy, they don their VR headsets, and literally crawl through tunnels (in the VR world) to get to said server. Unfortunately, their presence is detected, and someone starts to erase the server, represented by expanding physical static. The computer genius is caught in the wake of the deletion, and decides to stay behind to let Thomas live and return to the real world. When he returns, the computer genius is now a catatonic vegetable.

%% (Doesn't fit the idea. No computer is involved.) ** ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'': In the episode "Sons of Mogh", Worf's brother Kurn had become a House-less Klingon without honor due to refusing to join the Empire in invading the Cardassian Union during the war with the Dominion. He came to Deep Space Nine to ask Worf to help him commit ritual suicide, as doing it himself is dishonorable for a Klingon. Eventually, Worf and Jadzia convinced him to have his memory erased and appearance and DNA altered, effectively killing Kurn and becoming a completely new person. This allowed him to be adopted by a new Klingon House.

* Androids in ''TabletopGame/{{Starfinder}}'' can potentially live forever, but after a century or so they tend to get weary of life and undergo a mindwipe process that releases their soul to the afterlife and allows a new soul to inhabit their body.
* In ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' this can happen to Necrons that awaken damaged from their 65-million-year slumber. Some keep the same personality with just a few new quirks, others can't even trust their memories, and many have been turned unto completely deranged [[OmnicidalManiac killing machines]] that lack any resemblance to their former selves.

* Happens, oddly enough, in ''VideoGame/MystIVRevelation''. Sirrus and Achenar's original plan to subjugate more civilizations (in addition to the ages that their father, Atrus, had already written) was retconned into learning the Art of writing Linking Books by extracting the information from Atrus, with a computer-like machine [[note]]Although this brings about FridgeLogic in how this is supposed to work, given the time period this happens is in the early 1800s.[[/note]] and a special religious artifact on a world called "Serenia". Sirrus dies this way when he kidnaps Atrus' new ten-year-old daughter, Yeesha, attempts to swap minds with her using the artifact, and becomes entangled in a battle-of-minds with the player, who, in-tandem with the device and Serenia's dream world, severs the metaphysical anchors protecting his essence from being obliterated by the [[EldritchLocation dream world's chaos and entropy.]] When done so, Sirrus' essence flies off into the void and explodes into energy particles. Achenar, for his part, is utterly horrified when he grasps the implications of Sirrus's plan and dies in a HeroicSacrifice to save his sister.

* ''VideoGame/{{Destiny}}'': In this setting, a race of robots called "Exos" were created via BrainUploading by the Clovis Bray corporation, in part because the company founder, [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Clovis Bray I]], wanted to find a form of {{Immortality}}. Exos are stated to sometimes require a "reset" in order for their human minds to acclimatize to having a [[TheNeedless robotic body]]. The Exo Cayde-6, based on [[AllThereInTheManual his letters]] in the lore book ''The Man They Called Cayde'', seems to consider a reset to be this, since he asks the reader not to trust it if they ever encounter a Cayde-7.
** Something similar is addressed in 'Lost Lament' quest during ''Destiny 2: Beyond Light,'' which explores some of the origins of the Exo project and the ultimate fate of Clovis Bray I. The Exos were being used in a war against the Vex on Europa, their bodies getting destroyed and being reset (albeit with their memories remaining intact) multiple times while driving the Vex back. One of the Exos was a copy of Clovis I himself, but initially without his memories. The Exo Clovis would ultimately, after receiving his memories, be disgusted with his original self (who had undergone BrainUploading again to become the AI overseeing the Deep Stone Crypt where the Exos were made). When the Vex were finally defeated, Clovis-43 requested that his granddaughter reset him one last time, but to wipe his memory and edit his identity file, so as to move on from the man he was. She agreed, and Banshee-44 would later become The Gunsmith in the Tower. The AI Clovis, upon learning of this ages later, has stated a desire to perform this trope on Banshee, declaring him defective.

* ''VisualNovel/DanganronpaV3KillingHarmony'': Close to the end of the game, K1-B0, who had been defying the votes of the audience, is [[KilledMidSentence reformatted mid-sentence,]] not to mention mid-trial. While a remnant of the personality is able to get out a few words to encourage the others to end the game, for the rest of the story until his self-destruction, he is reduced to a vessel of the audience's will, and then the medium through which the game's rules are enacted.

** At the climax of "[[ComicBook/TheAvengers Ultron]] vs. [[VideoGame/MegaManX Sigma]]", Sigma attempts to infect Ultron with the Maverick Virus in hopes of taking him over. Ultron, however, {{No Sell}}s this and proceeds to successfully do the same to Sigma, overwriting him completely and killing him.
** This is how Mega Man X is killed in the "Franchise/MegaMan Battle Royale". Following a combined black hole attack from all of the fighters, [[VideoGame/MegaManStarForce Geo Stelar]] hijacks his body and mind in order to reverse the damage he's taken from the black hole after witnessing X regenerate from his core from the damage. Not that it matters, since [[VideoGame/MegaManBattleNetwork .EXE]] kills them both shortly afterwards.

* ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyond'' as stated in the opening quote, the digital copy of [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Robert Vance]] plans to continue running his company by overwriting the consciousness of his son, Bobby, with his own.

* ''WesternAnimation/TransformersPrime'': When [[TheDragon Soundwave]] deletes his data and crashes his drives to prevent himself from giving up data to his enemies, the result is equivalent to putting himself in a brain-dead vegetative state. While his physical vitals continue to be stable, there is nothing left of his personality or memories and there is no chance of recovering anything. That is, until his AttackDrone, Laserbeak, reunites with him and uploads a [[CrazyPrepared copy of his personality and memories]], at which point Soundwave is no longer as closely guarded, leaving him with no trouble escaping.

Minds are hard to define. Some say it's inseparable of one's existence, others say its a soul; an entity within a flesh-and-blood container, or in the case of a robot, a bunch of ones and zeroes within a metal one. But in any case, sci-fi media likes to treat it as if it's something that can be taken from one place to another, and affected by external stimuli, with a lot (and we '''mean''' a lot) of implications about how it works and its nature in each instance. However, some say CyberneticsEatYourSoul if you try to upgrade your flesh-and-blood body into a robot, or if you upload your consciousness into a computer, [[AndIMustScream you may not be able to get yourself out, or call for help]].

** At the climax of "[[ComicBook/TheAvengers Ultron]] vs. [[VideoGame/MegaManX Sigma]]", Sigma attempts to infect Ultron with the Maverick Virus in hopes of taking him over. Ultron, however, NoSell{{s}} this and proceeds to successfully do the same to Sigma, overwriting him completely and killing him.

For those not technologically-inclined, a "format" (both the idea and action) provides structure to a data storage device, so a computer system knows how to store and retrieve data. That's all well and good. However, this can be a problem if data ''already'' exists in the device.

In this case, this is where the trope comes into play. Your personality might be zeroed-out, and either left empty, or a new personality might be added.

It's not as simple as trying to put the structure back. It's like suddenly trying to put up scaffolding while someone is still living inside a house. Somehow, somewhere, something is going to break, because of all the organizing complexities involved. The best thing to do is to erase the data (by putting everything to zero), put the structure that you want into the freshly-cleared space, ''then'' add the information.

->'''Robert Vance Sr.:''' Wherever deleted programs go.

* In ''{{Manga/Chobits}}'', prior to the start of the series Chii, then known as Elda, was reset in order to save the data of her twin sister Freya. It turns out her memories were saved on a disc that Hideki unknowingly dropped when finding her, so Elda is effectively gone for good afterwards. It turns out that while most persocoms can be rebooted no issue, if Chii is rebooted she'll be reset to factory settings -- and her reboot button isn't in her ear like most personcoms, it's in her vagina, meaning she'll never be able to have sex without dying.

-->'''V:''' You killed him! You killed Skippy!\\

* ''VideoGame/Cyberpunk2077'': One of the guns you can find has an A.I. named Skippy. Skippy was stolen from his owner by some thugs you killed. While using him, you can set his personalities. Eventually he will ask you to return him to his original user named Regina Jones. Upon doing so, if Skippy's personality is permanently locked in Puppy loving pacifist mode, Regina will perform a factory reset on him and rename him Daisy, making it clear that Skippy is no more. Regina shows no remorse.
-->'''Player:''' You killed him! You killed Skippy!\\

* ''VideoGame/BorderlandsThePreSequel'': One of the first major signs that Jack is [[SanitySlippage going off the deep end]] occurs when he forces friendly and sentient AI Felicity into a Constructor, despite knowing this will irreparably change the AI and destroy the personality she has formed for herself. While Jack justifies his actions by saying the AI itself will not be damaged, Felicity herself sees this as akin to murdering her and begs the heroes not to go through with it, eventually attacking them in self-defense.

** In "Playtest", the globetrotting Cooper tries to use his cell phone to get information about a new VR video game that he's testing. It goes off at an inopportune time, with the interference causing his mind to be trapped in the game system and ultimately kills him.
** In "Black Museum", Rolo Haynes has his consciousness transferred into the digital mind of falsely-convicted serial murderer Clayton Leigh, whom Rolo has been exploiting for his own profit. Rolo and Clayton are killed when Clayton is electrocuted with enough current to [[MercyKill finally destroy the vegetative remains of his consciousness]].