History Main / VirtualGhost

* The Computer from ''{{Webcomic/EvilPlan}}'' has [[spoiler: Will's mind uploaded into it. He retains his full memory and tells his backstory from personal experience, things which his programmer had no idea about. Very useful for getting Alice up to speed on how Stan became evil.]]

* The Computer from ''{{Webcomic/EvilPlan}} has [[spoiler: Will's mind uploaded into it. He retains his full memory and tells his backstory from personal experience, things which his programmer had no idea about. Very useful for getting Alice up to speed on how Stan became evil.]]

* In ''SailorMoon'', when the Sailor Senshi are transported to the lunar ruins of the Moon Kingdom they are greeted by the virtual ghost of Queen Serenity, Sailor Moon's mother from her previous life.

* In ''CaptainAmericaTheWinterSoldier'', [[spoiler:Armin Zola is revealed to "live" in a roomful of 70s computer mainframes, expressing himself through monitors no more advanced than the 90s, [[{{Zeerust}} and only some modern technology such as an USB drive.]]

* Ariadne, the ArtificialIntelligence of ''VideoGame/MadDaedalus,'' appears as an attractive, glowing spectral woman.

* Ariadne, the ArtificialIntelligence of ''VideoGame/MadDaedalus,'' appears as an attractive young woman.

* Perhaps the most heartwarming instance of this trope applied to music occurs in the current tour of ''[[Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds.]]'' The tour ads bill "Richard Burton--In Sight and Sound!" among the other lead singers...behind-the-scenes material on the official website shows how they made the new CGI Burton hologram possible, and indicates that this might very well be the first time a long-dead thespian returned to stage work through holography. It's a thing of beauty, and brings a lump to the throat when you see it.

* NietzscheWannabe Schwarzwald made a Virtual Ghost cameo in ''Anime/TheBigO'', inexplicably taking over a robot and killing the pilot for no real reason other than to indirectly save the hero via DeusExMachina, though, if the ghost's words are to be believed, it was a type 4 DeusExMachina (ChekhovsGun style) as the Megadeus are sentient and Schwarzwald, despite his insanity, turns out to be much more correct about the world than anyone else in the show.

In series with a CoolStarship, it's particularly common for a VirtualGhost to end up running the ship, especially if they are [[SpaceshipGirl female]].

Interestingly a VirtualGhost is technically just as much an AI as a [[RidiculouslyHumanRobot robot]], but even though they are essentially a computer with a preprogrammed human personality and (sometimes) the memories of a deceased person they will probably be treated different from other robots and computers. Whether the character is the same person as the dead character, or merely a piece of software that has been written to ''think'' it is, is a famous philosophical conundrum... that will almost certainly not be brought up in the series in question.

A VirtualGhost can end up practically reincarnated if made out of HardLight. SisterTrope to LivingMemory. See also HologramProjectionImperfection.

* NietzscheWannabe Schwarzwald made a VirtualGhost cameo in ''Anime/TheBigO'', inexplicably taking over a robot and killing the pilot for no real reason other than to indirectly save the hero via DeusExMachina, though, if the ghost's words are to be believed, it was a type 4 DeusExMachina (ChekhovsGun style) as the Megadeus are sentient and Schwarzwald, despite his insanity, turns out to be much more correct about the world than anyone else in the show.

* ''SerialExperimentsLain'' has a field day with this one. The first episode starts with two characters killing themselves to achieve this, and soon after the [[MindScrew Id of one character]], a scientist and the recreated image (see ''GhostInTheShell'' above) of a third character's paternal aspects become {{virtual ghost}}s. [[FromBadToWorse Then it gets complicated...]]

* The ''Film/{{Superman}}'' movies had VirtualGhost versions of the Elders of Krypton sent along with the spaceship.

* ''SuperForce'' featured a low-resolution image of Patrick [=McNee=] as the digital recreation of a dead scientist.

* ''MaxHeadroom'' just barely counts -- he was intended to be Edison's VirtualGhost, but Edison survived, and Max evolved into a very different person.

* Garibaldi memorably manages to destroy the world to save it from beyond the grave as a VirtualGhost in one episode of ''Series/BabylonFive'' - centuries after his death no less.

*** The codex states that the reason the quarians were so into AI research in the first place was a desire to upgrade these recordings into true intelligent {{virtual ghost}}s rather than limited-responses [=VIs=]. Since one of the first things the geth did was trash the ancestral archive, this didn't work out.

* In ''[[HeecheeSaga Gateway II: Homeworld]]'', the player finds the [[{{Precursors}} Heechee]], who have hidden themselves in a pocket universe the only way to which lies through a black hole. It turns out that, whenever a prominent Heechee dies, his or her brain is uploaded to a storage. The departed can then project themselves as heads and interact with those still living. This is only done when the Heechee is about to pass, as it's believed that the uploaded minds are the same people who have AscendedToAHigherPlaneOfExistence. A rogue group reveals that they have secretly disproven this theory by deliberatley uploading a living person with the person not feeling or acting out of the ordinary. They maintain that the uploaded minds are merely copies of the people who died and thus should not be given equal say in Heechee politics. While this may seem cruel, the {{Virtual Ghost}}s are shown to be very concervative (as anyone who has lived long enough gets) and try to maintain the status quo by any means necessary.

* Possibly Franz Hopper from ''CodeLyoko''; his daughter Aelita was thought to be a VirtualGhost, but is actually a digitized person who has survived for years in {{Cyberspace}}. Ulrich also spent one episode as a sort of Quantum Ghost due to his mind being accidentally separated from his virtual body.

** Subverted in ''Return of the Joker''. The subversion is the kind of hardware the VirtualGhost runs in. [[spoiler:It's former Robin Tim Drake's brain.]]

* A hologram version of Madeline appears in one episode of ''LaFemmeNikita'', though she knows she isn't the original.

* In ''TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}}'' Ghosts in the Machine, remnants of flatlined hackers floating around in the Matrix, are considered an urban legend. [[spoiler: They're not.]]

* This ''[[WildMassGuessing may]]'' be the ultimate fate of the [[spoiler:Asgard]] as of season 10 of {{Stargate SG-1}}. [[spoiler:With their last attempt at curing their [[CloningBlues genetic disease]] ending in failure, they opt for mass suicide and the destruction of their society in order to stop other races from pillaging their ruins. But not before transferring all their knowledge and technology into a legacy device which was handed over to Stargate Command. This device also has holographic projections of the Asgard people, which can be accessed at will. Note, however, that said holograms are never shown to have personality, merely being a glorified user interface similar to the ''Film/IRobot'' example.]]

* ''RoboCop'' the TV series has Diana, a.k.a. the [=MetroNet NeuroBrain=]. Like Robo, a cyborg, but she has even less living tissue, and is permanently installed in a datacenter that runs all of Delta City. She was murdered and installed in the system by corrupt OCP scientists (she was a colleague) and thus helps Robo even against her employers.

** Most recently in ''ManOfSteel'', Jor-El's recorded consciousness interacts with Clark, showing him Krypton's history. [[spoiler: He also helps Lois Lane escape Zod's ship and gives her information on how to return Zod's army to the Phantom Zone. He then briefly confronts Zod before getting shut off for good.]]

** Most recently in ''ManOfSteel'', Jor-El's recorded consciousness interacts with Clark, showing him Krypton's history. [[spoiler: He also helps Lois Lane escape Zod's ship and gives her information on how to return Zod's army to the Phantom Zone. He also briefly confronts Zod before getting shut off for good.]]

* MikhailAkhmanov's ''[[ArrivalsFromTheDark Trevelyan's Mission]]'' series has the titular character being sent to various primitive worlds alone. His only companion is an implanted chip with the personality of his long-dead ancestor, a famous commodore, who often provides counterpoints to Trevelyan's thoughts.

* ''VRTroopers'' had the same thing.

* The VI located on ''MassEffect1'''s planet Ilos contains the last untouched record of [[{{Precursors}} the Protheans]] to [[spoiler:send a message to future civilizations warning them of the [[EldritchAbomination Reaper]] threat.]] While the VI is not a ghost ''per se'', it has access to a vast amount of personal data and information about the Protheans that is unlike anywhere in the extant Galaxy, and claims its personality is loosely based on the project director's. To say that the dialogue that occurs between Shepard and the VI is [[IncrediblyLamePun haunting]] would be an understatement.

* In ''ZoneOfTheEnders: the 2nd Runner'', [[spoiler:Viola, an AcePilot who died in the first game, returns as an AI. The Viola AI has all of the skills of the original, but none of the humanity.]]

* Shade of Garth Nix's ''Shade's Children''. Also, the Leamington personality from the University, though it was much less refined.