History Main / VirtualGhost

** In the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "Inheritance", Data converses with a holographic AI of his creator, Noonien Soong.
** Not to mention the various EMH/LMH variants seen were based on the personalities and appearances of either Dr. Zimmerman (their creator) or a famous Starfleet doctor.
** In a ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' episode, Reg Barclay sends a hologram of himself to the ''Voyager'' in order to interact with the crew. Unlike the shy Reg, the hologram is lively and friendly. However, as it turns out, the hologram was intercepted and corrupted by a group of Ferengi who wish to get their hands of the ''Voyager'' even if it means the deaths of the crew.

-->-- '''Akihiko Kayaba''', ''LightNovel/SwordArtOnline''

* The final fate of [[spoiler:Harry [=MacDougall=]]] in ''Anime/OutlawStar'', after [[spoiler:he died and fulfilled the series' quota for MadeOfPlasticine]].

* ''LightNovel/SwordArtOnline'':

** In that same ending path before that [[spoiler: You find out Saburo Arasaka did have a back up in Mikoshi as well. He in fact uses that duplicate to enact a plan of [[offing the offspring killing his own son]] via [[grandtheftme overriding the younger man's mind with the copy of his own.]] Showing this was nothing but a minor set back that plays out beneficially for him.]]

* In ''VideoGame/{{Portal 2}}'', Aperture Science CEO Cave Johnson's dying wish is to achieve immortality through BrainUploading. Unfortunately he dies before the project is ready, so they go with his back-up plan: [[spoiler: upload his [[HypercompetentSidekick hypercompetent]] GirlFriday Caroline instead so that she can run Aperture forever. Oh, and [[UnwillingRoboticization don't bother asking her opinion of the plan]]. This [[GoneHorriblyWrong did not go well]], and resulted in the creation of [=GLaDOS=].]]
** [[WhatCouldHaveBeen Some unused audio files]] reveal a deleted scene where Cave did manage to get uploaded-- into an Aperture Science cube. He asks the player to unplug him, because that manner of immortality is torture.

* Astrid Peth, after [[spoiler:dying falling off the Space Titanic into a giant black hole, is brought back by The Doctor as one.]]

* ''LightNovel/AccelWorld'': Book 4 establishes that players lose all direct memories of Brain Burst after they're reduced to 0 Burst Points and the program uninstalls itself (which in some cases can [[IdentityAmnesia significantly alter their personality]]). However, the series later introduces ghostlike versions of ex-players, which retain their full memories and exist independently of their real-life selves. This is possible because, [[spoiler:in order to achieve its YearInsideHourOutsideEffect, the game actually knocks players unconscious while activating a copy of their mind stored on its server (emulated at a much higher clock speed than the human brain), syncing its memories with the original on each connect[=/=]disconnect. In fact, these synced memories ''aren't even stored in the player's brain'', and will temporarily disappear if they get too far from their Neurolinker, making the "ghosts" arguably more real than the original]].

** This trope applies to almost all human-made "smart" [=AIs=] (called such because they have an immense capacity for self-learning, unlike "dumb" [=AIs=]), since each one is made by copying the brain of a deceased human (a process which destroys said brain). The resulting AI is ''not'' an exact clone of its originating human, but it does tend to inherit certain personality traits and even memories. The one exception is Cortana, due to her being copied off a ''cloned'' brain.

* ''Machinima/RedVsBlue'' offers an interesting take on this: [[spoiler:Church is killed early in the series and "comes back" as a ghost. However, in ''Reconstruction'' he finds that he is an AI based on a (living) person's mind.]] The newest series, ''Recreation'', seems to be about [[spoiler:bring Church back to "life" with the remnants of his digital memories, themselves manifested as an AI.]]

* In ''Videogame/TalesFromTheBorderlands'', Handsome Jack, BigBad of ''Videogame/{{Borderlands 2}}'' exists in the form of an AI hologram that only Rhys can see after he plugged the ID Drive of Professor Nakayama (Jack's StalkerWithACrush) into his head. ''Videogame/BorderlandsThePreSequel'' details the creation of the AI in a sidequest, which Jack refers to as the "Diet Soda of immortality".

* Alter Ego in ''VisualNovel/DanganronpaTriggerHappyHavoc'' [[spoiler: is a BenevolentAI created by the [[TheAce Ultimate Programmer]] Chihiro Fujisaki with his personality that's discovered by the others after his death. [[BigBad Junko Enoshima]] managed to [[AwesomenessByAnalysis make a copy of it]] with her own personality that serves as the BigBad of [[VisualNovel/Danganronpa2GoodbyeDespair the sequel]] [[HijackedByGanon after her death]].]]

[[folder:Theatre]]
* This trope is OlderThanSteam. The optical illusion called "Pepper's Ghost" was in use in British theatres in the 1700's and was used where the stage directions called for a convincing ghost to appear on stage and interact with living characters. The "ghost" was actually acting below the level of the stage and co-ordinating his movements with those of the onstage actors; a clever arrangement of angled mirrors reflected the image of the "ghost" onto a semi-silvered mirror onstage, thus giving a translucent and slightly distorted image where the audience could see it, but not the glass it was reflected onto.
[[/folder]]

* ''Franchise/{{Megaman}}'':
** ''VideoGame/MegaManBattleNetwork'': This is Megaman.EXE's origin in the video games since he's [[spoiler: Hub Hikari, Lan's twin brother who died not long after birth.]] Interestingly, not present in the anime version, ''Anime/MegaManNTWarrior'', nor the manga (manga Miyu does claim that Megaman "has the soul of a human", but this [[AbortedArc never comes up again]]).

* Professor Honneycut from ''WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles2012'' had his body destroyed when he was struck by lightning. Incidentally he was helping his robot assistant Sal get untangled from some fallen wires and had his mind uploaded to Sal's body.[[spoiler:It is later revealed that he uploaded himself to the internet shortly before his HeroicSacrifice and comes back later to further aid the turtles]].

** There's also an alternate universe where Cave was uploades into [=GLaDOS=] instead of Caroline. GoneHorriblyRight does not ''begin'' to explain how much of a bad idea that was. Luckily, Cave-Prime pulls the player out of there and scraps the project in his dimension.

* Professor Honneycut from ''WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles'' had his body destroyed when he was struck by lightning. Incidentally he was helping his robot assistant Sal get untangled from some fallen wires and had his mind uploaded to Sal's body.[[spoiler:It is later revealed that he uploaded himself to the internet shortly before his HeroicSacrifice and comes back later to further aid the turtles]].

* [[spoiler:Prometheus]] is this in both ''VideoGame/TheConduit'' and ''VideoGame/{{Conduit 2}}''.

* ''LightNovel/AccelWorld'': Book 4 establishes that players lose their memories of Brain Burst after they're reduced to 0 Burst Points and the program uninstalls itself (which in some cases can [[IdentityAmnesia significantly alter their personality]]). However, the series later introduces ghostlike versions of ex-players, which retain their full memories and exist independently of their real-life selves. This is possible because, [[spoiler:in order to achieve its YearInsideHourOutsideEffect, the game actually knocks players unconscious while activating a copy of their mind stored on its server (emulated at a much higher clock speed than the human brain), syncing its memories with the original on each connect[=/=]disconnect]].

* In ''LightNovel/SwordArtOnline'', this is what becomes of Akihiko Kayaba, Griselda, and Sachi. There may be others, as there were nearly 4000 fatalities from SAO, each with a .1% chance of becoming a virtual ghost.
** Another appears in TheMovie, ''Ordinal Scale'': Yuuna Shigemura, [[spoiler: the daughter of Kayaba's mentor, Tetsuhiro Shigemura.]]

* ''VideoGame/MegaManBattleNetwork'': This is Megaman.EXE's origin in the video games since he's [[spoiler: Hub Hikari, Lan's twin brother who died not long after birth.]] Interestingly, not present in the anime version, ''Anime/MegaManNTWarrior''.
** It also seems likely that the Dr. Light hologram that appears in the ''VideoGame/MegaManX'' series is a Virtual Ghost -- in the first game, it was possible that he simply provided pre-recorded messages, although remarkably prescient ones... but since then, the hologram has displayed knowledge that Dr. Light simply could not have had during his lifetime. This suggests he's still "alive" in some form.
*** In fact, the end of ''X5'' suggests [[spoiler:that Light's hologram is capable of existing outside the capsules. In fact, the capsules in the game show that the hologram knows who Zero is (there are various explanations for this), but also who Alia is, which would be impossible for the original, living Dr. Light. In addition, he actually tells Zero early in the game that he has no knowledge of Zero's systems, so he can't upgrade him, but then states later, in a hidden capsule, that he's done some research and can now upgrade Zero. A very capable Virtual Ghost, indeed.]]
** X himself takes a page out of his creator Dr. Light's book. X is now an EnergyBeing to serve as Zero's mentor when ''VideoGame/MegaManZero'' rolls around.

->''"You could say I'm alive...in a way. Ultimately, I'm the afterimage of the mind that was Akihiko Kayaba. An echo."''

* Bunches of examples from ''Anime/GhostInTheShellStandAloneComplex''.

** Motoko from the movie wonders if she is a virtual ghost, and if her personality and memories are, in fact, [[FakeMemories programmed]], due to the small amount of brain matter she is left with.
** [[spoiler:Motoko Aramaki and the rest of the "children" of Motoko and the Puppetmaster were not born with biological bodies, and yet have a "ghost".]]

*** Well, useful images; Puppetmaster freely admits that information preserved this way is heavily fragmented, and most personal details are lost - naturally, since only interactions with others are "recorded."
** Theoretically this presumably is the result in mid-way of a Ghost Dub, but it's just a deteriorated, incomplete copy, while the original dies. Trying to copy an entire human brain is difficult business in this universe.

* ''Literature/TheJenkinsverse'' has Adrian Saunders finding the data core which contains the VirtualGhost of his dead friend [[spoiler: Trycrur]] as he builds the starship "Spot".

* The band Music/XJapan did something as close to this as can be managed in RealLife for performances in 2008 and 2009. Lead guitarist [[Music/HidetoMatsumoto hide]] [[AuthorExistenceFailure died]] in 1998, but it was pretty much agreed among the band and the fans that he could not be left out of the performances due to his impact upon the band and his iconic status as a member of it. A hologram of hide (created by, among other people, one of his former solo programmers INA) played along with the live band, almost perfectly matching hide's facial expressions and behavior. They did this again at Coachella 2018, but this time with holograms of both [[Music/HidetoMatsumoto hide]] and [[Music/TaijiSawada Taiji]].

* Bunches of examples from ''Anime/GhostInTheShellStandaloneComplex''.

* In ''Videogame/SpaceStation13'', a ghost can become this through a positronic brain.

[[folder:Web Comics]]
* Towards the end of the web comic ''{{Webcomic/Narbonic}}'', main character Dave Davenport turns into one of these -- albeit a somewhat crazier variant than is the norm. Fortunately, his girlfriend is a [[MadScientist Mad Geneticist]], so he got better.

* The AI versions of Harold Hoerwick in ''Anime/DotHackSign''. They're nowhere near as advanced as most other versions on this page (and rightly so; this series is set 20MinutesIntoTheFuture) and tend to only repeat a few cryptic lines at a time, but the information inevitably proves crucial. He also appears in the four [=PS2=] games set slightly afterward.