Sci-Fi Resurrections

[Admiral Jean-Luc Picard]

What kind of sci-fi resurreections have you found to be "legit" returns to life? There's dodging death because time travel, crossing over from an alternate timeline or papallel universe, revived by advanced science & technology, coming back as a clone, and whatever else you can think of.

I always liked characters cheating death by time travel or cloning.

 

[JD]

I'm not sure if I really count cloning as a resurrection, unless you are directly transferring the person's soul or "mind" or whatever sci-fi term you want to use for it directly from one body to the other.
A clone is simply making a copy, not really bringing the person back.
For me to count it as a true resurrection it has to be either either the same mind/soul or same body.

 

[Reverend]

OK, so excluding multi-verse doubles, temporal refugees, The Lazrarus Project, and cloning; -
Reincarnation while more of a fantasy thing, but I think it can work for certain types of Sci-Fi.
A well timed body hop/swap could technically fall under this category.
...I guess there's also the Bobiverse approach....or you know you could just go down this list.

 

[Admiral Jean-Luc Picard]

I'm not sure if I really count cloning as a resurrection, unless you are directly transferring the person's soul or "mind" or whatever sci-fi term you want to use for it directly from one body to the other.
A clone is simply making a copy, not really bringing the person back.
For me to count it as a true resurrection it has to be either either the same mind/soul or same body.

If the person is very much dead, and the clone is so close to the original that he initially thinks he is the original, can't this be a form of resurrection?

 

[theenglish]

Two resurrections that worked well for me, probably because they were written in even prior to the characters' deaths, were Superman and Spock. Starbuck's return in nuBSG was good, but in the end it wasn't really a resurrection.

 

[Imaus]

If the person is very much dead, and the clone is so close to the original that he initially thinks he is the original, can't this be a form of resurrection?

My thinking on it is this that a clone doesn't automatically count. That's a wholly new person, just the same genetics. What counts, overall, is the memory. Maybe 'soul' if that's in your verse. Take the brain out the corpse, put it in a clone, then sure it's the same person, but if there's no memory transfer, that's just a new person. How would he think he is the original, anyway? A lot of scifi just glances over that.

Back to Star Quest Online, when a person died, to justify respawning, they had some mumble jumbo that basically everyone has a implant that takes a snapshot of the brain, uploads it to subspace (thus allowing near infinite travel range and speed) which is then sent off to the nearest receiver which then holds the info, gets the recent medical data from their central data infobanks per empire (Not!Federation, Not!Klingon, Not!Romulan), makes a clone, then downloads the info into the clone.

In that regard, at least, the info-memory thing works, plus has the weird side effect of uploads and all that entails (Scions, Downloads, Uploads, Virches, Copies, Technological Afterlifes, Enhanceds, etc that the game didn't go into, but Orion's Arm did).

In Space Station 13, most people who are revived do so via cloning their dead body, which I assume copies the brain and somehow memories; but in practice, in the game, you become a ghost you can play around with (as to not just be sitting there on your butt at a black screen) so it relies on soul-ghost stuff (and you have to manually reenter your body, if you ignore the call...you get recycled). Or your body is fed to a plant and a new pod-body is grown. Or your brain is stuffed into a Man-Machine Interface and then into a Cyborg or AI wetware core. Those work.

Reviving the corpse as well, in any medium, works overall. Though I hope the brain hasn't decayed to a massive point....

 

[Admiral Jean-Luc Picard]

In regards to cloning, assume the brain is mapped and "copied" to the clone. The idea is the clone would for all intents and purposes be a near perfect copy of the original.

 

[publiusr]

Kai, last of the Brunnen-G was given true life by Prince—only to have it snuffed out at the last.

That and Spock’s return in STIII are the most notable.

 

[Reverend]

Two resurrections that worked well for me, probably because they were written in even prior to the characters' deaths, were Superman and Spock. Starbuck's return in nuBSG was good, but in the end it wasn't really a resurrection.

The Superman one is weird since (presumably going by the comics version) he never actually died, but was in a very very very VERY deep coma or sorts the whole time, and needed to recharge. So technically not a resurrection so much as a miraculous recovery/close call. Spock's resurrection was basically: "because magic planet!"
And yeah, Starbuck wasn't resurrected so much as she transubstantiated...which I guess also counts for Daniel Jackson....twice.

I suppose this kinda necessitates a discussion on what "death" actually means. Are we talking the physical death of the organic body, or the death/annihilation of the consciousness, memories and personality...the "soul" for lack of a better term?
If it's the latter then depending on how that kind of thing works within a fictional universe, nobody ever really "dies". If it's the former then we have cases like say 'Ghost in the Shell' where the *entire body* is replaced with synthetics but the "ghost" remains. Has The Major been dead the whole time? Was she "resurrected" during the conversion process?...The line here can get very blurry.

Also I'm not sure time travel and multi-verse hopping counts as resurrection because a person isn't being brought back, they're being replaced. Gamora is still dead and a version of her from earlier in her timeline doesn't make her alive again. Time is an illusion after all and as Fitz says, the 4D cube that is all of space-time isn't doing anything, it's just sat there. This would just be moving a person from "there" to "here".

 

[JD]

If the person is very much dead, and the clone is so close to the original that he initially thinks he is the original, can't this be a form of resurrection?

In regards to cloning, assume the brain is mapped and "copied" to the clone. The idea is the clone would for all intents and purposes be a near perfect copy of the original.

In this case, they are a copy, not the actual original, so for me it doesn't really count.

 

[matthunter]

I'm not sure if I really count cloning as a resurrection, unless you are directly transferring the person's soul or "mind" or whatever sci-fi term you want to use for it directly from one body to the other.
A clone is simply making a copy, not really bringing the person back.
For me to count it as a true resurrection it has to be either either the same mind/soul or same body.

Do you think transporters destroy the original body?

 

[JD]

I'm not real sure on that one, there definitely seems to be a continuity of consciousness, but it can be hard to tell with that kind of stuff.

 

[Admiral Jean-Luc Picard]

In this case, they are a copy, not the actual original, so for me it doesn't really count.

Yes, the person is a copy, but with the original dead, why not? Lots of sci-fi ahows have treated this as coming back to life.

 

[Oddish]

I like the old "erase the timeline" approach. Maybe because of episodes like "The Visitor" and "Year of Hell".

 

[JD]

Yes, the person is a copy, but with the original dead, why not? Lots of sci-fi ahows have treated this as coming back to life.

Sure, shows have treated that way, but that doesn't mean I have to agree with it.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Do you think transporters destroy the original body?

Since we have seen conversations taking place in real time during transport (ST II), and have also seen the transport process, uninterrupted, from the POV of the person being transported (TNG's "Realm of Fear'), I'd have to say no.

 

[Oddish]

Transporters are a questionable technology anyway, since so much of what we are is based on the energy within us as well as the state of our molecules. If we're turned to energy, then wouldn't the slate go blank, causing us to rematerialize as very different from when we disappeared?

Seems a little crazy that we had that tech way back in 2151... maybe it would have been better for Archer and crew to freak the first time a more advanced alien culture used it on them.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

In this case, they are a copy, not the actual original, so for me it doesn't really count.

Agreed.

OP: Spock's resurrection was the strongest; his Katra (soul) was firmly established for / recognized by Vulcans, who have the ability to restore it with the fal-tor-pan proceedure. I loved that ST built on the Vulcan faith and culture in this manner--it made them appear to be a much richer culture as a result of it, rather than being creatures of nothing except logic / rejection of emotion. If Spock had to return, this was the best way anyone could have thought of, as opposed to some technobabble explanation.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

I'm not sure if I really count cloning as a resurrection, unless you are directly transferring the person's soul or "mind" or whatever sci-fi term you want to use for it directly from one body to the other.
A clone is simply making a copy, not really bringing the person back.
For me to count it as a true resurrection it has to be either either the same mind/soul or same body.

That sounds just like the first Grimjack (John Gaunt) entering the Clone-Jack body after he had died. Then being cursed to be reborn eternally because he left heaven.

 

[Admiral Jean-Luc Picard]

I like the old "erase the timeline" approach. Maybe because of episodes like "The Visitor" and "Year of Hell".

I am writing a science-fiction novel, what I aim to be a 5-part series revolving around a time war. In the story, resurrections are handled by either resetting time or making select changes to the past. When it's not practical to change the past, people are either revived from recent death or cloned.

I love the idea of using time travel to chea death.