Mass equals energy, so some works take it a step further and let it equal data, too. Sometimes, it's just what powers Destructive Teleportation; sometimes, it's an entire involved system. In essence, this trope is tech that allows matter to be stored as data on a drive or disk, then converted back into matter through some other form.
The convenience this technology affords is obvious. Storage technologies like DNA (no, really
) can pack petabits of data in a gram, which is infinitely more efficient than warehouses. It's also somewhat harder-seeming than "subspace" or "higher-dimensional" storage, since scientific theories assigning information the prestigious title of "The Stuff Our Universe Is Actually Made Of" are all the rage right now.
Unfortunately, the risks are just as great: if the conversion process from data to matter is interrupted, or if the data itself is corrupt, the consequences will be very, very physical.
The in-between (and Super-Trope) of Body Uploading and Virtual Materialization. Typically involves Literal Data Transfer (or merely transforms matter into energy and then assigns that energy data, which is then stored) to avoid duplication incidents. May allow construction of Matter Replicators.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- EDENS ZERO: Small objects can be deconstructed and reconstructed on a molecular level to be stored on or transerred between devices like computets and smartphones. Examples include Shiki's adventurer's license and Homura's stuffed doll gifted by her missing mother.
- Ghost in the Shell: Inverted with people's own ghosts; the cyberization process turns a person's soul into digital data, which means it now has fungibility and can be stolen by hackers. An entire software industry thrives on creating defense programs to help citizens prevent hackers from literally stealing the very essence of their individuality and personality.
Film — Animated
- Scooby-Doo and the Cyber Chase: As a demonstration of his and Bill's laser project, Eric Stauffer uses the laser to break down a box of Scooby Snacks and store it as data within his computer game.
Film — Live-Action
- TRON: In the original movie, before any Users get sent into the digital world, we see the process used on an orange. While it isn't really discussed, the whole system would probably make for one hell of a refrigerator (albeit a very expensive one).
Live-Action TV
- Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future: As part of the BioDread Empire's plan to take over Earth in the wake of the Metal Wars, the monstrous BioDreads that are the most powerful of the Empire's weapons have the ability to "digitize" humans, converting them into data so they can be stored in the memory banks of the Empire's Master Computer, Overmind. The process can be reversed, but it takes a serious toll on the victim.
- Star Trek: A transporter is normally used to move people and things around near-instantaneously, but a lesser-known system is the "pattern buffer", which is used to store the matter stream of transported objects.
- Star Trek: The Next Generation: In "Relics", the Enterprise stumbles upon the wreck of an 23rd century Federation ship which had crashed into a dyson sphere. The vessel still has power, and the transporter has a pattern stored: Revealing none other than Scotty, who was the captain of the ship. In a bid to survive as their supplies dwindled, Scotty and another survivor on the doomed ship modified the transporter to store their patterns in an endless diagnostic loop for seventy-five years, well beyond the safe storage time for a transporter pattern; but unfortunately a mechanical failure led to Scotty's companion being lost to pattern decay.
- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: In "Our Man Bashir", a Teleporter Accident leaves Sisko, Kira, Worf, O'Brien, and Dax trapped mid-transport with no way to rematerialize. To prevent their patterns from being lost forever in the buffer, they get uploaded into the station's main computer while repairs are made, and a second malfunction leads to the crew assuming the roles of oblivious NPCs in Julian Bashir's indulgent James Bond pastiche holosuite adventure. Trying to leave or shut down the program could erase the crew's patterns (and the holosuite safeties have failed, of course), so Bashir and Garak are forced to drag out the story as much as possible and send it Off the Rails until engineers are able to extract everyone from the program.
- Star Trek: Voyager: In "Counterpoint", the Voyager crew agrees to ferry a group of telepaths, who are fleeing persecution in their home civilization, towards a short-lived wormhole that leads to freedom. To smuggle them through imperial territory, the refugees are held inside the transporter beam, with the destination set to the cargo bay. This turns out to be a clever ruse; when the imperial soldiers discover the "plan" and complete the transport, all that materializes is a collection of food crates, while the refugees are safely away in shuttles to escape through a wormhole.
- Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: In "Through the Lens of Time", Scotty uses it to beam up a Vezda inside a containment orb, storing it inside the buffer without transporting it somewhere else. In "New Life and New Civilizations", it is revealed that the Vezda has escaped from the buffer.
Video Games
- In Beyond Good & Evil, Jade's computer assistant Segundo can "digitize" her inventory and reproduce it on demand, justifying her Hyperspace Arsenal.
- Borderlands: Storage decks and all of digistruct technology work on this exact principle, giving an In-Universe explanation to the player's bottomless inventory. When you store a thing inside a storage deck, it's deconstructed and stored as molecular data to be reconstructed when you take it out. However, it's also possible to make digital "templates" of things or people and then use atoms (which must be procured elsewhere, no cheating physics here) to copy that template into physical reality — this is how Fast Travels transport people, how the New-U respawns Vault Hunters and how Hyperion loaders assemble themselves on the spot in locations like Opportunity or the Handsome Jackpot.
- Destiny: Back in the Golden Age, scientists discovered how to physically encrypt/encode solid objects into "engrams", a new state of matter resembling small, crystalline polyhedrons. This forms the basis of the game's item drops: once decrypted, that nondescript prism may turn out to be anything. This also led to revolutions in computer science, as encrypting large processors into small engrams lets more of them be packed into one place.
- Minecraft: The mod Applied Energistics is all about this. Its flagship Matter-Energy system stores items in the form of energy (and attached data) on drives rather than physically in chests; rather than pipes or conveyors, it moves them around with cables on channels. This allows the player to simply skip over many of the logistical issues associated with modded Minecraft, and that's before the mod's complex autocrafting comes into play.
- Omikron: The Nomad Soul: Your inventory takes the form of a wrist-mounted personal computer (called a "sneak" for some reason). All your weapons, items, and power-ups are digitized and stored inside it until needed.
- Pokémon: Pokémon can be stored on a PC system and taken back out as needed. This is implied in Pokémon Sun and Moon to leave them in some form of stasis based on NPC dialogue.
- Shin Megami Tensei: Among the Demon Summoning Program's functions are the ability to store demons in the program's stock and summon them when needed. In some installments, some demons even refer to the act of recruiting them as sticking them in your Super Wrist-Gadget.
- Star Trek: Elite Force: The player's Hyperspace Arsenal is kept in a "personal transporter buffer" and materialized/dematerialized as needed.