Resurrection Bank
The vault where death is merely a temporary inconvenience for those who can afford it.
The term 'Resurrection Bank' is a generic descriptor for the decentralized storage facilities that safeguard cortical stacks—the cylindrical devices housing a person's consciousness and memories. Rather than a single centralized institution, these banks are managed by various entities, including powerful Meths like the Bancrofts and the Protectorate, each operating their own secure repositories. By preserving stacks, these facilities enable the ultra-wealthy to transfer their minds into new synthetic bodies, or 'sleeves,' sidestepping biological death. While access to a Resurrection Bank account is a prerequisite for elite immortality, the system is one of many power structures that shape society, not a unified all-controlling entity.
Lore & Background
The influence of Resurrection Banks is significant but decentralized; power over resurrection and sleeve quality is distributed among multiple corporations and Meths, such as the Bancrofts, rather than a single institution. This decentralized control reinforces a rigid caste system where the poor often face degrading, cheap bodies or no backup at all, while the rich enjoy pristine, genetically engineered forms. The resulting disparity has fueled centuries of resentment among the 'short-term' population, leading to frequent heists, corporate espionage, and revolutionary uprisings aimed at breaching vaults to liberate consciousness or destroy the system entirely.
Reader's Guide
The core technology relies on the 'stack,' a device implanted at the base of the neck that records and processes neural data. To utilize the Resurrection Bank, an individual must upload their stack's data to a secure server within the bank's vaults. Upon biological death or sleeve destruction, this digital copy is transmitted to a new physical body, effectively reanimating the consciousness. The cost of this service is astronomical, accessible primarily to the Meths who can afford high-fidelity sleeves and redundant backups.
Limitations include 'resurrection sickness,' a disorienting side effect of transferring into a new body, and the risk of data corruption if the upload process is interrupted. Furthermore, the bank enforces strict security protocols; unauthorized access or tampering with stacks results in immediate termination by automated defenses. Characters use this system to achieve immortality, but it also serves as a tool for espionage and combat. Agents can be sent on suicide missions knowing they will return to a new body, while enemies target the bank itself to permanently kill their rivals by destroying their stored consciousness.
More in Powers & Artifacts
Elsewhere in Altered Carbon
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