Suspended animation in fiction
On occasion, a character is portrayed as possessing skills or abilities that have become lost to society during their period of suspension, enabling them to assume a heroic role in their new temporal setting.
In contrast, many modern narratives aim to present the concept as scientific suspended animation or cryonics, often simplifying and disregarding most of the intricacies involved.
Within numerous science fiction settings, the challenges associated with contemporary cryonics are overcome prior to the development of faster-than-light travel, making it a viable means of interstellar transportation.
"[1] The earliest known printed usage of this term in its current form can be traced back to science fiction author Frederik Pohl's book The Age of the Pussyfoot in 1969, where a corpsicle is depicted as "a zombie frozen in Alaska."
An earlier variation of the term, "corpse-sicle," also credited to Pohl, appeared in the essay "Immortality Through Freezing," published in the August 1966 issue of Worlds of Tomorrow.
[6] Suspended animation often plays a role in stories about kings or heroes who are believed to be slumbering or kept alive until they are needed to confront great dangers.
To ensure the princess does not wake up alone and frightened, the good fairy uses her wand to put everyone in the palace, including humans and animals, into a sleep state.
Shakespeare's works, such as Romeo and Juliet and Cymbeline, incorporate plot devices involving a drug that induces a state of suspended animation, resembling death.
In the 19th century, notable science fiction short stories featuring suspended animation, both deliberate and accidental, include Mary Shelley's "Rodger Dodsworth: The Reanimated Englishman"[7] (written in 1826, published in 1863),[7] Edgar Allan Poe's "Some Words with a Mummy" (1845), and Lydia Maria Child's "Hilda Silfverling, A Fantasy" (1845).
[13] Arthur C. Clarke incorporates suspended animation in works such as Childhood's End (1953), The Songs of Distant Earth (1986), and the Space Odyssey series (1968–1997) to enable interstellar travel.
Movies featuring suspended animation include Late for Dinner (1991), Forever Young (1992), Demolition Man (1993), Idiocracy (2006), Realive (2016), Sexmission (1984), the Woody Allen comedy Sleeper (1973), and Open Your Eyes (Abre los Ojos) (1997), which was remade as Vanilla Sky (2001).
In the 1939 version, Buck Rogers and his sidekick Buddy Wade intentionally preserve themselves using experimental "Nirvano Gas" after their dirigible crashes over the North Pole.
In the 1979 version, Buck Rogers, an astronaut, inadvertently enters suspended animation when his spacecraft encounters a space phenomenon, only to be discovered centuries later in 2491.
In The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Han Solo is temporarily frozen to demonstrate the concept of suspension, which serves as a means of restraining prisoners for travel.
The Austin Powers films (1997, 1999, 2002) use suspended animation to transport a 1960s spy character and arch villain to a future world, highlighting the contrast in their behavior and expectations.
The 1970s television series Buck Rogers changed the origin story of its main character, depicting him as an astronaut frozen during a deep space mission for 500 years due to a life support system failure.
It follows the story of (fictional) NASA scientist Dylan Hunt, who volunteers for a suspended animation test but awakens in the year 2133 after an earthquake traps him underground.
In the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Neutral Zone" (1988), the protagonists criticize cryonics despite its success in their fictional world, considering it a primitive concept rooted in the fear of death.
The comedy series Red Dwarf (1988) and Futurama (1999) use accidental long-term suspended animation as a plot device to transport contemporary characters into the distant future.
The Spanish soap opera Aurora (2010) centers around the theme of suspended animation, with the protagonist being frozen for 20 years before coming back to life and facing a changed world.
In Star Trek: Voyager, the crew encounters aliens who placed themselves in suspended animation to escape a solar flare in the episode "The Thaw" (1996).
Memories and a video tape from her childhood show her living in a large mansion, and it is implied that her accident and cryogenic suspension were related to an orbital gate.
In the spinoff series Yashahime: Princess Half-Demon, which follows the events of InuYasha: The Final Act, Rin, an older character, is in a state of suspended animation and perpetual slumber within the Sacred Tree of Ages.
Fallout 4 features the main protagonist, known as the Sole Survivor, who undergoes suspended animation through cryosleep as part of a Vault-Tec experiment in Vault 111.
Resuscitation efforts by a rogue scientist aim to disrupt the control of the Halcyon Holdings Company and save the other colonists trapped in suspended animation.
