In Morgan's universe everyone has a cortical stack implanted at birth which stores the person's consciousness and memories until they are killed at which point they are "resleeved" or put into another body (provided they can afford the expensive process) or are kept on stack (placed in storage). In Dollhouse there are "Actives," people who have willingly signed a contract for a variety of reasons to essentially rent out their bodies while their minds are kept on a harddrive waiting until the contract is up and all of the Actives have "architecture" in place to make the process work, similar to a cortical stack, I imagine. The rich and powerful in Dollhouse are also those able to hire Actives for their "engagements" though this is very dissimilar from Morgan's work as the Actives rarely receive the mind of another, though clients who have died do get a chance to say their goodbyes while in the body of an active, similar to the way in which murder victims are taken off stack in Carbon to testify against their killers.
Now I am not saying that Whedon is ripping off Morgan in anyway, I was just surprised that I didn't notice the similarities before, considering my experience with Dollhouse was only a few months ago, and those of you who know me know that I tend to remember things about subjects I enjoy quite well. I also wonder if anyone else has made these connections, perhaps Whedon was inspired by Morgan's novel seeing how it's a very interesting concept and twist on immortality.
Next time on Observations of Humanity look for my review of the Riverworld miniseries by Syfy and the source novel To Your Scattered Bodies Go by Philip Jose Farmer contrasting the differences and discussing how well they worked as both independent works and an adapted work
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