What Is Lasting Damage

I grew up reading science fiction and one of my favorites is the Culture series by Iain Banks.

Lasting Damage was a culture ship that featured in Look to Windward. Lasting Damage was a GSV built for combat on the eve of the Idiran-Culture War. After it was destroyed in battle, a recorded copy of its mind-state was embodied in a new Mind and incorporated into another GSV of the same class. Its original Mind was later found to have survived the ship’s destruction, and was also incorporated into a new combat GSV.