Is there a hologram version of Lister?

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May 22, 2026 at 11:57 am #321098

gerrydelasel
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I’ve been wondering if Holly has hologram files for every memeber of the crew, so that theoretically there could have been a ‘Dave squared’ episode, with real Lister and hologram Lister.

But then I thought perhaps the hologram files can only be completed upon a person’s death. Like, a full record of a person’s whole life, right up to their own death, is a technical requirement for hologramification. You’re not dead yet? Sorry, file incomplete; death.dll not found.

Is this ever discussed in the books?
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May 22, 2026 at 12:07 pm #321099

Warbodog
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Holo Lister was activated off-screen in a deleted scene from Holoship (from 11 mins):

It’s not clear why Lister didn’t run his own hologram in Bodyswap, apart from the usual excuse of it being more entertaining that he didn’t.

May 22, 2026 at 12:26 pm #321100

Rushy
Participant

It’s been mentioned multiple times that the hologram’s memories go back to the last time the original’s brain was scanned (Petersen’s hologram having a hangover because he was drunk at the time of scanning).

Lister’s brain was scanned when he joined the crew, but both the books and show imply that he never bothered to update the recording after the crew died. So his holo self is perpetually a youngster.

May 22, 2026 at 1:43 pm #321102

Dave
Participant

Given the potential for fun with Holo-Lister I’m surprised the show never really did anything with it. Outside of this, obviously:

May 22, 2026 at 1:56 pm #321106

International Debris
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I mean, there’s also Bodysnatcher.

May 22, 2026 at 2:13 pm #321107

Flap Jack
Participant

I suppose the hologram doesn’t fully “exist” until they’re first switched on, but yes, hypothetically all Red Dwarf crewmembers alive and dead have hologram files/disks.

The idea of a hologram only being possible to enable when the person has died doesn’t make any sense, because even if the crew are having their brains scanned every millisecond, the last successful scan will still be when they’re alive. Though I assume there are protocols which say never to enable the hologram for a crewmember who is not confirmed dead. Otherwise you could end up in a Mickey 17 situation… which is pretty much a Me² situation.

May 22, 2026 at 2:20 pm #321109

gerrydelasel
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I figured a millisecond before death is probably close enough to count!

May 22, 2026 at 2:30 pm #321110

Flap Jack
Participant

Sure, but why would it only be feasible to base a hologram on a brain scan taken 1 milisecond before death and not one taken earlier? It makes sense as a policy/legal requirement for the person to be dead, but not as a technical one.

May 22, 2026 at 2:50 pm #321111

gerrydelasel
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Because it needs the next scan (the one immediately after death) to complete the checksum.

May 22, 2026 at 4:57 pm #321112

Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion
Participant

It’s not clear why Lister didn’t run his own hologram in Bodyswap, apart from the usual excuse of it being more entertaining that he didn’t.

It’s not clear why they put Brown’s mind in Lister’s body and not just boot up Brown hologram for long enough to save the day.

May 22, 2026 at 5:23 pm #321114

Warbodog
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I wonder if the mind swap they attempted on the Nova 5 was during the crisis that ended with it crashing, since it was so dangerously experimental that you’d only try it when desperate. Maybe one of the three skellingtons already died that way before/during the crash and they needed her authorisation or something.

May 22, 2026 at 5:28 pm #321115

Dave
Participant

I wonder if the mind swap they attempted on the Nova 5 was during the crisis that ended with it crashing, since it was so dangerously experimental that you’d only try it when desperate. Maybe one of the three skellingtons already died that way before/during the crash and they needed her authorisation or something.

Maybe Kryten is secretly one of the crew’s personalities that has been swapped into a mechanoid body to survive.

May 22, 2026 at 5:39 pm #321116

Jenuall
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This kind of thing has been discussed many times in the past and I still think the show itself goes against the “holograms memories are a capture of the last brain scan of their subject” theory.

In C&P we see a second Rimmer activated who clearly has knowledge of what has happened literally moments before his activation:

Like everything in the show the logic and rules flex to what is most entertaining in the moment, but I think holograms as established across C&P and Me2 must have the information of things that have happened beyond the point their subject died or their last brain scan – but knowing something and living something are not the same thing, hence why Rimmer 2 is that much more of a cunt that the first one activated. He had knowledge of what had happened in the weeks/months since the first was activated and Lister came out of stasis but he hadn’t lived through it and experienced it first had to gain the life experience and personal development directly

May 22, 2026 at 5:46 pm #321117

Warbodog
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Maybe Kryten is secretly one of the crew’s personalities that has been swapped into a mechanoid body to survive.

Maybe Kryten was just a human dressing up as a robot and wearing a rubber mask in-universe and he was lying all the way to DNA (“part-organic,” yeah, right), then at the end of that episode he got turned into a real mechanoid before all the exploding head stories and things.

May 22, 2026 at 5:51 pm #321119

Rushy
Participant

I think this is easy to explain.

We know Rimmer concealed his holo-disc with the explicit intention of pranking Lister. If the disc was made after he came up with that idea* (perhaps shortly after The End), then the second Rimmer would know exactly what was going on when Lister switched him on.

*The Dave era confirms that Rimmer doesn’t need to be alive to have new copies made of himself. He is deleted and replaced with a copy of himself made a few months prior.

May 22, 2026 at 5:58 pm #321121

Flap Jack
Participant

I had a theory that when holograms are booted up for the first time, before we see them they spend some time in a kind of virtual waiting room, where they’re briefed on what’s going on.

Because in Confidence & Paranoia, Rimmer2 knows what’s going on and responds as such, but he doesn’t just have a perfect copy of Rimmer1’s memories. If he did, then surely he would have had a moment where he reacted to suddenly teleporting the other side of the room, and probably he would have freaked out a little in the moment he realised he wasn’t the “original” Rimmer hologram.

And of course IWCD makes it explicit that Rimmer2 doesn’t have Rimmer1’s post-death memories and that’s why he’s slightly more of a prick.

May 22, 2026 at 6:40 pm #321125

Dave
Participant

I had a theory that when holograms are booted up for the first time, before we see them they spend some time in a kind of virtual waiting room, where they’re briefed on what’s going on.

Yeah, this is the theory I go with too.

As well as the C&P ending there’s also the bit in Holoship where they’re auditioning new hologram crewmates and Lister says:
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