Fan Theory Corner

[Flap Jack]

I was surprised that I couldn’t find a dedicated thread for this topic, figured there shouldn’t be any harm in starting one (in theory).

What are your favourite/most noteworthy Red Dwarf fan theories? (Either ones you’ve come up with yourself, or ones you’ve heard from others.)

To start us off – Smeg Ups, Smeg Outs , Can’t Smeg, Won’t Smeg etc. are all canon. They take place off screen just before the end of ‘Back to Earth’. Lister is taking advantage of his new lucid squid dreaming to act out fantasies of being a real life TV character in the world where his life story is a popular comedy.

Topic

[Technopeasant]

And Chen is actually Bexley’s nickname.

[Warbodog]

And Chen is actually Bexley’s nickname.

I thought they couldn’t be Bexley because it’s confirmed that Bexley, at least, strongly resembles Lister, but the only witness was unreliable:

THEY ALL HAVE HATS!!!

But wait – is this near the navicomp?

[Dave]

[Nick R]

[Technopeasant]

Petersen has a bit too much backstory to fit in as easily, even if it’s entirely “he’s Danish”.

[Moonlight]

We really need a spinoff that’s basically a generic cheesy 80s American sitcom but it’s Petersen in his house on Triton, completely alone with no wacky neighbors because he’s the only person who bought property.

Alone A-Dane, Naturally is taped before a live studio audience.

[Warbodog]

[Flap Jack]

I miss the early series of Petersen’s House, when it was about loneliness. Now Triton is way too populated. Sure, I guess it’s believable that Olaf would occasionally bump into someone else, but he shouldn’t be getting new simulant neighbours every week.

[Warbodog]

[Moonlight]

Legion doesn’t attempt to stop Kryten from knocking out Rimmer because at that point he is a composite of only them and neither of them would attack someone.

[Warbodog]

[Dave]

Legion doesn’t attempt to stop Kryten from knocking out Rimmer because at that point he is a composite of only them and neither of them would attack someone.

Legion actually wants them to escape because he’s a composite of them and they all want to escape.

[Ben Saunders]

Whose cock did Legion have

[Technopeasant]

Whose cock did Legion have

Don’t ask Rob Grant…

[Podey]

Legion doesn’t attempt to stop Kryten from knocking out Rimmer because at that point he is a composite of only them and neither of them would attack someone.

Does the first part of this sentence not contradict the second?

ie you’re saying Kryten was able to knock Rimmer out because Kryten wouldn’t knock Rimmer out.

[Flap Jack]

I think she means that Kryten wouldn’t attack Rimmer maliciously, only as part of a plan of escape that he consented to.

Although I disagree for a different reason. Rimmer wouldn’t attack someone because he’s a coward and he’d be worried about getting attacked back, not for any moral reason. Rimmer absolutely would attack someone if failing to attack means he would be guaranteed to die, and that’s exactly the situation Legion is in.

The best I can suggest as explanation for Legion just standing there while Kryten tried knocking Rimmer out is (A) his empathetic Kryten side and self-preservationist Rimmer side were at stalemate, meaning he couldn’t bring himself to either help them or stop them, and/or (B) thanks to his extra knowledge of how hardlight holograms work (which must have been knowledge from the station database, not the Dwarfers’ brains), he knew that Kryten couldn’t knock Rimmer out with physical violence, and so thought he was safe to just be entertained by their futile attempts for a while – but didn’t count on them figuring out that Rimmer could still disable his own light bee.

[sleepey]

Legion’s personality is influenced by the studio audience who watch passively and find it all very funny.

[Warbodog]

The Simulant in Gunmen also wanders around the room giving those two the time to leisurely quibble about article numbers before he decides to zap them all.

[Dave]

The best I can suggest as explanation for Legion just standing there while Kryten tried knocking Rimmer out is (A) his empathetic Kryten side and self-preservationist Rimmer side were at stalemate, meaning he couldn’t bring himself to either help them or stop them, and/or (B) thanks to his extra knowledge of how hardlight holograms work (which must have been knowledge from the station database, not the Dwarfers’ brains), he knew that Kryten couldn’t knock Rimmer out with physical violence, and so thought he was safe to just be entertained by their futile attempts for a while – but didn’t count on them figuring out that Rimmer could still disable his own light bee.

At that exact moment Legion was also partly a composite of a tiny fly that had just flown into the space station from Starbug and then had a heart attack and died, so Legion was having a sympathy-seizure.

[Warbodog]

If Legion’s their personalities magnified*, is he Demons & Angels & Normals all in one?

* (and he’s fighting on / the planet’s siiiide)

[Warbodog]

Maybe Legion turning out evil was all Rimmer’s fault again (Better Than Life, Terrorform) and he would have been fine as an amalgamation of the others.

Maybe the future selves turning out evil was all Rimmer’s fault, after brain!Lister and Kryten lost much of their will to live anyway and Cat was easily seduced.

[Moonlight]

Red Dwarf really does have a lot of scenes where they stand around doing bits for 2 minutes while in time sensitive peril.

(The “you’re demoted” scene from Mechocracy should’ve stayed in Officer Rimmer.)

[Technopeasant]

No, just in Holoship. And Back in the Red.

[Cardinal_Hordriss]

How could Legion stop them at that point? When it comes to pain or violence the two weak links were already out cold. Rimmer was indestructible and Kryten was an android. Rimmer would probably choose deactivation over pain and Kryten doesn’t experience pain. Also, with only Kryten and Rimmer forming Legion he may not have had the same psychopathic drive he had when he stabbed himself the syringe thing. 

[Technopeasant]

and Kryten doesn’t experience pain.

[Dave]

[International Debris]

[Dave]

[Warbodog]

[Moonlight]

[Technopeasant]

Mind you, its probally a good thing if you can feel the axe buried in your spine.

[Dave]

[Unrumble]

[Dave]

[Warbodog]

[Nick R]

[Podey]

[Dave]

[Technopeasant]

[Technopeasant]

Lister didn’t catch the mutated pneumonia from Kochanski’s quarters but from the Cat Priest. It had been evolving within the cats for millions of years and is what killed him.

Alternatively, since pneumonia can be caused by fungus, it was from the Titan mushrooms. We already know it causes hallucinations.

[Warbodog]

[Technopeasant]

Actually came up with it on Friday, I swear.

…I have no taste and decency.

[International Debris]

The hallucination in Back to Earth is so fucking depressing because, while starting out well, not even Joy Squid ink is enough to withstand Rimmer’s diseased brain. 

[Renegade Rob]

Fan Theory: The Rat from Skipper is related to that universe’s equivalent of the rat who gets resurrected by the nanobots and whose bum they fly into in Back in the Red, which may or may not have been that universe’s Lister’s pet that he got put in stasis for. 

Bonus Fan Theory: In the reality of Backwards Earth but in the time frame corresponding to Red Dwarf’s home era (23rd century or whatever), the rabbits on the Oregon made it fly forwards.

[tombow]

shortly after Series VIII, Yvonne McGruder arrived on board. She’d left Red Dwarf to persue a military career due to embarrassment after her fling with Arnold (which was consensual, Rimmer just thought she was concussed due to his low esteem). Her shuttle had gotten caught in a wormhole on the way which deposited her in the future near post SVIII Dwarf. Her and Kochanski had a few years of “Men Behaving Badly” antics with the boys, including funny incidents where McGruder sometimes has feelings for Dave (he helps her loosen up for the first time) and Kris for Rimmer (she sees his soft, genuine side at times). However, some time before the events of Back To Earth Kris and Yvonne had had enough, and left to have adventures (possibly in an Ace style dimension jumping shuttle they found in a salvage). (I’m not sure why they don’t mention McGruder in BTE – maybe Kris had already come back alone before then, leaving Yvonne to Ace type adventures, before leaving again.) However, sometime before Series X, they both made their way back to Dwarf, being physically younger due to space/time differences, and stayed a few years more, before sneaking off for more adventures. This explains both how Kochanski can be 31, and why Lister and Rimmer are relatively chilled out about women in the Dave era.

[tombow]

shortly after Series VIII, Yvonne McGruder arrived on board. She’d left Red Dwarf to persue a military career due to embarrassment after her fling with Arnold (which was consensual, Rimmer just thought she was concussed due to his low esteem). Her shuttle had gotten caught in a wormhole on the way which deposited her in the future near post SVIII Dwarf.

Her and Kochanski had a few years of “Men Behaving Badly” antics with the boys, including funny incidents where McGruder sometimes has feelings for Dave (he helps her loosen up for the first time) and Kris for Rimmer (she sees his soft, genuine side at times). However, some time before the events of Back To Earth Kris and Yvonne had had enough, and left to have adventures (possibly in an Ace style dimension jumping shuttle they found in a salvage).

(I’m not sure why they don’t mention McGruder in BTE – maybe Kris had already come back alone before then, leaving Yvonne to Ace type adventures, before leaving again.)

However, sometime before Series X, they both made their way back to Dwarf, being physically younger due to space/time differences, and stayed a few years more, before sneaking off for more adventures. This explains both how Kochanski can be 31, and why Lister and Rimmer are relatively chilled out about women in the Dave era.

[clem]

Fan Theory: The Rat from Skipper is related to that universe’s equivalent of the rat who gets resurrected by the nanobots and whose bum they fly into in Back in the Red, which may or may not have been that universe’s Lister’s pet that he got put in stasis for.

In fact the original intention for the shrinking Red Dwarf sequence in BITR was for Starbug to encounter a giant resurrected Frankenstein, if not fly into her arse.

[Flap Jack]

You may have to tweak the theory to account for the fact that Yvonne McGruder was on board Red Dwarf during Series VIII, tombow.

Actually now that I think about it, that was only confirmed to be true in a simulation, but Rimmer at least believed that she was.

[Dave]

In fact the original intention for the shrinking Red Dwarf sequence in BITR was for Starbug to encounter a giant resurrected Frankenstein, if not fly into her arse.

[Flap Jack]

[Author]

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