Inconsistencies

[Al]

I’ve just joined the site and thought I’d post a topic while nothing else is going on. There are a couple of things Ive noticed since the release of the DVDs, through improved picture quality, stills, etc.

If you look closely during a few episodes there are a number of things (mainly background details) that show a certain inconsistency with the established dwarf universe.

A couple that Ive spotted are:

The bazookoid laser bolts in Polymorph seem to have cameras in them and have a HUD which reads “LASERTHERMO ENABLED”- a bit odd and unnecessary for a mining laser surely? Similarly in Stoke Me A Clipper bazookoids have special blank cartridges.

Also I always thought that the JMC mined planets in the solar system, yet going by VIII’s dumb Canaries plot the ship is meant to drop by what seems to be a planet or moon called Adelphi XII.

And also somewhere in series III you can see writing on the inside of the landing bay warning against engaging hyperddives or something while still inside the ship.

Just some things I thought might start some discussion, I’ve read the site for years but havent really posted. I hope I don’t end up being the new toungetied. Loving the site guys, keep it up!

Topic

[Phil]

>I hope I don?t end up being the new toungetied.

Best introduction to a new poster ever.

[Danny Stephenson]

> And also somewhere in series III you can see writing on the inside of the landing bay warning against engaging hyperddives or something while still inside the ship.

Where is this?

[Pete Part Three]

Yeah, I’ve never thought about how stupid it is for bazookoids to have blank cartridges. Maybe I was too busy thinking about how stupid it is for Kryten to believe that “a knight has escaped from the AR suite” without further explanation.

If you want to be the new Tonguetied, you have to start your sentences with “Now”. I believe his former job was as a voice-over man for trailers of Hollywood movies.

I love you really, Tonguetied.

[Baz]

Laserthermo mode (which required the backpacks to be worn) allowed pin-point targetting of ore seams and rock faces through placement of thermal emitters (often just a simple flare) where you wanted the laser to hit.

Blank cartrides were required for training simulations and testing during maintenace.

Adelphi XII is in our Solar System, it’s a Kuiper Belt object (kept secret by Space Corps). An ancient cometary penal colony is NOT a nice place.

The tachyon drives used for interstellar travel are so notoriously inefficent and unreliable in the RD era that another ship caught in the drive field risks being turned inside out. Plus they leave such a stain on the paintwork.

Yes, I have too much time on my hands.

[Pete Part Three]

That’s lovely Baz, thank you for that.

I’m struggling to see what the benefit anyone would get from training to mine with blank cartridges…

Adelphi XII…urgh. Sounds like something out of Star Trek. Or Last Human.

[Baz]

>I?m struggling to see what the benefit anyone would get from training to mine with blank cartridges?

Getting the real kick from the bazookoid but not shooting out the back of the simulation suite (or training staff) would probably count.

[Seb Patrick]

Adelphi XII?urgh. Sounds like something out of Star Trek. Or Last Human.

Or a hotel in Liverpool where the biggest ever Dimension Jump was held!

Also I always thought that the JMC mined planets in the solar system, yet going by VIII?s dumb Canaries plot the ship is meant to drop by what seems to be a planet or moon called Adelphi XII.

Well, presumably they were meant to mine planets in the solar system when they were actually IN the solar system… but by VIII, they’re not, any more.

[Al]

Blimey didnt expect so much input!

Thanks for your comment Phil, wouldnt wanna immediately be attaining “cunt” status.

I did try to google adelphi XII but came up short. Baz did you work on the show or something, or do you actually have too much time on your hands? Or both?

Seb, thats true yeah, but originally the cons were put on the ship for transport to this place, but I guess Baz has cleared that up anyway.

Danny I think its visible on the series III still shots, or with a good DVD zoom behind Kryten or Rimmer before the driving test in backwards.

[Baz]

Er… I was making it all up actually. Been a long time since I watched that episode.

The Dwarf was supposed to stay in our Solar System, so if Adelphi XII was there then it’s reasonable to assume it was a Kuiper Belt object, minor planet or moon which hasn’t been discovered yet, used as a penal colony (or was the name of a place on a moon, minor planet etc.). If the comment was referring to an event after the ship and crew were re-assembled, then Captain “Minor Planet” Hollister may just have decided to dump them on a planet which he’d just named Adelphi XII to be rid of them. After all, as the captain of the last Space Corps vessel in existence, with a crew of the last remanants of humanity, he was the highest authority you could get.

Incidentally, one minor point is the whole three million years thing. This is just the time the Dwarf had been in space. It doesn’t relate to three million light years ‘cos it wasn’t doing light speed for all of that. Three million light years from Earth is way out of our Galaxy, even past Andromeda (2.5 million light years), though it’s the right distance for M33, the Triangulum Galaxy, the only other spiral one in the Local Group (there are a few other minor and dwarf galaxies at about that distance). One is assuming that through those 3 million years Holly made the occasional turn.

[Baz]

Found a script of “Back in the Red- Part 1”.

Holly: They call it The Tank. There was an inmate population of 400, all being transported to Adelphi XII. Presumably, they’ve all been resurrected too.

So Adelphi XII was presumably a place in our Solar System. Adelphis I to XI might have been other Space Corps incarceration facilities.

Hmmm… Adelphi is a database we use here at the Hall. We’re up to version IV. No, must be coincidence.

[Andrew]

Yeah, it was named for the convention hotel in Liverpool that year. The cast all attended thanks to a gap in the Series VIII shooting schedule.

As Baz says, it doesn’t have to be a planet. Could be a orbiting space station or whatever.

But yeah, let’s be honest – Series VII went a lot more for the naming of planets/systems/universes (“Delta 7”, “the Theta sector”, “Dimension 165”), and Adelphi 12 continues with that, sticking to the way Doug was naming planets/moons. Chances are he just forgot that Red Dwarf was intended to be limited to the local solar system…

…which is probably understandable, given that that fact was given in Series I – and a lot of that series was later contradicted, literally or spiritually.

[Seb Patrick]

Seb, thats true yeah, but originally the cons were put on the ship for transport to this place, but I guess Baz has cleared that up anyway.

Ah, see, I was winging it, not remembering what it was originally in reference to. I thought it might have been somewhere they’d gone on a canary mission…

[Seb Patrick]

Also, Andrew : hah, I didn’t realise it was a direct reference. Then again, having gone to uni in Liverpool, Doug would of course have been familiar with the place…

[Anonymous]

The Tank was originally going to be an all-female prison..

…which would’ve had its pro’s and its con’s.

[Al]

Another thing I’ve been thinking about is how Kryten is familiar with dialects and customs of various species of Gelf. Oh and also why were they conducting bodyswapping experiments on the nova 5? And the crew just managed to knock up a machine for this purpose in around 5 minutes? Unless its the device used for copying personalities for hologram use as described in IWCD with some bits of foil and wire added….

Note to self: be less anal.

[Al]

While I’m on it, why does a short range mining vehicle need a cloaking device?

[Seph]

and how come Kryten, who worked on a ship with an at least partially female crew, doesn’t have a clue what a period is?

[peas_and_corn]

ahh, he deleted heaps of stuff at the beginning of the series, though.

[Baz]

>Another thing I?ve been thinking about is how Kryten is familiar with dialects and customs of various species of Gelf. Oh and also why were they conducting bodyswapping experiments on the nova 5? And the crew just managed to knock up a machine for this purpose in around 5 minutes? Unless its the device used for copying personalities for hologram use as described in IWCD with some bits of foil and wire added?.

By the start of Series VI Kryten had has centuries to himself while the others were in cold sleep. He probably encountered then during that period or learned of them from all the black boxes of the various ships they’d looted.

As for the bodyswapping thing. Well, it’s a hobby. We never knew if the Nova 5 had an AI, which might have been capable of building such a device, or one of the crew knocked it up. Since holograms had been around from the RD era, perhaps the technology was created to allow a hologram access to a physical body, in lieu of solid light holograms being invented. Or perhaps they were just kinky.

>While I?m on it, why does a short range mining vehicle need a cloaking device?

Space monkeys. Scourge of the asteroid belt. Genetically enhanced monkeys developed as cheap labour. Unfortunately they got too smart, escaped and formed their own union. Now they sue the owners of any craft infringing on their territory (and hurl the occasional handful of monkey poo at it) so most craft avoid the problem by remaining out of sight. Alternatively it’s a simple application of the anti-radiation shields (as opposed to the more powerful anti-meteor shields) every craft carries, re-tuned to optical frequencies.

And Kryten? He’s a sanitation droid. He doesn’t ask where this stuff comes from, he just cleans it up.

[Paul Muller]

I was with you right up to space monkeys.

[Baz]

Curse you Space Monkeys! Once more the fruits of my labour are ruined by my age-old foe…

[Author]

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