Lister could have got home several times!!

[Dave]

From as early as Series 2 – Statis Leak literally put him back on Titan (or Ganyamede maybe) 3 weeks before they left. Just get the next ship back to Earth!

There were plenty of other opportunities. Waxworld and Rimmerworld put him on a breathable planet. Tikka to Ride put him 1960’s Dallas. 

[loadoftottnumb]

Yep, he in fact made it ‘back to earth’ several times, including to his local pub. It is what it is, most things in Red Dwarf are better if you don’t think about them too much. 

[Dave]

I think we have to assume at this point that he doesn’t really want to get back to Earth, he’s just being polite.

[Dave]

I do suspend my disbelief when I watch RD which make it so enjoyable, so I have no issue with obvious plot holes. im just interested to know if others can identify other instances where he could have actually achieved his wish, rather that living his life on a spaceship. Holly hop drive managed to shift dimensionally, so you think they might give it another go.

I always thought the Holoship crew were a miserable bunch of bastards aswell. They could have at least made a phone call and mentioned there is a 3 million old human being stranded in space, and could they send a rescue team

[Dave]

Oh there are loads of examples, Timeslides, Twentica, Timewave. Must be something to do with episodes that begin with T.

[Flap Jack]

From as early as Series 2 – Statis Leak literally put him back on Titan
(or Ganyamede maybe) 3 weeks before they left. Just get the next ship
back to Earth!

Ahh, Stasis Leak. I won’t reiterate all of my anti Stasis Leak ranting in this thread, other than to agree that it needed an “if you stay in the past too long you’ll die” or an “if you move too far away from the time portal you die” caveat somewhere.

Other times they could have got to back to Earth:

– Backwards, kind of but not really.

– Timeslides, depending on whether you think they could leave the edges of the frame or not, or whether they could have flown Starbug through a giant photo of Earth (IIRC discussion of this took up like half of a dedicated Wafflemen DwarfCast).

– Dimension Jump, though they would have only been able to get back to a similar-enough alternate Earth, and they would have had to steal Ace’s ship.

– Meltdown. Rob and Doug gave the matter paddle way too big a range by mistake, so it would have been very quick to get back to Earth with it (albeit present day Earth).

– Out of Time. The joke is that the time drive can only travel in time not space, but they could have still used it to go back to 3 million years before Lister left Earth, and just wait out the journey in stasis. (They may have needed to find Red Dwarf first to achieve this, but they could have used the time drive to do that too.)

– Tikka to Ride and Ouroboros. No elaboration needed.

– Lemons and Twentica, where they went back to Earth but it was a suboptimal period of history for them (though probably preferable to present day Earth).

– Timewave, although I can understand not wanting to follow the Enconium anywhere.

– Skipper. Rimmer had the Earth in his sights before he threw it away.

– Implicitly at any point after Future Echoes, where they establish that “just stay in stasis for the 3 million year return journey” is an option.

– Stellar Rescue. The AA are a thing from the 3 million+ years ago Earth, so they could have just upgraded their membership to get towed all the way back to 23rd century Liverpool.

[Dave]

[Dave]

Implicitly at any point after Future Echoes, where they establish that “just stay in stasis for the 3 million year return journey” is an option.

Although obviously Future Echoes implies that they don’t do that because they know they don’t do it, so to make sure they don’t do it they have to not do it.

[Warbodog]

Stasis Leak promised a happy ending if he went back to the future and waited five years. The alternative would be living in the past but giving up Kochanski and always knowing he missed out on that previewed alternative.

Timeslides is probably the first real offender for this. Lister’s determined to change his timeline, succeeds, gets reset, then it’s just the end and we’re left having to invent excuses for why he didn’t just try again. Never mind, funny episode.

[Dave]

excellent post. I love the AA Stellar Rescue reference. Just ring the AA! they would have got them home.

Definately agree with Statis Leak. it needed something just to make then return to the ship. The ones where they actually land on a planet always strike as being more preferable to living a life onboard the ship. Even Terrorform didnt necessarily need to be Rimmers mindscape. Just turn Rimmer off and create your own Utopia. Tikka to Ride and Lemons both always appeal to me as somewhere where he could have settled, gone to Fiji and bread his horses.

I do standby my holoship observation however. What a bunch of twonks. Every time I watch the episode I cant help but think they should have helped. 

[Dave]

Timeslides was him changing his own future though, so he never boarded RD in the first place, and therefore would not remember it.
I get what your saying, but that is a change in timeline, bit like Back to the Future 2. Not a continuous timeline so isnt “getting home” as such

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Future Echos gives him a reason to stay, his children. Stasis Leak gives him future reason when he discovers he gets with Kochanski in 5 years. 

By the time that time has passed, the end of Out of Time and the paradox therein happens, and very shortly after that he meets a Kochanski who ends up on their ship. 

So whilst Lister may have had opportunity, he has reason not to take them. 

[Warbodog]

Tikka to Ride and Ouroboros. No elaboration needed.

But to do so anyway, during Series VII they have an all-of-time-and-space drive at their disposal, but the show tries to justify itself not ending with explanations like:

[International Debris]

I mean, at least there’s an explanation in VII, even if it’s a shit one. I love the Twentica one. They have to leave Earth because of the EMP that will kill Kryten and Rimmer. But instead of just orbiting the planet for a while and heading back, they decide to just hop it back into the future. 

The biggest problem with the time drive in VII is the space element to it. If they can travel to anywhere in any time and space, they could surely just head back to Earth in their present (or, say, one second in the future if it needs a time travel element to work) to see if there’s anyone still around, if nothing else. Or when they think they’re facing certain doom in Duct Soup, Lister could point out that they could use the time drive to take them to a planet with a breathable atmosphere. Or just jumping aboard the Simulant ship in Beyond a Joke. Heading straight to the planet in Epideme. It’s a limitless teleporter and they don’t use it.

[Formica]

– Timewave, although I can understand not wanting to follow the Enconium anywhere.

Was there an explanation offered to the tune of it being dangerous to follow them? Or was the only danger from their urge to commit a hate crime?

[Moonlight]

I mean, at least there’s an explanation in VII, even if it’s a shit one. I love the Twentica one. They have to leave Earth because of the EMP that will kill Kryten and Rimmer. But instead of just orbiting the planet for a while and heading back, they decide to just hop it back into the future.

To be absolutely fair, it would fucking suck to live in that world even as a 21st century person, let alone one used to futuristic amenities.

[International Debris]

Well yeah, it would certainly have its down sides, but the point is Lister was actually considering it until realising Kryten would die. 

– Timewave, although I can understand not wanting to follow the Enconium anywhere.
Was there an explanation offered to the tune of it being dangerous to follow them? Or was the only danger from their urge to commit a hate crime?

Something about the Timewave flinging them out into deep space, I suppose with the suggestion that even further out, and that far in the past, there wouldn’t be any derelicts or anything so they’d all die quite quickly. Something they fail to actually mention to the Ecomium crew.

A brief aside, I always think the ship is the Meconium, which would be a fitting name given the episode.

[Hamish]

What a bunch of twonks. Every time I watch the episode I cant help but think they should have helped. 

I remember finding Holoship to feel a bit off when I first saw it as a kid off a VHS tape borrowed from the library. It just seemed way too populated for Red Dwarf, even if they are all holograms.

[Warbodog]

It just seemed way too populated for Red Dwarf, even if they are all holograms.

It’s a sci-fi ghost ship doomed to pointlessly wander deep space until the end of time.

[Dave]

I was was always under the impression the Holoship was on some sort of scientific exploration mission. They werent lost or drifting to my knowledge. Clearly of Earth design in some way, so why wouldnt they send the Stellar AA out to rescue them. The first humanoid beings they encounter in deepest space, and they are no help whatsoever. Gets my goat!

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

I think the implication is they were sent off to explore, and just carried on, never going back.

Kryten says they’re arrogant and despise stupidity. They wouldn’t view the Red Dwarf crew as worth saving. 

There also wouldn’t be anyone to ask for rescue even if they could. 

[Dave]

Holoship, Nova 5, psirens and all the other derelicts they come across, including all the space stations in various episodes… always seems to indicate that Red Dwarf has re entered into the expanses of Space where human beings have explored. On the outer edge possibly but there is still plenty of evidence to show the human race is there or thereabouts. In my mind that makes Holoship w*ankers, the worst of the worst… and could have at least given them 10p to make a phone call.

[Warbodog]

there is still plenty of evidence to show the human race is there or thereabouts.

Past tense though.

Psirens was always the one that felt off to me in that way. The ships are still relics, but the black box recording and the sheer number of ships make it feel too connected to the past or something for my liking. Places like Justice World and Legion’s station feel convincingly ancient.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Yeah they’re at the edge of where humanity expanded too, before extinction. 

What that suggests is Red Dwarf was always just ahead of the expansion in some relative sense, but never in sight of rescue. 

Also we know (from the novels) that Nova 5 had FTL tech so that allows for much further expansion a lot faster. 

Either way, as “populated” as the universe may seem, they’re just stumbling over the, remnants. Nothing more.

[Dave]

But small instances like Lister ordering a stirmaster in Trojan… im just been picky really LOL

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

But he’s clearly on hold to a long abandoned automated system. Again it’s just evidence of a lack of humanity. 

[RunawayTrain]

Going back to Earth for the sake of it and going back to Earth as they know it are two different things.  The only potential possibility of Lister and Rimmer going back to their real former lives was in Stasis Leak, but every sci-fi universe knows you can’t have multiple versions of the same person from different time frames all in the same time and universe for very long without things getting all hinky.

Obviously at the end of The End, Lister’s stated intention is to go back to Earth.  But I think somewhere along the way he fully realises it could never be the same as the Earth and life he knew, just maybe never explicitly says that – but I don’t think he has to, in the development of his life on board with holo-Rimmer, the Cat, and then Kryten.

But small instances like Lister ordering a stirmaster in Trojan… im just been picky really LOL

That was all run by droids, wasn’t it?

[Hamish]

Psirens was always the one that felt off to me in that way. The ships are still relics, but the black box recording and the sheer number of ships make it feel too connected to the past or something for my liking.

Psirens does open with them having been in stasis for several centuries, so they could have made up some ground on the rest of humanity in that time.

[Warbodog]

Obviously at the end of The End, Lister’s stated intention is to go back to Earth.  But I think somewhere along the way he fully realises it could never be the same as the Earth and life he knew, just maybe never explicitly says that

In Back to Reality, he’s taunted about not getting Kochanski, not failing to get to Earth. Going back to Earth is mentioned very inconsistently, as catalogued during the last rewatch.

[Flap Jack]

It’s interesting, because by Back to Reality, I’d say the ‘find a way to rescue Kochanski, and presumably start dating her again’ goal had been dropped just as much as ‘get back to Earth’. It was focused on in Stasis Leak, and mentioned in Queeg, but that’s pretty much it. (Psirens also mentioned it, but really just to set up Psiren-Kochanski’s appearance.)

So in context, it’s more like they’re making fun of the idea of this being an actual story arc for Lister (or at least, making fun of Lister himself for doing nothing to progress it). In a similiar way that Rimmer’s series wide goal is not actually to discover his true purpose in guiding Lister to jumpstart the second Big Bang. Like, Lister literally says “… was I supposed to?” when asked if he got Kochanski. Series 2 Byte 2 Lister would definitely not have reacted like that.

For various major reasons I prefer Earth as Lister’s long term goal over Kochanski, but for most of the show the long term goal is “N/A” in practice.

[Rudolph]

Psirens does open with them having been in stasis for several centuries, so they could have made up some ground on the rest of humanity in that time.

Then Nanarchy undoes it all, by taking Starbug all the way back to where they were 200 years ago, to where they were in Back to Reality. The crew even have to go into stasis for the journey, so it’s possible the flight was longer than a human lifespan.

They did gain a 300% stardrive in the previous episode, but Red Dwarf has form for forgetting plot contrivances like that.

[International Debris]

The only potential possibility of Lister and Rimmer going back to their real former lives was in Stasis Leak

Nah, it’s possible with the VII time drive too. They could easily have materialised back on Mimas or something. As long as they do a Pete Part Two and destroy the time drive when they get back so they don’t become their Out of Time selves, I reckon they’d be fine. They’ve weathered enough paradoxes in the past. 

The populated nature of the Dwarf universe is a tricky one. The idea of humanity being extinct is only ever stated as a strong likelihood, but I think we’re generally expected to believe it’s the case. At the same time, the more things they stumble across, the more it seems that people have been around comparatively recently – the Simulant who says human is nice with mint sauce, the BEGG who’s eaten someone from an English boarding school, the ship full of mechanoids working through their abuse at the hands of humans – which make it feel like humanity has only been gone for hundreds or thousands of years, rather than a million or two. (I’m factoring out stuff like derelicts still being intact and fully powered, as that’s necessary for plot reasons.) But individuals they encounter, in the Doug era especially, feel like they’re already very familiar with people.

[RunawayTrain]

Nah, it’s possible with the VII time drive too. They could easily have materialised back on Mimas or something. As long as they do a Pete Part Two and destroy the time drive when they get back so they don’t become their Out of Time selves, I reckon they’d be fine. They’ve weathered enough paradoxes in the past.

Yes but there’s still the problem of having two selves from different times in the same time frame.  A temporal paradox isn’t the problem – if it can’t be explicitly solved it will be handwaved away – but having the extra matter in the form of two selves is, if the Dwarf universe follows the convention in pretty much all other sci-fi, a problem that can only be solved by either sending the younger, time-frame-native selves to replace them in the future, sending them back to a past where they don’t yet exist, or killing them … the only reason the Out Of Time future selves manage their shenanigans is because they don’t stay too long, they don’t live permanently in a time frame that’s not their own.

The populated nature of the Dwarf universe is a tricky one. … *snip for length* … At the same time, the more things they stumble across, the more it seems that people have been around comparatively recently … *snip for length* … But individuals they encounter, in the Doug era especially, feel like they’re already very familiar with people.

Agreed, very good points.

[Flap Jack]

Yes but there’s still the problem of having two selves from different
times in the same time frame.  A temporal paradox isn’t the problem – if
it can’t be explicitly solved it will be handwaved away – but having
the extra matter in the form of two selves is, if the Dwarf universe
follows the convention in pretty much all other sci-fi, a problem that
can only be solved by either sending the younger, time-frame-native
selves to replace them in the future, sending them back to a past where
they don’t yet exist, or killing them … the only reason the Out Of Time
future selves manage their shenanigans is because they don’t stay too
long, they don’t live permanently in a time frame that’s not their own.

I’m not sure I understand why 2 versions of Lister existing at the same time would inherently be a problem, as long as time paradoxes are avoided?

I think the Out of Time future crew existing at the same time as the present crew would have been fine too, if they had just avoided each other. (Not that there would have been any point to doing that.)

[International Debris]

Yes but there’s still the problem of having two selves from different times in the same time frame.  A temporal paradox isn’t the problem – if it can’t be explicitly solved it will be handwaved away – but having the extra matter in the form of two selves is, if the Dwarf universe follows the convention in pretty much all other sci-fi, a problem that can only be solved by either sending the younger, time-frame-native selves to replace them in the future, sending them back to a past where they don’t yet exist, or killing them … the only reason the Out Of Time future selves manage their shenanigans is because they don’t stay too long, they don’t live permanently in a time frame that’s not their own. 

How does that differ from Stasis Leak, though? If staying in the past is an explicit issue due to excess matter (and I doubt it would be in Red Dwarf, as it’s not exactly hard SF), then there’s no way of them going back without removing someone.

[Dave]

A temporal paradox it may be, but personally I dont see why he couldnt exist in the timeline as his other self. Statis Leak for instance, just hop on the next bus and head straight to Fuji. He need never meet or interactive with his doppleganger whatsoever. 

[RunawayTrain]

How does that differ from Stasis Leak, though? If staying in the past is an explicit issue due to excess matter (and I doubt it would be in Red Dwarf, as it’s not exactly hard SF), then there’s no way of them going back without removing someone.

It doesn’t, that’s why I said staying back in Stasis Leak wasn’t an actual possibility, I just mentioned it as the one time they had contact with their original lives whereas all the other times of getting back to Earth in one way or another were not to their original lives.

If the Dwarf universe doesn’t adhere to the rule then fine, it’s never actually mentioned in the show.  It wouldn’t leave any major problems needing explanations even if it’s not the case.

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

just hop on the next bus and head straight to Fuji.

 

[Warbodog]

[International Debris]

It doesn’t, that’s why I said staying back in Stasis Leak wasn’t an actual possibility, I just mentioned it as the one time they had contact with their original lives whereas all the other times of getting back to Earth in one way or another were not to their original lives.
If the Dwarf universe doesn’t adhere to the rule then fine, it’s never actually mentioned in the show.  It wouldn’t leave any major problems needing explanations even if it’s not the case.

Ah yes, misread your post. That said, I still think the the time drive could have got them back to their original lives if they really wanted it. It could take them to literally anywhere, anywhen. 

As someone in the small, but correct, Tikka To Ride Is Crap club, I just hate the fact that it was brought back at all. Even if they don’t use it to go back into the past, like I say, they could use it to travel the universe, explore strange new worlds and seek out… well, GELFs, probably. They could travel further into the future to try and find any potential future civilisations, discover how the universe will end, anything they want. Even do a good bootstrap paradox where they steal Red Dwarf from themselves during the events of Back to Reality (a hill I will die on) which would also remove the existence of STARDISbug. But instead, there’s a fairly crap couple of lines of dialogue, Lister gets some curry and pops his baby self back where he was found in a plot that makes no biological sense and exists during an 18 month gap in the VII timeline, and then it’s never seen again.

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

[Warbodog]

Lots of excellent G&T Forum stupidity going on right now.

[Author]

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