Officer's Quarters?

[jdfr]

It’s probably been mentioned before, but I’m re-watching Polymorph and saw that they’ve relocated to the Officers Quarters in this series. I might be completely wrong, but isn’t a bit strange that the officers onboard Red Dwarf were sharing bunk beds? This is what keeps me up at 3am.

Topic

[GlenTokyo]

In my head Holly had an officer’s quarters converted to a bunkroom so that Rimmer could share and he could stick to his keeping Lister sane mission.

Although if you look at single berth quarantine quarters, they seem to have bunks anyway, but just have one covered over, so maybe it’s just a case of popping a panel off and supplying a mattress.

[Warbodog]

I like to think that living space aboard the ship is kept as minimal as possible to save money (cutbacks mentioned in VIII). I don’t know how it works in real-world militaries, but in Star Trek TNG’s ‘Lower Decks,’ some junior officers moan about having to share quarters while the main cast have their luxury suites, and the JMC is much thriftier than the UFP.

[Seb Patrick]

It doesn’t take that much to be an officer on RD – Petersen is a Catering Officer, after all. Kochanski is shown as having a roommate in Stasis Leak, as well.

That’s part of the joke/irony around Rimmer’s desperate desire to join the “officer class” – he’s putting a status on it that it doesn’t really deserve.

[Plastic Percy]

Well, we know Kochanski shared quarters with someone else in ‘Stasis Leak’, so I figured everyone was partnered up to save space. Presumably the senior staff were the only ones to have their own quarters – we know that Captain Hollister and Warden Ackerman have their own.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

It is a bit weird that catering has officer ranks. You’d expect them to be like the technicians, the support staff.

Officers would generally be reserved for the flight start, the top dogs etc and everyone else just be employed by the JMC for whatever they need, cooking, fixing things, actual mining … though as has been discussed before, they aren’t any bloody miners on Red Dwarf!! They left probably kicked them off the ship to make room for big fancy scientific experiment labs and a 400 strong prison population

[International Debris]

I think it’s fair to say the ranking system in the Red Dwarf universe wasn’t entirely thought through.

[Dave]

I think there’s a bit of a mix-up between different types of ‘officer’ – Catering Officer is a fairly standard job title for someone who manages catering supplies, so officer is used in the sense of officiating (like a careers officer or a housing officer, say).

But that’s not the same kind of officer as the pseudo-military rankings that Space Corps officers seem to have. It’s that kind of officer that Rimmer aspires to be.

[GlenTokyo]

I’d have thought Kochanski’s quarters would have been like a 2 bed flat. Shared living space but separate bedrooms.

[bloodteller]

>I’d have thought Kochanski’s quarters would have been like a 2 bed flat. Shared living space but separate bedrooms.

That’s already shown to be the case, isn’t it? In Back In The Red, you see her sleeping quarters and she has a bed to herself.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

That’s already shown to be the case, isn’t it? In Back In The Red, you see her sleeping quarters and she has a bed to herself.

Are you talking when she is sat on her bed with Kryten? I have never considered that “her” quarters and more somewhere to hold her (and then Kryten) before the trial.

It’s a cell of sorts. In fact isn’t Kryten led in there by a guard after he had been re-classified as a woman?

[bloodteller]

Surely it’s her quarters? Lister got sent to his, so why wouldn’t she be sent to hers?

Plus there are all teddy bears and stuff in there. Most cells do not have teddy bears

[Warbodog]

VIII is original design plans and a different shape/size Red Dwarf though, where maybe officers do have their own quarters (same with Ackerman’s).

[cwickham]

Is there anyone who *isn’t* an officer on Red Dwarf at the time of “The End” apart from Lister and Rimmer?

[Dollar Pound]

the reason for the bunks is because one is for lister and the other one is for rimmer

[bloodteller]

The laboratory mice. Also Fourth Engineer Grace Allender and Mineral Geologist Jeremy Black, mentioned in the funeral scene.

[GlenTokyo]

Red Dwarf is a front.

Officers seem like proper officers (until VIII), intelligent and cliquey.

Miners are few and far between, really the only time you ever see anyone that might be a miner is at George’s funeral.

They have a huge prison.

They have a R&D department that can invent sub light teleportation devices.

The Space Corps bought Red Dwarf cheap from the JMC, offered them a chance to put a minimal crew on board to carry out JMC operations, which is free money since the SC are paying for the ships running costs, and the SC just have it to do illegal experiments and keep prisoners in poor conditions in the outer space equivalent of international waters.

When the accident happened Holly had to delete all the sensitive material from his memory which had the unfortunate side effect of making him an idiot.

[Dave]

The service robots

The laborrrrrratory mice

[bloodteller]

And the mysterious Man Who Changed The Bog Rolls mentioned in Balance Of Power, who was inexplicably still a higher rank than Rimmer and Lister

[bloodteller]

There must have been some miners somewhere on the ship, given that the bazookoids were mining lasers and Rimmer shoots Captain Herring with a mining torpedo in Officer Rimmer. But then why do the miners have such violent equipment? When are you ever going to need fucking massive missiles in a mining situation

[International Debris]

Easier than going out into an oxygen-free atmosphere and laying explosives, maybe.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Man Who Changed The Bog Rolls

Janitor, Officer Class.

Maybe the janitorial staff have a better union and lobbied for the right to be recognises as integral to the mission and therefore given the rights and respect offices get. Wouldn’t surprise me if the technicians have a union that Rimmer would have wormed his way to being a prominent member and screwing up and negotiations. Hence the service robots (I’ve always assumed they meant skutters there, because if not, what happened to them post accident?) not getting the chicken soup machine cleaning jobs.

When are you ever going to need fucking massive missiles in a mining situation

To be fair, miners have been using explosives since explosives were invented right? In space, if you’re mining asteroids, makes sense to missile them and break them apart and collect the smaller pieces.

What doesn’t make sense is Starbug suddenly having laser cannons after 10 series of basically just being a transport vehicle.

[Dave]

Didn’t Starbug get upgraded with laser cannons in Series VI? I know that version crashed at the start of VIII but they could have always bolted them to another one.

[International Debris]

Where the fuck is the Dave era Starbug even from?

[GlenTokyo]

>Where the fuck is the Dave era Starbug even from?

I imagine you can make a Starbug on Red Dwarf, it’s big enough to have a vehicle plant. Whether they’re intelligent enough to work said plant who knows.

I suppose everything can be explained by “they found it off screen” though really.

Obviously the crew took all the original ones, so they must have built one to the old spec out of parts on board for use in X, the new design though can only have been found unless Kryten has added another string to his bow or something.

[cwickham]

It was built from whatever process they used to stop the chameleonic microbe. Or at some point in the years between VIII and BTE Lister and Kryten dug out the wreckage of the Starbug that crashed in Back in the Red and rebuilt it.

[bloodteller]

>Where the fuck is the Dave era Starbug even from?

The real question is, why is it Starbug 19? Even in VIII, the most we see is six Starbugs. It seems a little odd that the ship has 19 large transport ships but claims there isn’t enough for the prisoners to be rescued when there’s a deadly microbe onboard.

[bloodteller]

Shouldn’t Hollister have gone down with the ship at the end of VIII like any good captain, instead of leaving a load of people behind to die? Then again I suppose he does the exact same thing in Skipper, so maybe Hollister is just a massive piece of shit

[Dave]

Starbug 19 was just a silly gag wasn’t it?

You might as well try to explain why the Blue Midgets can dance.

[GlenTokyo]

I don’t think it was a gag, from the documentary it seems like they thought it was a clever way of getting away with it not looking like Starbug inside.

[Bargain Bin Holly]

so maybe Hollister is just a massive piece of shit

Nah, I don’t believe it

[GlenTokyo]

It’s Danny.

[Dave]

Hollister is Danny?

[Dave]

Oh, you meant Hollister is on Strictly Come Dancing. Got it.

[GlenTokyo]

Sorry wrong thread haha

[Bargain Bin Holly]

Mac should come out dancing to Cat’s heartbeat on night 1

[bloodteller]

The thread title “Officer’s Quarters” reminds me of that really odd moment in Officer Rimmer where he demands the lift take him to “The Officer’s Quarters, now!” and yet he never actually goes there at all in the episode. What an utterly pointless line

[Plastic Percy]

For all we know, the bloke who changed the bog rolls was a First Technician – promoted for his diligence and general devotion to lavatorial comfort. Although I did also assume there were other Second and Third Technicians on the ship, and that Rimmer and Lister were at the bottom of the pile due to being on Z-Shift and getting all the shit jobs – restocking vending machines, cleaning toilets, emptying ashtrays etc. A to Y Shifts got to do all the cool stuff like programming Holly, repairing Starbug, maintaining the mining equipment etc.

[GlenTokyo]

I’d imagine first technician is still quite lowly, sort of like that NBC page in 30 Rock that picks on Kenneth. I’d say 3rd, 2nd, 1st and then you’re going for your engineering exam so you can get the cool jobs.

[flanl3]

If there are just two people on each of A through Z shift, then that makes for 52 technicians, or around 30% of the crew, right? Are cheap JMC ships just the minimum wage fast food jobs of the future?

[Warbodog]

If the other aphabetti shifts are all technicians, they’re probably doing more important engine/systems maintenance, since Lister suggests they’re the only two going around fixing dispensers.

[Pete Part Three]

>If there are just two people on each of A through Z shift, then that makes for 52 technicians, or around 30% of the crew, right?

You’re applying Series I logic within the confines of the Series IV retcon.

[Plastic Percy]

I think there’s a deleted scene from ‘Justice’ where Lister said there were other staff on Z-Shift, but they all put in for transfers due to hating Rimmer.

[Warbodog]

The really gruff voice Chris Barrie chooses for the Z-shift guy chewing tobacco in the Infinity audiobook cracked me up as a tween.

[Author]

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