Rimmer and his brief time in the Mirror Universe

[Tonguetied]

With all this talk of a new Red Dwarf special I’ve been thinking a lot about series VIII and in particular it’s ending. I just wondered, why would Rimmer, who has entered into a universe where he is captain of the ship(something he’d always dreamed of) feel at all obliged to return to save Lister, Cat, Kryten and Kochanski? He’s not exactly the best of friends by any stretch of the imagination. True the other version of Rimmer showed bravery, look at series VI with his attempt to blow up the time drive and save the crew, but then he was saving his own neck as well as the others. When it comes to the Mirror Universe, the newly resurrected Rimmer (who has supposedly reverted to his series 1 persona, ie back to the anally retentive, up the ziggurat) who has found a place where he is in fact at the top of the foodchain, why on Io would he feel any need to return to save people he doesn’t particularly like? Why, when the Mirror Universe is completely stable, no microbe eating away at the ship, he has power. He has the one thing that in particular the series 1 representation of Rimmer, put ahead of everything else. This isn’t particularly Rimmereske whatsoever, you can talk about unRimmerlike deeds in Holoship but at least there was a plausible reason, ie he fell in love. In Only the Good…nah

Topic

[Pete Part Three]

I’ve missed this.

[ChrisM]

Good point. But bear in mind the other universe Rimmer must be around somewhere… It could be argued that staying would require a lot of bravery as well.

Also, I’m not convinced he is that bad that he would leave the crew to die if there was a chance of saving them. He is pretty selfish, true, but he’s not without conscience. I can believe him leaving the others to the (dare I say rather sexy) Simulant lady in Rimmerworld considering that the threat was immediate. However with the ship devouring organism thing, the breakdown is gradual. At least he thinks it is. I think he may have been a tad surprised at how things had escalated when he returned.

[hummingbird]

I have a lot of problems with the way Rimmer was written in VIII.

He’s not the Rimmer of series I, nor that of VI or VII, but some ghastly inconsistent hybrid. I suppose you could argue that the nano-bots resurrected a different version of Rimmer (much in the way that they resurrected a different version of RD), but I still have issues with it.

.

[Ridley]

Perhaps the mirror universe flipped his sensibilities like the formula for the antidote.

Talia Garrett seemed the same on either side though, unless Rimmer was right about her the first time round and Mrs Hollister’s picture did require turning.

[Phil]

Can Tonguetied contribute to the Dwarfcasts?

[Squeaky Gibson]

You know that’s a damn good point, but remember that after the Radiation leak killed the crew Rimmer blamed himself…okay Lister initially (see The End) but afterwards he blames himself, that’s why the Justice computer sentenced Rimmer for the death of the crew, because he blamed himself for their deaths. I think that as Rimmer is conniving and always looking ever upwards, he would not purposely plan to let people die (in his series 1 persona).

[Dave]

>Can Tonguetied contribute to the Dwarfcasts?

Tonguecasts?

[Mnoooah]

First of all. Toungecasts. GUH.

Now then:

My answer is that neither of these things quite sorts with what we are told about the character, but they underscore the elements that are important to the episode so no one really cares.

Would he really be able to abandon the last people in the universe likely to acknolwedge his existance for lack of a bullet to a simulant’s back? Probably not, but IF not, Rimmerworld would seem disproportionately cruel at that point in the series.

Conversely, I doubt he’d be likely to leave his paradise world without being driven out by the sadly missed Gay Lister except that would have taken too much time.

The only trait that is consistent throughout all the series that might explain both, if you really felt you had to, is that he is largely unable to consider the consequences of his actions.

In series one, he’s eager to see Lister snuff it because he can’t envision what that would actually mean. In Rimmerworld, you could argue the same. In Cassandra he essentially plots Kochanski’s grusome death so he probably hasn’t thought that through, so it is not entirely (though I grant you somewhat) unlikely that once invested with a mission he wouldn’t give other contingencies too much thought, although Talia was a bit of a distraction.

Incidentally, I’ve always understood Rimmer to be right on the money with Talia. I mean, if she was a Nun in the mirror world, she must have been some kind of slut in… well whatever universe season 8 is in. For those of you who have an image now, you’re WELCOME. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

[Ridley]

I suppose you could argue how much the hologram Rimmer and nano Rimmer are “like [he] used to be. Ughhh.”

In theory series VIII Rimmer is the continuation of pre-accident Rimmer which you only get to see in- what? The End, Stasis Leak and Ouroboros? And Me2 depending on at which point the nanobots resurrected the crew eg. Hollister was thrown against a wall after arguing with Rimmer about drive plates then got up and carried on as normal, discovered a different shaped ship, three million years on the clock, found Kochanksi gone, Lister missing from stasis, etc etc…

[ChrisM]

Didn’t Rimmer remember the events up to his death?

I’ve wondered about the hologram disc. The book suggested that their personalities are downloaded onto disc when they join the crew. Yet Rimmer has all the memories of being a crew member, so I assume they must do regular downloads with their new experiences…

Mind you since they have a dream recording technology, I imagine it might be something that’s done ‘wirelessly’ from time to time, possibly even when they’re asleep. (Begs the question why the initial wire-up, but maybe that’s as much to record the configuration of their brain as an information dump, i.e. so the computer knows what to look for later…?)

As for the reconstitution of the crew, I wondered about that too since their dust was scattered a while back, and literally centuries ago (remember the time interval between series 5 and 6.) It’s possible they were created from other matter… however from what Kryten explained of how nanobots work, it’s not quite as simple as that.

He said they can change like matter into similar matter. Or rather matter which is essentially the same at the atomic level can be changed (For example sand can be turned into glass etc, but not granite into potatoes). Of course if the nanobots can rearrange matter at a small enough level (i.e. subatomic, electrons, protons, neutrons etc.) I think theoretically anything can be turned into anything else… but that wasn’t how he explained the nanobots functionality.

Hence the ship can be turned into a planetoid and back cos it’s actually the same material in a different form. The human components though… where did they get that?

(Actually I just thought up the answer myself on writing this. Just a small amount of matter would be required,which could be used to clone the rest… Course the DNA code would have broken down millenia ago, but likely they’d have the dna records on file… Also, it’s possible Holly recorded the workings and functionality of the DNA machine they encountered in DNA.)

[Mnoooah]

Didn?t Rimmer remember the events up to his death?

Perhaps not, he does seem pretty surprised in The End. I always assumed having to proceed from your last save point (and who can be arsed to do *that* more than once a year?) would be another one of those inevetable annoyances of being dead. For instance, a couple snuffing it at the same time, and resurrected at different points in the relationship. (I married YOU? You’re shitting me.) On the upside, though, you would be younger. And it would be merciful, you probably don’t want to remember your last moment.

Your explanation for reconstitution makes about as much sense as any, Chris. I gave up waaay before that. Kudos!

[ChrisM]

The reconstituted crew are made from beef!

Hee, hee! (Actually considering some crew members and Hollister’s sudden increase in weight on his resurrection that’s not surprising. They obviously had some left over…)

Yeah I guess different flesh constitutes the ‘like matter’ idea. With a bit of reordering to create the right DNA etc…. hmmm…

I’m putting way too much thought into this aren’t I? I find it a lot of fun though. Maybe I’m one of those geeks Iain Lee was on about (less the weight. And the brains. ) If that’s the case… I actually don’t mind. Lots worse things to be. Geeks get to journey in other worlds which is no bad thing.

[Anonymous]

deleted

[Anonymous]

deleted

[Author]

Replies