Unanswered Questions

[GlenTokyo]

OG Ace jumped to Rimmer in the year ~3,002,200 too, not Rimmer from his own time period which implies that it’ll jump around in time, so if an Ace goes back to ~2200 for a new human Rimmer, with the odd 2200 – 3,002,200 Holo Rimmer then the coffins will have been going through the wormhole and building up for millions of years.

[Flap Jack]

Every time Stoke Me A Clipper gets brought up, I’m just reminded how absurd it is, and how many questions are raised by its premise. How did this mass graveyard of Ace Rimmer light bees even get started, how do people learn about it. How many times has an Ace died in a conveniently slow way that gives him time to either find and recruit his successor, or tell someone how to get to the light bee graveyard. How many Aces died without becoming holograms, given it was a fluke that our Rimmer even got the opportunity to become one. Why is it a wig in universe. Why does Ace implicitly only recruit versions of himself. Why does Ace know that there’s always going to be a never ending series of unrelated crises that only he or a doppelganger of him can solve, and how does he know when and where they’re happening.

And that’s just plot logic. The character development aspect of it is even weirder.

[GlenTokyo]

Well the ship has an AI, so maybe that just jumps without and plops out a coffin for the dead one on the planet/space station/asteroid below or whatever. 

There are questions about the ship too tbh, longevity wise for all these missions, it’s a fighter jet sized ship in Dimension Jump, and gets even smaller in Stoke Me a Clipper. 

How does that support a human? How does he eat or go for a shit on his way to missions? Does he have spare clothing?

Does he have an omnidimensional base? With loads of staff and clean pants?

[loadoftottnumb]

Some good answers and some good questions, thanks. 

[International Debris]

It works on an emotional level but there’s absolutely no way it bears up to any scrutiny, which has always bothered me about it since 1997. 

[Pembers]

I still can’t believe there was an episode called ‘Skipper’ that was about Rimmer Dimension Jumping and there wasn’t even a nod to Ace. 

[International Debris]

It’s fine, the lack of Ace reference was done very subtly by everyone stating categorically that they couldn’t imagine a Rimmer from another universe who was somehow cool.

[loadoftottnumb]

Yeah I expected Ace, I guess it kind of fits on with there only bring one Ace at any given time and all these Rimmers (maybe not the Holly one) will become him at some point. 

[Flap Jack]

Are Confidence and Paranoia symptoms of Lister’s illness, or are they manifestastions of the illness itself?

It’s interesting that although both Rimmer and Confidence believe that Lister getting well will cause C&P to simply disappear, because they die in ways that would kill any human, we never get that confirmed. It’s plausible to me that if they’re just byproducts of sickness, they could continue to exist after Lister recovers. They are flesh and blood after all.

On the other side of the coin, if Confidence would have disappeared when Lister was better, did he think he could keep Lister ill but alive permanently, or was he just trying to give himself a few extra days of life?

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

Here’s another thought about Confidence and Paranoia – why didn’t Lister hallucinate Peterson and Kochanski?

[Flap Jack]

If you could control what you hallucinate, that would be very handy.

Of course if Lister did hallucinate Petersen and Kochanski, they wouldn’t be as they really were but as Lister subconsciously imagines them. Could have been an interesting alternate take if Confidence was Petersen and Paranoia was Kochanski.

[Pete Part Three]

Are Confidence and Paranoia symptoms of Lister’s illness, or are they manifestastions of the illness itself?
It’s interesting that although both Rimmer and Confidence believe that Lister getting well will cause C&P to simply disappear, because they die in ways that would kill any human, we never get that confirmed. It’s plausible to me that if they’re just byproducts of sickness, they could continue to exist after Lister recovers. They are flesh and blood after all.
On the other side of the coin, if Confidence would have disappeared when Lister was better, did he think he could keep Lister ill but alive permanently, or was he just trying to give himself a few extra days of life?

Rimmer refers to them as “symptoms”, but I’d propose a third option; they’re the byproducts of the *symptoms*, much like snotty tissues when you’ve got the flu.
The Major of Warsaw conveniently combusts, and the Cat eats the fish… and then seems to slip into a food coma.  They are flesh and blood, and appear to be “real” fish, meaning that the hallucinations need to “die” to cease to exist, rather than fading out like they faded in.
Lister’s fever passes and he feels “great”. He stops hallucinating new stuff. 

It doesn’t appear that Lister’s health is dependant on the hallucinations sticking around or otherwise, despite Rimmer’s claims (and Confidence’s fears). It would have probably made a bit more sense if Lister was still feeling a bit poorly, and Confidence was cajoling him into taking spacewalks and whatnot, despite this.  As it is, it just seems that Rimmer is jumping to conclusions because he doesn’t like them, and Confidence is aware of that.

[Dave]

I always took Lister feeling great as the virus falsely convincing him that he felt great so that he wouldn’t get treatment and the illness could secretly carry on.

Either way though, it does feel as though the solid hallucinations do need to be physically done away with to disappear. 

[Pete Part Three]

FWIW, Rimmer’s reasoning doesn’t make sense even on a surface level. If the hallucinations are “symptoms”, as he says,, then you don’t treat the symptoms (or, er, kill them) to get better, you treat the illness (the pneumonia). 

The stuff with the medicomp is really interesting, as it’s obviously destroyed by Confidence…but the only time it’s used is earlier in the episode where it’s shown to be inefficient at diagnosing Lister.

[Flap Jack]

Cool, I think we’re on the same wavelength.

Though it’s chilling to think that if Rimmer’s “stab him!” gambit had worked, that would have been straight up murder. Paranoia was a toxic emotional influence and a general bummer to be around for sure, but he wasn’t physically hurting anyone.

[Stabbim]

glad this came up, naturally (points to username)

well, you could argue being a toxic emotional influence IS, in fact, hurting anyone.  Imagine an alternate take on the episode where Paranoia kills off Confidence and gradually encourages Lister to sink deeper into a defeatist hole “for his own good” starting with “don’t bother with Kochanski’s disk, she barely knew you, do you really want to bring her back only to have her say no?” and progressing from there.

Despite Goalpost Head’s lack of medical expertise, I do like the idea that he is correct in diagnosing C&P as an active obstacle to Lister’s recovery; i.e. the 3 million years of mutation has caused pneumonia to develop this extra resiliance/resistance to treatment where it manifests hallucinations that persuade the host against getting cured (i.e. killing the pneumonia).  In the same spirit as the smart viruses referenced later in the show (and ultimately depicted in the Epideme episode).  The big problem with this, however, is that by this logic it makes no sense for Confidence to kill Paranoia; despite all appearances and playing of their roles, they’d work in concert to keep Lister from getting over it/them.

[Unless of course it’s another classic Red Dwarf gag where the team is saved by their own flaws, like the Psiren copying Lister’s delusion of guitar talent, or Rimmer’s self-loathing breaking Better Than Life’s paradise trap.]

[Pete Part Three]

Despite Goalpost Head’s lack of medical expertise, I do like the idea that he is correct in diagnosing C&P as an active obstacle to Lister’s recovery; i.e. the 3 million years of mutation has caused pneumonia to develop this extra resiliance/resistance to treatment where it manifests hallucinations that persuade the host against getting cured (i.e. killing the pneumonia).  In the same spirit as the smart viruses referenced later in the show (and ultimately depicted in the Epideme episode).  The big problem with this, however, is that by this logic it makes no sense for Confidence to kill Paranoia; despite all appearances and playing of their roles, they’d work in concert to keep Lister from getting over it/them.

The other problem with this is that C&P aren’t the only hallucinations that Lister has, and neither of the other two have the means or opportunity to convince him not to get cured. At least half of his hallucinations are just his imagination running wild and drawing on things he’s recently thought about, rather than malevolent to the point of wanting him to stay sick, so it’s a bit of a stretch to conclude that the final two are, just because (by their very nature), they either dwell in sickness or ignore the feeling. 

In terms of the smart viruses (Quarantine), I see a slight parallel, but Epideme and the depiction of an *intelligent* virus (not a symptom) that wanted to replicate, was based ona Paul Alexander idea, so it’s not as organic an evolution of the idea as it appears. Confidence and Paranoia have more in common with the alter~egos that Rob and Doug were always playing with to explore the characters, rather than a straight sci-fi “monster of the week” idea..

Confidence kills Paranoia because Paranoia holds Lister back, not because the pair of them keep him sick. I think the medicomp being destroyed is Confidence actually working to the same logic; why should Lister listen to anyone else (even a machine) to tell him how he is ever again, when he’s got Confidence? 

[Flap Jack]

well, you could argue being a toxic emotional influence IS, in fact, hurting anyone. Imagine an alternate take on the episode where Paranoia kills off Confidence and gradually encourages Lister to sink deeper into a defeatist hole “for his own good” starting with “don’t bother with Kochanski’s disk, she barely knew you, do you really want to bring her back only to have her say no?” and progressing from there.

Oh, for sure the emotional abuse and manipulation by Paranoia and Confidence does count as legitimate harm and that shouldn’t be tolerated, but I’m pretty sure an emotional threat is not grounds to kill someone.

It could have been interesting (albeit probably not funny) if they had tried to make the hallucinations self-aware about their natures and tried to get them to knock it off – or else have to mandate they stay away from Lister for his sanity. I can actually buy Confidence gaining that self-awareness if Lister himself was certain about it (Paranoia may be harder to convince). Granted, a life where they’re not able to act on their impulses to make Lister arrogant or depressed might be pure hell for them, but there’s an ethical onus to try it.

It’s clear to me that the hallucinations’ emotional manipulation is not inherently for their own survival (nor is it a facade, they genuinely believe it all), and if it does help with that then it’s incidental. Some of Confidence’s actions may be better explained as him trying to survive rather than trying to ego boost Lister, but as a separate thing. And that makes sense whether he intuitively knows that Lister getting well will kill him, or he just wrongly thinks that’s the case.

[Flap Jack]

If Jim and Bexley hadn’t been predestined by Future Echo, would Lister have got an abortion?

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Possibly.

But, Lister has always wanted kids (as evidenced by him knowing what he’ll call them) so perhaps not. 

He also suggests they ought to stay in Parallel Universe because he is pregnant and the “father” is there.  That’s before he is reminded of Future Echos.  So the idea of abortion hasn’t even crossed his mind.

[Flap Jack]

Good points. His reaction did seem to be one of someone who really didn’t want to be pregnant, but that may have just been initial shock.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

I mean, he may want kids, but he probably sure as hell doesn’t want to be pregnant!

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Perhaps they extracted the fertilised eggs (however the hell it works) and stick them in uterine simulator 

[Flap Jack]

I mean, he may want kids, but he probably sure as hell doesn’t want to be pregnant!

Pretty understandable! IRL that mix would probably have you end up more on the pro side of the abortion decision… but IRL you’d have other realistic ways to get kids, which Lister doesn’t. So that’s fair.

However, my interpretation of Lister’s desire to have kids is that it’s more in the abstract. He likes the idea of celebrating his favourite athlete by naming his kids after him. He likes the idea of having a legacy. And most of all, he likes the idea of fitting into a traditional nuclear family unit a la It’s A Wonderful Life. But, I struggle to imagine him actually wanting what being a single father to twin boys would entail, especially in his specific life context of being the probable last man alive, stranded in deep space 3 million years after his time.

Not yet knowing about the whole rapid ageing thing and not yet knowing if “get back to Earth” was actually feasible, he’d essentially be raising the last generation of humanity, passing his burden onto them – except worse, because at least he has The Cat. Jim and Bexley would just have Rimmer and Holly, and each other. Bringing his pregnancy to term means bringing new people into a world where they can’t be offered any real choice in their life path, and can’t be offered any real hope. It’s extremely fucking grim. Once he gets that pregnancy test result, you’d think these realisations would start hitting Lister hard, on top of whatever logistical nightmares are entailed by the pregnancy itself.

Also you’d think if Lister wanted to be a dad as much as that, it would get mentioned a lot more (like it would be more than a footnote in his Fiji plan, for instance). And you’d especially think that him having already had children and not being able to ever see them again would get more than that passing casual reference in Demons & Angels.

[International Debris]

Where’d he get the womb from, anyway? You think he’d notice a complete change of his internal body structure.

[Warbodog]

Not yet knowing about the whole rapid ageing thing and not yet knowing if “get back to Earth” was actually feasible

The future echoes that prophesied/ensured their birth also suggested/guaranteed that Lister would be stuck on Red Dwarf forever and Bexley would die tragically young (even younger if the rapid ageing thing came about).

But based on the experiences of Stasis Leak and Timeslides (if that’s the same universe), he’d try to avert that. Maybe that’s why they were sent to the parallel universe.

[Warbodog]

Would someone watching the series for the first time, in the proper order, take Stasis Leak as a piece of the Future Echoes puzzle? Lister seeing his future self get married is great misdirection that makes the Parallel Universe reveal an even better twist. But I watched the series like a prat, so missed the opportunity.

[Flap Jack]

The future echoes that prophesied/ensured their birth also suggested/guaranteed that Lister would be stuck on Red Dwarf forever and Bexley would die tragically young (even younger if the rapid ageing thing came about).

But based on the experiences of Stasis Leak and Timeslides (if that’s the same universe), he’d try to avert that. Maybe that’s why they were sent to the parallel universe.

Well, they were sent to the parallel universe specifically to prevent them dying from the rapid ageing (and you could even argue this was in service of ensuring Bexley’s predestined death by navicomp explosion, in a roundabout way), but on a character level I absolutely agree. It’s all well and good saying “You’re born and you die. The bit in the middle’s called “life”, and that’s still to come!” when the reality of your son’s tragic premature death is hypothetically decades away, not so easy when it’s rapidly approaching before your very eyes.

Personally I much prefer to think that future echoes simply show whatever is the most likely future at the time, and that the further away the echoes are from the present, the less likely they are to come true, meaning both Old Man Lister Still on Red Dwarf and Bexley’s death are not guaranteed to happen (and FWIW, even after they see that future echo, they do keep trying to get back to Earth anyway, make of that what you will).

I know that there’s been an attempt to reframe the situation in recent series, to suggest that Red Dwarf is their true home now and they’re happy there, and to an extent that is sweet, but realistically that fate is still unbelievably depressing. So I choose to believe there is still a hope of a “get home/to civilisation” finale in the distance, even if we never see it.

Would someone watching the series for the first time, in the proper order, take Stasis Leak as a piece of the Future Echoes puzzle? Lister seeing his future self get married is great misdirection that makes the Parallel Universe reveal an even better twist. But I watched the series like a prat, so missed the opportunity.

I watched the show for the first time in the correct order on DVD, but unfortunately I didn’t pick up on the obvious potential connection (granted, I was a child myself when I did so). Perhaps I was thrown off by Lister holding the twins in Future Echoes looking the same as current Lister, while Stasis Leak Future Lister was made out to be noticeably older.

Actually, somewhat related Unanswered Question: how do the 2 future Listers know when they’re about to be future echoed, so they can say and do what they need to?

[loadoftottnumb]

Well bootstrap paradox innit, they know because they saw it when they were younger. 

[Flap Jack]

Sure, but the future echoes didn’t say the exact time and date. Lister is probably thinking “OK, so I need to launch into my Bexley speech when I’m that old, wearing that outfit, and I’m lying on my bunk, which I assume will only ever happen once.”

[Dave]

Maybe old-Lister lies on the bunk and does that speech once a day for a whole year, just to be sure.

[International Debris]

Maybe he only did it once, and vowed never to do it again, meaning it would have to be the right time.

[Warbodog]

There could be something to jog his memory. Maybe he was holding the twins for the first time, maybe Old Lister just had the arm fitted, so they got the monologues out of the way.

The future echo itself is effective misdirection in the novel, where it makes Lister’s BTL fantasy briefly more credible. But I’ve never watched Future Echoes without knowing “that’s Lister with the twins he gives birth to after series 2.”

[Pete Part Three]

Maybe he’s literally on his death bed and Holly tells him he’s only got minutes to live. He realises that the future echo is unfulfilled so it must be time to do his little speech. This could be why he “doesn’t have much time”. It also means the Lister dies laughing at Rimmer, and Rimmer does actually see Lister die in a future echo.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Maybe the echos future also get a sense of being echoed/watched etc 

the echos are on the basis that our crew are travelling at light speed so catching up to the future before it’s happened. There must be some sense or effect happening that clues them into it. Especially the older ones who will have lived through more echos than the young Lister who was oblivious when shaving 

[loadoftottnumb]

Sure, but the future echoes didn’t say the exact time and date. Lister is probably thinking “OK, so I need to launch into my Bexley speech when I’m that old, wearing that outfit, and I’m lying on my bunk, which I assume will only ever happen once.”

Yeah pretty much that and I guess it will just ‘feel’ right and the bootstrap paradox will sort itself, so Lister will be holding the two babies who are crying and he’ll be like ‘oh yeah I need to go and talk to past me quickly’ and it will all be reet 

[Flap Jack]

OK, I think I’m satisfied enough that whatever time Lister would arbitrarily choose to do the things would just turn out to be the right time. Thanks folks!

[Flap Jack]

In the old Red Dwarf Head Knocker range, why did Lister, Rimmer and The Cat only get one each, when Kryten got two?

[GlenTokyo]

In the old Red Dwarf Head Knocker range, why did Lister, Rimmer and The Cat only get one each, when Kryten got two?

Wasn’t aware Kryten got two. There was the one with the psi scan, what was the other?

[Flap Jack]

[GlenTokyo]

I’m confused.

[Dave]

I can only imagine that we’re headcanoning The Last Temptation Of Kryten.

[Flap Jack]

Understandable. As Dave alluded to, it was just my best attempt at a reference to The Last Temptation of Kryten.

But the sincere underbelly of the question is that I am genuinely curious about why they picked those 5.
The Inquisitor makes as much sense as any one off humanoid villain I suppose (though maybe Kochanski would have made more sense than a villain if you’re only going to do 5 total), but it’s weird how Lister and Kryten got standard outfits while Rimmer and Cat got episode specific ones.

The main 4 being treated equally would have made it a nicer overall collection.

[GlenTokyo]

I suppose you could argue that Rimmer and The Cat don’t have one iconic outfit, they have multiple or in the cats case who has a new outfit pretty much every episode, none, so they sidestepped the choice entirely.

Lister and Kryten also have multiple outfits, but I think a lot of Red Dwarf fans would have these costumes in mind when they think of the characters. They’re a bit less disparate too, Lister is normally in leathers, Kryten has been pretty similar while Bobby has been playing him. 

Maybe. 

As for the Inquisitor – imagine the loss of life from the Grogan Vs Annett riots. There’s your answer.

Always been impressed with the quality of the Inquisitor one though, the others are a bit meh but that sculpt is spot on.

[Ian Symes]

I think the intention is that those *are* episode-specific designs – Lister in Polymorph (hence baseball bat) and Kryten in Quarantine (with Psi Scan and Most Gross Danger sign) – it’s just they’re pretty close to their generic outfits anyway. So really, it should have been Old Lister from Future Echoes and gold Kryten from Krytie TV, or some such.

[clem]

Possibly these were intended to be a first ‘wave’ and more designs would have followed. ISTR hearing a Psiren one was announced. The Rimmer one was never even mass-produced was it? Didn’t someone pay a shit-ton for a prototype at a DJ auction? 

[Flap Jack]

Ahh, good point Ian. I suppose that makes sense. But as you say, the range of difference from their normal outfits is still kind of strange. And what a Series V bias!

Also it’s even more lopsided, because 3 of them have drastically different personalities or personas in those episodes. Kryten is just… near a sign.

I know there’s no actual “normal Cat outfit” because changing outfits is his whole thing, but that really just means there’s a whole array of “normal” outfits to choose from. I’d probably go for either his pink suit from The End, or the zebra print.

Plus if there were intended to be multiple waves, surely you’d still do more “standard” ones first? Starting with such deep cuts seems a bit… overconfident.

[Dave]

There should have been a Holly one that’s just a head, loose in the box.

[International Debris]

The Rimmer one was never even mass-produced was it?

I’d love to know the thinking behind that. “What character are fans less bothered about? Which one shall we just not bother with? I know, Rimmer! He’s not important.”

[GlenTokyo]

The history of Red Dwarf merch has always seemed a bit weird to me, there’s been some really impressive stuff outside of the usual t-shirts, but some of it seems to be rare as hen’s teeth (now and at the time), or never actually made it out at all.

I wasn’t old enough at the time to form a judgement on whether the demand was there for it, but it’s pretty crazy really. Only the biggest franchises today would get the amount of stuff Red Dwarf got in the 90s and early 2000s

[Author]

Posts