Unanswered Questions

[Dave]

Who took the picture of young-Rimmer’s dorm room that he uses to go back in time, in Timeslides? And how is adult-Rmmer in possession of it in the future?

The more I think about this the more it bothers me.

Topic

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

In the Portal 2 Beta, Cave Johnson became a cube. It’s not all it’s cracked up to be.

[Nick R]

[Boy Was I Suckered… Into Using my Kidneys as a Full Stop]

M3GAN versus Hudson 10?

M3GAN versus the Simulants from DNA or Justice or that Tarnished Age episode?

(that last example shows that a show’s actors are not always also writers (see also “Castellaneta, Dan” in the States))

[tombow]

Chess.com had a Megan bot you could play to promote the film. It was pretty funny iirc. I know nothing about the film tho 

[RainbowGazelle]

Chess.com had a Megan bot you could play to promote the film. It was pretty funny iirc. I know nothing about the film tho 

I saw bits of it on another person’s screen on a flight once. Seemed like AI going insane and killing people.

[Dave]

It’s quite a fun little light horror/comedy. Terminator meets Toy Story.

[tombow]

The “Lister gets rich with the tension sheet” timeline has so many problems cause who’s to say Rimmer would even have caused the leak with another technician? And why would Holly even remember the previous timeline? Seems like logically should have been an empty ship with Holly steering it back with no memory of Lister.

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

Hell, would there even still be a ship? 

[tombow]

Tension sheets could have boosted the economy and workforce to the point that JMC ships are better designed, heck tension sheets could have helped Rimmer relax so he became an officer by the time he got to his “The End” age.

[Moonlight]

If Lister invents the tension sheet and becomes rich, he would cease to exist because he wouldn’t have had the same opportunity to be his own dad and go back in time.

[Frank Smeghammer]

The “Lister gets rich with the tension sheet” timeline has so many problems cause who’s to say Rimmer would even have caused the leak with another technician? And why would Holly even remember the previous timeline? Seems like logically should have been an empty ship with Holly steering it back with no memory of Lister.

I suppose it isn’t relevant how Rimmer died, just that he did. They are 3 million years into the future. They’re all dead.

The ship may well have remained abandoned in deep space regardless with only Holly in charge steering as you say. But Holly, knowing how the timelines have changed, opts to switch Hologram Rimmer on anyway to observe the mess and give her some company. It’s not the only time the crew retain memories of redundant timelines, it’s fairly established as a concept in the show.

The biggest issue is that if Lister never joined the space corps and got onto Red Dwarf, he never went back in time to give his past self the tension sheet in the first place, therefore he never invented it. For reference on this particular phenomenon appearing elsewhere in the show, see Tikka to Ride/Out of Time where the future crew never exist to kill their past selves in the present. Also, if you want to count it, The Inquisitor pointing out that erasing Lister means he never existed to endanger his life in the first place.

Put simply, if you go back in time to alter something, your motivation for changing it in the first place never exists to motivate you to go back and change it.

I’m starting to think this show doesn’t make any bleedin’ sense upon light scrutiny

[Frank Smeghammer]

If Lister invents the tension sheet and becomes rich, he would cease to exist because he wouldn’t have had the same opportunity to be his own dad and go back in time.

This too. Time travel in this show can never make any sense when you put it under the microscope

[Flap Jack]

The Lister self-fatherhood aspect is not an issue if you accept the many worlds theory of time travel. All versions of Lister were left under that pool table by a future Lister, it’s just for some of them that dad Lister is from their own future, and for others he’s from a parallel timeline. It’s really the only way to make sense of that twist in general. Infinite Listers never figure out what the hell “Our Rob or Ross” meant.

The many worlds theory also explains why the grandfather paradox doesn’t occur when it ought to, including in Timeslides… except sometimes it occurs anyway, like at the beginning of Tikka to Ride.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

The Lister that leaves himself under a pool table in VII is in a reality that is formed of two merged dimensions experiences anomalies to cope with all the paradoxes. 

Up until that point, Lister could have been left under a pool table by anybody. Come Out of Time/Tikka a new timeline is created 

[International Debris]

Up until that point, Lister could have been left under a pool table by anybody. 

Anybody with the same genes as Lister and Kochanski.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

  But who is to say part of the anomalies and paradoxes aren’t Lister’s genes being rewritten to be his and Kochanski’s

[International Debris]

If his genes were rewritten he’d become a different person, surely? 

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

But the realities and the paradoxes and all that. 

You can’t apply our laws to the laws of whatever is going on in the show. 

It doesn’t have to be that his genetics are re-written, but that his parents are and that there’s some fuckery going on to keep him genetically the same 

The show is basically saying “there’s going to be continuity changes and that’s a result of these two realities colliding so just deal with it”

It’s a cop out but it’s there 

[International Debris]

All the kind of “time being rewritten to remove the paradox” things really feel like there’s a suggestion of intent, like… something is rewriting things. Anything with that power would have to be considered some kind of God and not of Earth origin… Red Dwarf aliens confirmed?

[tombow]

would a holo Goring have danced with Lister?

[RainbowGazelle]

All the kind of “time being rewritten to remove the paradox” things really feel like there’s a suggestion of intent, like… something is rewriting things. Anything with that power would have to be considered some kind of God and not of Earth origin… Red Dwarf aliens confirmed?

Well the universe is sentient in Red Dwarf land. Maybe it’s the universe itself that’s rewriting things to try and stop Lister from destroying all of goddamn creation. Perhaps Rimmer was put on Red Dwarf by the universe as an agent to stop Lister from killing everyone.

[Formica]

[Unrumble]

[Flap Jack]

[Ian Symes]

Fat handed twat.

[Unrumble]

Fat handed twat.

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

Well the universe is sentient in Red Dwarf land. Maybe it’s the universe itself that’s rewriting things to try and stop Lister from destroying all of goddamn creation. Perhaps Rimmer was put on Red Dwarf by the universe as an agent to stop Lister from killing everyone.

It’s a blatant clue, isn’t it? Blatant clue.

[tombow]

if Alan Rickman played Lister would CC have played Gruber and Snape

[Renegade Rob]

Clearly Lister bi-generated and it rippled back to every version of Lister throughout time and space. 

[RainbowGazelle]

It’s a blatant clue, isn’t it? Blatant clue.

[tombow]

I was wondering of anyone has ever made an estimate for the actual weight Rimmer leaves Lister with in Bodyswap

[Jenuall]

I must have left my pregnant hippo weight charts in my other jacket

[tombow]

Gallifrey Gals on youtube just watched Inquisitor and made a fair point – how were alternate Kryten and Lister “more worthwhile” if they ended up on Red Dwarf just like the originals?

[Moonlight]

Isn’t it just giving them a chance to exist instead?

[Dave]

Yeah, this has always been one of the weird inefficiencies of the Inquisitor’s way of working. He deletes the originals and gives new versions a shot, but there’s nothing to say that they’ll be more worthy – so presumably he has to come back and judge them too at some point.

And that’s without getting into all the butterfly-effect changes that are going to occur for other people as a result of wiping and replacing each person  in an apparently random order throughout the timeline.

He’s really set himself up for an endless task, he was probably quite relieved when he got wiped himself.

[Warbodog]

They were erased on the basis of being stub-born and underachieving respectively, so the replacements might have eventually been judged to be less so, or replaced over and over until the Inquisitor deemed their personalities appropriate for their situation.

[Formica]

Rimmer and Cat still judged their lives worthwhile aboard Red Dwarf. All the new guys had to do was think it was worth it, they didn’t have to do anything else differently

[International Debris]

Yeah, this Lister might not have had brains he never used, and this Kryten might have justified himself. 

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Yeah, this Lister might not have had brains he never used, and this Kryten might have justified himself. 

Basically the dumber you are the more chance you have at survival 

ultimately the better result is a universe populated by idiots who don’t know any better or don’t judge themselves too harshly 

[Renegade Rob]

What I always thought was weird was that the Inquisitor doesn’t come at the end of your life when he can make a final assessment but I guess just whenever he’s in town? If you’re in a group he does it as a bundle even though everyone’s a different age, presumably for his own convenience?

Also weird is that he felt the need to make Starbug return to Red Dwarf. He clearly had influence over Lister in the cockpit, so really he could’ve just done the inquisitions there since he just teleports everyone to his throne room anyway. 

Also, did Thomas Allman not get an inquisition where he was interrogated by himself? Maybe he was such a putz that he got a summary judgment. 

The Inquisitor is a weirdo full stop, which is what Kryten was getting at during his inquisition. He’s not like He Who Remains from Loki who’s able to justify every weird choice he’s made because he’s thought it all out; the Inquisitor is forcing his own ego onto the universe because he doesn’t like it (sort of like the High Evolutionary, to borrow another MCU example), and his high-mindedness falls apart when subjected to scrutiny or pressure. 

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

He’s really set himself up for an endless task, he was probably quite relieved when he got wiped himself.

[tombow]

it’s almost as if Doug and Rob were dashing out any old crap as long as it worked for the plot. But that can’t be so, because this was the classic era.

[Warbodog]

it’s almost as if Doug and Rob were dashing out any old crap as long as it worked for the plot. But that can’t be so, because this was the classic era.

It’s not like the episode’s pro-Inquisitor. He’s a self-important baddie with skulls on his helmet who says things like “so, the mortals seek to challenge my mastery!” Like Hudzen, he spent too much time alone and went peculiar.

[International Debris]

He reminds me of Thanos a little, in that he has some level of insight into the injustices that happen in the universe, and then just approaches it with the stupidest sledge-hammer tactics that rob said insight of any real worth. 

[Dave]

[Rudolph]

Am I the only one who’s never noticed the Inquisitor only has three fangs on his helmet?

[Dave]

Am I the only one who’s never noticed the Inquisitor only has three fangs on his helmet?

FANGS FOR THE MEMORIES

[RunawayTrain]

Am I the only one who’s never noticed the Inquisitor only has three fangs on his helmet?

Huh, so that’s what’s ‘off’ about it.

[clem]

Maybe there’s a Smegazine strip we haven’t got to yet that recounts how he lost the missing fourth fang.

[GlenTokyo]

Am I the only one who’s never noticed the Inquisitor only has three fangs on his helmet?

Because I save any Red Dwarf picture that’s interesting due to the internet being shite and forums, message boards, and even official sites disappearing, I have this picture of the intact Inquisitor mask.

I don’t know who the people are or where I found it, but I assume they’re in the workshop at BBC VFX.

[Author]

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