Unanswered Questions

[Dave]

Sir Danzig?

[clem]

Rather less well than another horse would.

[RealBigOleDummy]

Why is Red Dwarf painted red everywhere but where the name is? I mean…….. a red spaceship is all fine and dandy but why have a huge splotch of white just so you can paint the name in red. A totally red ship with a white name would still be a red spaceship after all.

[(deleted)]

A wizard did it.

[International Debris]

It’s so the name is red. We’d be asking “why is the word red in white?” if it was the other way around.

[Plastic Percy]

Wasn’t it so that Rob and Doug never actually intendend for the ship to be painted red.

[Ben Saunders]

It looks better, tbh

[tombow]

In Timeslides I thought they should get a photo of Earth from space, project it large in the hangar and fly Starbug through it

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

If always took “the frame” of the photo to mean you couldn’t move around in depth either. If it can’t been seen in the photo you can’t go there. So you might be able to go into orbit around Earth, but not land because none of the surface is in clear focus.

[Lily]

But Rimmer walks around inside Lister’s mansion. The whole building is in the frame so it must allow for depth.

On a separate note, after just re-watching that scene with Ruby Wax, I’ve literally only just got the joke about ‘never short of an ashtray in his house’. Singles were on cassettes in my day, I’d forgotten about vinyl.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

I would also presume that they have a photo of inside the mansion that is used in that documentry of him. Rimmer doesn’t appear outside fo the mansion and walk in, he appears inside it, which is at odds with how that works.

I always thought of the ashtray joke as being about CDs, and how they’d all be used to stub cigs out on

[Dave]

I would also presume that they have a photo of inside the mansion that is used in that documentry of him. Rimmer doesn’t appear outside fo the mansion and walk in, he appears inside it, which is at odds with how that works.

Then you would think there would be someone inside the room taking the photo at the moment when he arrives.

Same with Holden later.

[tombow]

I like the theory that they can wait for time to pass. Like day to night. I wish they could at least get one of a liverpool pub for him to live in or something? Heck even the Cavern during the Beatles days!

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Then you would think there would be someone inside the room taking the photo at the moment when he arrives.

Same with Holden later.

MIND. BLOWN.

[Lily]

The whole ‘can’t move out the frame’ thing is ignored almost as soon as it’s raised. Even the pub they go to, they walk around in when the original is a close up on the band.

As for the ashtrays, CDs were only just becoming a new thing. Rob & Doug are old, they were remembering these

[Ian Symes]

I like the theory that they can wait for time to pass. Like day to night.

It’s just occurred to me that given the photos start moving as soon as they’re *developed*, that’s the point at which time starts progressing within them. It could be projected as a slide some time after it’s developed, and that would for things like the photographer no longer being present. It could also answer the somewhat disturbing question as to why someone was taking photos inside a boys’ dorm while they slept – it could be a photo taken during the daytime, and Rimmer just waits a few hours between developing and projecting the slide.

[Dave]

It’s just occurred to me that given the photos start moving as soon as they’re *developed*, that’s the point at which time starts progressing within them. It could be projected as a slide some time after it’s developed, and that would for things like the photographer no longer being present.

But then in the wedding photo they were still standing waiting for the photo to be taken. (After it was taken.)

Maybe best not to overthink it.

[Pete Part Three]

The photographer is surely standing there to take the “next” photo?

The stuff with “mutating developing fluid” is all well and good (overlooking the question of whether developing fluid would still be used) , but are they implying that they boys have negatives of the Nuremberg rally?

And what’s the deal with “Lifestyles of the Disgustingly Rich and Famous”? It’s a ‘picture reference’ – what does that mean? Does Holly take a *partial* screenshot of the mansion (because Blaize is standing in the bloody way) and develop that? If so, there are no zero limitations with this. Develop a photo of the Milky Way, snatched from a documentary, if there’s only 2D restrictions.

THIS EPISODE IS TOTAL BOLLOCKS FROM START TO FINISH.

[si]

are they implying that they boys have negatives of the Nuremberg rally?

And how did Lister get so far into the photo and up there?

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

If you photoshop yourself into the negative of a photograph, and then develop it, does a second you get to live out its own life in the photo world?

[tombow]

here’s another head canon, you can’t really touch or eat anything in time-slides. You can lift up a mug, or someone can grab you, but it feels ghostly and nothing has taste. Hence Lister wasn’t really hurt in the wedding photo and they didn’t bother to pop in some p*rn.

[By Jove its holmes]

The Boys’ plan to use pictures of Page Three Girls in lingerie must have hit a snag…

[By Jove its holmes]

terraforming is the answer to everything :-)

I trust terraforming also includes stabilising the massive gravitational forces pulling Io in all directions…

[By Jove its holmes]

I think I remember reading somewhere that they were contemplating solutions if Craig was ‘not available’ for Series 7 due to that unfortunate rape trial like maybe seeing if his brother Emile would do it as a younger version of Lister or something

[Bezzy]

Was it ever explained how Rimmer went from a Hologram Projection Cage to a portable Light bee?

My head canon would say Holly just was looking into ways to make it easier for Rimmer to travel outside the ship.

[Warbodog]

It’s odd that Lister doesn’t know about the light bee until Meltdown, but Holly explains it as if it’s always been there. Either another of IV’s retcons and we pretend there never was a projection cage or Rimmer was upgraded at some point with something they found.

[Warbodog]

Why, after deciding that the death of Lister’s son in Future Echoes was too harsh and changing it to his grandson in the novel. did Rob and Doug write the detail of the twins’ accelerated ageing in the Backwards intro, meaning that when Bexley died he was probably about seven, making that much harsher than it had been originally?

If you actually want an answer to your question, your best bet is to ask Rob and Doug on Twitter

I’ll do my own put-downs.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Either another of IV’s retcons

this is the actual reason isn’t it, they introduce light bees in Infinity, so they add them into the show in IV. If you want to headcannon that is was additional tech they’ve found and upgraded Rimmer with you can, but surely Lister would remember that. Especially remembering that at one point, they had to lug that bloody great big cage down to a moon just to celebrate Rimmer’s death.

Unless that memory was wiped as well.

[Bezzy]

My only guess is that the projection cage was used solely for ‘outside’ jaunts . Holly must have projected him from the Blue Midget into the Nova 5.

[GlenTokyo]

In the Red Dwarf universe, the hologram file format is probably like .mp4 is in ours, everyone has something that can play them.

Ships and interiors probably come with holoemitters and you just sync with the computer to show the hologram.

As for lightbees, either the research decks where they got the matter paddle from, or a derelict, maybe even the Nova 5 given how it was considerably newer than Red Dwarf and it’s technology.

Look at Kryten compared to the contemporary to Lister humanoid androids we see, the bellhops in Stasis Leak, shows how far ahead he is.

[Ben Saunders]

Oh Christ yeah, we see Rimmer outside of the ship without the cage BEFORE it’s introduced. What the fuck? It’s recton’d in and retcon’d out in under half an hour

[Bezzy]

Yeah as I said my only thoughts are that the cage was only needed if it was outside on a planet.

In Kryten they use the Blue Midget, which Holly is in (maybe to sustain Rimmer).
I’m guessing the Midget connects to the Nova rather than the boys hopping over from ship to ship. Then Holly projects Rimmer across to the Nova 5 or something .

[Pete Part Three]

The cage doesn’t actually project Rimmer; it projects holograms of other things for Rimmer to touch and fondle. Cos it’s his Death Day and he’s into that shit.

[Ben Saunders]

But they bring the Midget down to the planet/moon, and they aren’t particularly far from it, and Rimmer eats a sandwich in that one episode, and, and, and, and…………………

[Ben Saunders]

Did Rimmer have to learn how to “sit down” or is it programmed into him to just automatically bend himself into the exact shape of whatever chair he goes to sit in and not clip through it? Is he really just bending in an incredibly odd way and making it look like he’s sitting down? Isn’t that uncomfortable? If Rimmer can feel a hot shower and taste a sandwich he must have some experience of comfort or lack thereof, unless they just decide not to simulate that kind of thing

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

I’m guessing the Midget connects to the Nova rather than the boys hopping over from ship to ship.

Then why the need for the space suits. Assumption must be that Blue Midget landed close to Nova 5 and they had to walk across the surface of the moon to get to it.

[GlenTokyo]

Every bit of furniture or boundary in Red Dwarf has a hit box like a video game.

When Rimmer sits on a chair he’s sitting on a hologrammatic version thats nested with the real one etc

So really, Rimmer can touch things. He can rest his arms on a table, or arse on a chair, but he can’t affect anything.

Get that script rewritten.

[Plastic Percy]

Its possible that the light bee was an upgrade from the Space Corps that arrived by post pod.

[GlenTokyo]

That would also explain the gradual tech improvements but they wouldn’t have kept sending post to Red Dwarf after the accident, or maybe they would, but only to Lister (assuming Holly transmitted a message “all but one on board lost, just need to pop to the Andromeda galaxy for something, see you in 3 million years xxx”

And what would they send, mail from friends and family (who he’d then call slags) and maybe food, not sure about technology, unless they sent a timedrive and a FTL engine.

[By Jove its holmes]

surely the absolute worst thing in the “Backwards” reality would be reverse vomiting. Also, would a reverse blow-job s u c k for the woman?

[Dave]

I remember them doing that gag in Round The Twist.

The first one, anyway.

[By Jove its holmes]

By the way, why does Kryten feel the need to differentiate between simulants and “rogue droids”?

[Veni]

Simulants were created with the intention they’d be used in war.

Rogue droids would be like Asclepius who just went computer senile overtime.

[Flap Jack]

I also feel that a simulant has to look realistically like a person and be part-organic, while a “rogue droid” could just look like Snacky.

[tombow]

I feel like I asked this already on this thread, but I can’t see it…at the end of Timeslides, why did lone Holly activate Rimmer?
,

[Veni]

Technically, Holly wouldn’t have been female Holly as without Lister there’d be no reason to try and create the Holly Hop Drive and ensuring Parallel Universe occured.

[tombow]

I’ve always been curious about the first activation of Rimmer’s hologram and how long it was before Lister woke up. I got the impression he had been hanging round for a while somehow. He seemed to be used to it all when Lister first meets him.

[Veni]

It couldn’t have been too long before Lister was released as he was unfamiliar with the Cat, I assume he was activated the moment Lister was awakened.

[Hamish]

I assume Holly gave him an orientation before hand.

[By Jove its holmes]

From what i know, Kryten’s home era is about 200 years after RD was forced to flee the Solar System. He has to tell the others what simulants are, so the first simulants must have been created after Lister and Rimmer’s time period.

[Author]

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