Who is Duane Dibbley?

[bloodteller]

Saw a post on Tumblr asking about this, and I thought it made a pretty good point- in Back To Reality, who is Duane Dibbley and what is he doing with the others? The party in the AR suite is booked in as the Dibbley party, meaning he presumably paid for the whole thing. Where did he get that kind of money? What was he doing tagging along with a mass murderer anyway? All the other characters have reasons for being there- Billy is Sebastian’s brother, Jake could have easily known him as they both work in law enforcement/maybe he’s Sebastian’s parole officer, but Duane Dibbley is just some dork wih no relation to any other members of the group. How did he even manage to survive so long in the fascist dystopia? I never really thought about it before I saw that post, but it raises a good question

[Warbodog]

Back to Reality is allowed to work on dream logic where you don’t question things. They weren’t supposed to last very long.

In his Smegazine strip, “Duane” was a disgruntled party worker turned rebel who had his memory wiped and face and personality changed and was hiding out in the video game or something. The Smegazine was cancelled before Nigel Kitching could make up the rest.

[Dave]

I assumed he didn’t pay for it, he just booked it. Presumably Sebastian paid, but because he was doing it in secret, it couldn’t be booked under his name, so he needed a patsy who could book in a group without arousing suspicion.

[Seb Patrick]

It’s probably like the Crystal Maze experience type things, where you can either book as a group, or on your own, and if you’re on your own you get lumped in with other people who are on their own.

[International Debris]

He could easily have been a computer programmer (I mean, they all look like that, don’t they, VIII?) who had a well paying job. He had no social life or sex life or anything to look forward to, so saved up his pay and, through doing sterling work at the Department of Killing People Nastily, got discussing it with Sebastian who invited him along.

[bloodteller]

>In his Smegazine strip, “Duane” was a disgruntled party worker turned rebel who had his memory wiped and face and personality changed and was hiding out in the video game or something

I really like this idea, to be honest. Just something about the most innocent of the group secretly being
a fugitive rebel is interesting, plus there’s irony in Cat thinking Duane was a loser when actually he was the coolest out of all of them.

[Lily]

I’ve never assumed there to be a connection between any of them, other than the brothers. In my mind it was set up like Seb says, random people put together to make a team.

Considering you’re dropping out of society to live in a fantasy for years at a time, it makes far more sense for each group to be random strangers. If you have three friends you’re not doing so badly in life that this kind of escapism would be desirable.

[Ben Saunders]

>If you have three friends you’re not doing so badly in life that this kind of escapism would be desirable
Speak for yourself [cries]

[Hamish]

And you know what they say, sir: “if you’ve got three good friends, you’re too good for AR”.

[Ridley]

>And you know what they say, sir: “if you’ve got three good friends, you’re too good for AR”.
Speak four percent [dies]

[Plastic Percy]

I figured they just lumped in four random patrons with Duane being the first to sign up – he seems the most likely candidate to spend years on a waiting list to play a computer game. If I recall, it’s mentioned in his personal effects that he’s got a key to a room in a Salvation Army hostel.

I’ve always wondered about Jake Bullet, though. We have credible explanations for Sebastian, Billy and Duane playing the game, but why a macho cop with a frustrating and demeaning job would choose to spend four years dedicated to cleaning toilets is anybody’s guess. Maybe he had a deep seated masochistic side?

[clem]

Presumably Kryten and Cat are meant to be more heroic roles in the game, same as Lister and Rimmer. The group just play badly, ending up with a score of 4% because they don’t even figure out what their characters’ objectives are.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

but why a macho cop with a frustrating and demeaning job would choose to spend four years dedicated to cleaning toilets is anybody’s guess

Maybe like Rimmer in Siliconia, Jake Bullet wanted a simpler, less stressful life. He had dreamed of being a tough, mean cop but had only been able to secure a job in traffic control. Years of yearning to be taken more seriously, be given more power and responsibility when in reality he knew deep down he wasn’t good enough, he wanted that all taken off his shoulders and to just be content with the simple tasks in life of folding laundry and cleaning toilets.

IF Back to Reality had been real, I’d feel sorry for the poor bastard that does play Kryten and has to spend the first year of the game feeding soup to dead crew members on a crashed ship. Unless of course the Nova 5 isn’t meant to have crashed and that was Jake Bullets mistake playing Kryten all along.

[Dave]

Presumably Jake Bullet didn’t start the game with the others. Another guy (who looks remarkably like David Ross) joined a few months after Sebastian, Billy and Dwayne, and then dropped out almost immediately. Jake then joined about a year later.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

You think the David Ross player quit the game after building the confidence to make the changes to his life that he wanted in the real world

[Dave]

Yes, he scored 96% and achieved the object of the game for Kryten.

[Author]

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