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#RedDwarf #Smegle 08/08/2026 


The Beginning then [redacted] in 2, recognised the rivets

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#RedDwarf #Smegle 07/08/2026 

Polymorph

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+1 for not really understanding why the universe wanted Lister to be on Red Dwarf for the accident when it didn’t want him to be 3m years in the future in this universe. I just sort of ignored that element of the plot and enjoyed the hi-jinks and the Maneer detective story (I was half expecting him to turn out to be some alternate future / past version of Rimmer until the reveal actually came)

Also +1 for thinking it was unnecessary to have Dwayne Dibbley. But I also thought it would have been fine if the Cat character had just been Frankenstein throughout, Lister, Rimmer, and Frank Carson would have been a good enough quartet for me. 

There’s two things going on

For some reason, the universe is collapsing because of thing single or maybe multiple Lister’s existing in the future 

There’s some sort of destiny device that’s pushing Lister towards this future

It’s easy to read it as “the universe” and it being fate, but I think it’s unconnected and it’s some sort of future man made device like the Justice field or the Karma drive. The destiny device creates the events that leads to the future you’re destined to have

Why or how who knows. And why it operates at a universal level across time and space, who knows. 

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 the Wordle trick of having a consistent starter guess is probably not the best tactic here.

Not when there’s a 70/30 split in aspect ratios across the series 

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Rimmer does things to keep himself entertained, and he also does stuff he thinks he is expected to be seen to do, even in death. 

Attending church service  pull fall I to either or both of those categories 

Entertained – he’s bored. Why not?

Expected – he grew up in a religious household and went to church each week.

Whether the service is automated, he got the Skutters to hold it, or something else is unknown. But it’s not that unbelievable given what else we’ve seen 

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#RedDwarf #Smegle 06/08/2026 

Meltdown, Rimmerworld

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#RedDwarf #Smegle 05/08/2026 

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#RedDwarf #Smegle 04/08/2026 

Duct Soup, Psirens

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#RedDwarf #Smegle 03/08/2026 

Waiting for God

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For some reason I’m visualising Carzon as Butler but with a David Ross style outfit 

I’ve said this elsewhere, but I visualised David Ross Kryten when reading, and then Butker when listening to the audio book because Chris does give the character Butler like inflections 

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Do you mean their Stasis Leak selves?
Anything other than it referring to Frankenstein would be a stretch. Holly clearly isn’t that omniscient if he never noticed Lister feeding and chatting with her, though he claims to know how much he spoke with his rubber plant, so maybe he was covering for him, for some reason.

Sorry yes, from Stasis Leak. I should have stated that, and had intended to.

He’s shown as pretty omniscient in the books. Holly seeing future Lister, hologram Rimmer and Cat come back in time through the stasis leak may lead him to keep quiet about exactly what he knows about Frankenstein and instead play with destiny just enough by letting Hollister know he thinks there’s “something” … leading to an investigation that causes them to find the photo of Lister with the Cat in the photo lab. 

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Depending how long before the crew are wiped out The End occurs, the “non-human life form” Holly notices could well be Cat. 

You’d think he’d also notice extra crew (a second Lister) and another hologram. 

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Chloe Kochanski was Scottish with an English accent though I suppose?
Do we ever get confirmation that she has the same background as Clare-Kochanski?

There’s a scene in Duct Soup (extended?) where she talks about growing up in the posh part of Glasgow and then going to AR boarding school. Which I think is meant to be a way to explain why she doesn’t have a Scottish accent 

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#RedDwarf #Smegle 02/08/2026 

Beyond a joke

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what you’re seeing here is the inner lining of the jacket, not Craig’s skin

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> this was originally a concept for telly

I do think we have to treat the book on its own merits and not constantly look at it through the lens of “what if this was on TV, what if it was live, what if it was animated?” … there may have been an idea to do something in those mediums, but what followed was two years of book writing.  There’s no way of knowing what parts of the book were ideas for any potential TV show or not.

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> On that, why is Kochanski risking life and limb for Themis? 

She’d built a relationship with her over weeks organising the hen party. But I think also she’s just a good person. She stumbled on a mystery, this person she knew was suddenly being erased from existence. And I think she was more attracted to solving that and help Themis than she was her hen party, which she clearly wasn’t enthused by 

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#RedDwarf #Smegle 01/08/2026 

Krytie TV

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Why does Lister look like Michael Tucci in Grease?

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“can anyone help me get my head around why the smeg Lister being around Three Million Years hence was causing all the universes to collapse into each other?”

I’ve not had multiple re-reads yet, but I took it to be similar to how the Aces in Backwards were getting burnt up going to a Universe too similar to them. This feels like reality can bear Lister being 3 million years in the future in scattered universes, but two right next to each other is a no-no.

As far as I remember there is nothing explicitly in the text that gives any hint as to why its happening 

But it feels oddly contradicted by the fact the destiny machine is trying to force it to happen

Like, it’s Lister’s destiny to end up 3million year in the future … but this will also cause all universes to collapse?

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#RedDwarf #Smegle 31/07/2026 

It can only be The Promised Land…

Oh well then it can only be Twentica…

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#RedDwarf #Smegle 30/07/2026 

DNA, Backwards, Camille 

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#RedDwarf #Smegle 29/07/2026 

Trojan

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#RedDwarf #Smegle 28/07/2026 

Demons and Angels

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#RedDwarf #Smegle 27/07/2026 

PU

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#RedDwarf #Smegle 26/07/2026 

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#RedDwarf #Smegle 25/07/2026 

Rimmerworld, DNA

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#RedDwarf #Smegle 24/07/2026 

Everything but Future Echos. Only got it when the cat book was revealed 

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It had seemed to me that the Meneer was some future sod who had in for the Boys from the Dwarf specifically, so him being contemporary and just hating the JMC is much more to my liking.
There’s a red herring earlier on in the book which hints that it’s some future version of Rimmer (a reference to him having come to Titan and his friends having stolen his savings) which helped the reveal to land as a genuine surprise for me.

Again, for those listening Maneer is given a rather cockney London accent. Nothing like the actor’s but it is an accent that isn’t mentioned in the text so I feel may have been picked based on who the character is. Also I believe it describes changing voices as if there are many of them alongside the various changing faces of the mask. 

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> Interesting twist – is this being suggested as a(n optional fanon) retcon that was responsible all along, letting Rimmer off the hook?

Rimmer isn’t on the hook in the book universe anyway, if was never his fault

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Ok that’s 4 comments across two threads where I’ve seen different people referred to Byle as Pyle … are people making the same error or has the print book got different versions already with a changed character name?

It’s Ingrid Byle

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*Byle

and agree with Dave, I think the book as a whole characterises Rimmer really well, and characterises the Lister / Rimmer relationship well in that pre-accident space,

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#RedDwarf #Smegle 23/07/2026 

I should have recognised Garby anywhere 

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> but if the universe doesn’t want Lister to be around in the future

The universe (the destiny drive) specifically does want Lister around in the future, and they’ve got to try their hardest to ensure he isn’t. 

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#RedDwarf #Smegle 22/07/2026 

Justice, Rimmerworld, Cassandra

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#RedDwarf #Smegle 21/07/2026 

Body swap, Only the Good, DJ

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> I’m not digging Carson as much as most people, he reminds me of Butler, a bit snug and irritating

this is really interesting because I read him as David Ross Kryten, but Chris doing the audio book has this Butler-esque inflection to his voice

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in the hallucinatory universe of Back to Earth, which isn’t actually our “real world”, Blade Runner was the main influence. simple

Yeah that too. I’ve always taken that for granted 

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I don’t think its really pointed out enough that, whilst BtE is a Blade Runner parody in place, and at the time Doug said it was *one of* the inspirations, it’s not to be taken that it is *the* inspiration or that it erases, 2001, Dark Star, Silent Running, Alien etc

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#RedDwarf #Smegle 20/07/2026 

Balance of Power, BitR1

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Sorry if I’m being ticker dan a tickets touts wad, but I’m listening to the audio book and can’t seem to work out where each ‘part’ starts and stops’ any help?

That chapter numbers restart 

So you have Waverlof chapter 1-31, then Wedergeborg chapter 1-23

though I do appreciate it is hard to keep track of the foreign language part names and the audio book trackers aren’t given chapter titles 

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#RedDwarf #Smegle 19/07/2026 

Backwards, then i recognised s05 Kryten and sensed it wasn’t back to reality so guessed everything but the right answer

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Yeah Rimmer is a bit of a prick, and Lister is a slob. I don’t think pointing that out (even if it can be done in a racist way) is out of character of even disallowable

Lister’s ethnicity isn’t even mentioned in the book. I don’t think it’s mentioned in any book is it?

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Well, I’m only on to this part of the book. So maybe I’m missing something that comes later on. But it seems like it implys Frankenstein is a male cat and is, in fact, the Cat? Which isn’t what Frankenstein is meant to be.

Well, it is a different reality. 

With the exception of the original car/kitten, which I don’t think is ever sexed, there’s a very specific chain of events that explain any changes

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#RedDwarf #Smegle 18/07/2026 

Demons and Angels, Out of Time

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I think Rob might have messed up with the Cat evolution. Which is a little disappointing. Bit of a retcon going on that feels a little wrong.

Messed up in what way?

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Do we think (as seemed clear to me) that the intention was to divorce the story from the ‘Red Dwarf’ ship itself, that it was going to fly off at the end of this book and not be a part of future tales? That they would mostly be set on Titan?
I felt like we were missing a bit of emotional turmoil at the fact Lister was giving up his chance to return to Earth, not that this would have changed his decision but I was surprised that wasn’t really mentioned as being a conflict towards the end. 

Well for Lister, he’s found out he is alive 3million years in the future. He doesn’t know specifics but it’s fair to assume he doesn’t live the life he wants 

At This point, staying on Titan whilst Red Dwarf flies off is the safer option to get back

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So lister ends up with agoraphobic back story in both creators solo universes.

This and your comment about Duane Dibbley disguises

There’s a few little bits throughout the book that really show how Rob and Doug are on the same wave length when it comes to their ideas and comedy. So many little things that remind me, even if not directly, of Doug Dwarf

That will be because there’s so much Doug Dwarf that ideas are bound to cross over. But these two are very specific 

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Is that Holly acronym new? I don’t recall if we’ve seen it before.

Yes. And it’s either really genius, or really stupid. I can’t quite decide.
Throughout Rob updates little ideas like this. Having HOLLY, a bit like HAL, be an acronym sort of makes sense in this version of reality.
Question is, what does HILLY stand for?? Or for that matter, Gordon?

In this reality Holly as a concept is brand new, and as a piece of AI seems to being slowly rolled out across the solar system, with budget versions available to boost sales. 

What does that say for other AI we know to exist?

This is one of many things that complements and contradicts what we’ve seen before that on one hand can be waved away by “one universe to the side” but on the other will be interesting to discuss ad nauseam and try and slot into lore

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