What happened between the end of Series VIII and the "Back to Earth" specials? What do we know and what do we think?

Facts ("Only The Good...") Edit

• The Cat, Kochanski, Kryten, and Lister are safe in a mirror universe.
• Rimmer (human) is on the rapidly disintegrating Red Dwarf, being chased by the grim reaper.
• The Red Dwarf crew are on a fleet of Starbug and Blue Midget craft, ready to escape the ship.
• Red Dwarf is being quickly devoured by a corrosive and chameleonic micro-organism.
• The device that leads into the mirror universe is burnt out (on our side).

Facts (Back to Earth) Edit

• "Back to Earth" is set nine years after "Only The Good...".
• Kristine Kochanski is first presumed dead, and then revealed to have dumped Lister and stolen a Blue Midget.
• Rimmer is now a hard-light hologram again. (with the memories of both the original and the resurrected versions)
• The Cat, Kryten, and Lister are the same, albeit older.
• They are all back on Red Dwarf.
• Rimmer appears at least ten years older.
• Holly is off-line due to Lister flooding him with ten years of bath water.

Facts ("The Beginning") Edit

• Rimmer claims that it was he who saved the ship.
• The rest of the crew denies this fact, calling it a fluke.
• Each time they try to clear up the matter, events overtake them.

Speculation Edit

• At the end of "Stoke Me A Clipper", Rimmer (hologram) gives Lister a disk containing his current personality. Lister accepts it and promptly forgets about it. Which explains why Lister didn’t load Rimmer up in "Blue".
• At the end of "Only The Good..." Rimmer (human) eventually dies just before the ship is destroyed (being chased by the grim reaper).
• The others (Cat, Kochanski, Kryten, and Lister) have repaired the device for traveling to mirror dimensions, and Kryten has blended the anti-virus with his nanobots, and go back to our dimension, just before the ship is destroyed.
• Kryten introduces his nanobot-anti-virus to the ship, in just enough time to save it.
• The ship is resurrected to full working order, but to slightly different designs than in the previous eight series. And fully restocked with Starbug and Blue Midget craft.
• The crew (in the Starbug and Blue Midget fleet) by this point are now far far away from the mother ship.
  • Alternate speculation #1:Something takes out the resurrected crew, such as the Simulant Generals.
• Kryten uninstalls the ship's default Holly, and installs the original Holly from Lister's watch.
• Then they shut down unnecessary power, and load up the disk Rimmer gave Lister, and power up a new Rimmer (hologram) in hard light but a slight corruption makes him appear at least ten years older.
  • Alternate speculation #1: Rimmer (human) was killed by the microbes or the Grim Reaper and is resurrected as a hologram by Holly
  • Alternate speculation #2, based upon one of the unused endings of "Only the Good...": Rimmer (human) survives, but at some point in the 9-year interim is killed and resurrected as a hologram at whatever point in his life he died, hence the aging.
  • Alternate speculation #3: Rimmer (human) survives. Later on, Rimmer (hologram) returns and trades places with him.
• Lister goes off the rails; Kochanski dumps him telling Kryten to tell Lister that she is dead. But she steals a Blue Midget and sets of in pursuit of the original crew or a gateway back to her own dimension.
• The Canon ending was the alternate original one.
• The Rimmer that was seen from "Back to Earth" onwards seems to have the memories of both as he references the accident that the original had a part in ("The End") the chamelionic microbes ("Only the Good...") and the Despair Squid ("Back to Reality") which seems to indicate that he is a hologram of the resurrected version of Rimmer with the memories of the original inserted into him.

External Links Edit

• Red Dwarf Forum - So what happened between series 8 and BTE?