The boys from the Dwarf watch security footage recorded onto the ship's Black Box
("Thanks for the Memory", Series II)
The Supervision Field was the areas of the massive spaceship Red Dwarf, including mostly the human-inhabited areas (such as the Drive Room, sleeping quarters ect.), which were under the direct monitoring and control of the ship's computer, Holly.
Uses[]
Within this field, Holly could detect the presence of non-human lifeforms, such as Frankenstein, and alert Captain Hollister to them. Dave Lister was keeping his smuggled pet cat hidden in his sleeping quarters at the time. ("The End", Series I)
Some areas of the ship, such as the cargo hold and Supply Pipe 28 (where the Felis sapiens mostly evolved), were beyond the Supervision Field, and Holly was not able to see into these areas. Cat would frequently disappear down Supply Pipe 28, and nobody, including Holly knew to where; Lister followed him down there once, finding the Cat Priest. ("Waiting for God")
Rimmer and Lister, with the help of the Skutters, had to visually account for many supplies from the cargo hold, presumably since these were also beyond Holly's Supervision Field. Lister wasn't took keen on doing inventory checks, finding it boring, but Rimmer was controlling Lister as he had possession of Lister's cigarettes and insisted Lister to help him with them. ("Balance of Power")
Security footage was one of the things that was recorded onto the ship's Black Box. When the crew discovered that they were somehow missing four days, and Lister and Cat had broken limbs, they asked Holly to check the Black Box of Red Dwarf. However, it was missing, and the crew had to take a Blue Midget to a nearby moon to recover the Black Box and solve the mystery. As the boys watched the footage from the past few days which they had tried to bury, it became clear that they had buried the Black Box on purpose to cover up a rather sad incident for Rimmer. ("Thanks for the Memory", Series II)
Holly detects Kryten's hand spider on his surveillance tapes.
("Terrorform", Series V)
Holly later detected a tarantula-like creature aboard the ship, and warned Lister who had a terrible fear of such animals. In the Science Room, Lister felt it crawling up his leg and into his boxer shorts and, too scared to move, wrote a message to Cat begging for help. It turned out that it was actually Kryten's hand and eyeball, sent in an ore sample pod to request help since Kryten had crashed on the Psi-moon. ("Terrorform", Series V)
When there was a serious drought aboard the Red Dwarf, the internal scanners led them to the problem in the Water Tank on G Deck. This may have also contributed to the flooding of Holly's databanks. (Back to Earth)
Pree used the ship security system to watch and study the behavior of the crew, so that she could predict what their future behavior would be and complete actions in the way she knew the crew would have wanted without being asked. ("Father & Suns", Series X)
The crew watch the Rimmer Monster on the internal scanners
("Officer Rimmer", Series XI)
As the various bio-printed Rimmer clones were being chased by the Rimmer Monster through the ship, the other Dwarfers watched a visual representation of this on the internal scanners in the Science Room. This resembled Pac-Man. ("Officer Rimmer", Series XI)
When Lister contracted Perception Filter Software from the ruthless M-Corp, the only way to remove it was to wipe his mind, similar to rebooting a computer. Although Lister was subsequently installed to an old backup of his mind from when he was twenty-three years old, Kryten said that he would be able to fully restore Lister's profile by studying the past twenty-five years of security feeds, although Kryten estimated this would take around a month. ("M-Corp", Series XII)
Trivia[]
- The Supervision Field presumably included recordings from the security surveillance system of the ship. It also presumably included some form of limited-range Psi-Scan, likely originating in - or near - the Drive Room, since the Drive Room was furthest area from the cargo bays - the latter area was where the field could not penetrate or see.
- Holly mentions that not all of Red Dwarf was covered by the Supervision Field, such as parts of the cargo bays such as Supply Pipe 28.