Red Dwarf Crew, Xtended; low-detail pixel style!
Some people write fanfiction. I make spreadsheets and pixel art. This picture represents a hypothetical: what if all the friendly (and friendly-ish) people that the Dwarfers met through their adventures didn’t just last one episode, but stuck around and joined the crew? What would the crew look like if one way or another they banded together instead of leaving or dying off?
This will be a long post. See if you can name all the characters before reading (or if you don’t want to read) the whole thing. I’ve reached to the novels and comics for some characters but generally avoided duplicates (with the exception of Ace, because it’s Ace, and Holly because they’ve been shown to be capable of maintaining multiple personalities/appearances in Queeg and also the interactive DVD game Red Dwarf: Beat the Geek (see, this is related to video games!! Really!!)). Including all the Series VIII resurrected crew would be unwieldy and frankly breaks what I feel is important to the show: the tone of a bunch of misfits, but I included a few of the series’s more important characters. Finally, I have the two waxdroids who’ve had more than one appearance but it’s possible more could be there; again, showing more would make the image unwieldy.
Original Red Dwarf crew humans:
Lister!
What if Kochanski (alternate universe) stuck around after Series VIII?
What if Petersen used a spare stasis booth (as suggested in a virtual reality in the Better Than Life novel), or didn’t leave at the end of Series VIII (going by the alternate ending as the operating explanation for the status quo as of Back to Earth)?
What if Captain Hollister stuck around (dependent on him gaining his position by blackmail becoming common knowledge resulting in demotion; I don’t like having one person explicitly in charge, it breaks the tone)?
What if Kill Crazy, Baxter, and Warden Ackerman stuck around?
Other humans:
What if Lister’s twin sons Jim and Bexley (who were born between Series II and III) were not returned to the parallel universe and their ageing condition was cured, and Bexley did not die in the drive room as seen in a future echo?
What if Ace Rimmer didn’t leave in the Wildfire at the end of Dimension Jump?
What if JFK wasn’t erased by the temporal paradox caused by him killing himself in Tikka to Ride and had to accompany the Dwarfers back to preserve history?
What if Ainsley Harriott couldn’t return to the 20th century after Can’t Smeg Won’t Smeg (yes it’s totally canon)?
What if Jesus of Caesarea didn’t return to the 1st century in Lemons?
What if Irene Edgington didn’t stupidly fall out of an airlock at the end of Entangled?
What if Rimmer’s son Michael McGruder from the novel Last Human found the crew and joined them (which does happen in the book, and could conceivably happen in the show’s future)?
Holograms:
Rimmer!
What if Nirvanah Crane chose to go with Red Dwarf to be with Rimmer (the novel Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers suggest that using another ship’s hologram suite, in that case the Nova 5′s, would allow multiple holograms to coexist on the Dwarf)?
What if Howard Rimmer didn’t die at the end of Trojan and used the hologram suite of the Trojan (stored in the Dwarf’s hold as per the original concept for Series X) or the Columbus 3 to remain on Red Dwarf?
Droids:
Kryten!
Petersen’s Marilyn Monroe kit droid is presumably still on the ship after The Last Day, having last been seen crashing through the wall of the Officer’s Club.
What if the Elvis Presley waxdroid survived the battle at Waxworld? He stands in for other waxdroids who might have also survived, as the most prominent in Meltdown.
What if the Santa Claus waxdroid also survived Meltdown? He’s not seen to die in the episode and in fact in the mobisode Red Christmas another Santa turns up; it’s possible it’s the same one.
What if Legion was able to leave Legion Station and accompanied the crew after Legion? Hopefully he’d be more stable with more crew members around as shown here.
What if Able survived the fight on the Centauri in Beyond a Joke?
What if Hogey the Roguey’s seemingly good-natured rivalry with the crew cooled to a working relationship and he joined the crew after The Beginning?
Evolved animals:
The Cat!
What if the old cat priest survived his heart attack in Waiting for God?
What if the Dog from Parallel Universe left his matriarchal universe to be in one with less institutional discrimination against males?
What if the evolved pig from the Smegazine comic Evolution didn’t put herself in stasis? She may have been more amenable with more potential shipmates around, after all.
What if Ora/Aura from the unfinished Series VII episode Identity Within wasn’t dropped off on a planetoid after a 20-minute relationship with the Cat and instead joined the crew?
GELFs:
What if Camille and Hector stuck around after Camille?
What if Lister and his GELF bride Khakhakhakkhakhakkkhakkkkkh had agreed to be just friends instead of marrying, and she had joined the crew in Emohawk: Polymorph II?
What if Reketrebn the symbi-morph had helped Lister escape wrongful imprisonment in the GELF prison Cyberia and joined the crew (which in fact does happen in the novel Last Human and could conceivably happen in the show’s future)?
Computers:
What if Holly had not been put out of commission by water damage before Back to Earth and could maintain his male and female personalities, in addition to Queeg?
What if Cassandra had not been accidentally killed by Lister in Cassandra and was subsequently salvaged?
The Medi-Bot is now a standard part of Red Dwarf’s Medibay as of Series X.
What if Pree did not try to kill the crew, forcing her shutdown? Maybe the other computers could help keep her under control.
Mechanicals/other:
Skutters! Vending machines!
Lister’s pet mechanical goldfish, Lennon and McCartney!
Talkie Toaster!
Spare Head 3! He’s the only spare head with a unique personality. He wasn’t necessarily destroyed by the negadrive in Beyond a Joke.
And that’s it! A much more lively and diverse lineup than what’s in the show. Of course, it would be hopelessly impractical for scriptwriting and making a good show, but it’s a fun thought experiment. Can you think of any more characters you’d add? What would life on Red Dwarf actually look like in this situation? Pretty chaotic, I bet. But it mostly maintains the Red Dwarf feel, of a bunch of outcasts struggling through space.
