wingedbeast

If you haven't watched the "Red Dwarf" series by now, I encourage you to do so. It starts out as a sit-com that employs science fiction for the comedy. Then, it evolves into a parody of action-sci-fi movies. And, in the most recent season (well, it's UK, so series) involves talking to the universe about mid-life crisis. At its worst, it's mildly entertaining. At its best, it's incredibly memorable with its ideas and its character studies.

Let's pretend I did that joke where I advised you to stop reading and come back only after you've binged the entire series. Because, you know, that wouldn't be the worst advice. That said, I'm going to assume you haven't watched the series and, therefore, spoilers ahead.

The Red Dwarf is a mining ship. It finds asteroids and/or planets and/or moons and mines them for valuable ores and minerals. At least I think so. What, exactly, the Red Dwarf's mission is out in space doesn't come up much and you'll soon see why.

David Lister has snuck a cat on board. This is a serious rules infraction. He's given a choice. Option one is to give the cat up to be euthanized and examined for possible contaminants. Option two is to voluntarily go into stasis until the ship returns home, thereby giving up his pay for going on the mission. While in stasis, a reactor accident kills off the entirety of the ship's crew, except for Lister, who is in stasis, and his cat (who was conveniently both pregnant and hiding in a shielded area).

Three million years later, the radiation has finally reduced to levels safe for extended exposure, so the ship lets Lister out of stasis. At the same time, the pregnant cat's offspring and descendants have continued to reproduce and evolve to a point where they, when clothed, can appear nigh-identical to humans with slightly pronounced canine teeth. Yet, our one example, called "the cat", does have behaviors analogous to house-cats.

David Lister is now the only human being alive (or at least reasonably be the only human being alive). But, death isn't what it once was, thanks to the technology of the time prior to his entering stasis. Your memories, thought-patterns, personality, and dreams can all be stored on ship's computer. The Red Dwarf isn't a flagship, but it is generally up to date and has the projectors and processing power to project only one dead crewmember as a hologram.

Here enters Arnold Rimmer. Arnold Rimmer is a nightmare of a human being. He is a mixture of insecurities and incompetency that simply drives him to lord over anybody he outranks without actually knowing what he's doing. It's a good thing that he only outranks one member of the crew. That member happens to be David Lister. Despite David Lister being attracted to a specific crew member among the officers and despite David Lister being friends with certain crew-mates, he's had the most interaction with Arnold Rimmer. With that premise, the ship's AI chose to revive Rimmer as a hologram for the purpose of keeping Lister sane.

The ship's AI and a service droid named Kryten were eventually added, but we're focusing on Arnold Rimmer.

(Yes, eventually I will get to the point. You know, imaginary complainer in my head, given how long I've been at this blog, you'd think you'd be used to this by now.)

To explain Rimmer being... Rimmer, we learn things about his childhood. It... wasn't good.

Some parts are funny. His mother was a Seventh Day Advent Hoppist. It was a faith based on a misprint in the Bible that spoke of "Love, Hop, and Faith, the greatest of these is hop." They also took a variant of Christianity wherein Judas and Jesus were identical twins and Judas not only turned Jesus in because that was a part of the plan, but also took Jesus's place, accepting nigh universal hatred in order so that the world could attain salvation. That's why his middle name is Judas, by the way.

Some of it is presented in comedy, but isn't so funny when you think about it. His father was obsessed with getting his sons becoming officers in the military-like organization that originally owned the Red Dwarf. That included regular drills in information and, in order to make sure they made minimum height requirements, putting them on the rack. He wasn't just abused by his father, but he was regularly bullied by his brothers and his classmates.

Rimmer, throughout the series, regularly blames his lack of career advancement on not getting the breaks of other people. In his view, he's not of less competence to them, but they've been born into wealthier families, families with more connections, or acquiring those connections via other means. He refers to it as people getting breaks he didn't have.

In one episode, wherein some force caused all the life on the planet to commit suicide, we find out how that was done. A psychic force (a genetically engineered squid) put people in simulations designed to make them believe things about themselves that violated their self-image. In Rimmer's case, it was that he was just as unaccomplished in this life, but with all the breaks handed to him and he still failed. Being already dead, it was hard to imagine how he could commit suicide, but there's the break.

Now, enter Ace Rimmer. I discussed Ace Rimmer in the most recent Brave New World deconstruction. I'll repeat here.

The episode starts with a look back on the childhood of Arnold Rimmer. Rimmer's mother finds him hanging upside down from a tree. His "friends" had tied him to the tree then left, claiming that they'd be back soon... some hours prior. Mother doesn't untie him or make any effort to make him more comfortable. She just gets right to business. You see, there was a significant possibility that young Arnold would be held back a grade. We cut away before we find out which.

Later on, we see Ace Rimmer, alternate universe version of Arnold Rimmer. Slightly different things happened that snowballed into a big difference by the time they're of the age wherein Arnold Rimmer of the Red Dwarf has died. For one thing, everybody calls Ace Rimmer "Ace". That's his nickname and everybody likes him. Ace Rimmer is a brave, bold, intelligent, charming test-pilot.

Men want to be him, such as the Engineer that is the alternate Lister, but Ace Rimmer is clear that the engineer is the more important member. Women want to be with him. A secretary (could have been better chosen) makes an offer to be in her quarters and covered in, if memory serves, whipped cream. Heck, he makes men bi-curious, as his CO makes a similar offer, despite otherwise being heterosexual. Ace is respectful, but not interested in that.

This is all in the introduction and setup. Ace Rimmer has a multiverse engine to test. It would be a vehicle that could traverse multiple universes, ideally to return. The value would be amazing. Infinite resources without needing to travel for it. Find a planet, teraform it. If you need to mine more minerals or a place to put toxic pollutants, just use versions of the planet that were never host to life. If you need more space, just go to the teraformed, but untouched versions. The episode never goes into the value, but it would be amazing. Imagine, in an infinite multiverse, every human being gets their own Earth, potentially to themselves.

Moving on from that digression, using the Multiverse Drive, Ace Rimmer comes to the universe of the show that we've been watching, with the Arnold Rimmer that we know and... love, hate, hate to love, and love to hate. All of it.

By the end of the episode, both Rimmers hate each other. Ace Rimmer hates Arnold Rimmer because... well... everybody hates Arnold Rimmer. Reasons stated above. Everybody loves Ace Rimmer, constantly saying "what a guy", but Arnold Rimmer sees Ace Rimmer as having gotten big breaks that Arnold never did.

At the end, Ace Rimmer explains the key difference of history, the point where the two universes diverged (at least as far as the Arnold Rimmer life experience). Way back at the beginning of the episode, Arnold Rimmer was allowed to move forth to the next grade and the one who would eventually be called Ace Rimmer was held back. According to Ace Rimmer, the embarrassment of being held back motivated him to study harder and be better, which started him on a path of work, studying to understand rather than studying to make a test, with accomplishment stacking on accomplishment. The irony is supposed to be that Ace Rimmer got where he got by not getting a break that Arnold got.

This is supposed to make Arnold all the more detestable and pathetic. He did get a break and that's why he's now constantly blaming his lack of accomplishment on other people getting breaks.

And, finally, I get to the point. (Seriously, imaginary complainer in my head, all you have to do is be patient.)

There's an alternate explanation for Ace Rimmer's accomplishment and Arnold Rimmer's lack thereof. The point is clearly made that their lives, up to that point, were identical. That means the abuse by their obsessive father, the bullying by his brothers, and the bullying by his classmates. I would hasten to add that, if his classmates are such bullies at what would, in America, be considered first grade, his teachers can't have been all that great either.

But, the next year, being held back would give Arnold Rimmer something he's unlikely to have ever had prior. He would have the physical advantage over his classmates. They might not immediately be friends with him, but he wouldn't need them to be. They have a harder time bullying him, so they go elsewhere.

This doesn't mean he has friends right away. It doesn't even mean he has peace right away. But, it does mean that he has something he's never had before, a moment away from the constant vigilance from others so that he could actually study.

Add to that the fact that he was studying things he'd already studied before. This time around, understanding the lessons was going to be easier because he'd already laid some groundwork in the previous year.

I'm not saying that there wasn't any motivation from the embarrassment. But, I will say that there's something to be said for a world in which Rimmer was given a moment wherein he has the option to learn, the option to accomplish, rather than the necessity to merely survive.