Life Lessons 3
The Wildfire shuddered violently as it sped away from the exploding wreckage of the Red Dwarf, chunks of metal flying past the small spacecraft. Ace turned and looked at the man cowering behind his seat and shook his head. In a way, he knew how the other Ace must have felt when they first met years ago on the Starbug. Still, he also knew how it felt to be this Arnold, so he had a bit more sympathy for him, but not much.
“You have some explaining to do, m’laddo,†Arnold demanded, his nostrils flaring angrily as they were wont to do.
“Yes, I suppose I do,†Ace said patiently, losing the macho “Ace†voice, “It’s a bit complicated. You and I are the same person. Normally I go around looking up other Rimmers from other dimensions, but you and I are both from this dimension. I left the Dwarf a few years ago to become another in a long line of Ace Rimmers. I was returning to this dimension for a visit and a bit of a holiday, when my computer detected another Rimmer on the ship. I was just as baffled as you are now, Arnold. Upon further investigation she informed me that you were in fact me, who had been resurrected by nanobots.â€Â
Arnold nodded. “Yeah, Kryten told me that, and that before then I – well you – had been around as a hologram, but that your light bee had been destroyed. Shouldn’t you be...â€Â
“Dead? Or really, dead again?†the original, hologram Rimmer shook his head, “Kryten told you that because that’s what Lister told everyone. He’s the only one who knows that the destroyed light bee is from the Ace that helped get us off the ocean planet after Starbug crashed.â€Â
“So, if you’re me, why do you have a hairstyle that I wouldn’t be caught smegging dead in?â€Â
The hologram self-consciously blew his blond fringe out of his eyes. Then, with a sigh, he tugged the wig off, revealing the familiar head of short, brown curls. “Its part of the Ace persona. I know it looks ridiculous, but when I agreed to become Ace, I agreed to everything that came with it, this bacofoil monstrosity I’m wearing along with it,†he explained, tugging on the collar of his flight suit.
Arnold stared out the window for a long while, trying to wrap his head around all that he’d been told. Kryten had given him the run-down on the nanobots, but not about him once being a hologram. That struck Rimmer as odd; why the smeg would he be brought back? Certainly Lister and the others didn’t really need him for anything. He wasn’t good at anything. Lister didn’t even like him. It didn’t make any sense. “Why me...er, you...um, us?†he asked quietly.
“Why was I brought back as a hologram? It was Holly’s idea to keep Lister sane.â€Â
Rimmer’s eyebrows shot up his forehead. “Well, Holly hasn’t been known for his inspired ideas.â€Â
“It worked, didn’t it?†Ace pointed out.
“That,†Rimmer said, leaning back and crossed his arms over his chest, “is a matter of opinion.â€Â
His other self laughed, and the sound seemed foreign to Arnold. Even though Ace dropped the macho act, the laugh didn’t sound Rimmerish. It wasn’t strained, or nervous, or bitter. It didn’t sound like he was waiting with dread for that punch line that always came at his expense. It sounded natural, yet alien at the same time. “You have a point, Arnold,†he said and opened his mouth to say something else when a female voice interrupted his train of thought.
“Ace, darling, I’ve located the dimension where your friends are located. Dimension 946.â€Â
Ace cleared his throat and returned to the “macho†voice. “I’m forever in your debt, my dear. Lets get going, shall we?"
(To Be Continued...)
ROzbeans
21 years ago
Ooh, I liked it! Unfortunately a little of it was hard to follow because I'm not familiar with the tv series but you write VERY well, Fae! Wow you even used you're and your properly. :o I enjoyed it, post more!!! =D
Faeshadow
21 years ago
Why thank you, Mae! :) Pitifully enough, I'm a veritable font of Red Dwarf info, so if something in my story confuses you and you want to find out what I'm blabbing on about, let me know and I'll explain. :)
ROzbeans
21 years ago
What's the deal with the rimmers?
Faeshadow
21 years ago
Ahhh the Rimmers. I figured that would be the most confusing part. BUT! I love to talk about Rimmer. He is my favorite character, as my avatar can attest to. :)
Okay...
The basic story behind Red Dwarf is that its about an all around bum named Lister who was working on a mining ship in order to get back to Earth (Ever get so drunk that you don't know where you are when you wake up, or how you got there? Yeah, Lister had that...only he ended up on one of Saturn's moons). One day the entire crew is wiped out by a radiation leak while Lister was locked in stasis without pay for bringing an unquarantined cat onboard. Three million years later, the ship computer lets Lister out of stasis.
Here is where Rimmer comes in. Arnold Rimmer was Lister's bunkmate on the ship, and his shift supervisor (they cleaned food dispensers, lovely isn't it?). Rimmer is about the most neurotic, weasily, uptight mess you will find anywhere. He dreams of becoming an officer like his brothers, in order to please his abusive father. When Lister is let out of stasis, he goes nearly insane from the loneliness of existance, so Rimmer is brought back as a hologram in order to keep Lister sane. (That part I explained a little in the story).
Now to Ace. Ace Rimmer is a multi-dimensional legend who is heroic, kind, and just an all-around great guy. Its never said, exactly, just how long this Ace Rimmer thing has gone on, but to explain as succinctly as possible..."Ace" isn't a single person. I'm not sure if you ever watched The Mask of Zorro with Antonio Banderas, but its essentially the same thing. Ace gives people all over the multi-dimensional universe hope, and so the line is kept going from one dimension's Arnold Rimmer to another.
A few years before my story starts, the latest Ace at the time was what is called a "hard-light" hologram. As opposed to soft-light holograms, who were unable to interract with the environment, hard-light holograms are solid and can touch, feel, etc. Anyway, this latest Ace (at the time) had been gravely "wounded". His "light bee" (a small device that floats inside a hologram which is what produces the image and its personality) had been badly damaged and was leaking energy like nobody's business.
Unfortunately for him, he had no time to find a better Arnold Rimmer...and was stuck with the neurotic git we Red Dwarf fans all know and love. ;) At first Rimmer laughed at him, but eventually Rimmer gave in and was trained to take on the Ace Rimmer persona. When Ace's light bee finally gave out, Lister kept the fact that Ace Rimmer was not the same person by telling the rest of the crew (at the time it was just Cat and Kryten...Kochanski was a later addition) that it was ARNOLD who had been killed by something that escaped the simulation game computer.
And so, our pathetic little weasle went out into the universe to become a hero. :lol
And now, the final bit of absolute confusion....the "resurrected" Rimmer. ;)
I'm not sure if you are familiar with the sci-fi concept of nanotechnology. In the perspective of the Red Dwarf universe, nanobots are microscopic robots that live inside 'droids and who's sole purpose is to do maintenance and such on their host.
Some time after Rimmer went off to become Ace, Kryten's nanobots went on revolt and stole the *entire* Red Dwarf while the crew was out on some sort of scavenging mission in the Starbug (little green ship, kind of an away ship of sorts). They had, in fact, disassembled Red Dwarf molecularly and had made it small enough for the microsopic things to travel around in. When they finally found them, the nanobots had been flying through Lister's laundry basket.
When they were finally caught (Kryten caught them in a jar of all things *chuckles*), the nanobots proved they were sorry by rebuilding Red Dwarf....and the ENTIRITY of the dead crew with it. Rimmer included. The old Rimmer...the terribly annoying (to the rest of the characters, I mean, as a fan I feel sorry for him), weasly, will-stab-his-own-mother-in-the-back-if-it-would-get-him-promoted Rimmer. See, in a way, the dead, hologram Rimmer that went off to become Ace *had* changed a bit. He wasn't *quite* as bad as he had been before he died in the radiation leak. Hard times can change a man, after all. And being dead, composed of nothing but beams of light, and stuck three million years into deep space with nobody but a handful of misfits he would have never associated with in life are *definitely* hard times. ;)
A small note on the voice change part of the interaction between Ace (who was originally the dead Rimmer) and the resurrected Rimmer: Part of the Ace persona is a deep, macho-sounding voice that is just not Rimmer's original voice...but who would be able to put any confidence in the high-pitched, nasally, bitter voice that Rimmer normally has? The voice, like the wig and the shiny silver flight suit with the big collar, is all part of the act. In my story, he hates the voice and drops out of it whenever possible....or when in a tiff over some insult tossed at his old self (the one the others think was destroyed).
*pant*
*pant*
In short....enough paradox to choke a whole herd of horses.
*faint*
Okay...
The basic story behind Red Dwarf is that its about an all around bum named Lister who was working on a mining ship in order to get back to Earth (Ever get so drunk that you don't know where you are when you wake up, or how you got there? Yeah, Lister had that...only he ended up on one of Saturn's moons). One day the entire crew is wiped out by a radiation leak while Lister was locked in stasis without pay for bringing an unquarantined cat onboard. Three million years later, the ship computer lets Lister out of stasis.
Here is where Rimmer comes in. Arnold Rimmer was Lister's bunkmate on the ship, and his shift supervisor (they cleaned food dispensers, lovely isn't it?). Rimmer is about the most neurotic, weasily, uptight mess you will find anywhere. He dreams of becoming an officer like his brothers, in order to please his abusive father. When Lister is let out of stasis, he goes nearly insane from the loneliness of existance, so Rimmer is brought back as a hologram in order to keep Lister sane. (That part I explained a little in the story).
Now to Ace. Ace Rimmer is a multi-dimensional legend who is heroic, kind, and just an all-around great guy. Its never said, exactly, just how long this Ace Rimmer thing has gone on, but to explain as succinctly as possible..."Ace" isn't a single person. I'm not sure if you ever watched The Mask of Zorro with Antonio Banderas, but its essentially the same thing. Ace gives people all over the multi-dimensional universe hope, and so the line is kept going from one dimension's Arnold Rimmer to another.
A few years before my story starts, the latest Ace at the time was what is called a "hard-light" hologram. As opposed to soft-light holograms, who were unable to interract with the environment, hard-light holograms are solid and can touch, feel, etc. Anyway, this latest Ace (at the time) had been gravely "wounded". His "light bee" (a small device that floats inside a hologram which is what produces the image and its personality) had been badly damaged and was leaking energy like nobody's business.
Unfortunately for him, he had no time to find a better Arnold Rimmer...and was stuck with the neurotic git we Red Dwarf fans all know and love. ;) At first Rimmer laughed at him, but eventually Rimmer gave in and was trained to take on the Ace Rimmer persona. When Ace's light bee finally gave out, Lister kept the fact that Ace Rimmer was not the same person by telling the rest of the crew (at the time it was just Cat and Kryten...Kochanski was a later addition) that it was ARNOLD who had been killed by something that escaped the simulation game computer.
And so, our pathetic little weasle went out into the universe to become a hero. :lol
And now, the final bit of absolute confusion....the "resurrected" Rimmer. ;)
I'm not sure if you are familiar with the sci-fi concept of nanotechnology. In the perspective of the Red Dwarf universe, nanobots are microscopic robots that live inside 'droids and who's sole purpose is to do maintenance and such on their host.
Some time after Rimmer went off to become Ace, Kryten's nanobots went on revolt and stole the *entire* Red Dwarf while the crew was out on some sort of scavenging mission in the Starbug (little green ship, kind of an away ship of sorts). They had, in fact, disassembled Red Dwarf molecularly and had made it small enough for the microsopic things to travel around in. When they finally found them, the nanobots had been flying through Lister's laundry basket.
When they were finally caught (Kryten caught them in a jar of all things *chuckles*), the nanobots proved they were sorry by rebuilding Red Dwarf....and the ENTIRITY of the dead crew with it. Rimmer included. The old Rimmer...the terribly annoying (to the rest of the characters, I mean, as a fan I feel sorry for him), weasly, will-stab-his-own-mother-in-the-back-if-it-would-get-him-promoted Rimmer. See, in a way, the dead, hologram Rimmer that went off to become Ace *had* changed a bit. He wasn't *quite* as bad as he had been before he died in the radiation leak. Hard times can change a man, after all. And being dead, composed of nothing but beams of light, and stuck three million years into deep space with nobody but a handful of misfits he would have never associated with in life are *definitely* hard times. ;)
A small note on the voice change part of the interaction between Ace (who was originally the dead Rimmer) and the resurrected Rimmer: Part of the Ace persona is a deep, macho-sounding voice that is just not Rimmer's original voice...but who would be able to put any confidence in the high-pitched, nasally, bitter voice that Rimmer normally has? The voice, like the wig and the shiny silver flight suit with the big collar, is all part of the act. In my story, he hates the voice and drops out of it whenever possible....or when in a tiff over some insult tossed at his old self (the one the others think was destroyed).
*pant*
*pant*
In short....enough paradox to choke a whole herd of horses.
*faint*
ROzbeans
21 years ago
...K I had no idea that tv series was that involved. I thought it was just a bbc comedy lol. I'm going to have to watch it now lol.
Faeshadow
21 years ago
Well, it *is* a BBC comedy. Its also the most successful one since Monty Python, if I remember correctly. :)
Red Dwarf is immense for a sit com, and I think that's what lends to the success of the show. Its not like an American sit com which for the most part are these little insular stories that all get resolved in totality in 30 minutes not counting commercials.
If you want to check them out, they are fairly easy to find if you know where to look (winkwink, nudgenudge, say no more). Also, the first four seasons are out on DVD, with Season 5 coming out very soon. If you do go out and search for episodes, look for episode 8 of Season 8, called Only the Good. That way you'll know why in my story Rimmer is sure the Grim Reaper can't catch up to him while cupping his groing. ;)
Red Dwarf is immense for a sit com, and I think that's what lends to the success of the show. Its not like an American sit com which for the most part are these little insular stories that all get resolved in totality in 30 minutes not counting commercials.
If you want to check them out, they are fairly easy to find if you know where to look (winkwink, nudgenudge, say no more). Also, the first four seasons are out on DVD, with Season 5 coming out very soon. If you do go out and search for episodes, look for episode 8 of Season 8, called Only the Good. That way you'll know why in my story Rimmer is sure the Grim Reaper can't catch up to him while cupping his groing. ;)
Aziyade
21 years ago
Speaking as a long time Red Dwarf fan, that was a great story Fae and I can't wait for the rest of it! I can' see it's been some time, though. :(
Oh, let me just say, the thought of Rimmer finding someone to spawn with.../shudder. It's not McGruder is it?!
Oh, let me just say, the thought of Rimmer finding someone to spawn with.../shudder. It's not McGruder is it?!