RED DWARF

Poker Night Hypothetical's | By ​@Ramses_Nibblick

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Sitting around the table last night playing matchstick poker. I was winning but I could tell by the hologramatical beads of sweat forming on Rimmers forehead that he had a good hand, Cat had a stupid grin on his face but that could have meant anything really, Kryten was just sitting at the table watching the game, not because he folded but because Rimmer wouldn't let him play anymore because he was convinced that he was cheating some how, in a way Rimmer was right but Kryten said that his ability to count the cards & tell what the next card in the stack was going to be was purely involuntary.

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I was about to show my hand of three ace's & two king's & say my favourite line of "Read 'em n' weep" when Holly appeared on the monitor & said "Alright dudes, what's happening"...? I said "Nothin' much Holl, just havin' a game of poker", then he followed on by saying "Can I ask a hypothtical question"...? Rimmer asked "What's on your mind Holly", "Have any of you ever thought about what you would do if ever we got back to earth"...? he asked, Cat said "what do you mean if we got back to earth.....you mean right now"...? "Yeah, what if some how we managed to get back to earth in say....a couple of hours time, what would you do"...?

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We sat in silence for a few seconds pondering the question, to be honest I don't think that any of us had given it any real thought, when Cat said "Well I would find myself a rich old billionaire spinster woman who likes cats....maaaan I would live in the lap of luxury, I tell you, what old lady wouldn't love to have a cat that could tell her when it's hungry, what it want's to eat & which ear to scratch behind, plus I'd have the added bonus of when she died she would leave all her riches to me in her will"...!

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Rimmer looked at Cat with disdain before saying "My god your shallower than a puddle in the mojave desert"...! Cat snapped back at him "Well what would you do goal post head"...? "Well I for one, puss in boot's, HAVE given it some thought"...! "Come on then Rimmer" I said "What would you do if we got back"...? "I'd go into business for myself", "Doing what"...? I asked,
"I'd go into the H.L.H. or The Hard Light Holograms business....I'd make an absolute fortune"...! "& how would you do that Rimmer, you don't know the first thing about Holograms or Holographics let alone how ya hard light works"...!

"Well that's easily remedied isn't it Listy....I make Kryten my CEO"...! "M-m-m-me Sir" stammered Kryten "But why"...?

"It's simple, I'm going to need someone with a knowledge of how Holograms work & as you have been performing the maintenance on my Light-Bee over the last couple of years you have a working knowledge of how my hard light works & that makes you the perfect candidate, I would have to go off-line of course so that you could reverse engineer my Light-Bee & figure out how to mass produce it, so I will need someone I can trust implicitly & they don't come much more trust worthy than you Kryten, I need someone who isn't going to steal the technology & try to pass it off as their own",

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"What makes you think that he wouldn't try it"...? asked Cat, "Because I know for a fact that if Kryten even entertained the thought of any under handed double dealing his guilt chip would go into overload & his head would explode", said Rimmer looking at Kryten with a smug grin, "Yes, that would indeed happen.....damn my honesty chip", said Kryten rather glumly.

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Holly said "I don't want to rain on anyone's parade, but don't you think that there's a good chance in all likelihood that someone's already invented it, I mean they've had three million years to perfect it"...?

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"I do recall seeing news reports", said Kryten, "from when I was posted on the Nova 5, about a group of geneticists in California who were using Stem cell's taken from the bone marrow of rich business men & celebrities who had had themselves cryogenically frozen back in the late 21st century in the hopes that in the future the technology would exist to grow them a new body & thus be able to live their lives over again by having their heads grafted onto the new body, but the geneticists were able to go one further..... they could grow a whole body complete with a head, then it was just a simple procedure of transferring the persons mind into the new body via a mind swap", 



​"you mean like the one you tried out on me that time we thought the ship was goin' to explode when I accidentally set off the self destruct"...? I said, "Errr, yes Sir that's the one & it proved to be very successful indeed, but for many years it was a procedure only available to those who could afford it, but before long it was possible for Holograms to once more posses a real body, once the procedure went into mass production the price dropped to just $£500,000 to get your old body back, plus with the added bonus of for a little extra money, you could decide on the age of your body, if you wanted you could quite literally revisit your youth over again if you had the money to pay for it". 

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"Well that's put a crimp on an otherwise damn fine plan", said Rimmer disappointedly, "& what about you Kryten, what would you do, he said uninterested", "Well errr, I don't really know Sir, I would think that if the human race still exists after all this time the technology in robotics will have advanced exponentially, there's a very good chance that I would be consigned to a museum for robotics as a novelty or maybe I would get a job directing traffic, but I doubt that they would have very much use for me, I would think that they would most likely have me dismantled"...!

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"What about you Mr Lister Sir, what would you do"...? "Well to be honest Kryten, I reckon I'd be in the same boat as you, I mean three million years....it's a long time isn't it....who's to say that the human race hasn't evolved into somethin' completely different to what we might perceive as being human, for all we know humans might've gotten so used to having everythin' done for them by robot's that they might have lost the use of their arm's n' leg's, they might've evolved into these giant super-brained-head that float around in glass bubbles shouting out orders to the robot's or it could be that the human race became so lazy that they just slowly died out as a species & the robots took over the earth, but in all honesty, if we did make it back & the human race did still exist, it wouldn't be anythin' like the earth we left behind & if the human race has continued to evolve the chances are they'd be super intelligent & we would be nothin' more to them than a rhesus monkey would be to us, so like you Kryten, they would most likely kill us, stuff us n' mount us on some plinth in a history museum for their super brainy kids to point n' laugh at....wha' about you Holl, have you given any thought to what ya might do should we ever get back to earth"...?

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"Not much to be honest, although I do remember I was due for an upgrade one year after the accident, so you could say that I'm pretty much obsolete now, if the human race does still exist & presuming they still use computers.....I would be the equivalent of a Timex digital watch compared to the computers they would have now, going by the way computers were advancing back in the 23rd century I was pretty much obsolete as soon as I came on line, I used to get an upgrade every two years or so just to keep up with the new kid's on the block, so I reckon I'd be in the same boat as you guy's.....I'd be nothing more than a novelty as well"...!

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"Oh my GOD this conversations getting depressing" Rimmer said giving a voice to what we were all thinking before saying "Is it just me or does anyone else give a smeg if we make it back to earth or not"...? "I mean Lister's right", "I AM"...? I said with surprise, "Like you said, the earth that we knew is three million years in the past & even if by some miracle we could get back now this very minute what exactly would we have to offer", "Zilch that's what" said Cat, "So what're ya sayin' Rimmer"...? I said curiously, "I say we carry on & see what's out there....like they used to say in the opening sequence of that Sci-Fi sitcom from the 20th century we used to take the mick out of whenever we watched it"...

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"Blake 7"...? I said, "That's the one"....."TO BOLDLY GO WHERE NO MAN HAS GONE BEFORE".....what do you say"...?
 

"Yeeeaaaa, why not, it's not like we've got smeg all else to do, Kryten you in"...? "Sounds like an excellent idea to me Sir's", "Cat, you in"...? "Hey I'm in, just let me clear my diary bud", "Holly"...? "Well someone's got to steer this crate through the vast expanse of the cosmos, count me in dude's", "Well we couldn't really go anywhere without ya Holl"...!

"So where shall we go" asked Holly, "See that red star over there" Rimmer said looking out the port window, "You mean that Red Dwarf in the distance"...? "Yea that's the one, let's see what's over there",

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"You got it Arnold". The End.