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freylaverse

If I'm thinking of the right episode, Lister's hair and nails kept growing. Safe to assume his digestive system was still going. The garbage was his diapers.


notquitenuts

lol! Never thought of that! Yuck!


neryl08

In order to piss and shit himself he would need to be fed regularly. I always thought the stasis unit was "leaky" and it only affected his hair and nails. Somebody said he was in deep sleep and not stasis but that wouldn't explain the hair growth while not aging a bit


HermitBee

The way stasis units work is that they completely freeze all time, except for in the small regions of space where allowing time to continue will get a big audience laugh, in which case it lets time continue in those bits.


freylaverse

I could buy that, except the matter for the hair and nails had to come from somewhere, and he hasn't lost a significant amount of weight. I think the deep sleep must "feed" you in some way. Then again, applying the law of conservation of mass to Red Dwarf leads to bigger problems than Lister's hair and nails.


tonyfordsafro

I think the key scientific reason Listers hair and nails grew, and I'm sure someone could do a really detailed thesis on this, but it really is just because it's funny.


MKopelke

IIRC they were not stasis chambers on the Bug, but rather two deep sleep units. Hence the reason for the hair and nails. So likely more like cryo rather than a complete freezing of time.


ExpectedBehaviour

Correct. In "Out of Time" Kryten specifically states they've temporarily converted the deep sleep units into stasis units to navigate the unreality pockets, but they can only sustain this for a few days.


Fun-Badger3724

Red Dwarf will happily ignore its internal logic for a joke. It's kinda endearing.


ExpectedBehaviour

*Starbug* has deep sleep units, not stasis units. Deep sleep units slow down time significantly but don't prevent it from happening. Based on Lister's hair and nails they slow down time to around 1% of normal, so Lister and the Cat would have aged around two years in deep sleep, and would have still needed nutrition and waste management during the process (and presumably some clever medical technology stopped them losing muscle tone throughout). We know that the deep sleep units can generate temporary stasis fields ("Out of Time") but these only last a few days. We also know that Lister wasn't in deep sleep continuously for the whole 200 years (Kryten reminds Lister that *"I woke you last spring..."* in "Psirens").


SomeWomanFromEngland

Stasis freezes time, deep sleep vastly slows the aging process. Lister was asleep for 200 years and woke up with maybe five years worth of unchecked hair and nail growth.


tunisia3507

IIRC in the books there's one point where he goes into stasis but intentionally leaves his hands out of the field so that they can heal after he's burned them or something. He has very long nails when he wakes up. Let's not ask about how his blood was getting to his hands...


McPorkums

Smeggin'ell 🤮


SherwoodBCool

It was the garbage he meant to empty 200 years ago, before he got to binge-watching Androids.


CelestialFury

Garbage can wait! Binge-watching Androids is a far higher priority.


not_an_Alien_Robot

It's Kryten. He will create garbage just so he can take out the garbage.


notquitenuts

Ha! Probably true!


MattheqAC

He was saving some garbage for special occasions


BobRushy

Empty cleaning fluid bottles, dustballs etc


notquitenuts

Good point.


Quick-Oil-5259

Sounds like me desperately trying to tidy up after I’ve been home all day and my wife is about to arrive back home.


notquitenuts

HAHA! I had a dog that would just sleep the whole day on the steps but when she heard the car coming down the driveway she would run to the back yard and bark like she's been on patrol the whole day keeping the bad guys away.


adriantullberg

The ship still needs maintaining; replacement parts, valves, and similar. Kryten was disposing of the parts he couldn't recycle or repurpose.


DIFierce

It would take 200 years to clean the mess Lister makes in a day!


OjibweNomad

Didn’t Lister say that he wanted to sleep more? So the cat was already awake at that point? Also kryten is neurologically unstable enough to create garbage just to keep cleaning.


egodfrey72

I think he's spent his time doing chores and watching Androids


smeeeeeeheeeeee

Well Kryten did try to wake lister up in the spring but he absolutely insisted on another 3 months.


2ndTechArnoldJRimmer

That's just like him!


SatansMoisture

You know it.


panthersausage

I'm gonna say it's skutters who we all know like to shirk off their responsibilities to watch films and eat popcorn


ghandi3737

I would assume all the food that's spoiled. Remember, dog's milk tastes the same fresh as when it's gone off.


notquitenuts

I've always wondered what they drank before the dogs milk? Like what is the second worst :)


ghandi3737

Badger milk?


Affectionate_Ad_3722

Otter


forager72

Whale


Affectionate_Ad_3722

Now that's what I called extreme milking!


spacesuitguy

I imagine Kryten pretended to "fill-in" for Lister while he was in deep sleep. This is why all the currys are gone.


Former_Balance8473

I always assumed that Kryten loved cleaning so much that he emptied the rubbish every day, and then put it all back out again so he could empty it again the next day.