Question (OT)

[janamelie.livejournal.com]

Excuse the non-slashiness of this question, but I think it's an interesting one. We all know that Kryten obeys Lister's orders first because "a living human being outranks a hologram" ("White Hole"). But if it came down to obeying a direct order from Rimmer or a contradictory one from Cat, who would win out?

Would the fact that Rimmer used to be human weigh more heavily than the fact that Cat is alive and very humanoid looking? Assuming this is some kind of emergency, not a trivial disagreement.

Comments

[erinptah]

I'm sure his protocols would point him to Rimmer. The people programming mechanoids wouldn't want a random GELF to be able to overrule a crew member's orders, even if the crew member happened to be dead at the time.

[kronette.livejournal.com]

Kryten's broken a lot of his programming since White Hole, though. Yet, even in X, he's still obeying Rimmer even though he doesn't want to. I think Rimmer as a once-human and the 'official' highest rank on board would have to be next in line. Poor Cat would be last.

[felineranger.livejournal.com]

Before I started reading this thread I would have said Cat had the edge because he's a living being but actually it would make sense that Rimmer's human (albeit ex-human) status would probably mean Kryten had to obey him over a thoroughly non-human entity. It seems sensible that he would be programmed to rank humans above all other life forms.

[janamelie.livejournal.com]

I also asked this question on Tumblr and got some interesting responses from Kahvi and Seb Patrick: http://janamelie.tumblr.com/post/64817031594/question