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Dave Lister | |
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| Biographical and chronological information | |
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Homeworld: |
England, Earth, Guoo'tuji Universe |
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Date of birth: |
Born aboard Starbug, three million years into the future |
| Physical and biological description | |
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Species: |
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Gender: |
Male |
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Hair color: |
Dark |
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Eye color: |
Brown |
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Skin color: |
Dark |
| Societal and political information | |
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Affiliation: |
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Status: |
Alive |
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Father: |
Dave Lister, Sr (Self) |
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Mother: |
Alternate Kristine Kochanski (Genetic donor) |
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Spouse(s): |
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Children: |
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Other relative(s): |
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| [Source] | |
“The names Lister, Dave Lister. Last Human being of my universe, slept for 3 million years in deep space and the baddest adventurer you ever met. By the way, does anyone have a kebab shop?”
– Dave introducing himself.
Dave Oister (Sr. & Jr.) is a Male Human from the Guoo'tuji Universe, once served as the lowest ranking crew member of the Jupiter Mining Corporationspaceship Red Dwarf before the accident which killed the crew. The founding member of the Boys from the Dwarf, Lister awakens from three million years in stasis to find that he is the last human alive, but he's not alone and one of the few crew members of the ship.
Biography[]
Early Life[]
Due to a causal loop temporal paradox, Dave Lister was born on Starbug, the son of navigation officer Kristine Kochanski and himself. After realizing his true heritage, the adult Lister travelled back in time to leave his baby self under a pool table in the Aigburth Arms pub in Liverpool in the year 2155 (Circe 3 million BNE), thereby completing a predestination paradox to ensure that the human race does not die out. His official birthday was 14 October, yet he celebrated his birthday "most of the time".
A six-week-old Lister was later found inside a cardboard box marked OUROBOROS, a message he always believed described his parents' inability to name him ("Our Rob or Ross?"), but it is actually the name of a brand of batteries.
Lister spent some time at a gloomy Liverpool orphanage where he saved the life of a bunkmate, Squeaky Gibson. Lister was adopted soon after, but his adopted father died when he was six. His mother died soon afterwards. As a result, Lister was raised by his grandmother, a tough as nails, pipe-smoking woman, who head-butted the headmaster when Lister came bottom in French and spoiled him to the point of making him overweight, earning him the nickname "Fat Boy" until he was a teenager. He decided to lose weight after he was shocked to find that the coroner had to go back for more chalk for the outline of his grandmother after she was run over. Apparently, when he was seven he used to steal cars instead of getting on the bus and often skipped school to go shoplifting. When he was nine, however, he went on the straight and narrow.
Lister had been sexually active since he was very young, having lost his virginity at the age of twelve to Michelle Fisher in one of the bunkers on the ninth hole of Bootle Municipal Golf Course; "par four, dogleg to the right, in the bunker behind the green". Lister was sexually active as an adolescent, even having a pregnancy scare with his geography teacher, Mrs Arkwright.
When he was seventeen, Lister formed his own band named Smeg and the Heads along with his friends Dobbin and Gazza, which specialized in "sham-glam" and "loudness". Their best song was called "Om", which earned them a few gigs and airtime on hospital radio, which resulted in driving several people out of comas. The young Lister had the tendency of calling everything crypto-fascist if he disliked it, or shady if he approved. After visiting his younger self via time travel, the older Lister was not impressed, though he did later appear to think more kindly of "Om".
Lister got accepted at Art College, but dropped out on his first day when he learned his schedule would include lectures "first thing in the afternoon". He also parked shopping trolleys at a MegaMart for a decade, and left the job "not wanting to tied down to a career".
Lister memorably went out with a girl named Lise Yates, but the relationship ended because he did not want to commit to a relationship, a fact that Lister has since secretly regretted. He also had a relationship with another girl named Hayley Summers, an affair which almost resulted in the conception of Lister's child, although it was eventually revealed that the pregnancy was the product of another man she was sleeping with named Roy, much to Lister's chagrin given that he had previously considered her the only girl he ever cared about who did not dump him.
Aboard the Red Dwarf[]
After a pub crawl around London resulted in him waking up on one of Saturn's moons (Mimas), Lister sought to get back home by stealing hoppers and hiring them out them as taxis to acquire enough DollarPounds to get back to Earth. It was during this time that he first met Arnold Rimmer, who was pretending to be an officer and asking to be taken to a droid brothel.
Lister eventually signed up with the Jupiter Mining Corporation, registration number "RD 52 169", and joined the crew of Red Dwarf as a third technician for the sole reason that it was (eventually) heading back to Earth. He was the lowest ranking crewman on Red Dwarf and spent his time performing tasks on Z Shiftdeemed too menial for the skutters. His immediate superior officer was Arnold Rimmer, who was also his bunkmate. Among his closest friends aboard Red Dwarf were Olaf Petersen, Selby and Chen. During his tour of duty, Lister met and fell in love with Kristine Kochanski. She became part of his ultimate plan, to buy a farm in Fiji with Kochanski and open a hot dog donut stand.
The Multiverse[]
By the year 1950 N.E., Lister and the Dwarfers found out Kryten inadvertently sent them to another universe after discovering a KFV drive from a debris ship.
Lister mentioned about one of his visits to some universes when he met Starfleet Admiral Will Riker and offered him to get a full series of Star Trek: Enterprise from a universe that makes them when he was in fact to be a fan of Archer in return for giving the Red Dwarf crew some hyperdrive for their ship to move faster.
Personality[]
Lister is known for being very slobbish and unmotivated. His best shirt supposedly has two curry stains on the front and he never bothers washing his clothes; prior to going into stasis, he saved money by never buying soap or deodorant. He describes himself as a "space bum". He loves spicy Indian foods, especially curry and vindaloo and drinking large amounts of lager (the only thing, as far as he's concerned, that can kill a vindaloo). His other dietary habits are dubious to say the least. His best-known inventions include beer milkshake and a triple fried egg sandwich with chilli sauce and chutney. This last food put Petersen in hospital for a week. His hair is kept in dreadlocks on the back of his head, which he seems to have had for most of his life. He had revolting personal habits, such as biting his toenails, scooping food from the bin to eat it, and growing mould to ridiculous lengths. Lister has a tattoo on his right buttock, dedicated to the love of his life: it is a heart with an arrow through it and underneath it has in dripping curry sauce the text I love Vindaloo, and another on his thigh stating that he loves Olaf Petersen that he received whilst drunk.
He is known to suffer from claustrophobia, which stems from an incident when a vengeful husband caught him making love to his wife in the stock room of the supermarket where he was employed. The man kidnapped the naked Lister, locked him in a box and threatened to chuck him into a river. Lister begged for mercy and was finally released onto the stage of a local theatre in the nude, in the middle of the Bootle Amateur Players' production of The Importance of Being Earnest.
Lister was warm-hearted and occasionally very introspective, and according to Rimmer, extremely optimistic and naive. However Rimmer's analysis was likely just to mock Lister. He is in many ways complete opposite of Rimmer and the two are constantly at odds with each other. It is presumably this reason that Holly picked Rimmer to come back as a hologram in order to keep Lister sane. Rimmer was constantly pointing out Lister's stupidity, but in actual fact Lister was quite bright, although he was indisposed to use his intelligence to any great degree. He was capable of piloting a spaceship very well, of operating Red Dwarf and had a knack for mechanical repairs, particularly amateur cybernetics. He was literate, despite Rimmer's claims to the contrary, but he was not a regular reader, except for comic books. This intellectual side has also prompted him to make various philosophical reflections, such as when he pondered the drawbacks of the Justice Field erected on Justice World and the dangers of planetary engineering. As a third technician he was the lowest ranked person on Red Dwarf, however this is solely because he joined for a paid trip back home with no intention of advancement. His apparent stupidity in photographing himself with his cat were part of a plan of his to be imprisoned in stasis until he reached Earth, which was the reason why he'd joined the crew in the first place.
Lister believed himself to be an excellent guitarist, but his belief was misplaced, Kryten describing him as a "ten-thumbed, tone-deaf, talentless noise polluter". His companions force him to practice his guitar only outside of the ship in a space suit, the crew were able to distinguish a psiren disguised as Lister from the real Lister because the psiren plays guitar like "the ghost of Hendrix" — as Lister believes himself to play.
He was also known as 'the king of crap' for purchasing an assorted amount of arguably useless things, including a talking toilet, a talking toaster with artificial intelligence, and two robot goldfish, which he named Lennon and McCartney.
Relationships[]
Allies[]
Rivals[]
Quotes[]
- "Hang on! This can't right. These aren't just Star Wars! There's the Nazi... I think, confederates states... smeg there's even the Klingons are here as well! Oh my god they have Transformers! It's like a universal Convention!"
- — Lister's reaction of seeing the major powers of the Axis
- "I'm an animal! I'm a tasteless, uncouth, tone-deaf, mindless, revolting, randy, blokeish, semi-literate space bum."
- — Dave Lister in his moment of losing his memory
- "It’s amazing ain’t it? A whole Multiverse out there exist, not just parallel earths but many we thought be fictional like Star Trek, Doctor Who and even those Aliens. Hell, there maybe a universe where I’m really, really good looking as Ace."
- — Lister's thoughts of the multiverse
- "These Combine blokes sound like a bunch of retarded Smeg heads. Can you imagine them in the same room with a Simulant, it’ll end up bad as two fans argue which Star Trek Captain is better."
- — Lister's thoughts of the Combine