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Space Corps Directives


The Space Corps Directives are a running joke from the British science fiction sitcom Red Dwarf. The Space Corps is somewhat analogous to Star Trek’s Starfleet and is responsible for the administrative organisation of all space travel in the Red Dwarf Universe; the Directives are a list of this organisation's regulations. Though originating in series 2, the directives were most often used for comic effect during the 5th and 6th series of the show

A prelude to the Space Corps directives were featured in the episode "Queeg", where Holly, masquerading as "Queeg 500", would use "Articles" to force the crew to work, as well as perform other unsavoury acts. As "Queeg" was created by Holly purely so the crew would appreciate his leniency more, the authenticity of the Articles and their influence remains suspect.

When first introduced, the Directives were used by Kryten to coerce Rimmer into acting altruistically or to highlight the less than exemplary behaviour of the rest of the crew. The normal pattern would be for Kryten to quote the number of regulation and then in response to a challenge would quote the entire regulation, to which one of the crew would respond with some pithy comment or other. Later on, Rimmer attempts to fight back by quoting from the same regulations, but his imperfect recall of the Directives means that he normally quotes the wrong paragraph number and instead references obscure and bizarre Directives that have little or no relevance to the situation at hand.

Rimmer's habit of quoting Space Corps directives eventually becomes a key part of his personality, so much so that when Lister begins to miss Rimmer in Series VII, Episode "Blue", he has a homoerotic dream in which Kochanski's inability to cite Space Corps directives is seen as a defect:


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