Caroline Carmen was a Jupiter Mining Corporation Supply Officer who became a victim of the intelligent virus Epideme.
Biography[]
Aboard Red Dwarf[]
Caroline had worked aboard Red Dwarf as a supply officer before the accident that killed the crew. Lister remembered her and even tried to make Kochanski jealous by claiming that he and Caroline had enjoyed a passionate love affair. Kochanski refused to believe a word of it, especially after Lister couldn't remember Caroline's name correctly. He called her "Karen", later explaining it away as a pet name.
Re-posted[]
Fortunately for Caroline, she had left Red Dwarf shortly before the accident to join another vessel at Titan. She eventually became a crewmember aboard the Leviathan. When a medical officer visited the ship, he infected the crew with Epideme, a virus that killed its victim and then re-animated the corpse to infect another host. She was Epideme's last victim aboard the Leviathan, her body being hijacked and used to freeze the ship to await more targets.
Revived[]
When the crew of Starbug located the Leviathan 3 million years later, they found Caroline's body encased in ice. Identifying her via an ident chip, Lister made claims that she had been his lover. When Kryten informed him that there were lifesigns in the ice, Lister insisted that she would not remember him because ice gave people amnesia.
Defrosting her body took much longer than expected, because the virus was generating the ice from inside. When the crew went to bed, Epideme broke Caroline's body free from the ice and prowled the ship looking for its next victim. Carmen got into bed with Lister, who thought it was Kochanski at first. He hid her from Kryten by covering her with his duvet and shoving her into the shower. When he went back later for his duvet, she attacked him and tried to transfer the virus to him by kissing him. After she succeeded, Epideme left her body and she slumped lifelessly to the floor.
Later, to remove Epideme from Lister's body, Kochanski cut off Carmen's arm and injected it with fresh blood and adrenaline. The Epideme virus thought that it was Kochanski's arm and made Lister bite her hand. With the virus back in a dead arm, the crew were able to flush it into space. (RD: Epideme)
Appearance[]
Before the accident, Caroline had been a very attractive, blond haired woman. After she was killed by Epideme, she began to decompose and fall apart. Her skin flaked off, making Lister exclaim that she had really let herself go. He thought she looked like the "Before" part of 900 Clearasil commercials. The Cat described her as the centrefold from this month's copy of "Playzombie". Her hair was dishevelled and dirty, while her fingernails and toenails had become gnarled and yellow. Her jaw had rotted to the point where her teeth came out while she kissed Lister and her eyes had become a glassy white.
Nicknames[]
Lister claimed that he and Carmen had been very compatible in bed, stating that the neighbours had nicknamed her "Carmen Moans". After she passed the Epideme virus to Lister, he described her as "Tutankhamun's horny grandma".
Trivia[]
- Caroline Carmen's fallen-off ear was used as a cooking ingredient in the special Can't Smeg, Won't Smeg.