"Steve" was a digitised character that M-Corp tried to "sell" to Dave Lister as a "friend" within their constructed virtual world-space, instead of having his crewmates back.
After Steve materialised in front of him, Lister was told by the M-Corp avatar Aniter that Steve was a bargain at only 300 DollarPounds. Lister said that he was not interested in Steve "or any other hobbit". Steve tried to sway Lister, saying that he plays drums, drinks real ale, loves zero-gee football, and is really crap at video games - so that Lister will always beat him - "a match made in Heaven". Lister repeated no, and Steve exclaimed "bummer" before disappearing.
When the other Dwarfers entered the virtual world-space to rescue Lister, they found that Lister had aged a century after bring charged with time itself. Having given in to Aniter, Lister was surrounded by new "friends" who were dressed like Steve, as well as various goods and trinkets Aniter had convinced Lister to buy.
Steve and the other "friends" were presumably erased when Kryten tricked Aniter into infecting herself with a computer virus. ("M-Corp", Series XII)
Behind the scenes[]
- "Steve" was portrayed by stand-up comedian Ray Peacock, who was the warm-up for the live studio audience during the filming of Series XI and Series XII.