Original artwork, not a still
Put simply, by killing us they killed themselves, because once we were dead it was impossible for us to become them in the future, and return in time to kill ourselves in the past, even though it was the present.
— Red Dwarf ‧ 1988
Behind the line
What it means
Our interpretation.
The speaker offers a tangled, self-cancelling argument: killing them supposedly doomed the killers too, since dead people cannot later become those killers and travel back to kill their own earlier selves. The closing 'even though it was the present' knots the logic further.
Context reviewed
