Det har inte funnits någon explicit bekräftelse i universum att Dave Lister faktiskt är den sista människan. Holly antar helt enkelt (som förklaras i inbindningsversionen " Infinity välkomnar försiktiga drivrutiner ) som sedan de flesta arter inte en miljon år, att oddsen är att mänskligheten har dött ut i de mellanliggande tre.
The enormity of all this was slowly beginning to sink in when Holly dropped his final bombshell. The one about the human race being extinct.
'What d'you mean, "extinct"?'
'Well, three million years is a very good age for a species. I mean, your average genus only survives a couple of hundred thousand years, max. And that's with a clean-living species, like dinosaurs. Dinosaurs didn't totally screw up the environment. They just went around quietly eating things. And even then, they didn't get to clock up the big one mill. So the chances of the human race making it to the big three-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh are practically nonexistent. So I'm afraid you just have to face up to the very real possibility that your species is dead.'
Du kanske vill notera att Lister är ganska mer optimistisk i början av hans resa tillbaka till Jorden.
RIMMER: Home? And where exactly is home supposed to be?
LISTER: Earth.
RIMMER: Earth? What makes you think there'll be any Earth, Lister? And even if there is, look what it's done to a household pet in three million years.
...
RIMMER: Can you imagine what humankind has evolved into? To them, you'll be the equivalent of the slime that first crawled out of the oceans.
...
Lister: ... Holly, plot a course for Fiji. Look out, Earth -- the slime's coming home!
Och efter att han tillbringat åtta årstider som slänger igenom jordens expeditioner i rymden, har hans optimism bara minskat något;
LISTER: Okay, Cassandra, do we ever get back to Earth? Has the human race survived?.