"Being hailed" is a term from Star Trek which, as far as I know, isn't used anywhere else. In Red Dwarf they say things like "incoming message".

Starbug is a shuttlecraft, not a scout ship. When Lister helped Kryten to break his programming, it wasn't because Kryten is trying to become human-in fact, in one episode, Kryten rejected becoming human.

From Starbug being "hailed" to Rimmer being activated when he is needed, like the EMH on Voyager, to Kryten seeking to become more human like Data in The Next Generation, this does give the impression that the author is more familiar with Star Trek than Red Dwarf.

What I meant to say about Rimmer was that he isn't activated because he is never usually deactivated.

Rimmer wasn't activated when Holly chose. Either he came with the others or he didn't. Kryten became human briefly during the fourth series, then decided to change back. Becoming human isn't his aim in life.

The first episode of Red Dwarf began in the year 2180. After the accident that wiped out the crew, the rest of the series is set three million years later. Dune isn't set that far in the future, is it?

In Red Dwarf, Dave Lister is the last human alive. How does that fit in with a series of novels about human colonies on other worlds?