Rage (Red Dwarf)

The Rage is the secondary antagonist from the Red Dwarf novel The Last Human. It is a powerful gestalt entity which fulfill everything it finds with fury and hatred.

History
The Great GELF State decide to terraform a planet for colonization, although it is slowly sucked by the black hole. They ask the prisoners of Cyberia, the GELF prison, to voluntarily give their bodies to make up a new gestalt being that can reshape the planet. However, they use only bodies of the most hardened and emotionless criminals. The new gestalt then creates a world populated by evil beings, which then passes through the Omnizone.

Next time, GELFs use only bodies of innocent prisoners of Cyberia. Unfortunately, the innocent gestalt is filled with righteous fury at being unjustly sentenced. It turns into the Rage, a swirling electrical orange storm of pure resentment which move across the planet, destroys all ships which land there, and fill minds of all living being with fury and hatred, forcing them to kill each other.

When the first settlers land on the planet, they are unfavorably surprised to find the Rage there. It seems to be impossible to avoid it, as the Rage can predict their movements, and many of the original 2000 settlers soon die. One of them, Michael McGruder, later discovers a way to overcome the Rage's influence by making the Circle of Sacer Facere. The settlers have to sit in a circle and when the Rage enters them, it kills only one person.

When the second group of settlers lands on the planet, there are only 40 people from the original group. All newcomers soon kill each other when Rage possesses them, except Lister and Reketrebn who join McGruder and his friends.

Later, the Starbug lands on the planet and its crew is soon attacked by the Rage. They form the circle and Lister's evil other self is killed by it. However, the planet is now too close to the Omnizone. The survivors have to hide in caves, but they are blocked by the Rage. Kryten tries to sacrifice himself by delivering the Oblivion Virus, which destroyed electrical activity, to the Rage. Lister refuses to send his friend to death, but Rimmer insists on taking the virus in his damaged light-bee. He flies into the Rage storm and releases the virus which destroys them both. The survivors then can escape into caves.