Races from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
From Freepedia
This is a list of races featured in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Contents |
Dentrassi
Dentrassi are the cooks for the Vogons, the Galactic bureaucrats who demolish the Earth in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. Described by the character Ford Prefect as "The best cooks and the best drinks mixers, and they don't give a wet slap about anything else." In most versions of the story, they help galactic hitchhikers board Vogon Constructor Ships "mostly because it annoys the Vogons."
Fuolornis Fire Dragon
The Fuolornis Fire Dragon is a creature found on Brequinda, on the Foth of Avalars.
Grebulons
The Grebulons are a race that appears in Mostly Harmless. They are observing the Earth, but do not know why.
They were originally a reconnaissance team in an interstellar battle. During the centuries-long spaceflight to the battlefield, while they were all in suspended animation with their memories offloaded to the ship's computer, the ship was struck by an asteroid. The collision destroyed much of the computer, and (in a parody of fault-tolerant computing) a number of sensors, ultimately resulting in the accidental loss of the backup. The Grebulons awoke with no idea where they were going or who they were. All they were able to extract from the computer was patches of their tasking, instructing them to observe. With no indication of what they were supposed to observe, they chose the nearest target: the Earth. They observed mostly television transmissions.
Meanwhile, the lack of combat intelligence led to disastrous results for the Grebulon side in the aforementioned war.
Hooloovoo
Hooloovoos are super intelligent shades of blue, that can be observed by refracting them into a free standing prism.
One of them worked on the construction of the starship Heart of Gold. At the launching ceremony, the Hooloovoo was refracted into a free-standing prism. Whether this was for its benefit or to make it visible to observers, or both, is not known.
Jatravartids
Jatravartids are small blue creatures of planet Viltvodle VI with more than fifty arms each. They are therefore unique in being the only race in history to have invented aerosol deodorant before the wheel.
Many races believe that the Universe was created by some sort of god or in the Big Bang. The Jatravartid people, however, believe that the Universe was sneezed out of the nose of a being called the Great Green Arkleseizure. They live in perpetual fear of the time they call The Coming of the Great White Handkerchief. Theory of the Great Green Arkleseizure is not widely accepted outside Viltvodle VI.
(A similar concept was used in the short story "God's Nose" by Damon Knight.)
For the feature film Douglas Adams created a new character called Humma Kavula, a missionary whose apparent mission is to spread the religion of the Jatravartids.
Perfectly Normal Beast
The Perfectly Normal Beasts are a species that migrate across the Anhondo Plain on Lumuella twice a year (one direction in the spring then back again in the autumn. The migration takes about 8 to 9 days during which time they form a solid mass. They appear from thin air at one end of the plain then disappear again at the other. It is known that one end passes into the Realm of the King.
The local Lamuellans capture the beasts and kill them for their meat. The method uses similar techniques to a matador but also requires use of the Pikka Birds in order to get their attention. The best of the meat is eaten straight away while the rest is salted and stored for consumption until the next migration. It was consumed on it's own until the arrival of the Sandwich Maker and is now always placed between two slices of bread.
Pikka Bird
The Pikka Birds are birds native to Lamuella. There known for being suprised by ordinary everyday objects and events such as the sun rising but completely ignoring unusual events such as spaceships landing. They are also used to attract Perfectly Normal Beasts.
Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal
The Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal is a creature that hails from the planet of Traal, and will eat anything. If you are to encounter one, the Guide tells you that it's impossible to slay, so you should wrap a towel around your head. This creature is so mind-bogglingly stupid that it assumes that if you can't see it, then it can't see you.
In the Infocom adventure game adaptation of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the Bugblatter Beast asks its victims their names before killing them, and carves the names on a memorial outside its cave. The game also describes the Beast as having Lasero-Zap eyes, Swivel-Shear Teeth, and several dozen tungsten carbide Vast Pain claws forged in the sun furnaces of Zangrijad, all implying that it is a cyborg.
According to the radio scripts, the Beast's eyes can turn red, green, then a sort of mauvy pink. If the adventure game is correct about its being a cyborg, the changing eye-colour may be part of the arming procedure for the Lasero-Zap beams.
In the movie version, the Guide has an entry on what to do if you face certain death at the claws of a Bugblatter Beast, but instead of mentioning towels, or merely not looking at it, it suggests the same method for "What to do if you find yourself trapped beneath a large boulder with no means of escape" from Fit the Eighth of the radio series. The entry is this: Consider how lucky you are that life has been good to you so far. Alternatively, if life hasn't been good to you so far, which given your current circumstances seems more likely, consider how lucky you are that it won't be troubling you much longer.
Other races
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