The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Version 4

by amiddle

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy is a wholly remarkable book, of which version 4.0 is a wholly remarkable excerpt from which, for copyright reasons, all Guide entries authored by field researchers other than amiddle811879, have been deleted.

10. Cops

Cops

Most cops, it has to be said, have absolutely no idea how to do their jobs. A recent survey carried out on behalf of the Imperial Galactic Employment Service by the University of Maximegalon's Department of Statistical Distortion shows that 275 of all Galactic Cops joined their respective constabularies because it seemed like the most fun you could have without breaking the law.

The cops who don't know how to do their jobs spend most of the time patrolling the Galaxy looking for trouble, chasing down whoever takes their fancy (allegedly speeders and outlaws, although most turn out to be members of alien minorities or jerks), according to what mood they happen to be in at the time.

By way of contrast, the cops who do know what they are doing use their informer network to find out where the trouble is and then spend all of their time turning up at the places where there isn't any, thus maintaining their sedentary donut-eating lifestyle whilst reporting back how they have succeeded in keeping crime figures down in their patrol zones.

With such high levels of amorality, the typical galactic police force (among them the Corewards Highway Patrol, the Western Spiral Rangers and the Outer Rim Guards) is riddled with maladministration, bribery and corruption, with many of its martial resources committed to resolving turf wars between rival backwater police stations.

Of particular note is the fact that most cops suffer from emotional irregularities which leave them as merciless, trigger-happy bigots who enforce the law as they see it, rather than it is actually written (in its executive summary the University of Maximegalon's Department of Statistical Distortion noted that literacy is not cited as an entry requirement for a career as a cop).

They attempt to compensate for this by kidding themselves into believing they are sensitive, artistic, and highly cultured, and some of them have even been known to take their work seriously, although when such rare cases do occur they tend to find themselves reassigned to the outer fringes of the galaxy.

Note: The second worst insult you can give to a cop is to call him a dingo. The absolute worst insult you can give him is to call him a swatting dingo.