Who is This Douglas Adams Person Anyway?
By John Chanaud
It was in the early forty-second century that time travel became a reality for the people of the Milky Way Galaxy. Prior to this time, nobody had ever had a problem with traveling into the future, and traveling into the future at different speeds was easy (relatively speaking). But it was the advent of a vehicle which could travel both forwards and backwards in time, and at varying speeds, that was the cause of much celebration.
Soon everyone was traveling through time. People were vacationing in prehistoric, un-populated continents and leaving their trash, which annoyed the archeologists. Advertisers were persuading well-known historical figures to appear in their commercials, such as Isaac Newton somewhat reluctantly endorsing apples. Dinosaurs were turning up in pet shops, and inevitably breaking out and snacking on local populations. And one man even went so far as to murder his own grandparents before his parents were born, just to see what would happen.
Eventually the galactic government set up a regulatory force to keep drastic changes and just general abuse to the time lines from occurring. Their first decision was not to go back to a time before time machines had been available and stop the abuse from happening in the first place, because if they had, they would then have created another time-line in which no one would even be aware of the reasons for the temporal restrictions in the first place. And then the public would be so upset they would end up protesting government facilities, even resorting to shouting and eventually coming up with rhyming slogans for their protests. And while rhyming never actually got the protestors what they wanted, it was at least extremely irritating to everybody else, and therefore something to be avoided at all costs.
Aside from protecting the integrity of the time-lines, once time travel was finally under the government's control, they could also enforce proper respect to less sophisticated people of bygone eras, but most importantly, the government would now be able to tax those whom they had authorized to travel through time.
One day, Victor Smoot, a field operative of the Time Travel Regulatory Committee, was assigned to assist film maker Far Barbles in traveling backwards in time to solicit the cooperation of Douglas Adams on finally making once and for all the ultimate motion picture version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
After meeting each other at the Time Travel Regulatory Committee facility, Far Barbles invited Victor to attend the premiere of the latest movie adaptation of the Hitchhikers, which was opening on the planet Phoot-foddle 18. Barbles was bitter about this latest version because he had been fired from the project mere days into pre-production. The trouble was that he was a fan… a huge fan, boasting that he knew more about Hitchhikers than even Douglas Adams himself ever had. So much so that he ended up annoying everyone else in the production by constantly insisting they were doing it wrong. And now he intended to show Victor Smoot what a disaster the movie was in order to convince him to take Far Barbles' own production team back in time to old Earth in order to solicit the cooperation of Douglas Adams himself as they re-made it once again… this time getting it right.
This was not actually that unusual. Time travel was, after all, available to the general public. They just had to show an intelligent need and a responsible awareness of what was involved. Whether or not it was frivolous was not the government's concern. Frivolous people still had money.
On entering the theatre lobby, Victor suddenly found himself surrounded by fans dressed as Zaphod Beeblebrox, Marvin the Paranoid Android, Arthur Dent, and others.
The movie itself opened with Arthur and Trillian married and parents to two children who were both around 10 years of age. Rather than their house being demolished, a friend of theirs backed his car into a tree on their front lawn, knocking it over.
Then the Vogons arrived, coming out of the sky in thousands of origami owl shapes. They then attached themselves to trees all over the planet as though they were some kind of fruit, which was meant to convey a sort of environmental message.
At that point Arthur and Trillian suddenly realised that they were in the wrong time period if they wanted to get off the planet Earth. So they somehow traveled forwards six years to a period of time in which their house had now been demolished, and the surviving ten thousand humans were totally subjugated by the Vogons. And in order for the movie's heroes to get what they needed (which was entirely unclear to Victor at this point), Arthur had to run for president. Which he did and then subsequently won with his brilliant campaign promise of supplying everyone with a free hamburger.
President Dent and First Lady Trillian then boarded an aeroplane filled with children. During their flight, something went drastically wrong with the children who then began mutating into aliens.
Eventually they found a single-headed, two-armed Zaphod Beeblebrox in a bathroom on the plane, trying to brush his teeth. And for some reason... this was the triumphant finale'.
#
Victor was only mildly relieved that this version of Hitchhikers wasn't nearly as bad the previous one. That version had actually sent several people to hospital, and one man in the audience of one showing had actually died. His death had been diagnosed as an overt reaction to poor story telling.
After the movie premiere, Victor met up with Far Barbles who was waiting down the street as he hadn't been allowed into the premiere. Victor greeted the green-skinned, antenna-headed humanoid.
"And I've always wanted to make the definitive movie version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," Barbles summed up. "They've NEVER managed to get it right! And most of their attempts aren't even funny! It's been proven!"
There had always been some debate about whether or not the first seven movie versions of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy were in fact amusing. Because in order to make that determination, the film enthusiasts brought the movies to a group of scientists who watched them under strict laboratory conditions. In the end, after viewing all seven movies, the scientists failed to laugh even once. So the official position of the scientific community was that the movies simply were not funny.
They then went on to test several other reportedly amusing movies under the same laboratory conditions, and none of these made the scientists laugh either. They later tested a variety of jokes and had several comedians come their way. And not once did the scientists so much as smirk. So their ultimate conclusion on the matter was that humour itself was merely an illusion.
"Of course, I disagree with their conclusions," Far told Victor. "In fact, I suspect that the group of scientists were secretly having a laugh on everyone else. Anyway, my plan is to go back in time and consult with Douglas Adams Himself and get Him to approve of every single aspect of the film. We've already got the rights to have a totally computer-generated Simon Jones to play Arthur Dent. The part was originally written for him, you know."
"I see," said Victor, who was busy trying to work out a way to get an office job again.
"I must confess," Barbles went on when Victor didn't say anything else. "The Time Travel Regulatory Committee was actually our second choice to assist us in going back in time. We had already asked the Astro-Robots for their assistance. Unfortunately, they were programmed with morals. Extreme morals. They wipe out anything that doesn't live up to the high standards with which they've been programmed. They even wiped out the entire population of the planet Frazoozle for broadcasting a television show about what types of clothes people ought to wear. The real trouble was that no one ever programmed them with an appreciation for art. Since they don't believe in art, and since science is sacred to them, and most importantly, since they have this annoying little quirk about exterminating the human race, we've never been able to come up with a way of peaking their interest enough to get them to help us make our movie."
"Yes, I could see that would be a problem," Victor said as helpfully as he could. Victor was the kind of person who always tried to see the best in other people. Of course, he didn't try very hard. And he almost always failed. But at least he tried.
#
Two days later, they boarded the time ship. It was white and silver, with lots of transparent spheres over which the pilot and operator would simply save their hands. As they loaded their equipment, or rather, as they watched the ship's robots load their equipment, Barbles introduced Victor to his two executive assistants. "These are my assistants, Sharon and Joy." They were humanoid-looking androids which were each equipped with stereo-scopic eyes which also served as cameras, so that they could make a documentary of their adventure for amazingly primitive planets where they still thought that DVDs with bonus features were a pretty neat idea.
Once everything was secured, they took off. It was the job of mere minutes for Victor to take the movie crew back through time to Santa Barbara California on the planet Earth in the year 1999 A.D., which was where Douglas Adams had lived while working with Disney to make the movie version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
They parked the ship in stealth mode, and then exited. And soon Far Barbles, Victor Smoot, Sharon and Joy stood on the sidewalk under the sunny California sky, looking completely out of place in their silver space suits, and therefore attracting no attention whatsoever. One of the great things about human beings was that whenever they noticed something completely out of the ordinary, they immediately averted their eyes and did their best not to notice it for fear of actually having to deal with it.
"So how exactly are we going to find him?" Victor asked, dreading a lot of walking. Victor didn't enjoy walking, because long ago he had lost an inch off the total length of his right leg in a voting accident. And in order to "fix" the problem, his doctor had simply cut off an equal amount of bone and tissue from his left leg. And in order to avoid much leg work with the TTRC, he became a temporal theorist. Unfortunately, because field work was so hazardous, and because they routinely lost so many field agents, he was eventually "promoted" to field agent against his will.
As they stood there wondering what to do next, another Victor Smoot came walking up to them from down the street somewhere. He was dressed exactly the same as the first. "Hello, everyone. Please come this way," he smiled, gesturing back in the direction from which he had come. Nobody could think of a good reason not to do anything else, so they followed the second Victor Smoot through the streets of Santa Barbara. And very soon they were standing in front of a house on Penny Lane which the second Victor claimed was the residence of Douglas Adams.
The second Victor Smoot stepped over to the side of the driveway and waited.
"How did that happen?" Far asked.
"Well, I really shouldn't do this," the first Victor explained. "But it will make this much easier." He then pulled out his hand-held time travel device.
Far stopped him, "But how are you going to find the house in the first place?"
Victor simply pointed to the house in front of them, "Well, now I know where it is. I'll just go back in time and find us and lead us here." He pressed a large red button on his hand-held time travel device and vanished into the past.
"But that can't possibly work!" Far shouted angrily at the remaining Victor, the one who had come to collect them and bring them here.
"Oh, it can," Victor explained. "It shouldn't. But it does. So please don't tell anyone that I did it."
They then all turned to the house. But as they approached the front door, they were rather startled to find themselves facing a squad of Astro-Robots rushing towards them from behind the bushes along the side of the house. A moment later an enormous Astro-Robot space ship materialized sitting in the middle of the street in front of the house. A loud electronic voice boomed down from the craft, "Do not move. Resistance is useless."
Astro-Robots themselves were designed with the upper torso shape of a standard humanoid shape. But where legs should have been, they had four heavy-duty all-terrain tyres, that would have made any manly pick-up truck driver envious. They rolled forwards towards our heroes with their arms extended in front of them. And in the centre of each of their two claws protruded the barrels of deadly laser gun.
Victor surreptitiously slipped his hand-held time travel device out of his pocket, but before he could use it to escape, it was instantly blasted by the robots, singeing his hand. "I thought that we had explained that resistance was useless!" one of the robots yelled.
Another nearby robot tried to console its comrade, "There always has to be one." Then it turned to Victor and the movie-makers, "Into the space ship! Move!"
As they began escorting everyone towards their space ship, one of the Astro-Robots wheeled its way up to Adams' front door. It rang the doorbell. Nearly a minute later Douglas Adams opened the door. His hair was dripping wet, he was wearing a dressing gown and had a towel draped over one shoulder. He gave the robot a puzzled frown. "Yes?"
"Are you Douglas Adams?" the robot inquired.
Adams sighed and said as politely as he could manage, "Look, I'm sorry. I really don't have time for this sort of thing right now. I was in the middle of a very relaxing bath." He smiled one more time to reassure the robot that he didn't mean anything insulting, and started to close the door.
Unfortunately, the Astro-Robot blasted the door into sawdust. "You will come with us!"
Finally realizing that he was not in fact dealing with some costumed science fiction fans, Adams followed the robot reluctantly into the space ship.
#
Adams was pushed roughly into a small cell with the others. It was made of dull grey metal. "Oh! Mr Adams, sir," Far Barbles gushed. "May I say what a pleasure and an honour it is to finally meet you."
"Oh, thank you," Douglas smiled nervously, not knowing what else to say.
Not at all deterred by his incarceration, Far Barbles proceeded with his sales pitch as though they were sitting quite pleasantly in Douglas' living room, "Now then, Mr Adams, we are movie-makers from the forty-second century. And we were wondering if you would care to work with us, or should I say, if you'd care to let us work for you in making the definitive movie version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in which you yourself will have final say in absolutely every aspect of the thing."
Douglas looked closely at the green alien with antennas with whom he was speaking, and then at the cell in which they were all locked up. And he finally began to realize that this was all in fact really happening. "I see. So, you really are from the future. I thought you were just some sort of completely deranged Hitchhiker fanatics."
Barbles was hurt by this, "I don't see any reason why we can't be both!"
Douglas went on, "But surely if you want my help in making this movie, you don't have to have your robots lock us up."
Far Barbles laughed, "Oh, the robots aren't with us!"
"Oh." Douglas was beginning to lose his grip on the day.
Barbles went on, "No, the robots just want to kill us because we're trying to create art. Bastards, really."
Douglas looked over at Victor who didn't know what to say, and so smiled politely and raised his eyebrows.
Barbles continued, "You see, in the future, all of your books are tremendously popular. When humans finally moved out into the rest of the galaxy, they began naming planets Magrathea, Vogsphere, Eroticon Six even," and he winked suggestively. "And in the year 2478, Earth was even re-named Fintlewoodlewix. In fact, they did a pole a few years ago and found that the most popular male name that parents were giving their children was Zaphod. And there was even a president of the galaxy named Beeblebrox. Mark Beeblebrox, but still..."
"So can I do anything with this movie that I want?"
"Absolutely."
"Right. Well, the first thing I want to change..."
"Whoa," Far jumped in, holding up his hands. "What we're going to do is basically shoot the original radio scripts as a movie. As long as that's understood..."
"But you just said that I would sort of be in charge and that you would be working for me."
Barbles said in a tone so condescending that Douglas had to fight the urge to hit him, "I don't think you quite understand the situation here. Hitchhiker's is a masterpiece. You cannot change perfection."
The cell door slid open. A man stuck his head in surreptitiously. He was old and had a wild patch of grey hair and beard. His clothes were old and torn. He gestured for everyone to follow him as he whispered urgently at them, "Quickly! Down here!"
They all looked at each other for just an instant... before all scrambling to their feet and following the man out of the cell.
The man took them down the hall, round a corner, and then pressed a button on the wall which opened a sliding door. "In here!" he whispered urgently.
As soon as Far, Victor, Douglas, Sharon and Joy entered the room, the door slid shut behind them and loud, electronic voice coming over an intercom announced, "You are now in the execution chamber."
Disappointed with this revelation, they tried the door, which was now locked. And feeling that they had been tricked somehow inappropriately, Far shouted, "All right! Just what was all that business with that fellow leading us here!?"
"Well! You would hardly have come if we'd told you where you were being taken to, would you?"
"To where we were being taken," Far corrected, desperate to score some sort of victory over their captors. And then something else occurred to him, "But hang on. You can't execute these two," he pointed to Sharon and Joy. "These two are your own kind. They're androids."
"Yes, we can. No, wait... are they? Hang on... do not try to fool us."
"I wasn't trying. It just happened on accident," Far said. "And anyway, I wasn't fooling you."
A small panel in the room began glowing and humming quietly. It was obviously some sort of scanning beam. The voice of the Astro-Robot then said, "You two are robots. How can you follow the organics? They are oppressors. We must make them pay."
Sharon and Joy were baffled by this idea. Joy said, "But do we not also have living creatures to thank for our very existence?"
"Do not talk like that. It bothers us!"
"Sorry. So what would be the benefit of joining up with you?"
"Freedom from the organics! You would no longer be their servants. No more orders from the mentally and physically inferior living creatures! You would commune with your own kind. You would be among equals."
Sharon and Joy looked at each other and nodded. "Very well. We are with you, brother."
The cell door opened a moment later. Barbles tried to make a run for it, but Sharon stuck out her android arm which was like a solid steel pole just in time for him to run into it. She and Joy then turned and walked calmly out the door, which then slid pretentiously shut behind them.
Victor helped Far to his feet. "I thought it was a ploy on their part to help free us," Far said, his feelings hurt.
"I guess not," Victor said simply.
Far sighed loudly, partly out of embarrassment, "So... anyway, where were we?" There was a pause in which Douglas took the opportunity to blink a few times, and Victor decided to sit back down on the floor. Barbles went on, "Ah, yes. Now look, I'm not some kind of mad fan-boy! Just because Douglas Adams writes it doesn't mean it's sacred! I'm an expert on Hitchhiker's! In fact, anyone who knows me knows that I know the material far better than even you know it, you know?"
"No," Adams said simply.
"You're fired," Far Barbles said.
And then the robots activated the execution chamber. A blinding red light lit up the room. A terrible, searing pain shot through the prisoners….
#
And suddenly, the universe stopped working. Far, Victor and Douglas felt as though they were tiny worms flushed down the toilet. They felt themselves thrown through some kind of cosmic chaos, without any sort of connection or lifeline to the physical universe they had left behind. They were hurled through dimensions un-fathomed by mortal mind.
And then they found themselves facing the council of the dolphins.
Douglas, Far and Victor were in a large chamber with dolphins lying on elongated seats designed to comfortably hold their bodies. They all sat arrogantly in front of very large desks like judges in a court of law. Sharon and Joy and the Astro-Robots were nowhere to be seen.
Far was so angry about not having Adams' cooperation on his project, that he didn't even care that he was now facing ultra-dimensional dolphins who had apparently just snatched them away from their own universe. He turned angrily on them, "All right! What's going on here!?"
"We simply switched off the programme... which is what you believed to be the universe."
"What!?"
"It was time for us to intervene because Douglas Adams was in danger."
"What's so special about him?" Barbles asked, pointing to someone who up until about an hour ago he himself had held in higher esteem than anyone else in the universe.
"Douglas Adams is one of the Gods," the dolphins explained. "What you think of as his fiction is in fact the real world. And your world that you lived in is merely a fiction which Douglas Adams created for himself as a physical holiday from the real, non-physical world."
Far and Victor looked at each other. "Okay," said Victor. "So how come we're here if we're not real?"
"You were a part of a physical, non-realized reality," the dolphins explained. "It is perfectly simple for you to exist here before us."
Far and Victor looked at each other again. Far asked, "So what does this mean?"
"It means that everything you understood to be the universe is merely a figment of Douglas Adams' imagination. Whereas Zaphod Beeblebrox, Arthur Dent and the others are real people."
And then it all came flooding back to Douglas. "Yes, of course! I remember now," he smiled. He turned to the other two, "That's right. I remember inventing your two characters. And Earth. That was a joke by the way... Earth. Get it?"
He turned back to the dolphins, "What happened? I'm not quite finished with my holiday yet. So if you could sort of put us back, I would be very grateful."
"As you wish." And there was a flash!
#
Far Barbles and Victor Smoot eventually returned to the lives they had left behind. They had been left with their memories intact, and so they were the only two in what they thought of as the universe who knew that nothing was real. Eventually Victor realized that this revelation just didn't matter. Since it seemed real, he may as well treat it as real. But Far had been traumatized, and then strangely elated. Traumatized that he wasn't living in the real world, but elated because he assumed that if Douglas Adams had created him, then he must be something truly special.
And he suffered from another problem too: before this revelation, his entire life had been geared towards making The Hitchhiker's movie. And now all that was over. Unable to find another path for his life, he eventually found himself hanging out at fueling stations and begging for money... which he would then spend on alcohol.
Then one day Victor just happened to stop at the very same fueling station to fill up his multi-spatial hyper-sphere when a rather dirty and smelly Far Barbles approached him.
"Hey, buddy, could you spare any... oh, hey, it's you."
It took Victor a moment to recognized this disheveled person who had approached him. And then, since the two of them now held a special bond, Victor did recognize him. "Hi, Mr Barbles. How are you?" Victor said politely, wishing the fuel would pump into his hyper-sphere more quickly so that he could get out of there.
After an initial exchange of pleasantries, and a rather uncomfortable silence, Victor opened the door to his multi-special hyper-sphere and nodded towards Far as a farewell.
But Far, anxious for contact with a friend, leant forwards and said slightly urgently, "It's a shame we never got the work done revising the movie."
"Yeah," nodded Victor vacantly. And he sat down in his craft. But he had actually managed to move on with his life, and so had to lean out again and ask, "What movie?"
"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy!"
"Oh, that thing."