h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Such is the state of the Universe today, not many people visit uncharted places anymore.

Especially the uncharted research station somewhere in deepest, darkest Essex.

Come to think of it, the things that were 'uncharted' were beginning to add up. A fact that...

(p.s. sorry, can 'anymore' in post 61 be altered to 'very often'? thanks, it was bugging me.)

there was one crucial factor that linked them all together.

(I've changed it on the page )

Unfortunatly, the only people in the Universe that were anywhere near to finding out were the great cat fleet.

(thanks)

were over 40K hyperkilometers away, and so...

...it was even more inconsequential when combined with the fact that they had all perished earlier.

Fortunately the inconsequentiality engine (still powered by Schrodinger's cat in a box) meant that the cats could well be alive, no-one would know until they reached them and made contact.

Sadly, the only person close enough to make contact was God, and he didn't care much anyway. Presently, he was on his way out of this uncharted backwater of the Universe in a converted...

metaphor, and was having a little trouble with the steering.

God only knows why he didn't buy a simile - so much more reliable, especially the german ones.

However, it was not important that some were close to finding out the secrets of uncharted areas, as the inhabitants of an uncharted planet already knew, and they were small and furry with large amber eyes.

What these inhabitants knew was this: not many people visited uncharted places anymore because across the entirity of the Universe, people were becoming less and less imaginative. People were buying Tom Clancy books, for god's sake.

Their own planet was protected by a metaphysical field - it only existed if the visitor was capable of imagining that it was there. Consequently it remained uncharted.

What the small furry creatures really wanted was a great, adventurous explorer to drop by one day. On a tuesday maybe. An explorer of the old kind, fearless through stupidity rather than bravery.

Such an explorer never came, and eventually they tired of waiting and went off to explore the universe themselves.

They sent four explorers, each to a different corner of the Universe, each with a mission to uncover why imagination, facination and general creativity was disappearing from the stars. And to see what could be done about it.

The Western spiral arm was assigned to the freaky little Firminian - Oddy. Oddy wasn't a particularly...

skilled at landing simalis.