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11th Mar '13 6:38:18 AM StFan

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->''Freeeooow!''
-->--Zaphod, in a rare moment of eloquence

''Young Zaphod Plays It Safe'' is a short {{science fiction}} story by DouglasAdams. Written between the fourth and fifth books of ''[[TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy]]'' series but set long before the beginning of the first, it features the character Zaphod Beeblebrox as a young man in charge of the ''Beeblebrox Salvage and Really Wild Stuff Corporation'', conducting an expedition to the bottom of a remote alien ocean for the benefit of a group of shady suits from the Safety and Civil Reassurance Administration. Though they don't say much to Zaphod, preferring to keep the nature of their expedition a secret, it soon becomes clear that the suits are searching for a lost spacecraft, one that crashed into the ocean while holding top-secret and potentially deadly cargo. The story ends with another possible motive behind the demolition of the planet Earth by the Vogons.

Actually a huge {{author tract}} and an unsubtle TakeThat aimed at RonaldReagan, the story saves itself by being [[RuleOfFunny hysterical]] and full of vintage [[DouglasAdams Adamsian]] wit.

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!!Tropes:

* ArtificialHuman - What the spacecraft is carrying that makes it so worrisome; turns out that "designer people" tend to be insane, and they don't project the usual warning signals that someone that dangerous would...
* AuthorTract
* BuffySpeak - Lampshaded, discussed, or maybe just [[PlayingWithATrope played with]]. "This is barking time, this is major lunch, this is stool approaching critical mass, this is... this is... ''total vocabulary failure!"''
* PersonAsVerb - Invoked: Zaphod tells the ship to "do as I do"; it thinks for a second, and then sinks as low as it can go.
* UnwittingPawn - Zaphod, to a degree; although he's being used, he has nothing to lose in the matter, and cares little for the outcome of the expedition.
* VomitIndiscretionShot - there are very detailed descriptions of Zaphod and company vomiting inside their Hi-Presh-A Smart Suits, until the author gives up and promises no more of that kind of nastiness.
* YouWannaGetSued - In several versions of ''HitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'', {{the reveal}} in the last paragraph is deleted entirely, making the build-up meaningless.
** You could say those versions... [[IncrediblyLamePun played it safe.]] ''[[http://www.instantrimshot.com/ Ba-dum-tish!]]''
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16th Apr '12 2:01:59 PM Cybishop

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14th Oct '11 3:03:22 PM Zyffyr

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Renamed trope

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16th Apr '11 6:00:13 AM OldManHoOh

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