Markup View

Author: AgProv

May 8th 2013 at 2:21:58 PM

[[AC:Literature]]

In Douglas Adams' H2G2, witness the name chosen by Guide researcher Ford Prefect. However, he claimed to be from Guildford, one of many, many, anonymous identikit commuter towns surrounding London, and not from Betelgeuse.

This also doubly subverts a RealLife speculation by charismatic astronomer Carl Sagan. He speculated on what evidence of intelligent life an alien observer might actually see on the surface of the planet Earth (as a mind-game about detecting extraterrestrial life).  He concluded that one of two scenarios involved the hypothetical alien looking at, say, North America, and observing wheeled lifeforms moving with purpose along regularly-formed migration routes. These wheeled lifeforms would be observed to have a parasitical, less intelligent, species exploiting them for ease of movement between its nests which spring up at irregular intervals along the wheelways). We are told that Ford Prefect did only cursory research before arriving on Earth and took his name out of a fundamental misunderstanding...