These are the ways in which characters enter or begin the game:
- Ship's Crew - The ship's crew have, of course, been on the
ship for a long time. Most of them begin on the bridge, though some
are scattered in various parts of the ship.
- The Cryo Units - Thanks to hacking by agents of SWORD and
the Illuminati, several cryounits were programmed to wake their
occupants before landing, rather than waiting as they were originally
programmed. Thus several of their occupants are now awake and forced
to deal with the situations at hand. Due to the computer failure, no
other cryo units can be thawed in game.
- The Escape Capsule - Arthur and Ford have recently escaped
a dangerous situation using an escape capsule which hurled them to a
random point in time and space.
- The Heart of Gold - Zaphod, Trillian, and Marvin escaped
the same situation as Arthur and Ford in a separate capsule but went
to a different place. They have since reaquired their starship, the
Heart of Gold, and used its Infinite Improbability Drive to come
through time and space to find their comrades. Unfortunately, the
Improbabilty Drive wasn't set quite right, and thus it parked the
Heart of Gold "through" the B Ark, damaging the computer core of both
ships in the process.
- Wowbagger's Ship - Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged is on
his usual mission to insult the universe in alphabetical order. His
next target is Arthur Phillip Dent, and thus Wowbagger, having used
the computer systems he developed over millions of years to determine
Arthur's location, has docked his ship with the B Ark.
- The Crickett Ship - The Crickett robots (all Non-Player
Characters) have come here to intercept the Heart of Gold. Their ship
too is parked "through" the B Ark, though safely, since that's a
normal docking method for the robots.
- The Projector - Zarniwhoop, the Chief Editor of
the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, has a simulated universe in his
office, which he uses to be able to research stories by day and still
make it to parties by night. At least, that's as much as anyone else
knows. What Zarniwhoop has really created is a system capable of
projecting him and others through time and space to wherever they want
to be, and then returning them safely (well, safely unless they get
hurt on the other end). His group is here to find Zaphod Beeblebrox
and obtain the Heart of Gold, and to attempt to thwart the mice and
cause the ship to be directed to the Earth to screw up the research
program running there.
Andrew Twyman,
kurgan@mit.edu
Interactive and Non-Linear Narrative,
Spring 1998