for each new adaptation. Throughout all versions, the series follows the adventures of Arthur Dent, a hapless Englishman, following the destruction of the Earth by the Vogons (a race of unpleasant and bureaucratic aliens) to make way for an intergalactic bypass. Dent's adventures intersect with several other characters: Ford Prefect (an alien and researcher for the eponymous guidebook who rescues Dent from Earth's destruction), Zaphod Beeblebrox (Ford's eccentric semi-cousin and the Galactic President who has stolen the Heart of Gold, a spacecraft equipped with Infinite Improbability Drive), the depressed robot Marvin the Paranoid Android, and Trillian (formerly known as Tricia McMillan) who is a woman Arthur once met at a party in Islington and who—thanks to Beeblebrox's intervention—is the only other human survivor of Earth's destruction. In their travels, Arthur comes to learn that the Earth was actually a giant supercomputer, created by another supercomputer, Deep Thought. Deep Thought had been built by its creators to give the answer to the "Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything", which, after eons of calculations, was given simply as "42". Deep Thought was then instructed to design the Earth supercomputer to determine what the Question actually is. The Earth was subsequently destroyed by the Vogons moments before its calculations were completed, and Arthur becomes the target of the descendants of the Deep Thought creators, believing his mind must hold the Question. With his friends' help, Arthur escapes and they decide to have lunch at The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, before embarking on further adventures. Background The original, first radio series comes from a proposal called "The Ends of the Earth": six self-contained episodes, all ending with Earth being destroyed in a different way. While writing the first episode, Adams realised that he needed someone on the planet who was an alien to provide some context, and that this alien needed a reason to be there. Adams finally settled on making the alien a roving researcher for a "wholly remarkable book" named The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. As the first radio episode's writing progressed, the Guide became the centre of his story, and he decided to focus the series on it, with the destruction of Earth being the only hold-over. Adams claimed that the title came from a 1971 incident while he was hitchhiking around Europe as a young man with a copy of the Hitch-hiker's Guide to