Death to All Humans! Quiz | Adams, Douglas

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. 'The Hitch-Hikers' Guide to the Galaxy' begins with Arthur discovering that the world is about to end. Sure enough, the Vogons appear in their spaceship and blow up the planet, though Arthur and Ford Prefect are saved in the nick of time by the Vogons' Dentrassi cooks. Why do the Vogons want to destroy Earth?

Answer: To make room for an intergalactic bypass

The Vogons are a bureaucratic race of hideous grey-green aliens from the planet Vogsphere. According to the Guide, the ideal way to annoy a Vogon is to feed his grandmother to the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal, and as Arthur and Ford find out the hard way, Vogon poetry is horrible to the point of being torturous. They are obsessed with red tape to the point where, when the people of Earth panic about the imminent destruction of their planet, the Vogons reply that the planning charts had been on Alpha Centauri for fifty years!

The Dentrassis are another alien race enslaved by the Vogons to act as their catering staff. Ford explains that they picked him and Arthur up specifically to annoy their employers.

2. On board the Vogon ship, Ford puts a small yellow fish, the Babel Fish, in Arthur's ear. What ability does the Babel Fish give Arthur?

Answer: The ability to understand every language in the universe

The Babel Fish is a little yellow fish that automatically translates any language that the user hears, by means of a telepathic matrix which it feeds into the user's mind. The Guide states that, like the tower after which it was named, it has caused much chaos. Ford has one of his own, and has to shove the Babel Fish into Arthur's ear so that Arthur can understand the announcement the Vogons are making over their tannoy system. (Incidentally, there is a web translator named after the fish, and a fun game to play is to use it to translate song lyrics into various languages and back again.)

3. Arthur is surprised to discover that Ford Prefect is not from Guildford, as he had previously believed. He is, in fact, from a small planet in the vicinity of a star in the constellation of Orion. Which one?

Answer: Betelgeuse

Ford's real name is unpronounceable, as the dialect which it comes from no longer exists. Even he himself cannot pronounce it, which caused his father to die of shame.

Before the world was demolished by the Vogons, Ford masqueraded as an out-of-work actor. Because of his background, he does not understand sarcasm, or Earth people's need to state the obvious (he theorises they do this to keep their mouths working).

4. In 'The Restaurant at the End of the Universe', the government decides to punish Zaphod for desertion by transporting him to the world of Frogstar, and feeding him to the Total Perspective Vortex. When on Frogstar, he encounters a (literally) disembodied voice who introduces himself as the Custodian of the Total Perspective Vortex. Who is the owner of the disembodied voice?

Answer: Gargravarr

Gargravarr's voice and body are undergoing trial separation, due to their inability to get along with each other. He accompanies Zaphod to the Total Perspective Vortex, and is amazed when Zaphod - thanks to his massive ego - emerges unscathed. The Total Perspective Vortex sends its victims mad by showing them the entire universe, including a tiny, tiny dot saying 'you are here'.

As for the other characters, Yooden Vranx is the former President of the Universe. Roosta is a fellow hitch-hiker and a friend of Ford Prefect, who Zaphod meets on the way to Frogstar, and Zarniwoop is involved in a conspiracy with Zaphod and others to discover the real ruler of the universe.

5. Here's a tricky one, as it's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment. When Arthur, Ford, Zaphod and Trillian are at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, they watch the show that customarily takes place whenever the universe is about to end. One of the groups also watching the show is a group of Young Conservatives from Sirius B. They're animals found on Earth, but what kind of animals are they? (Hint: what is Sirius' nickname?)

Answer: Dogs

Sirius, also known as the Dog Star, is the home of the Young Conservatives, who are busy throwing food at each other and barking. Max Quordlepleen, the master of ceremonies, tells them that 'this is all their fault'. Other parties at the Restaurant include a group of Norse gods, and some devoted followers of the prophet Zarquon, who makes an appearance just as the universe is about to end.

6. Arthur and Ford narrowly escape death once again by teleporting onto a spaceship, which is revealed to contain one-third of the population of the planet Golgafrincham. Specifically, it's the 'B Ark' containing the 'middlemen' of the population - such as hairdressers and telephone sanitisers - who left the planet after hearing that it was in danger. How did the rest of the population of Golgafrincham die?

Answer: A disease caused by a dirty telephone

The Golgafrinchans in charge of the B Ark disagree as to what caused them to flee their planet. The first officer thinks that the planet was about to be attacked by piranha bees, while the fanatical Number Two insists that the planet was under threat from a monstrous mutant star goat. The reality is that the other two-thirds of the population - the leaders and intellectuals, who were supposed to board the A Ark, and the workers, who were supposed to board the C Ark - just wanted to get rid of them.

The Golgafrinchans later colonise Earth, where they fail to invent fire due to having too many unnecessary meetings. Arthur discovers, to his horror, that they are his real ancestors.

7. In the first chapter of 'Life, the Universe and Everything', Arthur is insulted by a tall, greenish-grey alien known as Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged. Wowbagger became immortal by accident, but grows so fed up with immortality and having endless time on his hands that he decides to insult every single person in the universe in alphabetical order. Does Arthur meet Wowbagger again at the end of the book?

Answer: Yes

Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged is the first person to insult Arthur in four years. He calls Arthur a jerk, and then flies off to call a slug named A-Rth-Urp-Hil-Ipdenu a 'brainless prat'. He later appears at Lord's Cricket Ground to call Arthur Philip Deodat, a random bystander who is dying from a robot attack, a 'no-good dumbo nothing'.

At the end of 'Life, the Universe and Everything', Wowbagger is about to insult Arthur again when he realises he's already done him.

8. Marvin the Paranoid Android is in the swampy world of Squornshellous Zeta when a horde of robots appear and steal his leg. Which friendly (albeit stupid), sentient items of bedding, one of whom has a conversation with Marvin, inhabit the swamps of Squornshellous Zeta and are all called Zem?

Answer: Mattresses

In 'The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy', when Ford sits on a dead mattress on the Vogon ship, there is an aside explaining that mattresses from Squornshellous Zeta are harvested, and then dried out for personal use. However, it is not until 'Life, the Universe and Everything' that we actually get to meet a live one, when it notices Marvin wandering around the swamps. It tries to make conversation with Marvin, and Marvin tells it about how he attended a bridge opening, and gave a speech so depressing the bridge collapsed.

9. While he is with Ford and Slartibartfast in the bistro, Arthur is separated from them when he is teleported into a dark and frightening place. He eventually encounters a bat-like creature called Agrajag, who has a considerable bone to pick with him. It turns out that Agrajag has been reincarnated several times, and each time, he has been killed by Arthur in some way. Which of these creatures was NOT one of Agrajag's reincarnations?

Answer: A whale

There is some foreshadowing in 'The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy' when the bowl of petunias thinks, "Oh no, not again," before smashing into the ground. The rabbit whose skin was made into a pouch by Arthur turns out to have been Agrajag, as does the old man who died of a heart attack at Lord's. Agrajag has also been a fly that was killed by Arthur, and a newt that Arthur trod on.

Spoilers for 'Mostly Harmless': Agrajag talks about getting shot on Stavromula Beta by a bullet meant for Arthur, and Arthur is confused. It is revealed in 'Mostly Harmless' that Agrajag means a club called Beta, whose owner is named Stavro Mueller.

10. Which race of humanoids, with a penchant for singing catchy songs and waging wars, are the main antagonists of 'Life, The Universe and Everything'?

Answer: Krikkiters

The people of Krikkit were unaware of the universe until the supercomputer Hactar manipulated them into building a spaceship. Upon discovering that the universe exists, they decided to destroy it, and spend the next two millenniums waging bloody wars with 'grillions' of casualties. After Krikkit's defeat, the entire planet is sealed inside the Slo-Time Envelope, and the Wikkit Key needed to open was destroyed. However, a ship of Krikkit battle robots manages to escape, and the robots plan to assemble a new Wikkit Key in order to open the Slo-Time Envelope. As the name suggests, it resembles a wicket, and consists of three stumps (Marvin's leg, the Ashes, and the Argabuthon Sceptre of Justice) and two bails (an award for 'Most Gratuitous Use of the Word '(Censored)' in a Screenplay', and the heart of the Improbability Drive).

Apart from the whole bit about wanting to destroy the universe, the people of Krikkit are a genial, whimsical bunch who like to sing songs that would enable Paul McCartney (had he written them) to buy entire countries. When the main party encounter the Krikkiters, Trillian manages to talk them out of waging another war, and Arthur decapitates the last robot with a cricket bat. At the end of the book, Arthur settles on Krikkit.

Source: Author Kankurette

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor agony before going online.
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Death to All Humans! Trivia Quiz

Sounds like the sort of thing a Vogon would say, doesn't it? Arthur Dent's first alien encounter is with the Vogons, and it doesn't end there. This quiz covers some of the weird and wonderful aliens Arthur and co encounter in the first three books.

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