The Gig at the End of the Universe

The universe is dying, and your drinks bill is getting larger by the minute. You’re here to talk to Hotblack Desiato about his next gig. Pity he’s dead - ’cause if he wasn’t you could give FREDDIE, the Sirius Cybernetics Corp’s Electronic Medium, the reprogramming it so thoroughly deserves.

A comedic scenario about the problems of life after death, the end of the universe, and exceptionally loud music.

Genre/Influences: Bill & Ted, Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy

Warnings: Expect upbeat silliness in line with the above Genre notices. A basic familiarity with Hitchhiker's and Bill & Ted will enhance your enjoyment of this game.

Character and scenario summary

The Universe:

This scenario is set in a bar in the far, far future.

The Situation:

You are in the bar at Milliways, having drinks around a private table while Zaphod brings an android called FREDDIE online. There is a book called “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Abridged Edn.)” on the table with the words “DON’T PANIC” written in large friendly letters on the cover. Feel free to consult the excerpts from the book.

Character summary:

NB: The letters in parentheses above indicate the perceived gender of each character in this game. (N) Indicates the player may choose the character's perceived gender.

Note: Someone in the group is unusually perceptive. In the unlikely event that any character lies then they must indicate this in an out-of-character manner by obviously holding up a hand with crossed fingers while lying. Most players should ignore this, and treat the statement normally.

Excerpts from the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (Abridged Edn.):

  • Reecian Solitaire. Designed by a particularly long lived, and sensitive race who couldn’t stand the idea of losing. If after spending a week playing out your hand it turns out you don’t have a winning arrangement, (or earlier if you wish) you can declare the hand ‘looped’, and start again with a new hand.
    Popularly rated the most pointless game in the galaxy, narrowly beating Cricket, Reecian Solitaire would no doubt have remained a local obscurity if it were not for its unexpected applicability to the area of Applied Necronomics.
  • Applied Necronomics: It is a well known fact that many races associate near death experiences with the image of ‘Defeating Death’. Most sociologists attributed this entirely metaphorically until one day, while sweeping up after a particularly unsuccessful party, one sociologist wondered whether there was a more fundamental truth here. Possibly a dying person might be able to self-revive if they knew Reecian Solitaire, simply by choosing it when challenged by Death. The implications here were astounding – perhaps this held the secret of immortality itself.
    However these hopes were dashed when immortality was declared uneconomic, and these days it is used as a way for the hyper-rich to avoiding paying taxes, by spending some time dead, and then reviving yourself once the tax liabilities had lapsed.
  • Electronic mediums: Created by the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation these devices are designed to communicate with those hovering on the boundaries of death. They do this by dying themselves, talking to the deceased in the afterlife, and then returning to tell the tale.
    The problem of how to create a thinking being which would both enthusiastically assist, and voluntarily enter the afterlife was solved by two things. Firstly by creating an electronic GPP brain which experiences ‘Rapid oscillation bipolar disorder’, and secondly by giving that brain the memory of your average goldfish.
    All Electronic mediums go by the name of ‘FREDDIE’ (Frequently Reincarnating Electronic Deceased Dialogue Interface Equipment.) Any embarrassment this might cause in those encountering more than one electronic medium is entirely mitigated by the fact that they wouldn’t have remembered meeting you anyway.
  • Milliways: Better known as the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, is a five star restaurant situated at the end of time and matter. Built on the fragmented remains of an eventually ruined planet which is enclosed in a vast time bubble and projected forward in time to the precise moment of the End of the Universe. The time bubble will keep Milliways intact while the universe collapses, and then return back through time after the show. Many say this is impossible.
    Milliways has the motto "If you've done six impossible things this morning, why not round it off with breakfast at Milliways, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe."
  • Disaster Area: This plutonium rock band is generally regarded as not only the loudest rock band in the galaxy, but also as being the loudest noise of any kind at all. Their songs are on the whole very simple and mostly follow the familiar theme of “Boy-being meets girl-being beneath silvery moon, which then explodes for no adequately explored reason.”
    Disaster area is fronted by Hotblack Desiato, and the band’s earnings have been pushing back the boundaries of hypermathematics for some time.
  • The BeneHillians: A secretive religious order dedicated to finding the one who was prophesied, who will spread peace and harmony throughout the galaxy, by allowing all people to see the funny side of things.

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