The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Borg

Written by Chris Keavy

Author’s Note: Enjoyment of this parody will be greatly enhanced by reading The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. It’s an excellent read— one of the classics.

Music: “Journey of the Sorcerer”

Narrator: It is of course a well-known fact that The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy contains many omissions. Some people have asked how the Guide can contain an omission, since it obviously cannot contain something that isn’t there. Nevertheless, this story is an attempt to fill one of those omissions, concerning an incident that occurred whilst Ford, Arthur, and Zaphod were on the Starship Heart of Gold, but before they actually arrived on the planet Brontitall. This story has never been told before, due to the fact that it happened in the future, and could not be revealed in the present. Since the time frame of that event has now gone by, and it is now in the past, we can reveal the events that transpired.

Zaphod: Okay, computer, where are we?

Eddie: Hi, there! I know this sounds highly improbable, but we seem to be inside another spaceship. In fact, since you ordered me to use maximum improbability to escape the Vogons, we’ve also managed to land right in the middle of their docking bay, at an improbability level of 2 to the power of 5,086,362,826 to 1 against.

Ford: With our luck, we moved backwards ever so slightly and landed in a Vogon ship.

Eddie: No, it’s not the Vogons. This ship’s too neat and tidy.

Arthur: Can we hear what’s going on out there? Are they doing anything about us?

Eddie: Well, I can tap into their in-house communications and listen to the command center.

Zaphod: Do it!

Narrator: Meanwhile, on the Bridge of the Starship Enterprise, an alarm was sounding.

Riker: Data, what’s happening? Worf, hold fire!

Data: A spacecraft has just materialized in our hangar bay.

Wesley: Not the blue box again?!?

Data: No, the ship is shaped differently, and is painted gold.

Riker: Worf, let’s listen to them and find out who they are.

Worf: Sensors on in the hangar bay .

Several seconds of silence follow.

Zaphod: I don’t think anyone’s up there.

Worf: (simultaneous with Zaphod) I don’t think anyone’s down there.

Ford: I just heard something while you were talking.

Wesley: (simultaneous with Ford) I just heard something while you were talking.

Arthur: Everyone quiet and listen.

Riker: (simultaneous with Arthur) Everyone quiet and listen.

Another several seconds of silence, a bit longer than the previous.

Zaphod: Stop monitoring, there’s no one on board that ship.

Riker: (simultaneous with Zaphod) Stop monitoring, there’s no one on board that ship.

Zaphod: Computer, open the hatch, We’re going to have a look around this derelict.

SFX: Communicator badge.

Riker: Riker to Security. Send some people down to the hangar bay had have a look at that derelict.

Locutus: Improbability is irrelevant.

Riker: Who mentioned improbability?

Zaphod: Come on, you guys. I found a lift. Best of all, it doesn’t talk back!

SFX: Turbolift door closes.

Zaphod: Take us to the bridge.

SFX: Lift running.

Arthur: You might as well have said “Take us to the Brig.”

SFX: Lift stops, changes direction.

Ford: Nice going, Arthur.

Zaphod: Take us to the Bridge!

SFX: Lift stops, changes direction again.

Zaphod: Now keep quiet, monkeyman.

SFX: Lift door opens.

Worf: Who are you?

Zaphod: I’m Zaphod Beeblebrox!

Riker: Are you the captain of the ship in our hangar bay?

Zaphod: I’m President of the Galaxy, man! Don’t you watch the subether Tri-D TV?

Riker: The what?

Zaphod: Oh, Zarquon!

Locutus: Prophets are irrelevant.

SFX: Lift door opens.

SFX: Clanking, grinding, dragging noise.

Arthur: Marvin, what are you doing here?

Marvin: I was getting too bored about being depressed on the Heart of Gold, so I decided to be truly miserable about being depressed up here instead.

Ford: Just what we need to cheer us up...

Marvin: I’m not getting you down, am I?

Zaphod: So who’s the dude with the headgear?

Riker: Our captain. He’s been taken over by the Borg.

Arthur: The Borg?

Ford: Let’s look it up in the book.

Shelby: What book?

Ford: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy!

SFX: Book motif.

Book: The Borg is a single mental entity whose sole function in life is to take over any civilization it may stumble across, and turn the beings of that civilization into cyborgs to repair and maintain their ships and computer equipment. If you are reading this entry, you have probably encountered a Borg and want to know what to do next. The best thing to do at this point is to place this copy of the Guide in a safe place, so that it will be of use to whoever may find it in the future, because your hitchhiking days are now over.

Arthur: I’m beginning to hate that book...

Zaphod: They don’t seem like a happy bunch, do they?

Marvin: I’ve tapped into its computer system, and I’m feeling much more depressed now.

Shelby: How can you tap into the Borg computer?

Marvin: I’ve only got a brain the size of a planet, but no one ever wants to make use of it.

Data: Are you saying that you are not being used to your fullest capabilities?

Marvin: It’s the terrible pain in all the diodes down my left-hand side that really makes me miserable.

Arthur: Look, if the Borg are so depressing that they make Marvin seem cheerful, why don’t we show them a really happy computer?

Zaphod and Ford: The ship’s computer!!!

Ford: I’ll go put Eddie on the subether computer link.

SFX: Lift opens and closes.

Zaphod: You know, you’re starting to get the hang of all this.

Arthur: Oh, really?

Zaphod: Yeah. In fact, you’re not a monkeyman anymore. I’m promoting you to apeman.

Arthur: Gee, thanks... I think...

SFX: Lift opens and closes. Ford charges across the hangar bay and into the Heart of Gold.

Ford: (slightly winded) Computer!

Eddie: Hi, there! What can I do for you? Did you know there’s a Borg ship right outside the one we’re in?

Ford: Yeah. Can you link up with the Borg computer? You know, discuss the weather, that sort of thing?

Eddie: Sure thing! No problem!

SFX: Computer noises.

Eddie: Boy, that Borg is a real party pooper.

Ford: Why don’t you show it how to have a really good party, Pan Galactics for all, just everyone being cool and froody?

Eddie: Okay!

SFX: More computer noises.

Narrator: And on the Bridge of the Enterprise...

Riker: You’re saying that you can defeat the Borg by hooking a computer to it?

Zaphod: Trust me, baby. It’s all under control.

Arthur: I think it’s starting to work! Those Borg are drinking Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters.

Worf: The Borg units are having trouble standing up.

Zaphod: Geez, haven’t they ever had a good drink before?

Wesley: Maybe the Borg always considered alcohol to be irrelevant.

Data: Power levels on the Borg ship are fluctuating. It appears that the intoxication of the individual units is now causing feedback into the main system.

Zaphod: Belgium! I never saw a drunk computer before!

Worf: We are being hailed by the Heart of Gold, in the hangar bay.

Riker: On speakers.

Ford: (on PA) Zaphod, Arthur, you’d better get down here. I just picked up a Galactic Police ship on the scanners.

Zaphod: Yeah, right Ford. Come on, apeman. You keep coming up with ideas like that, and I’ll promote you again.

Arthur: (with only a mild trace of extra heavy sarcasm) I hope I’ll be able to handle the excitement...

SFX: Clanking, grinding, dragging noise.

Marvin: I might as well go with you. No point in boring total strangers to death when I can be truly miserable with people I already know instead.

SFX: Lift opens and closes.

SFX: Communicator badge.

Riker: Riker to Crusher. Medical team to the transporter. We’re going to bring the Captain back.

Data: The Heart of Gold has just improbbed out of our hangar bay, and the Police ship is changing course to pursue it.

Music: “Journey of the Sorcerer”

Narrator: “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Borg” was written by Christopher Keavy, based on the universes created by Douglas Adams and Gene Roddenberry. The show was produced by Geoffrey Perkins, and starred Peter Jones as The Book, Simon Jones as Arthur Dent, Geoffrey McGivern as Ford Prefect, Mark Wing-Davey as Zaphod Beeblebrox, Steven Moore as Marvin the Paranoid Android, David Tate as Eddie, the shipboard computer, Jonathan Frakes as Commander Riker, Michael Dorn as Worf, Brent Spiner as Data, Wil Wheaton as Wesley, and some chick we dragged in off the sidewalk outside the studio as Shelby.

Musical arrangements were by Paddy Kingsland, and sound effects by Alick Hale-Munro and his crack team of hardened drinkers at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.

Stay tuned for “The Best of the Worst Vogon Poetry,” coming up next over BBC Radio 4, unless someone comes up with something better within the next five minutes.

Music: “Journey of the Sorcerer”