Thursday, February 21, 2013

White Lab Mice



In the HHG "mice are the physical protrusions into our dimension of a race of hyperintelligent pan-dimensional beings who commissioned construction of the Earth to find the Question to the Ultimate Answer of Life, the Universe, and Everything. As such, they are the most intelligent life form on that planet, contrary to what humans think."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_races_and_species_in_The_Hitchhiker's_Guide_to_the_Galaxy#Mic

Frankie and Benjy are the mice that Arthur (et al.) encounter on Magrathea. Frankie and Benjy wish to extract the final readout data from Arthur's brain to get the Ultimate Question. Frankie and Benjy are, after all, part of the pan-dimensional race that created the Earth as a supercomputer successor to Deep Thought in order to find out the question to which the answer was 42.

In the first version, the radio series, they offered Arthur and Trillian a large amount of money if they could tell them what the Question is. In later versions this was changed — unfortunately for Arthur, they claim the only way to do this is to remove his brain and prepare it, apparently by dicing it. They promise to replace it with a simple computer brain, which, suggested Zaphod, would only have to say things like "What?", "I don't understand" and "Where's the tea?". Arthur objects to this ("What?" he says. "See!" says Zaphod), and escapes with the help of his friends. Frankie says:

"I mean, yes idealism, yes the dignity of pure research, yes, the pursuit of truth in all its forms, but there comes a point I'm afraid where you begin to suspect that if there's any real truth it's that the entire multi-dimensional infinity of the Universe is almost certainly being run by a bunch of maniacs; and if it comes to a choice between spending another ten million years finding that out and on the other hand just taking the money and running, I for one could do with the exercise"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minor_characters_from_The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy#Frankie_and_Benjy_Mouse


'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' by Douglas Adams

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