The Vogons are a fictional alien race from the planet Vogsphere in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy—initially a BBC Radio series by Douglas Adams—who are responsible for the destruction of the Earth, in order to facilitate an intergalactic highway construction project for a hyperspace express route. Vogons are slug-like but vaguely humanoid, are bulkier than humans, and have green skin. Vogons are described as "one of the most unpleasant races in the galaxy—not actually evil, but bad-tempered, bureaucratic, officious and callous", and having "as much sex appeal as a road accident" as well as being the authors of "the third-worst poetry in the universe". They are employed as the galactic government's bureaucrats. According to Marvin the Paranoid Android, they are also the worst marksmen in the galaxy. They follow orders as they are told, and do not allow exceptions.
Description
Appearance and personality Guide description:
Here is what to do if you want to get a lift from a Vogon: forget it. They are one of the most unpleasant races in the Galaxy. Not actually evil, but bad-tempered, bureaucratic, officious and callous. They wouldn't even lift a finger to save their own grandmothers from the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal without orders—signed in triplicate, sent in, sent back, queried, lost, found, subjected to public inquiry, lost again, and finally buried in soft peat for three months and recycled as firelighters. The best way to get a drink out of a Vogon is to stick your finger down his throat, and the best way to irritate him is to feed his grandmother to the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal. On no account should you allow a Vogon to read poetry at you. Vogons are roughly human-sized, although much bulkier, with green or grey skin. Their noses are above their eyebrows, which are either ginger (in the television series) or white (in the film). The film's commentary states that the idea behind the high flat noses was that they evolved both the noses and the severe bureaucracy from being repeatedly whacked by the paddle creatures under the sand on Vogsphere whenever they had an independent thought (in the film, the Vogon bureaucracy is centred on Vogsphere). In the radio series it is said that "Their highly domed nose rises above their small piggy forehead". Garth Jennings based the visual portrayal of the Vogons in the 2005 film on the work of cartoonist James Gillray (1756–1815). "His creations were so grotesque...when we looked at them, we realised they were the Vogons".
Origins The series tells that, far back in prehistory, when the first primeval Vogons crawled out of the sea, evolution gave up on them. Through sheer obstinacy, though, the Vogons survived (partly by adapting a misplaced, badly malformed, and dyspeptic liver into a brain). As the radio show says: "What nature refused to give to them, they did without. Until their myriad anatomical deficiencies could be rectified with surgery." They then emigrated en masse to the MeagaBrantis star cluster (although the film has them staying on Vogsphere), the political hub of the galaxy. They banish the ruling philosophers to the tax office to lick stamps and within a few short Voge years took over pretty much all of the galactic civil service, where they form most of the Galactic bureaucracy, most notably in the Vogon Constructor Fleets (which, despite their name, patrol the galaxy demolishing planets). The only named Vogons in the stories are Jeltz (see below), Kwaltz (who appears in the film), Zarniwoop, revealed to be a Vogon in the Quintessential Phase, and Jeltz's son Constant Mown. Two other named Vogon Constructor Fleet captains, Prostetnic Vogons Kutz and Yant, appear in Fit the Fourteenth announcing the demolition of the planets Avaruth and Regulo 7, respectively.
Behaviour Vogons are described as officiously bureaucratic, a line of work at which they perform so well that the entire galactic bureaucracy is run by them. On Vogsphere, the Vogons would sit upon very elegant and beautiful gazelle-like creatures, whose backs would snap instantly if the Vogons tried to ride them. The Vogons were perfectly happy with just sitting on them. Another favourite Vogon pastime is to import millions of beautiful jewel-backed scuttling crabs from their native planet, cut down giant trees of breathtaking beauty, and spend a happy drunken night smashing the crabs to bits with iron mallets and cooking the crab meat by burning the trees. In the movie, the Vogons seem to smash the crabs for no apparent reason besides pure pleasure at killing something. In the film, Ford Prefect additionally tells Arthur Dent following the Guide's Vogon article that Vogons lack the ability of thought or imagination, and some can't even spell. The Vogons' battle-cry, and counter-argument to dissent, is "resistance is useless!" (cf. "Resistance is futile").
Poetry
Vogon poetry is described as "the third worst poetry in the Universe" (behind that of the Azgoths of Kria and that of Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings, the latter of which was destroyed when the Earth was). The main example used in the story is a short piece composed by Jeltz, which roughly emulates nonsense verse in style (example below). The story relates that listening to it is an experience similar to torture, as demonstrated when Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect are forced to listen to the poetry (and say how much they liked it) prior to being thrown out of an airlock.
"Oh freddled gruntbuggly, Thy micturations are to me As plurdled gabbleblotchits on a lurgid bee. Groop, I implore thee, my foonting turlingdromes, And hooptiously drangle me with crinkly bindlewurdles, Or I will rend thee in the gobberwarts With my blurglecruncheon, see if I don't!" A second example of Vogon poetry is found in the Hitchhiker's Guide interactive fiction game that was produced by Infocom; responding to the poetry forms a major part of game play. The first verse is as above; one version of the second verse follows:
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