The Silver River lute). The story is based on a 4,000-year-old Chinese folktale about the creation of Night and Day, a story of star-crossed lovers. "The Silver River" is the Chinese name for what is known in the West as the "Milky Way", the galaxy of the solar system. In Chinese tradition, the Silver River bathed heaven and earth in constant light and connected both realms, allowing earthly and celestial creatures to meet. The Jade Emperor, Lord of Heaven, dreams of a chaos that plunges heaven and earth into darkness. His nightmare comes true when the mortal Cowherd (also known as Buffalo Boy
Places in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy the "Guide" has supplanted the "Encyclopedia Galactica" among its more relaxed civilisations, and where in Arthur Dent heads for where "wisdom and truth were to be found" and goes to Hawalius. In the radio series, the Western Spiral Arm of the Galaxy reports that 'the wheel is economically unviable', and in the "uncharted backwaters of [its] unfashionable end", the 'planet' Earth is found. Galactic Sector ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha is a galactic sector containing Earth, Barnard's Star, and probably other nearby systems. The "Plural" designation may indicate probability problems; after Fenchurch disappeared during a hyperspace jump, it was pointed out