The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy President; the depressed robot Marvin the Paranoid Android; and Trillian, formerly known as Tricia McMillan, a woman Arthur once met at a party in Islington and the only other human survivor of Earth's destruction thanks to Beeblebrox' intervention. The first radio series comes from a proposal called "The Ends of the Earth": six self-contained episodes, all ending with Earth's being destroyed in a different way. While writing the first episode, Adams realized that he needed someone on the planet who was an alien to provide some context, and that this alien needed a reason to be there. Adams finally settled
Places in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy member of the Alpha Centauri system. The first novel points out that it is four light years from Earth's solar system to Alpha Proxima, whilst Damogran is five hundred thousand light years away. The Altairian dollar is one of three freely convertible currencies in the galaxy, though by the time of the novels it had apparently recently collapsed. The "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" advertises itself as the best resource for those who wish "to see the galaxy for less than thirty Altairian dollars a day". According to the Hitchhiker's Guide TV series, one Altairian "long way" is equal to