[Ranma][H2G2]Another Side, Another Story (Teaser)

[RyderHakubi]

Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy: Another Side, Another Story
A pathetic Ranma 1/2 Crossover
By: Ryder Angel Hakubi

-Teaser-

It is an important and popular fact that things are not always what they seem.  For instance, it had seemed, up until a monumental discovery for those that actually followed the brief existence of a dirtball orbiting a small yellow sun on the outreaches of space, that the entire human race had been rendered completely extinct save 2 individuals.  Even The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, that wholly remarkable book from the publishing houses of Ursa Minor, had been in most people's minds, fooled.  This is a completely different thought process to the editors of the Guide, who consistently state that the Guide is always correct and that reality is wrong, but the people that were supposed to listen to them and in essence kiss their ass happened to be out to lunch at the printing of this report.  Nonetheless, this has become a digression that could have been avoided had reality just been correct in the first place.

However, it has come to the attention of those that actually read about small dirtballs in far off galaxies that the previous report about there being only 2 human beings alive in the galaxy was perceived as false.  To most beings, neither the fact that there were more that two people that survived the destruction of Earth and the fact that there are nerds out there that actually care about the affairs of Earth matter much.  To the interstellar nerds of Avi-Eadyu XII, both of these facts were quite important to them as they detailed both their existence and their life's purpose.

The XIIs (as all beings from the Avi-Eadyu system were known by the Roman numeral that was attached to the planet by somebody whose name is lost in history much like the Krioth Metal Metalizer and the Virtual Boy) were an interesting race, as they were fat, disgusting green blobs that moved slowly and attracted undue wedgies and wet willies from the nearby interstellar jocks of Avi-Eadyu VIII.  The reason for the lack of evolution in the XII's was simple: they were the 2nd nerdiest beings in the universe.  They had had the unlucky, though it was quite fortuitous in their eyes, fault of being the only race in the galaxy to see the complete collections of Star Wars, Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, Babylon 5, Firefly, Sliders, Stargate: SG1, and Scooby Doo, but nobody really watches the latter unless they've had one too many Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters.

These beings worshipped the strange programs that were sent from the sky and projected onto their rocks.  Through the adventures of Kirk, Luke, and Shaggy, the XIIs began to think that perhaps there was something to that big space thingy outside of sparkling little lights.  That was, of course, a problem as they had spent so much time in front of their TV rocks that the process of evolution had left them much like a human female would leave a drunken bum.  However, as the Holy Trinity of K, L, and S had taught them how to eat, drink, sleep, play baseball, change a lightbulb, cook simple dinners, build lightsabers, and make cool robots like the ones Earthlings see on TV, then they could easily make spaceships.  This was on the agenda 2nd, meaning they would get to it after they learned to use the restroom, which was one thing the magic rock did not bother to tell them and they really needed to use the restroom after many many years of nothing but nachos and diet colas Kasumi's Rock had told them how to prepare.

The XIIs, after learning to travel in space, commonly visited the Earth costumed as the great Jabba the Hut.

The news of Earth's destruction by the Vogons to make room for a new hyperspacial express route hit the XIIs very hard.  Not because nearly 6,000,000,000 people were killed in the tragedy, but because they had been planning for the release of Episode III for the last 3 years and were already planning the planet-wide festivities for this divine moment.  After the 6 month mourning, and then the 4 year vigils, and lastly the 5 year Mission: Search for New Hope, the XIIs had finally regained control of their feeble lives in the world of reruns.

Their lives were shattered, quite literally, when the news of there being more humans alive had reached their planet.  After making sure Kirk still died at the end of Star Trek: Generations, the XIIs rushed in unison to their spaceport to spread the news across the galaxy to the few that cared.  But, in an ironic twist, the radio waves that had broadcasted the Earth sci-fi programs had also warped the ground beneath the spaceport into a thin glass, which shattered itself with the weight of the entire XII race and they all plunged into a horrible, firey death in the fires of Mt. Velma.

This does prove 2 points:  #1 is that you should always check the ground before stepping onto a spaceport.  Lord knows what some beings may have left behind anyway.  #2 is that the universe works in irony.  For another example, one should note that the nerdiest beings in the known universe were of course, human beings, of which now there were confirmed 3.

This discovery, when it was finally discovered in the ashes of the planet Avi-Eadyu XII, told of an extraordinary being that against all probability and violent acts towards Murphy's Laws, that had survived the Earth's destruction.

His name was Ranma Saotome.

Author's Note: After several months of sitting on my HD, I have decided to make this piece public.  I've got ideas to start, but I wanted to see if anyone was like my interstellar nerds and cared too much... Then again, releasing this may not be a good idea.  People just now finally stopped bugging me about OMS.  Crap, shouldn't have mentioned that, should I?

Oh, and yes, the title sucks.  Suggestions are welcome, encourage, and if I have to, I'll beg for them.

[KLSymph]

Oh, and yes, the title sucks. Suggestions are welcome, encourage, and if I have to, I'll beg for them.

Given that I have only this small teaser to run with, and therefore know little about your overall story plans, I would imagine that a good story title for the story that one might expect would follow from the teaser would involve something that refers to Ranma's character (specific to the story), the (very general) circumstances of his survival, and the overarching themes of the story.

Luckily, I know pretty much nil about any of those three things, so I can make whatever the heck I want up.

Let's see... title must be sufficiently catchy, not require immediate explanation, maybe similar in structure to the HHG titles (or not), and focusing on the "extraordinary being that against all probability and violent acts towards Murphy's Laws" would probably be a safe bet from the humor front. Running with "probability" as a starting point, we can look up probability terms on Wikipedia or something and mine for a witty term that fits (but something often heard and not too obscurely mathy, since we don't want the title to sound too nerdy... or do we?).

Tentative list of terms:
gambling
dice, roulette
uncertainty
random
almost surely
mutually exclusive
odds
probability interpretations
normal distribution
law of large numbers, law of small numbers, law of averages
reliability

My favorites are the ones that refer to specific, well-known probability concepts but have regular everyday meanings like "normal" and "law of averages". Especially given the tone of the teaser and HHG, which is satirically formal when talking about that sort of thing, and enjoys wordplay. Of course, there's much to be said about the phrase "almost surely", which just sounds so HHG (and reminds me of another term, "probably approximately correct", though that AI term is a bit unweildly for a title).

Given these terms, and my personal opinions on witti- and catchyness, and taking into accound the structure of "HGttG:" titles, I would tentatively suggest:
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Almost Surely Normal
Referring to Ranma, you could switch "Normal" for a negative form like "Unnormal" and really the statement would still be equally true.

Thinking up this title took me... one hour. I think that should qualify me for being like the interstellar nerds, caring too much.

The XIIs, after learning to travel in space, commonly visited the Earth costumed as the great Jabba the Hut.

That's "Hutt" with two 't's. Just to, you know, cement the nerd thing >_>. Unless, of course, you're referring to something else. Hey, for all I know.

Now that you're done reading all of the above, I'd like to inform you that I've never been able to think up a good title even if my dignity and/or paycheck depended on it.