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To me, 'Whale Fall' makes think of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, when the Heart of Gold invokes it's infinite improbability drive to avoid incoming missiles and said missiles turn into a pot of Petunias and a Whale, with both then falling towards the nearby planet at high speed[1].

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[1] 'I wonder if it [the planet] will be friends with me?', thought the Whale.




"Oh no, not again!" To this day, I still wonder why the bowl of petunias thought that


Because Arthur Dent keeps killing Agrajag over and over again and he reincarnates into various people and creatures that then are killed by Arthur. The pot of petunias is one such reincarnation.

The entire character arc is basically Douglas Adams taking out his frustration with Jaguar drivers in traffic.


> I still wonder why the bowl of petunias thought that

It’s covered in the third book! (Life, the Universe, and Everything)


It is an incredible set of books. You can return to it years later and find jokes and references that you missed in first... few hundred readings (don't judge me :) ).


Wasn't there was a film where a sentient missile refuses to explode as it wants to live?


In Dark Star a sentient bomb gets stuck in the drop mechanism. One of the crew teaches it existentialism in an attempt to stop it detonating, but then it comes to believe its the only being in the universe and decided “Let there be light”.


While the sibling comment correctly points out Dark Star as the movie, I'd also like to point out Starship Titanic - Douglas Adams was involved in the game, based on a throwaway line from one of the Hitchhiker novels. Terry Jones novelized the game. Both include a talking bomb where the plot involves distracting the bomb until it looses track and has to start counting down all over again.




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