Character Dossier: Prostetnic Vogon JeltzCopy Anchor Link

"This is Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz of the Galactic Hyperspace Planning Council," the voice continued. "As you will no doubt be aware, the plans for development of the outlying regions of the Galaxy require the building of a hyperspatial express route through your star system, and regrettably your planet is one of those scheduled for demolition. The process will take slightly less than two of your Earth minutes. Thank you."

— The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Chapter 3

Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz is a senior civil servant of the Galactic Hyperspace Planning Council and the commanding officer of the Vogon Constructor Fleet tasked with clearing Earth to make way for a new hyperspatial express route.

Physical & Psychological ProfileCopy Anchor Link

Even for other Vogons, Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz is not a pleasant sight:

• Anatomy & Deep-Sea Hide: His highly domed nose rises high above a small piggy forehead, and his dark-green rubbery skin is thick enough for him to play the game of Vogon Civil Service politics (and play it well) and waterproof enough for him to survive indefinitely at sea depths of up to a thousand feet with no ill effects—not that his busy schedule ever allows him to go swimming. Like the rest of his species, he owes his form to the primeval morning billions of years ago on Vogsphere under the Vogsol sun when evolution gave up on the Vogons in disgust, leaving them to rectify their grosser anatomical inconveniences with surgery.
• Temperament: A fairly typical Vogon in that he is thoroughly vile, bad-tempered, bureaucratic, officious, and callous—and he particularly does not like hitchhikers. Over the ship's Tannoy, his natural voice sounds like a man trying to gargle whilst fighting off a pack of wolves.
• Artistic Pretensions & True Motive: Composes agonizingly awful Vogon poetry—the third worst poetry in the Universe. While prisoners like Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect tried to flatter him by suggesting he wrote poetry to express the "Vogonity of the poet's compassionate soul", Jeltz coldly corrected them: he does not write poetry because underneath his mean, callous, heartless exterior he really just wants to be loved—he writes poetry to throw his mean, callous, heartless exterior into sharp relief.

The Demolition of Earth & Post-Demolition IrritabilityCopy Anchor Link

Arriving in Earth's ionosphere on a Thursday lunchtime at the helm of several dozen huge yellow Vogon Constructor Ships, Jeltz executed the demolition of Sol III with textbook bureaucratic irritation:

1. The Quadrophonic Broadcast: Activating every hi-fi set, radio, television, cassette recorder, woofer, tweeter, mid-range driver, tin can, dustbin, window, car, wine glass, and sheet of rusty metal on the planet as an acoustically perfect sounding board, Jeltz delivered the official two-minute demolition notice in flawless quadrophonic sound.
2. The Alpha Centauri Reprimand: Observing the desperate, fleeing panic of Earth's population, Jeltz switched the PA back on to scold humanity for acting surprised, pointing out that all the planning charts and demolition orders had been on display in their local planning department in Alpha Centauri for fifty Earth years.
3. Final Verdict on Humanity: When someone on Earth managed to broadcast a radio plea back to the Vogon ships admitting humanity had never been to Alpha Centauri, an annoyed Jeltz retorted that it was "only four light-years away", ordered the demolition beams energized, and signed off in disgust: "I don't know, apathetic bloody planet, I've no sympathy at all."
4. Irritable on the Control Bridge: Heaving his unpleasant green body round the control bridge afterward, Jeltz felt his usual vague irritability after demolishing a populated planet, wishing someone would come and tell him it was all wrong so he could shout at them and feel better. He flopped as heavily as he could onto his control seat hoping it would break and give him something to be genuinely angry about, though it only gave a complaining creak.
5. The Suppressed Damogran Report & The Dentrassi Lunch Tray: When a young Vogon guard entered the bridge, Jeltz bellowed "Go away!"—greatly relieving the guard, who was glad it wouldn't be him delivering the newly arrived official release announcing that a wonderful new form of spaceship drive (the Heart of Gold) was at that moment being unveiled at a government research base on Damogran which would henceforth make all hyperspatial express routes unnecessary. Moments later, when a huge furry Dentrassi bounded through the galley door carrying his lunch tray and grinning like a maniac, Jeltz was delighted—knowing that when a Dentrassi looked that pleased with itself, there was something going on somewhere on the ship (Ford Prefect and Arthur Dent stowed away in the galley quarters) that he could get very angry indeed about.
6. The Tannoy Broadcast & Cancelled Planet Leave: Switching on the ship's Tannoy, Jeltz broadcast a ship-wide announcement (beginning to Arthur's ears as "Howl howl gargle howl gargle howl howl howl gargle howl gargle howl howl gargle gargle howl gargle gargle gargle howl slurrp uuuurgh should have a good time" as the Babel fish took effect). Announcing that ship instruments had detected a couple of hitchhikers aboard, Jeltz declared that he had worked hard to get where he was today and had not become captain of a Vogon constructor ship simply to turn it into a taxi service for a load of degenerate freeloaders; he had dispatched a search party in steel-tipped boots to put them off the ship as soon as they were found ("If you're very lucky I might read you some of my poetry first"). Secondly, he announced that the ship was about to jump into hyperspace for the journey to Barnard's Star, where it would stay in dock for a seventy-two-hour refit with all planet leave cancelled: "I've just had an unhappy love affair, so I don't see why anybody else should have a good time." Prompted by this, Arthur wished he had a daughter so he could forbid her to marry a Vogon—to which Ford replied that he wouldn't need to, as Vogons "have got as much sex appeal as a road accident."

The Bridge Poetry Recitation & Airlock Execution OrderCopy Anchor Link

Once Ford and Arthur were hauled onto the bridge and strapped into Poetry Appreciation Chairs wired to imagery intensifiers, rhythmic modulators, alliterative residulators, and simile dumpers:

1. The Slow Smile & The Recital: Having had a terribly therapeutic yell at his prisoners, Jeltz felt quite relaxed and ready for a little callousness. Smiling very slowly—not so much for effect as because he was trying to remember the sequence of muscle movements—he recited a fetid passage of his own devising ("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!").
2. The Bat-Shaped Seat & The Choice: Throwing himself backwards into a huge leathery bat-shaped seat and doing the slow smile again, Jeltz whirred at the prisoners (unaware and uncaring that Ford was from near Betelgeuse rather than Earth): "Now, Earthlings... I present you with a simple choice! Either die in the vacuum of space, or... tell me how good you thought my poem was!"
3. Reaction to Arthur's Critique: When Arthur brightly replied "Actually I quite liked it", Jeltz raised a surprised eyebrow that effectively obscured his nose (and was therefore no bad thing) and invited him to continue. As Arthur and Ford improvised praise about metaphysical imagery, rhythmic devices that "counterpoint the surrealism of the underlying metaphor of the... Vogonity of the poet's compassionate soul", Jeltz's embittered racial soul was touched for a moment—before he decided no, too little too late.
4. Order to Number Three Airlock: With a voice like a cat snagging brushed nylon, Jeltz trapped them into agreeing that he wrote poetry because underneath his mean, callous, heartless exterior he just wanted to be loved—then stood up, declared them completely wrong ("I just write poetry to throw my mean callous heartless exterior into sharp relief"), and ordered the young Vogon guard to take the prisoners to number three airlock and throw them out. Left alone on the bridge after the steel door closed, Jeltz hummed quietly, lightly fingered his notebook of verses, mused "Hmmm, counterpoint the surrealism of the underlying metaphor...", and closed the book with a grim smile: "Death's too good for them."