Jaglan Beta
A world in the Western Spiral Arm famed in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy for its cold moons—across which hitchhikers bound while wrapping a towel around themselves for warmth—as well as the Great Fornicate and the Lesser Fornicate.
Guide Entry: Jaglan Beta
"A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value — you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta..."
— The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Chapter 3
Jaglan Beta is a pleasant, slightly embarrassed archipelago world in the Western Spiral Arm whose lunar system is famous across the Galaxy for two reasons: the sub-zero temperatures of its low-gravity cold moons, and the spectacular lack of tact with which its primary satellites were named.
Bounding Across the Cold Moons
In Chapter 3 of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the cold moons of Jaglan Beta are cited as the very first practical demonstration of why an interstellar hitchhiker must always carry a Massively Useful Towel:
- Low-Gravity Bounding: Because the moons possess only a fraction of standard planetary gravity, travelers can bound effortlessly across their frosted craters and methane-ice ridges in thirty-foot leaps.
- Thermal Protection: Exposed to the chill of deep space, hitchhikers wrap their towels tightly around their shoulders for warmth while bounding between lunar shuttle pads.
The Great Fornicate
The Great Fornicate is the larger moon, a pale gold satellite on an orbit so unhurried that local weekends are measured by how long it takes to clear the horizon. It dominates the evening sky with the air of a guest who has arrived far too early and has decided to make this everyone else's problem. Navigators value it because it is impossible to miss. Poets value it because it is impossible to explain.
The Lesser Fornicate
The Lesser Fornicate is smaller, quicker, and fractionally more apologetic. It skims the upper air on a tight orbit, slips behind its larger companion whenever company arrives, and is generally agreed to be the better moon for finding one's way home. The Guide notes, with its usual clinical calm, that "lesser" here refers only to diameter.
Editorial Note
The inhabitants of Jaglan Beta have repeatedly petitioned Megadodo Publications to print the moons under polite pseudonyms. The editorial board has declined. The names are ancient, they are accurate, and they are already stamped in large friendly letters on every inbound customs form.
Fallia
A warm, lush wetland planet covered in aromatic moss calderas and misty bogs. Celebrated throughout the cosmos as the home of Fallian marsh gas and the fatal pleasure marshes.
Kakrafoon
A harsh, arid world of blistering red deserts and thirty-mile-high dust storms. Famous for its telepathic Belcerebon natives, and as the historic staging ground for Disaster Area's cataclysmic, world-altering plutonium rock concert.