The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy details many kinds of social gatherings in the many kinds of known species and civilizations. Formal, informal, for business or pleasure, mating, to celebrate, mourn, or depose a tyrannical government; The are far more ways to gather sentient and semi-sentient, non-sentient, and artificial lifeforms than there even are sentient and semi-sentient, non-sentient, and artificial lifeforms. In short, people like to get together.Â
For example, the Decapodian people of Decapod 10 swarm to their home planet during their mating season. The crustacean like creatures enact elaborate courtship rituals on the planet’s beaches, before disappearing underwater for a flurry of carnal indulgences which leads to the fertilization of their eggs. While guaranteeing another generation to come, the mating results in the certain deaths of the Decapodians afterwards.Â
When a single Hitchhiker is slacking on a ratty old sofa in a forgotten starport on the wrong side of the Trifid Nebula, it is called loitering. When two or more Hitchhikers join together to do the same it becomes a Slouch.Â
When they dig through the dark recesses of the sofa for change and possible sources of nutrition, it becomes a Slouch Fund Drive.