I had fun writing the last post about service of process in the Expanse books, and it got me thinking about service of process in fiction generally. Here is a scene from another sci-fi classic, the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Arthur Dent has just learned that the local authorities are going to knock down his house to make way for a bypass. He confronts Mr. Prosser, the representatives of the local authorities, who tells him he should have complained sooner.

Mr. Prosser said, “You were quite entitled to make any suggestions or protests at the appropriate time, you know.”

“Appropriate time?” hooted Arthur. “Appropriate time? The first I knew about it was when a workman arrived at my home yesterday. I asked him if he’d come to clean the windows and he said no, he’d come to demolish the house. He didn’t tell me straight away of course. Oh no. First he wiped a couple of windows and charged me a fiver. Then he told me.”

“But Mr. Dent, the plans have been available in the local planning office for the last nine months.”

“Oh yes, well, as soon as I heard I went straight round to see them, yesterday afternoon. You hadn’t exactly gone out of your way to call attention to them, had you? I mean, like actually telling anybody or anything.”

“But the plans were on display …”

“On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.”

“That’s the display department.”

“With a flashlight.”

“Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.”

“So had the stairs.”

“But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.’”

What goes around comes around, and a little while later, a fleet of spaceships piloted by the Vogons, the galaxy’s officious civil servants and the third worst poets in the universe, arrives to demolish the Earth to make way for a cosmic bypass. The Vogons address humanity using the Earth itself as an epic public address system.

“People of Earth, your attention, please,” a voice said, and it was wonderful. Wonderful perfect quadrophonic sound with distortion levels so low as to make a brave man weep. “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 PA died away.

Uncomprehending terror settled on the watching people of Earth. The terror moved slowly through the gathered crowds as if they were iron filings on a sheet of board and a magnet was moving beneath them. Panic sprouted again, desperate fleeing panic, but there was nowhere to flee to. Observing this, the Vogons turned on their PA again. It said: “There’s no point in acting all surprised about it. All the planning charts and demolition orders have been on display in your local planning department in Alpha Centauri for fifty of your Earth years, so you’ve had plenty of time to lodge any formal complaint and it’s far too late to start making a fuss about it now.” The PA fell silent again and its echo drifted across the land. The huge ships turned slowly in the sky with easy power. On the underside of each a hatchway opened, an empty black square. By this time somebody somewhere must have manned a radio transmitter, located a wavelength and broadcast a message back to the Vogon ships, to plead on behalf of the planet. Nobody ever heard what they said, they only heard the reply. The PA slammed back into life again. The voice was annoyed. It said: “What do you mean, you’ve never been to Alpha Centauri? For heaven’s sake, mankind, it’s only four light-years away, you know. I’m sorry, but if you can’t be bothered to take an interest in local affairs that’s your own lookout.

“Energize the demolition beams.”

Light poured out of the hatchways.

“I don’t know,” said the voice on the PA, “apathetic bloody planet, I’ve no sympathy at all.” It cut off.

There was a terrible ghastly silence.

There was a terrible ghastly noise.

There was a terrible ghastly silence.

The Vogon Constructor Fleet coasted away into the inky starry void.

These scenes illustrate the absurdity of fictitious service and fictitious notice. But it’s easy to see the absurdity when the question is whether a bypass should be built and maybe less easy to see the absurdity when the question is whether someone can be divorced from their missing spouse or when a plaintiff in a commercial case can proceed against a defendant who doesn’t want to be found. Still, there is something comic in saying, with a straight face, that any human being is on notice of something published in the low-circulation paper that prints legal notices, or of plans for a cosmic bypass on file at the Alpha Centauri planning office.

Image Credit: Cory Doctorow (CC BY-SA)