>>> PUBLICATIONS
>> REFERENCE
> GENUINELY HELPFUL

Among the relatively few genuinely helpful reference books available in the galaxy today, few are held in such high esteem by so wide a band of the population as the So You series produced by the Wedge Defense Press.

The original So You book was written in 2031 by WDF morale officer Derek Bacon, to address a need that was not immediately obvious to those outside the Force - namely, the unusually large number of dimensionally displaced persons arriving on this plane of existence as a result of the interdimensional war that became known as the Rift Conflict. These people were from a fundamentally similar world, but still had to contend with a great deal of culture shock as they accustomed themselves to life in our world.

Seeing a need, Bacon and a team of graphic designers attached to the WDF's Morale Office devised and produced a whimsical yet helpful manual for distribution to the newly arrived displacees.

Fig. A So You Just Arrived from a Parallel Dimension, second edition (2042)

The book was an instant success - but, to the surprise of Bacon and his colleagues, it was a hit not just with its target audience, but with the general public as well. Most regular people thought it was a work of tongue-in-cheek humor, not seriously intended for the orientation of people from a parallel dimension, but both groups found it irresistible. Demand for further titles in the series, covering topics of broader appeal, soon followed.

For the remainder of the WDF's Golden Age, Bacon and the So You team stayed busy developing further titles, some of them serious, others ridiculous, and more than a few both at once. A complete list of the So You series is well beyond the scope of this entry, but here is a selection of those most likely to be of interest (and occasionally practical use) to hitchhikers:

- So You Aren't the Master Race: Coping with the End of Your Civilization's Dreams of Conquest (originally written for the Irken Empire)
- So You Are Falling from a Great Height
- So You Became Unstuck in Time
- So You Come From Australia
- So You Probably Shouldn't Have Eaten That
- So You're Unexpectedly In a War Zone
- So You Don't Want the Creature to Eat You

The fall of the WDF brought the So You operation to a halt, but so beloved (and useful) were the books that, unlike most other WDF-associated publications, most were not destroyed during the period when the Force was out of public favor. In some places they were explicitly exempted from local laws banning WDF-related books, and in others they were hoarded and hidden away by enthusiasts. Over the intervening century, they became treasured collector's items, sometimes even heirlooms, passed down through generations, often in secret.

In the 2380s, with the return of the WDF, demand arose for the So You books to return to print, and then for new editions and whole new titles. Despite his increased responsibilities with the new WDF, Derek Bacon, now a starship captain, obliged. He reformed the So You team and relaunched the series with a brand new edition of the classic So You Escaped the Robot Apocalypse for the WDF's new Colonial allies.

Today, though Bacon is no longer a WDF officer, he continues to oversee the So You department at the Wedge Defense Press, and his byline on all the books he writes for the series remains "Sublieutenant Derek Bacon, Wedge Defense Force".

This Guide entry was written by the English diarist Samuel Pepys (1633-1703), who also contributed to So You Come From Ye 17th Centurie.