Marvin, the Paranoid Android, is a
fictional character in
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series by
Douglas Adams. Marvin is the ship's
robot aboard the
starship Heart of Gold. Originally built as a failed
prototype of
Sirius Cybernetics Corporation's
GPP (Genuine People Personalities) technology, Marvin is afflicted with severe
depression and
boredom, in part because he has a "brain the size of a planet" which he is seldom, if ever, given the chance to use. Indeed, the true horror of Marvin's existence is that no task he could be given would occupy even the tiniest fraction of his vast intellect. Marvin claims he is 50,000 times more intelligent than a human, (or 30 billion times more intelligent than a live mattress) though this is, if anything, a vast underestimation. When kidnapped by the bellicose
Krikkit robots and tied to the interfaces of their intelligent war computer, Marvin simultaneously manages to plan the entire planet's military strategy, solve "all of the major
mathematical, ,
chemical,
biological,
sociological,
philosophical,
etymological,
meteorological and
psychological problems of the Universe except his own, three times over," and compose a number of
lullabies.