his soundproof suite at the Imperial Palace Hotel - No, I don't know why I have a predilection for naming fictional grand hotels this. I just do. There is an Imperial Hotel in the real Tokyo, and it's right near the actual Imperial Palace, but the TIA one isn't meant to be that hotel. It's in the wrong place, if nothing else.

The "soundproof suite" reference is a nod to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

The singer sounds a little like Joan Jett - She doesn't really, but the BGC2040 version looks like Joan Jett, so that's probably what was in my head.

execute playlist 7AC - This is a reference to, of all things, the Aeronca 7AC Champion, a vintage light aircraft which is dear to my heart.

the Takamori Bypass Tunnel - Of course, in 2006 "Takamori" was just a sequence of Japanese syllables I put together at random for a fictional place name. Today I would probably use it as the name of a ship. Winky face!

"Selected," the gun replied - Who else here is old enough to remember the video game Syndicate?

retired to his own private asteroid - Linna is exaggerating, but only slightly. The tech isn't there yet for the megarich of TIA's setting to live on privately owned asteroids, but a fair few of them do live aboard orbital habitats like the oft-mentioned but never-yet-seen Genaros Station.

the Second Great Kanto Earthquake of 2025 - The First, so-called, was in 1923, although it was far from the first major earthquake to strike the Kanto region in recorded history, since the Sagami megathrust fault is just offshore. The idea of another great quake striking roughly a century after the first isn't entirely fanciful; as it happens, the Japanese government recently issued a megaquake warning for another offshore megathrust, the Nankai, which is connected to the Sagami and lies some way to the southwest.

Neo-Tokyo or Mega Tokyo? - "Neo-Tokyo" is the name of the city in Katsuhiro Otomo's famous manga Akira, where it is similarly portrayed as an out-of-the-ashes rebirth of a Tokyo devastated by disaster (in Akira's case, not natural).

Chili's, Akihabara - I don't know whether there really is a Chili's in Akihabara, though I tend to doubt it. If I were writing this scene today, I'd be tempted to have them camping out instead at the Akihabara Mister Donut.

"I hate you, Milkman Dan" - Another of the great mysteries is how Linna ever encountered the 1990s-vintage American web comic Red Meat, but apparently she did.

lighting up the hibachi in the middle of a little forest of teriyaki beef skewers - I miss these things. Nobody around here has them any more.

the 31st century's all-consuming warfare -

the "40 Years of BattleTech" special event... in 2024 - Oh hey.

Three hundred SL. Nineteen fifty-seven, I think - '57 was the last year of the 300SL coupé with its famous gull-wing doors; Mercedes-Benz kept making the model for a few more years after that, but only as a roadster. As an aside, such a car in good condition would be worth more than 1.5 million US dollars today, let alone in 2032. This was not something the designers of Bubblegum Crisis probably anticipated when they gave Sylia one in the 1980s, but there it is.

(Hers is modified with a fancy spy-car-style computer/comm system in the center stack, too, which would make purists blanch. Maybe it is supposed to be a replica...)

a large, dark blur suddenly shot past her - Sandevistan! It's not just for breakfast any more.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Sometimes you hit upon a name that just clicks as "right" to some part of your brain. When playing wizards and such, I have to actively work to avoid naming a particular kind of familiar "Quoth". (Yes, I know, I groaned when I first encountered it as PTerry's name for the mount of the Death of Rats.)

In the "Blues Brothers" their big performance is in the "Palace Hotel Ballroom". Maybe influence from that?

-VR
"And we would especially like to welcome all the representatives of Illinois's^H^H^H^H^H^H Mega Tokyo's law enforcement community that have chosen to join us here in the Imperial Palace Hotel Ballroom at this time."
"They copied all they could follow, but they couldn't copy my mind,
And I left 'em sweating and stealing a year and a half behind."

... Or not, since it's going out of business at the end of the month. :/

--G.
bau bau indeed
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.