[249] I used to work in a network ops center where all the monitors were enclosed in fancy mission-control-style cabinet things with polarized glass windows. They cut down on glare a lot? Except that everybody else who worked there was a screen toucher. People would point things out on the big network map screen, or a particular line item in the trouble ticket display, and they'd poke the glass in the process. I'd get in for work on the night shift and have to spend five or six minutes just Windexing the finger marks off of all the screens, because otherwise it would drive me crazy all night. Having something like this happen is probably the quarian equivalent.

[280] My favorite line from the original Crow comic series. I had to.

[289] Like I'm-trying-to-give-up-smoking gum, except with more amphetamines.

[364] Somewhat less effective precursor to Miraculon.

[405] "Vladof! You don't need to be a better shot, you just need to shoot more bullets!"

[475] Carl Sagan, albeit the fictional Carl Sagan in Atomic Robo and the Shadow from Beyond Time.

[503] Mordin is making ironic reference to the NewU® line of cosmetic gene mods by Crey Biotech (A Wholly Owned Subsidiary of GENOM Corp.), which were sold out of shopping mall boutiques and whose iconic advertising campaign, still in full swing when Mordin and the other colonists left Known Space, exhorted pseudo-rebellious teens to adopt a hair color or skin pattern that their parents wouldn't like under the slogan NewU: Because It's Your Genome.

[535] To be honest, he wouldn't have been all that sanguine about taking himself into space with nothing but vacuum outside his visor, either.

[682] Not the first time I've referenced one of my very favorite Dragnet 1967 lines, "Flinch and you'll be chasing your head down Fifth Street," uttered by a very ticked-off Joe Friday from behind a shotgun.

[733] This sort of developed all at once; I originally introduced Millandra as an entirely original character, but as the story went on, I began to realize, more than decide, that she was really Miranda Lawson in disguise. Her backstory just fell together at that point (more on this later), and away we went. Also, it gave Gryphon the vector for this great moment of... sort of cosmic indignation. He's put up with a lot of crap from the universe, but this, as Winston Churchill said, is the sort of nonsense up with which he shall not put.

[797] Probably the best - certainly my favorite - invocation of Chandler's Law I've ever done.

I think it's awesome that Vito's a mug-flinger. Nothing can concentrate, into a single gesture of disapproval, all of the frustration and temple-throbbing disappointment in one's underlings quite as succinctly as a coffee mug to the head.

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Outstanding. Now all we need is Jack, Garrus Vakarian, and a bar, and the effect will be complete.

-- Slider Da Feral

Yes.

What exactly was Zaeed doing that made him nearly blow himself up?

-- Slider Da Feral

However, I was remiss in not actually depicting what those signs look like - although, with the possible exception of the repair one, you've seen them before if you've spent any time traveling on an American Interstate highway.

And yes, if you're thinking that these are extremely anchronistic, you are correct! But then, they are today. When was the last time you saw a gas pump that looked like that? And yet they're still shown that way on the signs, and everyone knows what they're supposed to be; the icon has been around for so long that it's transcended its original meaning and simply become an abstract thing that people recognize to mean "fuel". And so it is in UF's Future.

(For a similar real-world example, take a look at the oil pressure warning light in an average car. Chances are, if it doesn't just say OIL, it'll have an icon on it which depicts an old-timey steam-age oil can, of the kind you pretty much never see any more, and certainly aren't likely to encounter in an automotive context any time soon.)

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.