[22] Though the names of Jro City and Grushka are entirely made up, the Zebulon sector is named after the Star Frontiers sourcebook Zebulon's Guide to Frontier Space - apropos, since Grushka is on the Coreward Frontier.

This is as good a place as any to note (possibly not for the first time) that Known Space in the 25th-century UF universe is not the entirety of Mutter's Spiral Galaxy (the official Standard name of what Earthmen know as the Milky Way). It's basically confined to a wedge of that galaxy which encompasses (if you were looking "down" on the galaxy from "above" its ecliptic plane) most of one spiral arm and some of the gaps to either side of it.

In the 25th century, most of Civilization As We Know It is toward the middle of this region, in what's known as the Inner Sectors or sometimes, a little confusingly, the Core Sectors. The ones we're most familiar with from their appearances in UF stories to date are the Centaurus (Earth, Centauri Prime, Bajor), Rigel (Co-Prosperity Sphere and a few of the Crown Colonies), Vega (most of the Crown Colonies), Salusa (Salusia, Zardon), and Klinzhai (most of the Klingon Empire, actually) sectors.

The "Core" in "Core Sectors" doesn't refer to the Galactic Core; instead, it's an acknowledgement that most of the galaxy's biggest and/or most influential polities are there. The Core itself is basically unexplored because, well, in an area of such great stellar density, things get weird radiation- and gravitation-wise, and the known methods of FTL travel don't get along with it very well, besides which, nobody really thinks there's likely to be anything very interesting in there.

Surrounding the Inner Sectors is an area of fully-explored, fairly-well-settled space that, for whatever reason, isn't considered "inner" enough for that tag, but which is also not as remote as the "frontier" territories coming next in the list. Snobs from Inner Sector worlds sometimes call these the "Outer Sectors" or, if they want to be even snarkier, "the Provinces" (Ragulin uses this term in The Rose that Blooms in the City of Light), but there's no really common collective term for them. Examples are the Enigma (where Jyurai and Omega are), Kresge (Quarian Union), and Cygnus (Zeta Cygni) sectors, as well as Cardassian and Romulan space, most of the Gamilon Empire, and the Corporate Sector.

In between the Inner/Outer Sectors and the Galactic Core lies the Coreward Frontier, which is, well, basically all the "usable" space between the two. Since no one's sure where the boundary of habitability is, it's kind of a toss-up as to just what the full extent of the Frontier is. It's rumored that the Discordian Confederation is out there as well, but nobody's really sure of that.

On the opposite side, rimward of the Inner Sectors, lie the Outer Rim Territories. The outer boundary of this area is also uncertain, because the farthest reaches of the Galactic Rim have yet to be fully explored (in this epoch - in the previous one, the "center of gravity" of galactic civilization was out there and what are now the Inner Sectors were the hinterlands). Because of the relics of the civilizations of earlier epochs, the Outer Rim is held to be a place of considerably more mystery and romance than the Coreward Frontier. There's nowhere on the Frontier to compare with some of the really ancient settled worlds of the Rim, places like Naboo and Hyeruul, where the passing of Atlantis and Santovasku led to a now-ended era of isolation but not a complete fall-of-Rome-style collapse of civilization.

There's also largely unorganized interstellar territory to either side of this arrangement, but since it lies primarily in the useless empty space between the galactic arms, it is of little interest to our narrative at present.

Outside of that you have only a few pockets of space that are known of but haven't been extensively explored or charted. There's the Perseus sector, where the geth maintain their silent isolation, and the aforementioned rumors of the Discordian Confederation, and no one is really sure where the Vorlon homeworld is. It's also assumed that there's an as-yet-uncharted area somewhere rimward of Tatooine where the Covenant came from, but no hard data is available on this either. The only Covenant survivors from the first war are Tuncer and Frank, and neither one was what you would call a navigational officer.

Hopefully that clears a few things up and leaves a few others uncertain; this is as it should be.

[24] The setting of Grushka is very deliberately reminiscent of Vietnam War movies, because the whole search for Master Corto was envisioned from the first as an Apocalypse Now reference. Corto is the Italian for "short" - in German kurz, often spelled "kurtz" by English-speakers because Z in German is pronounced with a distinct "ts" sound. Tan Sai Ch'tor Spaceport is thus similar to the name of the regular entry port for American GIs in South Vietnam, Tan Son Nhut Air Base, quite on purpose.

[107] Za'kest and kest'za are obviously related profanities - one is an all-purpose epithet (a close analog would be something like the "bollocks" in "bollocks to that"), the other a gerund verb ("the friggin' rebels").

[177] I came to quite like Sgt. Kloym as this scene took shape. He's an agent of a corrupt, illicit colonial regime and he knows it, but what can you do? Not for him the life of a guerilla resistance fighter. He's too old for that za'kest. So he sticks it to the system wherever he can by using its corruption against it and turning a blind eye where he can, always with the same deadpan sense of humor.

[226] We knew that Prince Anakyn shar Atrados of Atlantis and Anakin Skywalker of Tatooine weren't the same guy already, but this puts the cap on it. As previously discussed elsewhere on the boards, my mental image of UF-Vader's restored person is essentially a slightly darker, slightly older King Kashue of Flaim from Record of Lodoss War, modulo that he dresses like a slightly gothy Jedi Knight.

[231] I find something ineffably entertaining about the image of Darth Vader, unexpectedly freed from his aeons of torment, bemusedly brushing his teeth.

[256] Players of Knights of the Old Republic may recall this having happened to Kashyyyk when Czerka took it over as well. It's presumably their SOP for semi-legally-colonized inhabited worlds.

[348] In Vader's time, "Darth" was not a title, it was a name, which he took - rather like popes and monarchs adopt regnal names - when he became Dark Lord of the Sith. Similarly, the "tal Vader" part speaks to the particular strain of Force-wielding lineage by which he claimed the right to that title in the first place, which goes back to the days of the Padishah. In back-constructing his full name as Darth Anakyn shar Atrados tal Vader here, he's acknowledging what he never would when he was in the full grip of his madness back when - that he is still Prince Anakyn of Atlantis, King Nemo's son and heir.

Later in her career, Rei will tell those few she thinks it's worth trying to explain the thing to at all that shar Atrados tal Vader means "of the Great House Atrados and the Sith-clan Vader", which is a slight oversimplification but good enough for government work. It amuses Vader in a "you poor fools have no idea what you are doing" kind of way that the modern-day Sith pretenders have gotten the idea that "Darth" is a title which all Sith Lords automatically inherit.

[359] Skywalker was Prince Anakyn's callsign in younger, happier days, before the Fall, when he was a hotshot Jedi fighter ace and the undisputed hero of his father's subjects. He and young Mr. Skywalker of Tatooine would presumably have to ponder the coincidence for a little while if they were to meet.

[362] Good thing, too. Sith Lords are not particularly welcome on Naboo, and although medical ethics and Dr. Masaki's pride would probably have prevented them from just letting him die if they had known who he really was, he would certainly not be getting such diplomatic treatment now.

[400] In fairness, Emmy, the Galactic Alliance is so new nobody's even sure if that's going to be its permanent name right now, so things are a bit backed up paperwork-wise in the home office...

[492] Kahm isn't supposed to be a title either, but you just can't teach these 25th-century darksiders anything.

[558] Even I'm not sure whether this statement displays a startling acuity on Vader's part, or if he's just using the phrase "what you were made for" rhetorically and is not aware that Rei really is a manufactured lifeform.

[626] Fenn Shysa is originally from the old Marvel Star Wars comics, where he's basically the friendly Boba Fett. In UF he's one of the three surviving Mandalorian "originals", along with Jango Fett and Khyra Jinn (no relation to Qui-Gon). Your guess is as good as mine why he sounds like he might be Irish.

[647] Fenn's history with Kei goes back to the early Exile, when the three Mandalorian survivors emerged from cryosleep into the galaxy and almost immediately found themselves athwart her warpath through no fault of their own. Maybe someday I'll find the rest of this story and tell it.

[667] Like Darth Vader brushing his teeth, the idea of a Mandalorian mercenary having a website advertising his services is one of those things about the UF setting that tickles me. Particularly the notion of the "customer testimonials" page.

[726] Toward the end of Knights of the Old Republic the Hawk is actually used for this very purpose.

[868] The Mandalorian word for Jedi, a group of people with whom the Mando'ad have never been entirely comfortable.

[989] We'll see what this was about in the next episode.

[1035] A semi-deliberate callback to the "bandage chic" look Rei sports in a lot of Neon Genesis Evangelion art, owing to her condition at her initial appearance in the series and the weird Rule 34 factor that things like that have in Japan, carried to a slightly absurd extreme for effect. I imagine the Palaven Thermal Gear Rei Ayanami action figure would be a pretty brisk seller.

[1049] We see in Blades that Vader will later revise this into a considerably less improvised ensemble, but the basic look will be the same. Interestingly, I'm pretty sure I thought of the "part Vader's armor, part Jedi gear" look before it appeared on Anakin Skywalker in The Clone Wars, but the effect is very similar.

[1085] One of the things I most enjoy about reuniting Vader and Obi-Wan in UF is that they resumed something like their old pre-Fall roles almost automatically and entirely unironically.

[1104] Good thing he bothered to look it up; they don't. In fact, it can kill them. Levoproteins.

[1163] "I said how much you pay for it? / He said nothin' man, it's stolen."

[1357] Alaia meant Vader wasn't safe to be around, and Rei is quite well aware of that, but by replying as she does, she makes plain that she understood it, and dismisses it, without being all confrontational about it. One of my favorite little Rei moments in this piece.

[1442] Probably the most direct Heart of Darkness reference in the piece.

[1479] Emmy surprised me almost as much as she surprised Nej with this line, and then it all suddenly made sense.

[1626] I'm really pleased with this whole sequence, particularly Master Corto's last three lines before Lieska's Awakening: All life is light. All life is one. This is the Force.

[1857] I have the image in my head of what Vader's arrival at the Alderaan Temple will be like, though, when it happens. Hopefully there'll be a place for it before all is said and done.

[1985] Count Dooku's Jedi career has been just about as long, varied, and occasionally undistinguished as Sir Christopher Lee's acting career at this point. Like the actor, he's never shied away from a task that needed doing on the basis that it might not leave him covered in glory.

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
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