21 Ah, Ivanova. Without reservation, my favorite character from Babylon 5, though Garibaldi is a close second.

78 These guys were all created by Kris Overstreet.

121 Hello, old friend.

136 Yes, that's right, Challenger basically has Cafe Press on board.

206 Conversely, Denobulan relationships don't make much sense to humans either.

250 I hate when this happens.

369 "I said speak your mind, Jack, but Jesus."

592 If the New Liza had a coat of arms, that would probably be the motto on it.

632 Selar was in, I think, one episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. She's also in a bunch of novels, some of which I've read, but the UF version takes her one TV appearance as a starting point and moves in an entirely different direction.

713 Like the Prince, who has her white ceremonial uniform and her black armor, Anthy as Priestess has more than one "official" raiment. Her Rose Bride's gown has become her robe of office (primarily to save wear and tear on the art department). She also has a battle costume, armor similar to that worn by Zagato, but we've never had occasion to see it; Anthy isn't comfortable wearing armor and has never summoned it.

737 A Cephirean spell related to the Asgardian one Corwin used to help Fuu heal Saionji in Knights 2.

787 The UF version of Guy is based loosely on "Evoluder Gai", the regenerated version of Gai Shishio seen in King of Braves Gaogaigar FINAL (an OVA follow-up to the Gaogaigar TV series). Rather than putting him through the hassle of spending some time as a cyborg, we skipped straight to the "superhuman being imbued with the power of G-stone" concept. Aren't we nice?

793 Kate has the Library of America heirloom edition that compiles Rouging It and The Innocents Abroad. This real edition is my desert-island book.

817 While it's not explicitly stated in the series, the scene layout and shadowplay at the end of "Azure Paler Than the Sky" (episode 29 of Revolutionary Girl Utena) heavily implied that Ruka Tsuchiya, while well-aware that he was ill and getting worse, rejoined Ohtori Academy (and its fencing team and the Council Duelists) in order to free Juri from the emotional chains she had bound herself into. The ending narration, by Juri, in turn implies that she was at least partially aware of this and possibly visited Ruka before, or soon after, his death. At least in UF that's how it turned out. Your mileage may vary for your own interpretations. PJM

820 And another reinforcement of the Juri/Miki friendship-relationship that continues to grow. PJM

863 Kate's choice of words here is a very conscious one. She knows full well Juri's past history with miracles.

And a very effective choice, too. Believing in, and hoping for, miracles is one thing. Actually viewing them is a whole different story. PJM

868 Yes, he's name after the energy company. Why not?

872 A special guest appearance by Rianna Santova, daughter of R-Type and Kahm Santova (the circumstances behind that have never fully come to light). Rianna was created for UF by Larry Mann.

877 What was Rianna, a lost-civilization hunter by trade, doing in the Centaurus Sector? That's like finding Lara Croft in upstate New York.

Well, you gotta come back to the civilized galaxy sometime to sell the lost-civ stuff you find to the best Museums. PJM

911 Gryphon has it surrounded; these are cyborg enforcers belonging to Black Omega, the Psi Corps' deniable special-ops bureau (known within the agency as "They Who Do Not Exist").

925 This is a smiling nod at the fact that Larry gets kind of annoyed when some other author's avatar tries to pick up Rianna.

927 Of course, being a Sith and Santovasku, she probably could figure out what G was going to say, anyway. PJM

941 Presumably the other two out of five wouldn't know what it is at all.

955 1930s, actually, but book learning was never Kozue's strong suit.

988 Governor Ondeen is shrewder than she looks. She rewards one of the moon's defenders and gets rid of something that was taking up space in the hangar at the same time - what sailors used to call "money for old rope".

1018 The Morgan is a tributary of the Oxbow which cuts southward through downtown New Avalon. It joins the Oxbow about a mile upstream of the Oxbow River Bridge.

1133 Not really surprising, given what happened the last time one of the EA's non-Earth members, Proxima Centauri, registered dissent.

1188 This notion appealed to me immensely when it popped into my head; it just seemed like such a quintessentially Canadian thing to do.

1225 The thrall Duelists of the Black Rose, back in the middle of the Lost Tournament, wore black rings; thus, Utena is momentarily wary, though the circumstances are such that it doesn't last long.

1243 One of several nicknames for Green Lantern used in the comics of the '60s and '70s, when such nicknames were commonplace ("the Scarlet Speedster" for the Flash, "the Darknight Detective" for Batman, etc.).

1275 Quite true. As of this past summer, I've known Truss for 20 years.

1298 Before 2380, the settlements of the Zeta Cygni system didn't participate in galactic politics; the whole system was basically just a big base camp for the Wedge Defense Force, which was something of a state unto itself.

1352 If Rianna does possess some unconscious arrogance in these matters, it is perhaps excusable. After all, she is the daughter of the last Santovasku crown princess, a woman who was trained in the ways of the Sith by Darth Vader himself.

1453 Word for, um... word?, this is what it says on the wrappers of the chop sticks that you get with your meal at Ping's Garden. Or at least it was all the times I went there back in the early '90s.

1460 And this is exactly how the instructions on the other side of the wrapper end, too.

1466 Roger and Gene are, of course, named for Roger Ebert and the late Gene Siskel, of At the Movies fame.

1516 We can always count on Ivanova to cut straight to the important questions.

1539 Canal and the Swordbreaker come from Lost Universe.

1723 Rianna's Hyelian partner Mayl Popp'fl (adapted from the title character of the console game Popful Mail) is notoriously accident-prone.

1737 The thing I love about working with Moose is that he never pesters me for more screen time. He'll take it when it comes along, but he's happy being a backup character - integral to some scenes, not needed for others.

1793 Moose and Azalynn quote Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire" (from Storm Front, 1989).

1970 Cheviot, played by George Coe on Max Headroom: 20 Minutes Into the Future, is one of the few characters on that show, and the only one in an executive position, to have any ethics. Indeed, he's a real class act, perhaps the only person in the show's universe other than Edison Carter who remembers the responsibility that broadcasters have to the public they serve.

2020 Borrowed from the tag of the little speech Susan Ivanova makes to open the "Voice of the Resistance" pirate broadcasts during the mid-series crisis on Babylon 5: "They cannot kill the truth, and the truth is back in business."

2064 We know exactly what Skuld is waiting for in Janice's case, by the way; we just haven't reached the point in the timeline where we can show you yet.

2152 Not so odd at all, from Anthy's point of view; if one is to help assist and protect one's Prince from themselves (as Anthy promised Dios), you've gotta to make sure the Prince's closest knight is well-supported as well. PJM

2257 Pon farr, the Vulcan "mating frenzy", is supposed to happen only once every seven years. (It doesn't happen to Palon'shartha at all, because they're smart enough not to go without for seven years at a time.)

2346 Yeah, we're not above making Star Trek V: The Final Frontier references around here.

2404 On the flip side, Juri's recovery time for unexpected situations has improved markedly over the past year-plus. Hanging out with an active performing band makes it practically a requirement. PJM

2451 Azalynn, in fact, couldn't live on a vegetarian diet.

2463 The Pascagoula is named for Pascagoula, Mississippi, home of Ingalls Shipbuilding.

2624 I think it's kind of charming, in an old-fashioned kind of way, that Scotty still calls Uhura "Uhura" when they're working. I mean, they're only married.

2803 Not Anakin Skywalker.

3097 Qui-Gon Jinn does this at one point in The Phantom Menace, and for my money it's by far the spiffiest little bit of choreography in the film. I take nothing away from the big saber duel at the end when I say this; I just think the putting-away-the-saber thing is that cool.

3164 I think this may actually be Jim Kirk's first appearance on screen in UF.

3240 Planet Jezebel is named after the Biblical figure, an ancient Israelite queen. Though Jezebel is commonly perceived as a wicked and manipulative woman, with overtones of apostasy, Liza uses the name ironically - she has, after all, abandoned her family's "religion" of hatred.

3254 I just realized, a picture of Utena with the Swordfish II, just getting out of it, on a sunny day on Jezebel, could be warranted. Hey, it's not like I'm lacking reference material, having a sizeable percentage of Cowboy Bebop and Revolutionary Girl Utena artbooks, and the DS9 Technical Manual... PJM

3296 Synchronicity strikes again! PJM

3310 In the game setting he was created for, Zachiel was an angel; in UF, he's a relatively minor Æs, son of Balder and Nanna. He works for Heimdall in the Department of Celestial Vigilance, as one of the DCV's agents monitoring the situation in Midgard.

3329 Sky painted the mural, or rather a large painting of which the mural is a machine-painted enlargement.

3395 We'll be seeing kuratai again...

3480 As noted before, Lu's different triplicates have slightly different personalities. This is the somewhat more aggressive, playful one.

3494 The UF interpretation of Master Windu may be influenced by other roles Samuel L. Jackson has played. Such as John Shaft.

3536 Such is the scattering of the Jedi Order at this point that Master Windu underestimates its strength considerably here. In 2406 there were about a hundred Jedi Knights in the galaxy, of whom perhaps 30 could call themselves Jedi Masters, either by dint of advanced studies or because they had (or had once had) students.

3598 "It's a Long Way to Tipperary" is a 1912 music-hall song that became a popular British soldiers' marching tune during the First World War.

3617 Scout here is based on a horse my mother had when I was a kid. He wasn't very bright, but he was the most lovable horse on Earth.

3628 It'd be nice to do a pic of Utena and Anthy out riding, too. *sigh* So many pictures, so little time... PJM

3648 Indeed this is not one of Jezebel's own horses, but Corwin's seldom-seen Valkyrie mount, Svartlyn ("Black Lightning"). Svartlyn is the daughter of Sleipnir, Odin's eight-legged steed, out of Glömstra, the mount of Forseti, god of death - the two swiftest horses in Asgard. (Incidentally, being Sleipnir's daughter makes Svartlyn a granddaughter of Loki, who bore Sleipnir after being accidentally, er, serviced while polymorphed into a mare. No, really. I didn't make that up. It's this incident Loki is referring to in Twilight when he introduces himself as "mother of - well, that's a story for another time.")

3679 I think I created Nalga when asked to suggest a Hutt semi-villain for one of Kris and Larry's stories, but my memory of the event is fuzzy now. I may simply have hijacked him for this piece. In any event, he's GENOM's VP for Centaurus Sector Operations, and is a member (albeit outcast) of the same clan as the infamous Jabba, crime lord of Tatooine.

3716 Entrailles de la grenouille au beurre noir: literally, "frog guts in black butter". Hutt haute cuisine.