103 This is an old GweepCo joke, the exact provenance I'm not entirely sure of now. If I recall correctly, it comes from the illustration on the cover of a textbook once used at WPI (either for C programming or UNIX administration).

118 Castle Eyrie is built in the style of Aberwyvern Castle, the fictitious Welsh border fortification in David Macaulay's Castle.

207 Phil thinks Utena is unconsciously imitating Akio, who had something of a habit of lunging across the hood of his car like this, but I think I actually had the Beastie Boys' video for "Sabotage" in mind when I wrote it. (I believe Akio only does that in the movie, anyway. His schtick on the TV show involves handstanding over the windshield onto the hood while the car is moving, which is just as alarming as it sounds.)

249 I see Mr. Broadbank's name has changed back to the "e" spelling.

387 For an idea of what that might sounds like, I refer you to the bass solo by Stuart Hamm on Joe Satriani: Live in San Francisco. (Hamm also plays "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" during that solo. Yes, a Flatt & Scruggs banjo tune. On a bass guitar.)

449 A sensory enhancement module, intended to boost the sensitivity of a positronic robot's tactile interface network.

469 An oblique reference to the life of Musashi Miyamoto, who reputedly fought one of his most famous duels with a bokuto he had carved from a spare oar while being rowed to the island where the duel took place.

574 Starry Night Backyard: for all your casual astronomical simulation needs! PJM

716 And here's a tacit acknowledgement, even if between the two of them in private, that Gryphon and Kei do remember how UF originally got started. But in its way, it's pretty sweet. PJM

Oh, sure, they remember Day 1, and Kei has (fake?) memories of her life up to that point (with a vaguely alarming jump-cut between whatever she was doing just before and her appearance in the basement of Fuller Labs). What's uncertain is whether Gryphon remembers stuff that was part of the mundane world before that day (like, say, the Star Wars movies) - whether his memory spans the transfictional discontinuity.

722 Kei's making a backhanded reference to the version of herself from Dirty Pair Flash.

740 "It's never just 'the Hittites'. It's always gotta be 'the freaking Hittites'." - Truss

806 Ah, the wiffle fruit. Tasty, nutritious, and you can play ball with it without having to worry about the neighbors' windows!

853 Something to do with transporters.

879 A catadioptric or compound telescope combines the features of a refracting telescope and a reflecting telescope. Utena's is of the Schmidt-Cassegrain type.

894 Miki has no practical use for a Barrayaran wristwatch, but he has a fondness for timepieces in general, so...

950 Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev (1891-1953), best-known among those unfamiliar with Russian classical music as the composer of Peter and the Wolf.

971 Zoner and I couldn't stop giggling as we plotted out this dialogue, which is why it's presented exactly as we came up with it while batting this scene around in the kitchen one day, utterly random Sgt. Schultz accents and all.

1064 B'Elanna can say that again; as we saw in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, targs are nothing short of hideous.

1086 Ah, the Life Sciences Division, those perennially carefree disregarders of basic scientific principles. One of these days, a lot of people are sure, they're going to screw up and turn part of New Avalon into Raccoon City, but really, they know what they're doing. Nothing untoward has ever happened at an LSD facility since, oh, jeez, 2400 at least.

1101 A rare reference to Mughi, the Chewbacca figure of the Dirty Pair TV series, last seen wandering the UF universe with Vaughn "Reality" Gross and Artemis (Iczer-1) Sanjiyan post-Crossroads.

1150 Makoto and Fatora are based on the protagonist of El-Hazard: The Magnificent World and the otherworldly princess he happens to resemble. I'm really not sure why I did that now.

Nor am I, really; I think it's just one of those developmental decisions that kind of... accreted over several years of musings and discussions between people so that when they finally came together and appeared onscreen, none of us remembered why those decisions had been made. PJM

1216 Probably Agatha Christie's most famous murder mystery, Murder on the Orient Express features Hercule Poirot solving a baffling murder aboard a snowbound luxury train. It was made into a outstanding 1974 motion picture featuring a star-studded cast led by Albert Finney as Poirot.

1267 You knew there was going to be a Princess Bride reference involving Liza's pirate career sooner or later.

1314 Jung comes to us from Gunbuster: Aim for the Top!.

1323 Ky Tung, another import from Lois McMaster Bujold's novels. PJM

1333 This was, admittedly, one of the most gratuitous scenes I'd written in a long while, and something I'm personally disappointed with. The Excalibur was the obligatory, kick-butt fighter from Wing Commander 3, complete with jump drive and cloaking device. In UF, it's a reconciliation gift from Techie's brother-in-law, Aric Ajlond, and unique - mainly because it was the last product never put out by the latter due to internal strife and cost overruns. DOC

Oh, sweet mother of God, the Excalibur. This is definitely one from the Elder Days Story Time files. See, I didn't play Wing Commander 3 - IIRC I didn't have and couldn't afford a computer that could handle it - and Doc lobbied me relentlessly for what seemed at the time like years to include it as a WDF frontline fighter. I mean, to the point where I eventually stopped refusing to do it because it was from a game I hadn't played and seemed kind of munchkiny and instead refused to do it just because he was busting my hump so much about it. Eventually I said I'd allow one to exist in the UF universe as a testbed for some astronautics development project that failed because it cost too much or something. I think two eventually sneaked in, but they never did become frontline WDF equipment. And that, boys and girls, is why you should always handle the editor carefully. If he's treated roughly, he might go off. --G.

1401 Kris had a large and complicated blueprint of characters from different sources and how they all interrelated - sort of a parallel track to the tangle of character swipes and odd juxtapositions that makes up the main core of the UF universe, come to that. His job, when it came to importing certain characters, was confused somewhat by the fact that a number of the characters he was looking for had already been imported in other contexts, rather fragmenting his data set.

Thus, we have Lina - a child version of Lina Inverse from Slayers, but subbing for the Diggers sisters from Gold Digger because they're already kicking around the universe as (much-)elder siblings to the Shannon twins. (We saw Brit, for example, in Twilight, breaking up Thor's marriage.) If that all sounds confusing to you, ha. You're not trying to coordinate it from an editorial standpoint.

To clarify for those who haven't read everything:

• Gina Shannon (orig. Gina Diggers): daughter of Rob Shannon and Ayeka from before the Exile, watched over by Washuu during the Exile. Imported by Rob Shannon.
  
• Brittany Shannon (orig. Brittany Diggers): adopted Kilrathi daughter of Rob and Aeka Shannon from before the Exile, trapped with the rest of Rob's crew when his ship misfolded out of spacetime and was retrieved during Skuld's Engine calculations in Twilight. Once again, imported by Rob Shannon.
  
• Brianna Shannon (orig. Brianna Diggers): child of Brittany and Thor. Why? Damned if I know. And yet again, imported by Rob Shannon.
  
• Lina Diggers (orig. Lina Inverse): child of Theo and Julia Diggers. Imported to that rather odd role by Kris Overstreet because their canon children were, as we have just seen, otherwise disposed.
  

This is a prime demonstration of the problems that occur when "just thinking of" stories and "fragments of" stories collide against 'actually been written or are in development right now stories. PJM

1573 Wakaba begins to understand the extent to which her life has changed... and she likes it.

1581 In the very first episode of Revolutionary Girl Utena, Wakaba wrote a hideously sappy love note to Saionji, who, being something of an ass, posted it on a bulletin board in a common hallway. It was when confronting him about that abuse of her best friend that Utena saw him mistreat Anthy, which spurred her to involve herself, though she had no way of knowing it, in the Lost Tournament.

1696 Skuld quotes the first line of the Green Lantern oath:

In brightest day, in blackest night
No evil shall escape my sight
Let those who worship evil's might
Beware my power: Green Lantern's light!

1709 No, I'm still not going to tell you who this happened or when.

1720 This whole scene - the Test and Skuld's little New Lensman Orientation Speech - was adapted from one originally written several years earlier for a piece set several years after this.

1751 One of the problems inherent in working with a group of writers is that the others are forever bringing in characters, situations, and... and stuff from things I haven't seen and have no Earthly clue about. Like Wapiko here.

1785 This was actually the second UF implementation one of us came up with for Ryouko, the notorious space pirate from Tenchi Muyo. She was originally slated to come in as a supporting character in Road Movie to Berlin, the scrapped predecessor to Road Movie to Naboo, which would've made her part of Leonard's entourage on the Outer Rim. When that plan went by the wayside, Kris decided that, since in the source material she's Washuu's fault, the same should apply in UF.

Also, for those keeping track at home (or peeking at the ending cast list), this means that Danilia M'krelth'nyr'knet is in fact Kahm Santova's younger sister. How? That's a tale for another day. PJM

1817 The fact that Afura's last name was already Mann in El-Hazard, to say nothing of her resemblance to Yuri, made this particular development pretty much obligatory.

1818 Kawalsky and Feretti (who is sometimes known by his middle name, Nico) are from the original 1994 Stargate movie.

1832 Larry paraphrases Shinesman Grey from Special Combat Duty Unit Shinesman, who protests when the other Shinesmen are complaining about their lame sentai colors, "I like my color! It's regal and manly!"

1899 Buckminster City is the capital city of UF-Hoffman. It has a lot of domes.

1909 Straight from Buck Godot: Zap Gun for Hire.

1914 When I wrote Aegis Florea, I spent the first day or so just learning how to type Teikokukagekidan without looking at the keyboard.

1957 Harrumph.

1968 Sure it's a real magazine. In a galaxy that has magazines like Chrome & Cannon, why not?

2058 Yeah, yeah, it's Neil Gaiman's Death. After years of working with Zoner, off and on, I've gotten used to her. She's OK. She's not her smack-me-until-I-start-making-some-freaking-sense-already brother.

2060 Statistically true.

2071 Death collects hats.

2079 In an odd bit of recursion, Diana is based on, well, Teleute. Or some form she took in one of the graphic novels, anyway. Zoner would know the details.

2083 Except her collecting quirk is weird shoes. I think that's original.

2091 Presumably not related to the Time Lord chapter.

2206 A scene I thought was important to include, but not necessarily to see all the details of; it's enough to know that they did all get a chance to talk together.

2224 There is a legend among the cats of Ulthar of a cat with no fear who will one day rise from obscurity to save the universe. Don't laugh - it might be Peril.

2265 I believe the business with the towel was Zoner's idea. The basic blocking for the scene was simple enough; Miki's basically just doing a Touga impression.

And believe us, Miki wanted a good brain cleansing afterwards - even getting close to Touga's mindspace is unsettling. PJM

2363 Yet another "Awwww" moment that has yet to be translated to art. PJM

2410 The only real upside to the Moon of Blood (as discussed in the notes for Interlude at Bancroft Tower) is that it's possible to calculate exactly when it's going to happen and plan accordingly.

2513 Home of New Avalon's Famous Teppanyaki Shyam!

2550 Cross-bearing lube oil is a close cousin of relative bearing grease.

2591 The Swordfish II is Spike Spiegel's ride on Cowboy Bebop.

Nor am I, really; I think it's just one of those developmental decisions that kind of... accreted over several years of musings and discussions between people so that when they finally came together and appeared onscreen, none of us remembered why those decisions had been made. PJM<<

Gryphon was mildly complaining that nobody seemed to be interested in commenting on the S2M3 notes, so here comes something to fill the gap. First, this is another of my favorite SotS stories, not only for the Christmas theme but also since it introduces - re-introduces, actually; I think at least one of the Aegis Florea stories had been written before this one - the Sakura Taisen crew to UF, including Kanna and Sumire, who will become important secondary characters later on.

Now, my specific comment; I have to say that Fatora is probably my least favorite character in SotS who's not on the side of the villains. I have a hard time understanding how Belldandy and Keiichi could produce somebody who is, to put it bluntly, a little brat. It's as well she's gotten so little onscreen time so far, because I find myself wanting to turn her over my knee and give her britches a good dusting when she opens her mouth. I would be astonished if the same thought hadn't occasionally crossed the minds of some of the Duelists and their friends.

-Joe-

This was obviously written before you'd decided to put in Poirot as a Jedi. It kind of creates a problem since both the character and the source he's from are referenced explicitly - and it's not some obscure TV show from pre-Contact Earth, it's a book that's part of the school curriculum.

Either nobody ever noticed the similarity (unlikely), or some people have noticed but written it off as an unlikely coincidence (maybe it's even a running joke around the temple on Alderaan). Or possibly...

Wabaka never mentionned that the book was by Agatha Christie or named its main character, so it's possible that at some point, a writer on Earth wrote the books we know as Agatha Christie's work, with the same plots except with a completely different character in Poirot's place.

(Perhaps her name was Arianne Olivier, using her Finnish detective protagonist. Or, if she lived after First Contact, she made her hero some exotic race and kept getting e-mails about the errors she'd made in writing the character.)

*chuckle* I remember the Wing Commander series very well though I never played any of them for pretty much the same reason you did - at the time Wing Commander 3 came out, my computer was a 486DX2/66 with 8 MB RAM and I was having a lot of trouble finding a video card that I liked, much less a video card that would play a bleeding-edge game like WC3. I remember that Origin was infamous back in the day for producing games that required hardware at the outer limits, or just beyond, of what a player had to hand. In any case, I was much more interested in playing X-COM and Civilization at that time.

>>1696 Skuld quotes the first line of the Green Lantern oath:

In brightest day, in blackest night
No evil shall escape my sight
Let those who worship evil's might
Beware my power: Green Lantern's light!<<

Considering what Wakaba is going to become in a few years from this story, Skuld has to be indulging in a bit of foretelling here.

>>2513 Home of New Avalon's Famous Teppanyaki Shyam!<<

That, I'd like to see. I've often had, and very much like, teppanyaki beef, from my days on Okinawa back in the mid-1970's (it was miscalled Kobe beef by the American locals then, although that name actually refers to something entirely different) but cooking noodles with that technique has got to be quite a sight.

-Joe-

If he does, that has to be a headache and a half whenever he comes across a Wookie or a Hutt.

>971 Zoner and I couldn't stop giggling as we plotted out this
>dialogue, which is why it's presented exactly as we came up with it
>while batting this scene around in the kitchen one day, utterly random
>Sgt. Schultz accents and all.

That definitely came across. I know I can't read it without giggling. ("Jawhol!")

>1401 Kris had a large and complicated blueprint of characters
>from different sources and how they all interrelated - sort of a
>parallel track to the tangle of character swipes and odd
>juxtapositions that makes up the main core of the UF universe, come to
>that. His job, when it came to importing certain characters, was
>confused somewhat by the fact that a number of the characters he was
>looking for had already been imported in other contexts, rather
>fragmenting his data set.
>
>Thus, we have Lina - a child version of Lina Inverse from
>Slayers, but subbing for the Diggers sisters from Gold
>Digger because they're already kicking around the universe as
>(much-)elder siblings to the Shannon twins. (We saw Brit, for
>example, in Twilight, breaking up Thor's marriage.) If that
>all sounds confusing to you, ha. You're not trying to coordinate it
>from an editorial standpoint.
>
>To clarify for those who haven't read
>everything:
>

>
• Gina Shannon (orig. Gina Diggers): daughter of Rob Shannon and
  >Ayeka from before the Exile, watched over by Washuu during the Exile.
  >Imported by Rob Shannon.
  >
• Brittany Shannon (orig. Brittany Diggers): adopted Kilrathi
  >daughter of Rob and Aeka Shannon from before the Exile, trapped with
  >the rest of Rob's crew when his ship misfolded out of spacetime and
  >was retrieved during Skuld's Engine calculations in Twilight.
  >Once again, imported by Rob Shannon.
  >
• Brianna Shannon (orig. Brianna Diggers): child of Brittany and
  >Thor. Why? Damned if I know. And yet again, imported by Rob
  >Shannon.
  >
• Lina Diggers (orig. Lina Inverse): child of Theo and Julia
  >Diggers. Imported to that rather odd role by Kris Overstreet because
  >their canon children were, as we have just seen, otherwise disposed.
  >

As a fan of both source materials presented here, permission to fall over cackling helplessly? After all, I'm fairly sure Lina couldn't possibly have been any MORE disruptive than Theo and Julia's canon children.

That, and I'm curious: has Brianna actually shown up in a 'Ragnarok Wave' cameo at some point?

>1818 Kawalsky and Feretti (who is sometimes known by his middle
>name, Nico) are from the original 1994 Stargate movie.

I knew I knew their last names from SOMEWHERE. Been forever since I saw the movie proper.

>1832 Larry paraphrases Shinesman Grey from Special Combat
>Duty Unit Shinesman, who protests when the other Shinesmen are
>complaining about their lame sentai colors, "I like my color!
>It's regal and manly!"

It's also an excuse for a rather subtle pun.

>1914 When I wrote Aegis Florea, I spent the first day or
>so just learning how to type Teikokukagekidan without looking
>at the keyboard.

*snickers* I can believe it.

>2058 Yeah, yeah, it's Neil Gaiman's Death. After years of
>working with Zoner, off and on, I've gotten used to her. She's OK.
>She's not her
>smack-me-until-I-start-making-some-freaking-sense-already brother.

>2079 In an odd bit of recursion, Diana is based on, well,
>Teleute. Or some form she took in one of the graphic novels, anyway.
>Zoner would know the details.

But not Domino. That's an entire other interspecies relationship elsewhere. :)

>2265 I believe the business with the towel was Zoner's idea.
>The basic blocking for the scene was simple enough; Miki's basically
>just doing a Touga impression.
>
>And believe us, Miki wanted a good brain cleansing
>afterwards - even getting close to Touga's mindspace is
>unsettling. PJM

Given I've managed to see the episodes involving Miki and Utena's first duel(and Touga's role in it, the bastard), this scene has a lot more impact the second time around.

-OM