[22] This sequence is an example of a bit of mental animation springing from a piece of music rather than the music being chosen to fit the scene later on. This is why it has the extensive time coding.

[61] Not having an actual ball valve handy to use for reference, I originally had this described in a way that sounded fine in my head, but wouldn't have been physically possible. Fortunately, Phil set me straight.

[138] This device is nearly identical to the one seen in the infamous "Spock Walk" scene in Star Trek: The Motion Picture, being used here for a somewhat more mundane (but still off-label) purpose.

I knew Corwin's role in this operation had to involve an act of straight-up brassballery at some point, in order to live up to Tali the Elder's implication in Correspondence that he'd proven he had courage enough to stand up to an Æsir Trial of Ascension during this incident. I think this sequence fits that bill.

[207] Here and at the beginning of this sequence, I wanted to accentuate the silence of the environment, similar to the way the soundlessness of space was played up in 2001: A Space Odyssey, albeit with rather more action.

[274] Helium-3 is an isotope of helium that has a single neutron in the nucleus instead of the usual two. It's the preferred fuel for UF-universe starship-grade nuclear fusion reactors, such as those aboard the Wonder, though in a pinch most can also use heavy hydrogen.

[283] The Republic of Zeta Cygni's #1 chain of ground vehicle fuel stations, renowned for the speed and courtesy of its service and an almost fanatical attention to the cleanliness of the facilities. 2405 ad strapline: Clean. Fast. Polite. Petro-Avalon.

[288] The fun part of doing a "flashback" story - it won't be Bablyon 6 for almost another year!

[321] In Corwin's defense, he was eight. And he wasn't that late. They didn't miss Dr. Tesla's Marvelous World of Electricity. (If you've ever been to the Boston Museum of Science, you know where I'm heading with that mental image.)

[360] Here we see that Tali is aware of Corwin's interest in pre-Contact Earth space exploration, which, as he mentioned to Utena in S2M1 This Old Dorm, has rather fallen by the wayside in the galactic public eye.

[372] "Whatever floats your boat" is just not something it would occur to a quarian to say...

[374] Concept of Klingon popes courtesy Phil, sort of. I originally had that line about memorizing the popes, Phil suggested memorizing the details of some ancient Klingon battle, and I liked the way it mashed together.

[383] The Hekademos is so called after a variant name for the olive grove where the ancient Greek philosopher Plato (c. 427 BC - c. 347 BC) had his school of skeptical thought. This is actually where we get our word "academy", so calling the Hekademos an academy ship is a bit redundant.

[409] Tali's giving Corwin a bit of a teasing here because she's aware, from his correspondence with her, more or less (within the limits of privacy) where things stand with him and Utena, and also because, that notwithstanding, going someplace dark and private in the aftermath of a school dance, even when you're wearing pressure suits, is really a pretty hot date to a quarian.

[482] Of course, her grandmother actually did this for a while, back in the day, but it's a thing entirely outside Tali the Younger's Weltanschauung.

[583] A few months after this story is, of course, Interlude at the Hotel Monolith; it may be that, witnessing this event, some part of Utena jotted down the mental note that, if she ever had to completely lose her shit again, Corwin would be a good person to have handy.

[623] As Geoff pointed out while this scene was in the works, it's not often you even get Mordin admitting he's feeling much of anything. The germ of this dialogue was his, and drives home how really crushed Mordin is that he didn't get the job done in time.

[629] But he's salarian, so he gets back on the beam pretty quickly.

[710] In Mass Effect 2, it's implied that the Rayya is actually one of their ag-ships, but for various UF purposes it works out better if she's a warship.

[748] Fitting the One-Hit Wonder with an IES (a passive stealth technology originally developed during the Covenant War, and sourced, like Tali, from the Mass Effect games) was a natural outgrowth of the ship's black-flying-wing configuration. (She's actually based on the XB-35/YB-49 prototype wing bombers, not the B-2 that evolved from them.)

[775] As we saw in Star-Crossed, they can and do, but their suits, unlike Utena's, are built to cope with that.

[809] A later-model spacesuit would have a HUD and onboard computer that could provide "subtitles" for these things, but that didn't seem important when Corwin and his parents were stocking the Wonder - and the older ones are tougher.

[871] This is similar to the blast doors found aboard the first Death Star in the original Star Wars.

[916] As anyone who's ever been really, really ill can attest, running a high fever does not do wonders for your ability to think clearly and calmly. That the marines detailed to check out this intrusion are this poorly off speaks to how serious the infection's grip on the ship was by this point.

[977] There was never a good place to touch back on this in the aftermath, but as it turned out, it actually was Rael; like his security people, he was ill enough by this point that he'd stopped approaching the situation rationally (insofar as he ever was).

[1014] In the first draft this happened when Tali wanted it to, but that seemed like something of an anticlimax, so I threw in another last-minute complication just to give Utena a bit more to do. It worked out; with Tali as the mastermind and Corwin providing both technical whizzery and derring-do in the opening, I was very concerned about leaving Utena just standing around being scenery in this plan. I needed to give her a task that was geared to her strengths, which are oriented toward physical indomitability and - though she lacks technical expertise suited to this situation - quick, decisive thinking.

[1033] The shock rods quarian marines employ in no-shooting situations are sufficient to take down someone wearing an average encounter suit, but Corwin's EVA work suit is a bit sturdier than that.

[1071] Tali probably learned this word - which is Cheltarese - from her grandmother. It doesn't translate directly to Standard and has many shades of meaning depending on the context. In this case it means something along the lines of, "You the man, dawg," only a lot less flippant.

[1115] "C'mon, baby, c'mon," only in Norse.

[1119] Players of the old LucasArts TIE Fighter game will know this sound. It is the sound you don't want to hear when you're running like hell for the escape vector with half the Rebel Alliance bearing down on you.

[1145] Actually about a year, but not aboard the same ship, obviously, and they won't be talking directly to him.

[1163] There were so many Star-Crossed callbacks in this piece anyway that I couldn't resist going for the direct déjà vu effect here.

[1173] They agreed on this division of labor mainly because Vedik was fairly sure he would have skipped most of the words and progressed directly to having... fists... with Rael. "I may be 70 and you may be an admiral, son, but if you take that tone with me again you and I are going to have a problem."

[1209] This place has not changed at all since we saw Zaeed Massani having a coffee here in Star-Crossed: The Moral High Ground. They may even be at the same table.

[1210] If you played System Shock or its sequel, you'll know this sound, too. Perhaps Corwin's wrist computer was made by Tri-Optimum.

[1226] Under quarian admiralty law, these are both potentially capital crimes.

[1257] "Oh, how I've missed the pang of dread I feel when you mention the words 'how hard can it be'." - Richard Hammond, Top Gear series 9 ep. 1, Jan. 28, 2007

I imagine that one becomes Klingon pope by defeating the current pope in battle, so it meshes quite well.

Polychrome