In-Jokes, Quotes, and References in "Shadows of the Future"
By Chaos Theory T. Echidna
(This section won't contain any spoilers that you didn't already get from reading the previous Author's Notes page, but I felt like putting this picture of Lorinda anyway:)
And here we have the explanations of various in-jokes and stuff like that in the story. Some of them are obvious and should smack you right upside the head, others are more subtle. Let's get to it!
"Shadows of the Future", while being its own story, has connections to a rather large and strange array of other things, from pop culture to ancient religions and more. Here are some things you may have missed (or not):
1. Pop songs/old show tunes. This is the most obvious one I think. From chapter titles like "You Say You Want a Revolution" and "Ground Control to Major Tails" to the part where the Queen flips out and says things like "Diamonds are a girl's best friend" "we are living in a material world, and I AM a material girl, you know!" and "I'm not the kind of girl who gives up just like that!" (from Blondie's "The Tide is High"; that last one.) I love music and it shows in this story. As a side-note, the reference to "that sleazy pop singer" who wears even less clothing than Knuckles and loves to strip in public was also a bit of a playful slap at the ORIGINAL Material Girl, Madonna. Oh, and the name of the rebels, the "New Radicals", comes from the modern late '90s musical group of the same name, best known for that song that goes, "You've got the music in you" although I THINK it's actual name is "You Get What You Give". I don't especially like the group or the song; they just had a convenient name...
2. Star Trek I am a Trekker (NOT Trekkie, there is a large difference!) at heart and it shows here as well. Practically all the techno-babble names for things around the City of the Stars were from Star Trek, such as a Universal Translator and an antimatter regulator, to name just a couple. I was too lazy and more importantly, too caught up in the story's PLOT to worry about petty details like NAMES, so I just used the types of sci-fi terms I was naturally most familiar with. Also the chapter title "Strange New Worlds" and when Bunnie starts quoting Dr. McCoy at the end. The great thing is, I did NOT plan that! Not at ALL! It just suddenly occurred to me that, entirely by random chance, I had chosen the person with the SOUTHERN accent who was also into the MEDICAL profession to be the one that suffered from a TRANSPORTER ACCIDENT! I mean, when I was handing out "explore the Island" assignments at the beginning of the story I practically rolled dice to figure out who would get which job! Well, when I realised that I'd set it up for that joke SO PERFECTLY without even meaning to, needless to say I could not resist.
In a more subtle form, the better writing and dark feel of shows such as Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Babylon 5 also influenced this story quite a bit. The chapter title "Between the Darkness and the Light" is the name of a Babylon 5 episode.
3. Movie quotes "Come with me if you want to live"--Terminator (duh.) "I'm being MARKED DOWN?!"--Ruthless People.
4. Shannara: I confess--LARGE parts of the basic overall plotline of "Shadows of the Future" were borrowed from or inspired by the later Shannara series--the Scions of Shannara. The third book, "The Elf Queen of Shannara", especially. The ideas that (a) draining the magic out of a land for wasteful, extravagant reasons could turn a beautiful island paradise into a twisted, evil morass (Morrowindl!) and (b) the idea that anyone who hangs out near or uses a jewel(s) of great power will be changed by it and eventually develop their own internal powers (elfstones)--in my story you'll find modified versions of both of these points affecting things heavily.
5. Death Gate Cycle: Knuckles doesn't feel like he "belongs" once he finally DOES find his people--this has happened in literature MANY times but I was sorta thinking of Alfred Montbank and how he reacted when he FINALLY found the other Sartan, there. Also the name "Arellus" is a very SUBTLE Death Gate Cycle reference. Arellus is the name of the place that the echidnas, who used to live on a Floating Island, came to later on. ARIANUS is the name of the Realm of Air from the D.G. Cycle, which is made up of a lot of...wait for it...FLOATING ISLANDS! See, that's one joke you probably NEVER woulda got had you not read these notes...
6. "Times of Chaos": This is a Round-Robin story that we ("we" being NetRaptor herself, Shax the Raptor, Xeroxus, Pip the Bat, Vector, and I) did over at NetRaptor's board and I included a couple of in-joke references to it. The chapter title "Every 'Rose' Has Its Thorn" is a sly reference to Amy ROSE doing something rather nasty in it, getting in touch a little bit more with her "dark side" whether she meant to or not--and THORN is the name of the EVIL version of Amy I made up for "Times of Chaos. The line where Amy says that Pip the Bat was last seen going off to Robotropolis refers to that story, too. "Jeeves" the Queen's butler has the same name as the Governess's butler, and indeed Dust Hill City and the City of the Stars have similar histories up to a point... (Jeeves HIMSELF was inspired by the delightfully campy Centauri Minister that Damian London played on Babylon 5--he basically looks and acts like an echidna version of him.)
7. Other T.V. Shows: The rebel names--Number One, Number Two, Number 6, etc. are taken from "The Prisoner", a really cool, dark, creepy sci-fi show from the '60s. The names "Steele" and "Cagney" for the two cops are from two '80s cop/detective shows: Remington Steele and Cagney and Lacey. (Steele is also a tribute to the comic books' "Constable Remington", a minor character that I kinda like, and whose name I can NEVER hear without instantly thinking "Steele" right after it.)
Other:
Lorinda, who resembled Princess Sally in so many ways as Sonic rightfully noticed, got the fate that Princess Sally ALMOST (and some say should have) had. Princess Sally fell to her "death" but then was ressurected via a plothole in "Endlame"--I mean, "EndGAME"....Lorinda, another reddish-brown rebel leader, REALLY DID fall to her death.
Anansi, Knuckles' real name, is the name of the Australian Aborigine Trickster-God. What better name for an Australian critter (for that's where real echidnas come from) who is described in his first appearance as "tricky and clever"?
Most of the strange apparati at the Arellan Launch Base that Amy and Tails went through, over, around, and under were described from playing the REAL Launch Base Zone in Sonic 3. Hey, I don't do well with techno-stuff...
We thank you for plodding your way all the way through this. If you actually read it all, you deserve some kind of award! Now go get yourself a sandwich and please turn off your poor tired computer!
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pathetically curious tourists have plodded ALL the way through my incessant rambling since June 11, 1999. Of course, most of them went blind from looking at the computer screen for so long, but hey...