Strange Attractor - the name of the tale itself is a mathematical term. An attractor is a value toward which a system of equations' solutions tend to hover. A strange attractor has a fractal element to it. I originally just liked the name, but it sort of fits Portia, scaling large and small and still having the same pattern. Her physical attraction is rather strange in a non-mathematical way, too!
Portia Schwarzchild - Portia is named after Brutus' wife in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. Schwarzchild has a double meaning in the story. Karl Schwarzschild is the physicist/astronomer for whom the Schwarzschild radius--the size of the event horizon of a black hole--is named. One meaning of Schwarzschild taken literally in German is "black shield," which nicely describes Portia's outer mass, shielding the universe from the effects of the singularity within. Portia's surname is not spelled exactly the same, as there's no s after the z.
Thaxter Bassari - Thaxter is just an uncommon name that I thought was neat-sounding, two traits that seem to pop up a lot in my character names. Bassari is a variant of the genus name Bassaricyon, a member of the family Procyonidae, which includes raccoons, though raccoons aren't part of the Bassaricyon genus. I thought Procyon was a bit overused, and Bassari sounded like a better last name for our protagonist.
Pinback - Our caustic porcupine (and really, what else could he be with that name? Hmmm, a hedgehog, perhaps.) is a reference to a character in Dark Star, a 1974 movie dealing with the crew of a ship purposed with blowing up planets, similar to the Adephagia. It's a very quirky low-budget film, but fun!
Captain Fyerser - The "crazy old" captain Thaxter makes reference to is a nod to the main character in Wendingo's Anomlies of Scale, the story that helped prod me to finally write this one.
Adephagia - The ship on which Portia and Thaxter serve is named after the Greek goddess of gluttony. Fitting, huh?
Cygnus - The ship Portia talks about being stationed aboard during the accident is a nod to the main ship in Disney's movie The Black Hole.
Sector ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha - These were Earth's space coordinates in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams. As Earth was demolished in that story to make way for a "hyperspace bypass," I thought it made a neat reference here.
Nozz-A-La - a soft drink from some of the parallel Earths in the Dark Tower series by Stephen King. It seems to be roughly analogous to Coca-Cola, so it might be found in mixers. No literary reason for this one's inclusion, but I do very much enjoy that universe and wanted one small connection to it.
There are also a few nameless references to other people's characters. The black wolf next to Thaxter on the bridge is meant to be Shockwave, a character created by Allen Kitchen, who wrote a number of furry space-themed stories back in the day. The Labrador and squirrel at the bar are based on Camelia and Irene from Dogs Chase Squirrels and other stories by Becky Cascane.
So there you go! Sticking references like this into a story is a fun way to pay homage to sources of inspiration, and I enjoy finding ways to get them in. I hope this was an interesting peek behind the curtain!
