Colonel Bruta was wearing armor that looked very similar to the armor worn by Frank Horrigan.
During the Pirate Arc, François, oblivious to the state the ship was in, was watching a 21st cookery reality show hosted by a familiar chef from his archive collection.
Within the bar, Dwan has a "Exotic Drinks" cabinet, which include:
The Kabela mercenary group is named after Cabela's hunting games. The Gold Dusts and its splinter group, the Star Dusts, are named after the wrestlers Goldust and Stardust.
During the Bug Hunt Arc, Dolosus and Joseph could be seen watching Galactic Gear.
The name that Arthur uses for his secret identity is Endarth, a "Welsh ancestor of his that was kicked out of Wales for bestiality". Endarth is from Drawing RP, a fantasy RP played on Facepunch.
The news provider, Intergalactica, has allowed for quite a few shoutouts, including:
Planet Saiya becoming the host planet for the 2384 Intergalactic Olympics, barely beating out planet Dakara.
Many alien races, such as the Klingons and Chozo, agreeing with the humans in regards of the UGC's Conlang bias.
A deal between Buy n Large and Octan Organization falling through, leading to Octan to spearhead the movement to get rid of Conlang's status as lingua franca and to have them rid of.
Zealot Kalpyr engaged with the Archius Crew and saw Varn blindfiring. He takes advantage of this and literally does a backflip kick towards the merc and shouts out "I kick arse for the lord!".
Dwan asks Lion if the helmets he made for the LWA KUAS can identify one's power level. Lion confirms it can. This, added with the fact that Iska opted for a eyepiece instead of a helmet, causes Dwan to barely contain his laughter.
Another wrestling gag during the Meteor Arc: Varn threatens to take uncooperative crewmembers into the squared circle and "make them humble."
The names of the representatives of Terra, Sarmatia and Germania to the United Galactic Community; Théodore le Sieg, Bronwen Snilye and Guchdid Hansson. The first is a reference to Dr. Seuss, while the other two use the romanized versions of how Chile (Snilye) and Guyana (Guchdid)◊ would be spelled in Faux Cyrillc.
Varn watching Galactic Wrestling Entertainment, as it airs a pay-per-view event where, amongst other things, the Galactic Wrestling Champion Leock Brasner will defend his title against Gatzsplitta.
During the scene in which the human crew of the Desert Star is abducted and replaced by State Security agents, the human crewmembers' names and dialogue are based off of the little-known Weezer song "Blast Off!"