Discord similarly borrows the majority of one of Commander Khashoggi's lines (changing the last word into a longer phrase) from We Will Rock You. He later paraphrases the Major General Song.
In chapter 9, Twilight describes dragons as both “extreme omnivores” and “obligate silicavores”, in reference to a scene from Saphroneth’s The Unicorn At Hogwarts where she used the same phrasings.
Chapter 11 mentions one of Spliced’s old classmates who, during a history exam, made a mistake involving a war from long before their time — he thought it was named after one of the generals involved instead of the piece of territory where most of the fighting took place. This references a scene from the Johnny Dixon book The Drum, The Doll and the Zombie, in which the title character's father is noted as having made the same mistake on his own history exam (he thought The Peloponnesian War involved a general named Peloponnesian, instead of primarily taking place in the Peloponnese region). However, unlike the character Spliced mentions, Major Dixon acknowledged and accepted his error when it was pointed out.
During the aforementioned scene in chapter 11, Spliced refers to one of her classmates as “a gasbag of ego”. The same phrase was used by an annoyed character to describe one of her squadron mates in Star Wars: X-Wing #7 - Solo Command.
In chapter 14, Spliced references a quote from Socrates: "I am the wisest [man] alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing."
The valley Twilight mentions as the setting for a weather control experiment (or rather, lack of weather control) is based on Perfection Valley.
During their discussion on weather control, Spliced names a method of creating new clouds that is straight out of Star Wars: X-Wing #2 - Wedge's Gamble.
Still in the same discussion, Twilight discusses the creation of rainbows; the methodology used comes from a scene in RealityCheck's The Audience. So does her usage of the term "morphic resonance field control".
During Chapter 15's scene in Rainbow Dash’s house, Rainbow Dash mentions that a compound named pyrobloin is mixed into the vapor used to make cloudstone. This is almost exactly how sea clouds and island clouds (like Skypeia) are created in One Piece, except there pyrobloin seems to be a naturally occurring compound that's expelled into the atmosphere via volcanoes.
In the same chapter, Twilight mentions that she's looking for an emotion that she can use to manually trigger her flaming form (the one triggered by her Rage Breaking Point in Feeling Pinkie Keen), and that she needs a positive one, since negative ones burden the spirit. This is inspired by a scene in chapter 23 of the Ranma ½ fanfic The Truth And The Tempest. The method she's currently using is reminiscent of Sanji’s "Hell Memories" technique.
Twilight's two Trust Passwords in chapter 21 are one — "The world is quiet here" is the motto of the V.F.D. organization in A Series of Unfortunate Events; "The celery stalks at midnight" is the title of the third book in the Bunnicula series.
In chapter 29, after being warned that another outburst could see her charged with contempt of court, Spliced thinks to herself that I have nothing but contempt for this court, a line from The Transformers: The Movie.
Late in chapter 29, Legal Preview says she’d be happy if Due Justice’s legal license was “dumped in some black hole where it belongs”. A similar line, except for referring to the case as a whole, was used in Star Wars: X-Wing #3 - the Krytos Trap.
Scavenge for the Future
The trio's ship, Excelsior, is named (out-of-universe) in memory of the late Stan Lee and his catchphrase.
Chapter 2 features multiple shout-outs to Star Wars, including:
A debate on strong caf that's inspired by a similar scene in Star Wars: X-Wing #8 — Isard's Revenge. This version mentions that Scratched bought some that "should keep you awake through a Gratetan performance of a Lhat'kan opera". In the original book, Iella Wessiri mentions a type of caf "strong enough to keep you awake through an Ithorian performance of a Gamorrean opera", and says hunting up a source of such caf is how they start any good investigation.
The Excelsior itself is heavily based on the Pulsar Skate, Mirax Terrik's ship from the same series.
A mention of the "Big Man" and his Space Barn, with its three platinum rules, one of which is "no intoxicants". This is inspired by Shug Ninx and his Spacebarn on Nar Shaddaa, who has the same rule as one of his three. (The others are that anything is available to use, so long as whoever used it put it back or compensated for damage, and pay promptly for the use of his or his techs' services.)
Uglies, cobbled-together spacecraft, which were introduced in The Corellian Trilogy and have since been featured in the new canon.
In a non-Star Wars reference, the ship the group found has the serial numbers 4815162342 — the cursed numbers from Lost.
The group's stellar hiding place in chapter six is based on the Denarii Nova, where the Shadow Academy hid during the fourth book of Young Jedi Knights, and put into its current condition during the events of the Tales of the Jedi series (issue four of the The Fall of the Sith Empire arc).
Doa's Bar is identified as the start and end point of a war, referencing an event during the American Civil War, in which the first Battle of Manassas took place around the McLean family farm, which the Confederates used as an observation post and headquarters; afterward, to avoid his family getting caught up in another battle, Wilmer McClean moved his family further south to the town of Appomattox Court House. Four years later, when Confederate General Robert E. Lee was about to surrender to Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant, his messenger found a place in that town to meet — the parlor of McClean's new house.
The last time Scratched went into a bar with someone to watch her back, her back got punched twice.
As revealed in chapter 7, Doa's Bar is located on an asteroid in the Oricho System. In Star Wars Legends, the Oricho sector is home to the Borgo Prime star system, which is home to the asteroid Borgo Prime, which is home to the bar Shanko's Hive (which is itself an inspiration, along with Mos Eisley on Tatooine).
of the Ranma ½ fanfic The Truth And The Tempest. The method she's currently using is reminiscent of Sanji’s "Hell Memories" technique.