Shout Out / Har Deshur

As an homage to a lot of older sci-fi media, especially about Mars, many nods and references to said media are to be expected.

These are:

• There are many references to The War of the Worlds and its possible prequel The Crystal Egg:
  • Many Martian animals are tripods or have triradial symmetry.
  • The name of the narrator is Ogilvy, like the astronomer at the beginning of the novel.
  • The description of the great ushabti, especially its humanoid appearance, that it has a siliceous skeleton and that it would likely not be able to live on Earth, makes it resemble the bipeds that Wells' Martians use as cattle.
  • The spongisporian tube-trees may be a reference to the lichenous trees of Mars mentioned in The Crystal Egg.
  • Mars' red colour is in part caused by the colour of its vegetation, much like Wells speculates in the novel.
  • The Aloowog makes the same sound as the tripod fighting machines.
  • The poem in the Happy Holidays post seems to be written from the perspective of a Martian invader.
• The Jeff Wayne musical is quoted a couple of times. One of its tripods is featured in the Happy Holidays post along with the distinctive Ulla sound.
• When not named after Egyptian mythology or animal names, many of the aliens' common names follow a certain Barsoomian naming style. That many of the onychognaths are Vertebrates With Extra Limbs is likely also an homage.
  • The Rhinoceros Warhoon is named after one of the Green Martian tribes.
• The dust slugs are an almost direct adaptation of some of the creatures seen in Disney's Mars and Beyond. The whole work is in fact strongly inspired by said documentary.
• The great ushabti profile opens with a fitting quote from In the Walls of Eryx.
  • The profile features a thinly-veiled Take That! against Michael Crichton, as well as the depiction of aliens/sci-fi-cultures as pastiches of Native Americans or Bedouins, as seen in the likes of Avatar or Dune.
  • In the same profile is mentioned "some Danish brick company" that sells Martian minifigures. The head shape of the ushabti even resembles that of the Lego Martians.
• Onychognaths have spiracles in front of their limbs and silicon-discs for eyes, much like the vertebrates of Snaiad
• The Venus page quotes a passage from Paradise Lost.
  • The account of Daniel Flammarion's Robinsonade on Venus is a reference to Robinson Crusoe on Mars, which was even reviewed on the website.
• The title of the Europa page is an obvious one to 2010: The Year We Make Contact.
  • The nature of the Europan ocean is similar to Solaris or the Amoebic Sea, just more aggressive.
  • The briefly mentioned Synthologist Cult seems similar to Unitology from Dead Space. In the background of the Europa image can also be seen a marker.
  • The image of Europa's surface is based off Das Eismeer, a painting by Caspar David Friedrich.
  • The appearance of the ice crab resembles the arachnids from Starship Troopers.
• Dagoth Ur is the (surprisingly good) narrator of the Youtube videos. The names and/or appearances of the members of the phylum Hemicalyxia are also based off enemies from Morrowind.
• The scientists cited in the profile of the Arctic Sortax are all named after characters from the German Kika show Tolle Sachen.
• The name of Syncarpus sarahlandyri, as well as its accompanying illustration, are a direct homage to Sarah Landry, who, for a 1975 issue of Scientific American, illustrated the dinosaur Syntarsus (today Megapnosaurus) with feathers, generally regarded as the first illustration of a feathered non-avian dinosaur.

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