So I decided that a solution to my earlier AMA would be to simply answer the questions with did you know sort of facts. Also I get questions all the time about stuff pertaining to the series, so I figured two birds, one stone, yaddy yaddy. So any questions people ask me will show up here, as well as random other facts about the series that I feel like throwing in. Woo!
Did You Know...
1. Nami is a character in One Piece. Cross Marian is from D. Gray Man. Chase is a Fist fighter who rides the South Star (Fist of the North Star). Adrwen's glasses behaviours is a references to Hughes from Fullmetal Alchemist.
2. Originally, Sigma's hands were human. This would be changed in the edited version as it didn't make much sense for him to have holes appearing in them and also made him very tough to draw.
3. Rick Deckard, Circuit Breaker, is a reference to Blade Runner/Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
4. The idea for Sigma/Star never came from Gundam because I have never read or watched Gundam. The concept for the Sigma character had always existed, stemming largely from Megaman X. The manga Broken Blade inspired me to put my existing ideas into a story and is where Sigma/Star comes from.
5. The Jahari were originally supposed to be a joke chapter, similar to the space wolf or zombie ones. They were the result of a zombie fused with a Goliath. But then they turned out to make great villains...
6. Each country has its own rebel group that fights against the government for similar reasons. They are the Red Scarf Gang, the Jade Fangs, the Silver Lance, and the Orange Dawn, though not all of them have been revealed.
7. Ardwen's Goliath "Mother Gaia" is a reference to Golden Sun, a video game featuring such a spell that was more or less my childhood growing up, with a stupidly hard final boss for a ten year old.
8. As some of you might have figured out, the "barbarians" who live in the northern portions of the Enian Federation are the remains of Russian culture, who, over time, have reverted into being nomadic people and have created their own religious beliefs. Ochenkov speaks with an accent, while Irina and Alice Kostinev have lost theirs, though Irina still holds true to her culture's roots.
9. Dr. Roth is a real world person, who developed a form of chiropractics called Matrix Repatterning. He helped me recover from my multiple concussions and memory loss. He doesn't have a daughter named Allyson though, in case you're wondering.
10. Syn's real name is Lance Kreidler
11. Enianism is loosely based on Christianity...but also not really
12. Grimsley is a clone character of Porter, and Gretta is a clone character of Nami. Aunt Shauna is a reflection of Mr. Shotuku, while Raven is a reflection of Riya. None of them are secretly related, I just made them that way to help make the twin story lines easier to follow.
13. Nami was originally intended to be a wacky sidekick who bugged Porter then faded into a memory. But she was so popular early on she gained her place in the Crisis Rescue Unit.
14. I don't like the name Crisis Rescue Unit. It bugs me that I ever picked it.
15. Easley, and the opening scene involving Grimsley/Gretta/Raven, is a reference to one of my favourite video games, Valkyria Chronicles. It features a small farm town that gets hit by an invasion force and the Grimsley character owns a tank and so on and just play the game.
16. Pick some dubstep music on songza and it's probably what I was listening to while writing Sigma/Star.
17. The first two volumes of Sigma/Star were self-published by me...and I learned my lesson. I don't think Sigma/Star will ever go down that path again and don't plan it. I like the online format and eternal lifespan it gives me. So if you're hoping for real books sometime soon, it may not happen, unless someone offers me a publishing deal...
18. The Eastern United States, as everyone should know by now, aren't the remains of the United States of America. They're states in the east that united. So that would be Asia.
19. English is not the spoken language of anyone in Sigma/Star. It is a dead language in this time. But since I wrote it in English, that's what you read it as. Unless I've made a mistake, there is not a single reference to what language is specifically being spoken by any characters. Which ones they do speak I'll leave to the imagination.
20. To help put the war in perspective geographically, you need something like this: The Eastern United States control all of Asia, up to roughly the Middle East, and Australia. The Enian Federation connects with them, taking up Russia and the majority of Eastern and Central Europe. The Artisans control the western edge of Europe, as well as North Africa.
21. All the covers you see for Sigma/Star were drawn by Jake Uskoski. He is a digital artist, so he made them on his computer using a pen and tablet.
Let me know if you want to know anything else about the world of Sigma/Star. Don't know how much I am willing to spoil but you never know what you might learn!