I wish I could remember where all the inspiration had come from for some of the other games in the series. So for Aurora Horizon, I’m writing it down.
The Aurora Horizon
The overall design of the Aurora Horizon (as in the overall ball-on-a-stick look) is taken from the Discovery in 2001: A Space Odyssey (Arthur C Clarke and Stanley Kubrik).
(In researching this, I thought I read somewhere that Discovery used a nuclear pebble-bed reactor, but I can’t find the source now.)
CORA 9000
CORA 9000 is the name of the Aurora Horizon’s computer system (a player in the game). The name is inspired by HAL 9000 (2001: A Space Odyssey, again) with a hint of Blake 7’s Orac.
Does CORA 9000 have an agenda of its own? I couldn’t possibly comment.
Aerobraking
The aerobraking manoeuvre in Jupiter’s upper atmosphere was inspired by Leonov doing the same in 2010: The Year We Make Contact.
It’s only in the background (although it causes serious damage to the Aurora Horizon), but still. That’s where the idea came from.
Names of characters
The names of the human characters are either inspired by characters or their actors in 2001: A Space Odyssey and 2010: The Year We Make Contact or are taken directly from them.
For example, Commander Archer was inspired by Bowman.
The three Tau characters (Huey, Louie and Dewey) are named after the robots in Silent Running.
The ROV, VINCENT, is named after the robot in Disney’s The Black Hole. (Technically, VINCENT isn’t a character in the game, but anyway. That’s where I got the name from.)
Other influences
Some influences are a bit spoilery, so I will just list them here. You can read into them what you will.
- Stark by Ben Elton
- Europa Deep by Gary Gibson
