As an inside joke, several sentences of the library book's description of the city of Marcuria are taken almost verbatim from the descriptions of Babylon 5 (1993) from that show's first and second season introductions.
Takes place in the year 2209 A.D.
The elevator lobby in the MTI building (Chapter 11) is a very close copy of the lobby from the Ministry Of Intelligence in Brazil (1985).
On the space station, when you look at the door leading to the security room there is a sign with a name of a company: OmniTek. In Funcom's massive multi-player online role-play game 'Anarchy Online' Omni-Tek is a interstellar corporation - one side of a planetary conflict which is the main story arch in the game.
The Mercury Theatre was named after the independent repertory theatre company that was founded in New York City in 1937 by Orson Welles and producer John Houseman. The company produced theatrical presentations, radio programs and motion pictures up until the company's dissolve in 1946. April even noted that the theater is a reference to Orson Welles in one of her diary entries.