Easter Eggs in Star Stable

 

Hello Starfam!

This post will not exactly be  the shortest one - we'll take a closer look at a topic that I think is really interesting and I hope it will be for you too! I've received a couple requests to write about this on my Polish blog and I'm hopeful that my English speaking audience will also enjoy reading this.

Today we're going to talk about easter eggs in Star Stable Online. I'll not only bring up references from other universes (books, movies, etc.) but also from real life, legends and history; to make this post easier to write and read I'll just call all of these easter eggs. I decided to divide this post into two parts; this first part will focus on references that are in not really related either to SSO or people who work at the office. However the second part will have references that are related to the game and the Star Stable team.

Let's start now!

 

One of the places that is full of easter eggs is Epona and that's where we'll start our journey. The name itself seems to be an inspiration.

Epona and Rhiannon

Epona was one of the celtic deities who was a protector of horses, ponies, donkeys and mules. Epona is also believed to be connected to a character from medieval Welsh story collection called Rhiannon (source: LINK). I think you might recall of a person with that name too!

 

 Bulldogz

 This riding club is based in New Hillcrest, where we'll find many riders wearing their green, club jacket. Have you paid attention to their names though? These are: Lily, Ginny, Katie and Petunia. I think that this series of books and movies about a famous wizard named Harry Potter might be known well enough for you to recognize that those names are a reference to 4 characters from that series: Lily Potter, Ginny Weasley, Katie Bell and Petunia Dursley.

Ginny

Katie and Petunia

Lily

Dolores Staunton

We're not leaving the Harry Potter universe yet, no no! I don't think there's anyone who actually likes Dolores Umbridge, but her character stays in our memory for a long time for sure.

But have you managed to find this reference? During the quests on the Sout Hoof Peninsula, when Madison is lost and trying to find her beloved horse, one of the clues on where to find her is a newspaper and inside of it - an article written by Dolores Stauton. The first name is correct to the name of the antagonist from 5th part of Harry Potter but the surname was instead inspired by the actress playing the role herself - Imelda Staunton.

Evergray

We're not really used to druids being this lighthearted and funny but Evergray surely changes my view on this group: needless to say he must be one of my favorite ones. The druid who was outcast in the past is really simmilar to another character from Harry Potter: Alastor Moody. We could search for similarities in the sarcastic behavior of both of these characters but surely only one damaged eye and a walking stick might be enough to see how alike they are.

Larry Porter

For the non-Harry Potter fans - I promise this is the last reference I'll bring up. When we meet Ricky Winterwell in New Hillcrest he's quite sad and doesn't have motivation to do his chores. Instead he suggests he should watch... Larry Porter! The parts he mentions are Larry Porter and the Half-Mud Prints (reference to The Half-Blood Prince), Larry Porter and the Prisioner of Alcatraz (The Prisoner of Azkaban) and the Larry Porter and the Border of the Peanuts (The Order of Phoenix). Additionaly, Alcatraz is an island where maximum security prison was located - just like Azkaban.

Valley of the Hidden Dinosaur expedition

The population of Dino Valley is not huge and it doesn't make me surprised, considering the hard conditions of living there. However, all those people we meet at the camp are not totally random characters that someone from the team just came up with. They're inspired by real people or characters from other universes.

Berzelius the Engineer - Jöns Jacob Berzelius, Swedish chemist.

Elsa Einstein - Elsa Einstein, wife and cousin of Albert Einstein

Frank Einstein - Frankenstein, character from Mary Shelley's novel.

Igor - Igor, character from one Frankenstein movie, it's also a generic character of an assistant of a mad scientist in many stories.

Swedenborg the dog - Emanuel Swedenborg, Swedish Christian-theologian, scientist, philosopher and mystic.

 

 Is Nic Stoneground the only character on the camp that is made from scratch? Not really! But I'll tell you more about it in the next post about references.

 

 The Forts

For now we can find two forts at Jorvik. One of them is one of the places that players without Star Rider can access and the other one is located in Epona, but hasn't been opened yet. Other than them being forts, there's another thing that connects them. It's their names. They're the same as the names of ships that took part in first expedition of Christopher Columbus. The ships's names were: Niña, Santa María and Pinta. We can also think of another reference here. The first person that noticed the New World (America) was a sailor from Pinta and as we know, when Jon Jarl discovered Jorvik the first land he saw was the area where he then built Fort Pinta!

Fort Pinta - the ship Pinta

Fort Maria - the ship Santa María

Jones Family

I think everyone remembers the struggles with completing the Mississippi Jones' treasure quests. The whole Jones family seems to be rather big and even Mrs. Holdsworth is part of it. We have two references here. First one is all family members' names, each of them is a name of one state from the United States, e.g. Mississippi Jones, California Jones, Washington Jones and Hawaii Jones. Just like Indiana Jones, who as it seems, was an inspiration for Hawaii.

Jamie Olivetree

Jamie lives in New Hillcrest and is a baker. Some players say that she reminds them of a British cook Jamie Oliver.

Jorella

That's a small detail as the bag of chips is just a decoration. However it's also really simmilar to a real thing that some of you might have seen - chips from Estrella.

 

jPhone

 When changing the words to make everything fit Jorvik, there can't be an jPhone missing! It's a reference to iPhones from Apple.

 

Constellations

My favorite thing about Fripp's room is definitely his ceiling with night sky on it. Did you know there are real constellations on it?!

Sunfield family

What do you say to go back to mythology for a biy? This time it's norse mythology. But what does it have to do with the Sunfield family? Take a look at the names of Martina and Filip Sunfield's children: they are Loke, Saga, Freja and Tor. The kids share names with Norse deities and figures: Loki, Saga, Freja and Thor.

Tor

Saga

Freja

Loke

Lisa Peterson's CDs

Beautiful but rather small house that belongs to Lisa and her dad hides a lot of secrets. There are CDs that lie in her room as she inherited them from her mum. Their covers are inspired by real life artists and their work:

 

 Ricky and Ivan

A lot of players noticed that Ricky Winterwell looks just like Rocky Balboa. It's true, in fact he was so simmilar that his hair had to be changed so the copyright laws wouldn't be broken. However not many remember that Ivan Drake is also inspired by another character: Rocky's opponent Ivan Drago. Even jor-jitsu, martial arts that both these character love, is inspired by real martial arts: ju jitsu.

Shakira

One of Jorvik's musicians, Raptor, owns a wolf named Shakira. Supposedly it is the doing of huge fans of this singers in the team!

 

 Spider Pig

It's a character that origins from the Simpsons and every year on Halloween is hidden in some place at Jorvik. There's even a song called Spider Pig! Here is last year's hiding spot:

 

 

Stablebucks

Starbucks is one of the most popular chains of cafes in the world and it lived to see its branch even in Jorvik (well... almost the same name). Stablebucks is located just by Jarlaheim.

Steven Seagull

A bird sold at the docks in Fort Pinta is named Steven so he's Steven Seagull. Does it sound familiar?

Exactly! There's an actor called Steven Seagal and both Seagal and Seagull are rather simmilar in pronunciation. Intresting wordplay!

Isolde, Loke and Tristian

This complicated love questline is a reference to two other stories! The quests are about Isolde and Loke who are in love witch each other, but their families who are fighting won't even let them meet. Isolde's brother, Tristian, tries to blame Loke for things, that it turns out, he has done himself and all that because Tristian didn't want the two to continue their love story. The lovers rebel and run away from home, which ends in both families reconicle and a happy ending. It's quite obvious that the story is inspired by Rome and Juliet (with a happier ending luckily), but the siblings' names come from the legend about Tristian and Isolde.

XYZ

Our favorite magician Ydris, together with his helper Xin and horse Zee make a XYZ with their names! These are the last letters of the Latin alphabet. Not sure about other countries but in Poland they're frequently used at school for Math!

 

Bjork and Agnetha

Silverglade Manor Gardens are not the most popular place. This time they need to be relegated to the background again because this time we're talking about their caregivers, gardeners Bjork and Agnetha. If you're a fan of ABBA you'll probably recognize both those names, because that's how two members of this band are called: Agnetha Fältskog i Björn Ulvaeu.

 

 Posters

This reference is vanishing because of the music industry in Jorvik improving (updating the Miscreants' image included), but some of the old posters are still hanging strong in Fort Pinta. They're references to three music artists and bands:

Bob Marley

The Misfits

Metallica, Ride the Lightning

 

★★★

 

Phew! What a ride! I hope you enjoyed our little trip and you'll be coming back here. Now I'm sending you all the biggest hugs and waiting for you to tell me whether you found any more easter eggs in Star Stable!

 

See you!