Reference for this bit of trivia...

[Chad]

I need help determining/finding the reference for this bit of information.  Anthony's question about the thing that makes me think of TFB made me think about it.   I thought it was from either the SC 2 manual or SC 2 roleplaying resource guide but, I couldn't find it.

Did you know that Fred and Paul disappeared to Alaska and worked on this game for an additional 6 months without pay? Only that during these 6 months, the game grew from 2 to 9 megabytes, thousands of dialogue lines were added, the digital music appeared and a complete galaxy with hundreds of stars and thousands of planets made its way into the game.

first trivia at the bottom of the page by Tomer Gabel.

http://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/star-control-ii/trivia

Another bonus, does anyone here still know Tomer?  He worked here on the site like 10 years ago.

[Draxas]

I seem to recall something like a "last minute changes" document file that was on the SC2 disks being the source of that.

[Meep-Eep]

Indeed. From update.text:

Welcome to Star Control II, we hope you enjoy the trip!  What follows is a detailed description of how the game is different from what is described in the manual, plus a few playing tips.  Why is there a difference, you ask? Well, frankly, it's the designers' fault.  Here's what happened...

About six months before we ACTUALLY shipped the game, Fred and Paul (the designers of the game) gave us some disks and told us, "Here's the final version... well, ALMOST final.  We have a few MINOR finishing touches, but they'll be done real soon."  Then Fred and Paul disappeared, and were not seen or heard from for half a year. We looked and looked, but even their families didn't know where they'd gone.  At great expense, we hired a detective from Pinkerton's to locate the errant designers.  They were in ALASKA!  Why?  That's what we asked them... FER CRYIN' OUT LOUD, WHAT WERE YOU DOIN' IN ALASKA?! "Adding a few nice touches", they said, "like thirty different types of worlds, planet surface exploration, and enough player-alien dialog to fill a novel."

Well, what could we do? Kill them?... yeah, we thought so too, but they ran off again, and now even the detective can't find them.  Anyway, as a result, we have been forced to send along this significant update document which details all the "nice touches" Fred and Paul added.  By the way, if you see Paul and Fred, DON'T call Pinkerton's, call us instead... we will take care of them ourselves.

The "six months without pay" comes from a mail from FF to Angelfish, and used to be published on the PNF.

And from an IRC chat with TFB and #starcontrol:

<Inging> Did you really go to Alaska to finish SC2?
<Fwiffo> No, we didn't go to Alaska. But it sounds nice.

[Angelfish]

Heh, I didn't even remember that that actually came from a mail with me, that was in the time when I still believed in a sequel to SC2.

[Scott_Irving]

I remember Tomer, though I never really spoke much to him.

[Holograph]

You don't have to look far, I didn't really go anywhere :-) It's also really awesome to see the same bunch of old faces on this board. How have you all been?

The original trivia indeed comes from both of those sources, and dates to a time when I didn't realize how important attribution is.

[Lukipela]

I love it when people older than me suddenly pop up. It's like watching the history channel. Stay around, why don't you?