This is – rather obviously – where the original version of the scene started.

A few points :

1. Most of the remaining pages already have commentary. As of this writing (June 25, 2009), Recon 6, 8, and 10 are the only pages without any.

2. Sterling’s dialogue (and Sterling herself) may seem like a continuity break with established veil behavior. That’s because the Majestic is at 1.5 and holding – it’s not moving through the Veil in either direction. Hence the dialogue isn’t blurry and hence (as you’ll see in a couple of pages) why Sterling isn’t sporting the usual “stencil” look that Veil-transiting characters have.

3. Half of the previous point is just a clever excuse for keeping the type easily editable.

4. The CG earth looks absolutely hideous close up – I was able to work around it with transition, but in this case was so irked by the poor quality of the renders that I tossed the results and built the veil-earth completely in photoshop. Given the spiffiness of the “weather effects,” I’d say the decision worked out exceptionally well.

Mastering notes, 2016.12.06 – Minor visual adjustments.