UrsusArctos: The constant references to the spread of corrosion and the underwater imagery reference the 1987 horror anime Lily C.A.T., which was heavily derivative of both Alien and the Thing. The planetary exploration ship Saldes has an alien microbe brought aboard on the orders of a robot. The microbe accidentally gets into the water tanks before sreading throughout the vessel in a black corrosion-looking growth. True to Alien, the crew of the Saldes were basically truckers in space with a bunch of questionable passengers on board, and it made sense they wouldn't know how to characterize the alien microbe killing and metamorphising them. This is a much less important reference than Andromeda, but it nevertheless shows how Anno and company worked numerous SF homages into this show.
