What is 'Blue Sun'? by rita

As near as we can figure, Blue Sun is a megacorporation that makes all kinds of stuff, including a soft drink and various food products in the Firefly Universe. For some reason, River has a particular dislike to them, possibly related to the tortures she suffered at the hands of the Blue Hand Crew. See Ariel and note what logo is on Jaynes t-shirt.

"Wash, where is my damn spaceship?"

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Thursday, September 25, 2003 1:24 PM

DESANGRO

Hmm, so the Blue Hand guys are (possibly) connected with the giant corporation Blue Sun? That might mean that River's school was run by Blue Sun or is jointly owned by Blue Sun and the Alliance. A question: Why do the Blue Hand fellows kill practically everyone they meet with that wierd wand of death? Is there some sort of bizarre and sadistic reason for this? Maybe they're a bunch of particularly ticked-off CEOs. ;) Does anybody know the answer to this question, or have a theory on it? Also, here's the number one reason you can't trust Blue Sun: their initials are "B.S." Pretty appropriate, huh?

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Friday, September 26, 2003 12:28 AM

IAC

From what we have seen, Blue Sun seems to be an omnipresent corporation with tentacles into several different areas. Their logo pops up in almost every show. I suspect that they may be somehow connected with the government - what us Canucks might call a "Crown Corporation." Additionally each time River seems to totally loose it and babble semi-incoherently, there is some connection to Blue Sun.

But here is another element, that relates to the origin of the name. The Firefly solar system has "hundreds of new earths" that "were terraformed and colonized." We know that many of those "earths" are not planets, but moons around much larger planets.

Some have wondered how hundreds of worlds could exist in the human habitable zone of a solar system. Then someone suggested that this new solar system did not have to be around a yellow star like our own. It could be a system with a blue giant star - IE a Blue Sun!

As to the question about why the blue handed men kill people. I suspect that their mind altering "school" is so super top secret they want to prevent any chance of a leak. Or could it be that exposure to River has some lasting side effect that they want to neutralized?

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Friday, September 26, 2003 3:28 AM

"Why do the Blue Hand fellows kill practically everyone they meet with that wierd wand of death?"

This has bugged me too. They wiped out an ENTIRE security detail for a major Alliance hospital. For simply talking to River. Hmmm...

We know they messed with her mind, that she was smart beforehand, and is now a reader. Trying to eliminate the backwash that any mindreading might cause? That might contaminate their experiment? I don't know. Insufficient data as to motives. But it does put the entire Serenity crew, passengers and subcontractors under sentence of death.

"Wash, where is my damn spaceship?"

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Friday, September 26, 2003 3:32 AM

"I suspect that their mind altering "school" is so super top secret they want to prevent any chance of a leak."

The problem with that is that mass homicides are not a good way of keeping a project secret. People ending up dead, whether the bodies are discovered or not, usually gets noticed. An entire security shift? These guys did not look or act like loose kill crazies. They were pretty professional for a bunch of stone cold murderers.

"Or could it be that exposure to River has some lasting side effect that they want to neutralized?"

That is all I can come up with too. What would having your mind read do to you? I ain't so sure it would give you mind reading abilities as well, nor that they would kill you if it did. Heck, recruit them if all ya want is mind readers.

"Wash, where is my damn spaceship?"

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Friday, September 26, 2003 5:53 AM

BARNEYT

Quote:
Originally posted by Drakon:
"I suspect that their mind altering "school" is so super top secret they want to prevent any chance of a leak."

The problem with that is that mass homicides are not a good way of keeping a project secret. People ending up dead, whether the bodies are discovered or not, usually gets noticed. An entire security shift? These guys did not look or act like loose kill crazies. They were pretty professional for a bunch of stone cold murderers.

My thinking is that the 'Blue Hand' chaps are saying that River killed everyone, which would provide more fuel to the warrant out for her arrest and would provide good cover for them hunting her and putting out a huge reward for her capture.

After all, who's left around to disagree...

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Friday, September 26, 2003 3:48 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Drakon:
"Or could it be that exposure to River has some lasting side effect that they want to neutralized?"

That is all I can come up with too. What would having your mind read do to you? I ain't so sure it would give you mind reading abilities as well, nor that they would kill you if it did. Heck, recruit them if all ya want is mind readers.

Didn't the Blue Hand guys only get concerned when they found out the Security captain talked to River? If they weren't too concerned until they found out he had talked to them, then just being around her and possibly having your mind read by her doesn't seem like a problem. The BH guys might have only killed the security detail because they assumed River might have told them something.

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Friday, September 26, 2003 3:53 PM

oops. Double post

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Friday, September 26, 2003 3:54 PM

Quote:
My thinking is that the 'Blue Hand' chaps are saying that River killed everyone, which would provide more fuel to the warrant out for her arrest and would provide good cover for them hunting her and putting out a huge reward for her capture.
After all, who's left around to disagree...

I think the method they were killed would raise a lot of suspicion. If someone, not the BH guys, started telling everyone that a young girl killed all these trained security guys by bleeding them to death, it would raise a lot a questions. It might put more attention on River and how she got the ability to kill with her mind, than they would want.

On the other hand...it would make some people shoot first and ask questions later.

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Friday, September 26, 2003 3:56 PM

Triple post? Did Fox take over my ISP?

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Friday, September 26, 2003 4:20 PM

BLACKSTAR

Quote:
Originally posted by DeSangro:
Also, here's the number one reason you can't trust Blue Sun: their initials are "B.S." Pretty appropriate, huh?

Hey Now! Blackstar! Often shortened to BS!

Oh, my God! Who's flying this thing? Oh, right, that would be me...

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Friday, September 26, 2003 5:08 PM

SHEWHOHATHAPEN

Quote:
Originally posted by WhooDahn:
The BH guys might have only killed the security detail because they assumed River might have told them something.

That's what I always assumed. Consider the fact that she was in the super-secret school and combine that with the fact that she's a reader, there are all kinds of things she could know that they wouldn't want anyone to hear.

In "Safe" is when River is kinda-sorta describing her mental condition and memory she says (among other things) that "there are secrets". I always wondered what those secrets were.

---
"I'm very sorry if she tipped off anyone about your cunningly concealed herd of cows."

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Friday, September 26, 2003 11:02 PM

The only bug with River telling them something, anything is that the BHC didn't even ask or clarify or bother to find out what River actually said. You talked to her? Zap!

"Wash, where is my damn spaceship?"

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Saturday, September 27, 2003 3:25 AM

TELLTALE

Quote:
Originally posted by DeSangro:
A question: Why do the Blue Hand fellows kill practically everyone they meet with that wierd wand of death?

Easy.

They represent Fox in the Firefly Universe.

I rule the Special Hell.

http://www.TelltaleProductions.tk

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Saturday, September 27, 2003 10:43 AM

SHEWHOHATHAPEN

Quote:
Originally posted by Drakon:
The only bug with River telling them something, anything is that the BHC didn't even ask or clarify or bother to find out what River actually said. You talked to her? Zap!

Somehow I don't have much of a problem believing that insidious corporations that torture little girls and warp their minds for their own ends would have much of a problem killing people who they suspected of having information they didn't want them to have even if they weren't 100% sure.

Plus, if BH started asking questions about it the person they were asking might very well think again about whatever gibberish River was spouting and try to find some significance in it or figure out why it's so important since, obviously, the BH think it is. Then you'd have to kill them, anyway. So in a sort of twisted way killing them as soon as you find out that they spoke to her at all is like a time-saving measure.

Also, the fed specifically said that he only talked to the prisoners enough to process them and the BH still seemed to think that was enough to warrant killin'.

I just sort of took as a "take no chances" type of thing.

---
"I'm very sorry if she tipped off anyone about your cunningly concealed herd of cows."

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Saturday, September 27, 2003 3:20 PM

DESANGRO

Quote:
Originally posted by blackstar:
Quote:
Originally posted by DeSangro:
Also, here's the number one reason you can't trust Blue Sun: their initials are "B.S." Pretty appropriate, huh?

Hey Now! Blackstar! Often shortened to BS!

Oh, my God! Who's flying this thing? Oh, right, that would be me...

Whoa man! I'm really sorry! I didn't mean you, of course, 'BlackStar' being a pretty cool username. Again, I sincerely apologize; I never intended to step on anyone's toes here.

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Saturday, September 27, 2003 3:49 PM

DESANGRO

Well, what if she could? Do the wands mimic some sort of physical damage that River actually CAN inflict, but never does (in the show, at least). We know that she has some form of mind-reading ability, and is an incredible markswoman (from 'War Stories'), even with her eyes closed and head turned away. Who really knows what she's capable of? (Joss Whedon probably does, so there's someone.) Another question to ponder is did this Academy/torture chamber place's experiments fail with River and turn her into "damaged goods", so to speak, or do they need to get her back in order to finish whatever they were doing to her? Maybe River is a weapon that isn't perfected or fine-tuned yet, instead of a failure that needs to be swept under the proverbial rug. Just imagine what she could be turned into...now that is a scarier concept of a warped human being than Niska's unrestrained sadism.

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Saturday, September 27, 2003 5:36 PM

BLACKSTAR

No problem, DeSangro. I was kidding anyhow, I understand the reference, and I'm sure some of my friends might say im full of BS myself

Oh, my God! Who's flying this thing? Oh, right, that would be me...

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Monday, January 14, 2013 5:29 AM

Quote:
The problem with that is that mass homicides are not a good way of keeping a project secret. People ending up dead, whether the bodies are discovered or not, usually gets noticed. An entire security shift? These guys did not look or act like loose kill crazies. They were pretty professional for a bunch of stone cold murderers.

And yet, it happens. Lots of kids disappeared into government institutions in the height of the cold war for experimentation. People were drugged, children were exploited and pimped out, and there were deaths. You need only look for wikipedia's page on unethical human experimentation in America to find this. Most of the documents have been declassified - but you'll never hear the newsmedia bring it up.

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Monday, January 14, 2013 5:32 AM

Quote:
If anyone still wants to know more what blue sun is, I've heard that blue sun is pretty much the allience, it runs about everything, including the government and the academy. But this could be wrong.

Almost certainly. The Alliance looks about as fascist as it comes, and Mussolini even said that fascism was just another word for a corporatocracy, the merger between business powerhouses and government.

They're in cahoots, I say. All in cahoots.

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Monday, January 14, 2013 6:55 AM

REAVERFAN

Quote:
Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
Quote:
If anyone still wants to know more what blue sun is, I've heard that blue sun is pretty much the allience, it runs about everything, including the government and the academy. But this could be wrong.

Almost certainly. The Alliance looks about as fascist as it comes, and Mussolini even said that fascism was just another word for a corporatocracy, the merger between business powerhouses and government.

They're in cahoots, I say. All in cahoots.

That makes the most sense to me. Just as large corporations buy undue influence today, the progression of that trend into the future would look very much like the alliance serving the fascistic interests of corporate masters.

Their general lack of concern for the settlers' lost medicine in The Train Job points to a rather bureaucratic and uncaring "corporate face." A "freer" military would be more likely to have the flexibility to offer them some help.

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Monday, January 14, 2013 7:35 AM

Because most people think Blue Sun just makes soda and canned food. They don't realize sub-companies under different names are also a big part of weapons development, terraforming, pharmaceuticals, interplanetary transit, the slave trade...

Of course, anyone who talks like that is just a whacked out conspiracy theorist. Or River Tam.

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Monday, January 14, 2013 2:19 PM

ECGORDON

There's no place I can be since I found Serenity.

Jayne looks better in red anyway.

wo men ren ran zai fei xing.

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Tuesday, January 15, 2013 2:50 PM

GOLDBRICK

I think the name or logo is also an easter egg of sorts. If you watch some Buffy episodes that include the movie theater in Sunnydale, particularly in season four, the neon "Sun" sign looks blue.

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Tuesday, January 15, 2013 6:44 PM

EBFIDDLER

I think Jayne has a Blue Sun T shirt because it was a promo give-away item, came with the six-pack of Blue Sun-manufactured drinks he picked up one time. Same way he got the T shirt that reads "Fighting Elves" and the other one that reads "Perfect Cat." Someone gave him the "Dumb as a Wooden Chicken" T shirt and told him it meant something cool. At least that's my story for now!

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Wednesday, January 16, 2013 4:36 AM