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**The Blue Sun Corporation represents a corporate culture allowed to operate in an environemnt void of government regulation. This is not the first time such a theme has been forwarded in sci-fi. If you are familiar with the books behind the Alien and Aliens movies, Ripley worked for "The Corporation", which was the body that controlled all humanity.

**Firefly, however, is different. In the 'verse of firefly we have three main entities that control humanity. The foremost is the Alliance government. But just behind the veil of this bureaucracy are 2 other bodies of influence. These are composed of an assortment of nobility, and the various corporations, one of which is Blue Sun. Blue Sun seems to be a rather large conglomerate controlling different factions of human life. I envision a company that is a combination of Procter&Gamble/Microsoft/Lockheed-Martin. If you look very, very carefully throughout the 14 episodes, you'll catch references to Blue Sun. The obvious scene that most folks are aware of are the Blue Sun identifiers attached to the shipping containers on cargo boxes in the eavestown docks on Persephone during the pilot episode. But there are more things to see.
1. River tears labels off Blue Sun canned goods
2. Jayne wears his blue sun t-shirt until River
slashes it with a knife.
3. When the ship is docked at the outset of the
episode "The message" you can see video ads in the
background for a Blue Sun Cola brand.

**Most people in the Alliance purchase and consume Blue Sun food. My theory is that what these people are unaware of is that the food they eat contains nanites. These serve as vehicles for which the common person can be either controlled or disposed of. So when the HoB realized that the alliance officer and his lackeys had spoken to the prisoners, they were left with no choice to use a device to activate the nanites in their bodies with a command "kill this host"

**More evidence for this theory exists in the transcript of the "crazy rantings" that river is making as she sees the Blue Sun Canned goods in Shindig and starts
tearing the labels off:
There it is. There it is.
It's always there when you look for it.
Everybody sees and nobody sees it...

These are the little ones that take you!
Little ones in the corner that you almost don't see.
But they're the ones that reach in and do it.
They're the ones with teeth and you have to smash
them!

A million things.
And the little ends of the roots go everywhere.
And when you brush your teeth or all...
The little blue things are there.
But no one says it.
Because...Because sometimes they're afraid.
And then THEY come.... (Her ranting is cut off)

**The "Little blue things" are Blue Sun nanites. River knew what was in the food the moment she laid eyes on the blue sun lables but because of her mental state she is unable to communicate her knowledge to Simon, Jayne, and Book who are playing Tallcard at the adjacent table. She just acts out. In a similar fashion she sees Jayne's Blue Sun shirt in the episode Ariel and slashes it with a butcher knife. Then denounces the BLUE of Blue Sun by saying that Jayne looks better in red...or rather his blood.

**River was harmed at the academy. The acadamy is a front for the Alliance government to find the most talented people in the 'verse that they can recruit into their secret military. Blue Sun's military research division has the government contract to study and experiment on people like River...to bring out psychic ability. With her new abilities River was able to gleen information from her captors far beyond what they ever intended her to know. This explains her knowledge of the nanites in the food. There is also info in the movie *No spoilers...don't worry* that adds more value to my theory.

**Finally...the point of this thread....who are the HoB? I firmly believe that they are leading researchers in Blue Sun's military R&D division. They head up the governmental contract to perform experiments on the best and brightest of Alliance civilians to produce a psychic super soldier. They clearly had direct contact with River on several occasions and River suffered greatly for it.

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