GENERAL DISCUSSIONS

Blue Sun and the Alliance

POSTED BY: MELAM
UPDATED: Saturday, March 4, 2006 20:17
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Friday, March 3, 2006 4:22 PM

MELAM


So, A friend pointed out to me, and I've started seeing it a lot as well, that there are a fair number of folk refering to Blue Sun as the Alliance, or at least interchangeably.

Some go so far as to say that it was Blue Sun that took River and conducted the experiments.


So the question is, where did thisconnection come from, and if you say "Duh! Hands of BLUE." I will...well I don't know what I'll do. It'll be somewhat unpleasant though. I want actual statements that say, "Blue Sun is the Alliance" or "They are so close they have Barbeques and invite the Blue Hands Men to hang out."

I mean as far as I could tell Blue Sun is no more than a very large corporation that makes, or distributes a huge volume and viriaty of merchandice. Sort of like Walmart.

"Putting the Me in Mercinary, Jayne Cobb."

"Joss, what is the future of television? What will we watch? And how will we watch it? Surely you must know, for you are wise, and slender."

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Friday, March 3, 2006 4:31 PM

THESOAPBOXER


Duh! Hands of Bl-- oh, wait. Nevermind.

Quote:

Originally posted by Melam:


I mean as far as I could tell Blue Sun is no more than a very large corporation that makes, or distributes a huge volume and viriaty of merchandice. Sort of like Walmart.




As far as the series or movie ever went, no one ever even mentioned Blue Sun, let alone paint a dastardly picture on it. Their logo was seen in the background, and we can see that they are the suppliers of many different types of goods and services, but not much else. The "evil corporation" idea came from Joss and company after the series was cancelled.

There are "clues" (which I don't believe have been confirmed officially) that point to Blue Sun having some connection to River.

1) In Ariel, she slices Jayne across the chest, maybe in a crazy daze, or maybe because he had the Blue Sun logo across his chest.

2) In Shindig, she goes after canned foods and crackers and starts tearing them apart. The cracker packets have a distinct Blue Sun logo on them as well.

Everything else is just speculation, but it is a general consensus that this was where Joss was going with this. Of course, should the series continue, with Joss now having this knowledge, he may indeed go an entirely different way...

_____________________________________________
Could you please just make it stranger? Just stranger. Odder. Could be weirder. More bizarre. How about uncanny?
~Joss Whedon

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Friday, March 3, 2006 4:41 PM

MELAM


Quote:



As far as the series or movie ever went, no one ever even mentioned Blue Sun, let alone paint a dastardly picture on it. Their logo was seen in the background, and we can see that they are the suppliers of many different types of goods and services, but not much else. The "evil corporation" idea came from Joss and company after the series was cancelled.




Even if they are an "evil corporation", why the insistant comments by others that would paint the company as part of the Alliance?

"Putting the Me in Mercinary, Jayne Cobb."

"Joss, what is the future of television? What will we watch? And how will we watch it? Surely you must know, for you are wise, and slender."

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Friday, March 3, 2006 4:58 PM

JDC


Quote:

Originally posted by Melam:
Even if they are an "evil corporation", why the insistant comments by others that would paint the company as part of the Alliance?



River's extreme dislike of the logo implies that they were involved in her kidnapping, hence the relation between the Alliance and Blue Sun.

______________________
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Friday, March 3, 2006 4:58 PM

DAVESHAYNE


Quote:

Originally posted by Melam:
Even if they are an "evil corporation", why the insistant comments by others that would paint the company as part of the Alliance?



In one of the special features from the Firefly set the connection between the Aliance government and Blue Sun is explicitly refered to. I think it was also alluded to in the commentary to Serenity the episode.

David

"A lot of people are asking me, you know, what exactly is Firefly? It's a tv show you morons!" - Joss Whedon

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Friday, March 3, 2006 5:00 PM

MELAM


Quote:



In one of the special features from the Firefly set the connection between the Aliance government and Blue Sun is explicitly refered to. I think it was also alluded to in the commentary to Serenity the episode.




Aha! There we go. Just need to finish watching with commentary. Thanks a bunch.

"Putting the Me in Mercinary, Jayne Cobb."

"Joss, what is the future of television? What will we watch? And how will we watch it? Surely you must know, for you are wise, and slender."

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Friday, March 3, 2006 5:57 PM

MATTCOZ


I have evidence that this Academy is actually a decendant branch of the University of Illinois.

http://www.mrbluehands.com

River: ILL-INI... ILL-INI...

mine is an evil laugh

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Friday, March 3, 2006 6:12 PM

DAVESHAYNE


Quote:

Originally posted by mattcoz:
I have evidence that this Academy is actually a decendant branch of the University of Illinois.

http://www.mrbluehands.com

River: ILL-INI... ILL-INI...



Now it all makes sense. It's not about keeping state secrets - the alumni association is just really agressive about signing up members.

David

"A lot of people are asking me, you know, what exactly is Firefly? It's a tv show you morons!" - Joss Whedon

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Friday, March 3, 2006 9:43 PM

ASARIAN


Quote:

Originally posted by Melam:

So, A friend pointed out to me, and I've started seeing it a lot as well, that there are a fair number of folk refering to Blue Sun as the Alliance, or at least interchangeably.

Some go so far as to say that it was Blue Sun that took River and conducted the experiments.



Duh! Hands of BLUE! :)

Not kidding, actually. In Shindig, River rips the labels off three cans, and she's crushing a box of crackers. It has a visible, not emphasized, "Blue Sun" logo on it. But what River says, I think, ties Blue Sun in, certainly associatively, with the Hands of Blue. River mutters things like "Hands that go everywhere" and "These are the ones that take you." True or false, River certainly associates the Blue Hands with Blue Sun.

Also, I would not immediately go so far as to say it was Blue Sun who experimented on River. But, as I believe has been pointed out here earlier, in Ariel, when Simon boots up the Neuro-Imager, in the hospital, the image of the Blue Sun logo appears above River as it's firing up. This, at least, suggests a link between Blue Sun and medical research.


--
"Mei-mei, everything I have is right here." -- Simon Tam

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Friday, March 3, 2006 10:01 PM

FURIOUSMONKEYBOY


there are so many things in the episodes that we will never fully understand...so many subtle references that could have ben blaring omens....but...damn FOX execs...."A special place in hell is reservered for them"

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Friday, March 3, 2006 10:15 PM

FURIOUSMONKEYBOY


just watched that scene....that is definately a slash across the blue sun logo...not necessarily against jayne...it perfectly slashes the logo...then..."You look better in red"...as opposed to Blue...this scene was most likely just there to reference an future tie-in of the Blue Sun copr.... notice that River's attack doesn't have any real effect on the storyline of the episode(well it could be argued that it is why jayne called the feds)..but nothing else is spoke of it fater into the story

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Friday, March 3, 2006 10:18 PM

FLETCH2


Fans have supposed that Blue Sun were the ones that experimented on River but nobody connected to the production ever said so directly. The BDM seems to make it clear that River was in a Government compound of some kind. One poster here claimed that Joss had intended BS to be the bad guys in the BDM but that Universal forced them to change it. He wasn't able to find the reference for that quote though.

My personal belief runs like this. At the time of Firefly Joss had two series that had run in excess of 3 seasons on TV, he certainly wasn't expecting that this show was going to die so soon. I suspect that several seperate plots were being foreshadowed in the episodes we got to see those being.

1) Who are the Reavers and what is their story
2) Who took River Tam, what did they do to her and why?
3) What is going on with River and Blue Sun?
4) Who was Shepard Book and what was his story?

I put River and Blue Sun as being seperate from her abduction/training because I still think they were intended to be seperate threads. While it's possible that Joss was going to turn Blue Sun into another Wolfram and Hart given the limited resources of Serenity's crew several "smaller" villians are easy to handle than a single big conspiracy.

My thought? Blue Sun provides most of the food in the verse, what if they are putting something in it? What if as a result of being psychic River has picked up on that and so is scared of them for reasons unconnected with her initial kidnapping?


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Friday, March 3, 2006 10:58 PM

SIGMANUNKI


Don't have time to read the thread (floaty tired already), but I have a possible explination. Hopefully, it hasn't already been stated.


Since Blue Sun has so many products out there, it doesn't make sense for it to /be/ the government and/or military.

But, any military/government entity will subcontract. So, I imagine that Blue Sun as well does other more... covert R&D.

----
"We're in a giant car heading into a brick wall at 100 miles/hr and everybody's arguing about where they want to sit."
-David Suzuki

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Saturday, March 4, 2006 1:23 AM

HOTPOINT


Blue Sun could easily just be a Corporation whose contacts with, and contracts for, the government have become so high-level and numerous that the dividing line between the company and the state has become a mite fuzzy.

Think the East India Company... or Halliburton perhaps

Actually as regards the latter comparison, given Joss Whedon's politics and sense of humour, a throwaway comment in some hypothetical future episode which mentions that the Deputy Prime Minister of the Alliance is the former CEO of Blue Sun wouldn't go too amiss

I wrote a little analysis of my thoughts on the Political/Economic nature of the Alliance for my ongoing FanFic sequence which seems to fit the model pretty well (this isn't just blatant advertising I'm just too darn lazy to rewrite the whole thing)

Quote:


‘Economically the Alliance can be thought of as primarily mercantilist in nature, that is to say it is capitalist but without the notion of free trade or much in the way of state restrictions on monopolies’ Steven began. ‘In many ways it can be seen as a parallel to the situation within the gradually emerging economic situation during the 18th Century in that large companies formed to take advantage of the new colonial enterprises and whilst society was gradually industrialising in some areas agriculture still dominated the lives of many.’

The academic started pacing up and down as was his habit when teaching. ‘You can take the comparison further’ he said. ‘To give an example, during this time period on Earth-That-Was there was a private colonial concern known as the “East India Company” which was set up on the Indian Sub-Continent. Originally it was just a business but over the years it expanded its interests and eventually operated its own army both to protect these interests and expand them still further.’

‘In the end the British government and the East India Company became so entwined that it was hard to distinguish where one began and the other ended. Business turned to informal Empire and eventually outright annexation of territory.’ Steven said. ‘In a similar way the big terraforming companies and conglomerates of today were originally just private concerns but as they expanded outwards to develop new worlds the line was blurred between their perceived interests and those of the state.’

‘The Alliance bankrolled a number of these ventures through loans. It also lent troops to protect its investments. As the state became more and more involved in these private ventures the conglomerates similarly became more and more wrapped up in the state especially given the number of formally state-run sectors that were either privatised outright or contracted out such as communications.’

‘Money of course is another factor. Many politicians were either bought outright or else persuaded into voting one way or the other by well funded lobbyists with corporate backing.’

‘As the dividing line between the conglomerates and the government faded it was inevitable that it the end the needs of business would far outweigh the needs of the people, or indeed capitalism itself’. Steven paused to take a drink. ‘As they developed some of the outer planets had begun to industrialise and although such competition is actually beneficial to the economy as a whole it was bad news to the established firms in the core which fought back by persuading the government to introduce the diabolical tariff system we have to put up with now.’

‘Ironically this suppression of competition is one reason why the vastly outmatched Independent industrial base kept us going so long. Many of the core factories insulated from competition were highly inefficient and bureaucratic by comparison to the newer more dynamic enterprises on the rim. They had many times the industrial potential but nowhere near the individual productivity per worker which is one reason why all those gleaming core metropolises didn’t crush the Browncoats instantly under a tidal wave of logistics like they really should have.’

‘The other reasons were of course down to frequently poor tactical doctrine and a thorough lack of intestinal fortitude.’ Steven continued.

‘A lack of what did you say?’ Claire-Marie asked.

‘Intestinal fortitude’ Steven repeated. ‘Otherwise known as guts’ he continued smiling and slapping his stomach. ‘The bellies may have been purple on the outside but they were often yellow underneath’ he joked. ‘You can’t take some poor core draftee who’s lived a nice comfortable life for eighteen years drop him off in the middle of nowhere with a rifle and expect him to fight as hard as someone who is on their home-turf, who’s been hunting for food for much of their life and who has a much better grasp on why they’re actually fighting in the first place.’

The academic smiled again. ‘This reminds me of the old joke. An Ally and a Browncoat are lying together in a ditch wounded after a battle. The Browncoat asks the Ally why he’s fighting and the Ally says to unify the worlds under one government for the greater good. The Ally asks the same question to which the Browncoat replies…’

‘Because you’re down here’ Mal interrupted finishing the story. ‘Abstract ideals don’t mean squat next to knowing you’re fighting for your own land and your own kind.’

‘Too true, but in any case I digress’. ‘Another historical parallel with the 18th Century is the use of indentured servitude, and often outright slavery, across the inhabited worlds with little effort or motivation by the government to eradicate it.’

‘For the most part such things were abolished on Earth-That-Was six centuries ago but like a foul reminder of a bygone age it returned along with the subsistence farming communities of the rim and the forced-labour camps we often find employed during terraforming operations.’

Steven shook his head sadly. ‘Another product of the illiberal corporate Oligarchy of our times is the resurrection in many places of an actual aristocracy which again demonstrates a regression in our political situation and is a visual demonstration of how wide the gap is between the obscenely wealthy and the rest of us.’

‘A whattyarchy?’ Wash asked loudly. It looked like everyone had decided to turn up to listen in on today’s class.

‘Oligarchy’ Cally answered before her father could. ‘A government in which the power is within the hands of a small group not the many. In the case of the Alliance it’s the higher echelons of the military, the secret service, big business and certain politicians.’ She paused. ‘It’s not really a tyranny because power doesn’t wholly reside with one man or group not can it be called a Democracy by any stretch of the imagination.’




...................................
Hurrah, hurrah, when things are at their worst
With cries of “Death or Glory” comes the mighty Twenty-First

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Saturday, March 4, 2006 3:38 AM

ASARIAN



Also, in the BDM, Dr. Mathias says:

"I was told that the Alliance's support for the project was unanimous."

Indicating that the Academy, where River is being held, is itself not Alliance! And who else but Blue Sun has enough clout to run a military type facility of this sort?

But the important thing in the dialogue with Simon remains the fact that it's clearly not the Allliance itself who is holding River!


--
"Mei-mei, everything I have is right here." -- Simon Tam

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Saturday, March 4, 2006 4:01 AM

SACREDCHAO


This may have already been mentioned. If so, all apologies. However . . .

It remains my belief that the futuristic "Alliance" that exists in the Firefly/Serenity 'verse is a fascist one. Not necessarily a 1930s Germany fascism (which some called Nazism) but Italy's brand from the same time period. The vast majority of people that lived within that system felt that the government would protect them (in exchange for certain rights) and they were mostly happy because "the trains ran on time". It was a very efficient society in many topical ways.

How does that apply to this particular 'verses Alliance and where does the relationship with the Blue Sun Corp. come in?

Another hallmark of Fascism (which may or may not have been a statement of Mussolini) is that you could call it Corporatism. If you have heard the simplified version of Socialism, that the government owns the corporations, then the simplified version of Fascism is that the corporations own the government. This is where I believe the ties between Blue Sun and the Alliance come in.

The Blue Sun Corp. pulls the strings at the highest level of the Alliance governmental structure. The average person in the government (the guy whos eyes bled in Ariel) do not see this connection when they come to retrieve River, but neither do they ask questions of anyone regarding the situation. They were told from their authority to turn her over to them, and authority always knows best.

Anyway, just my opinion.

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Saturday, March 4, 2006 3:02 PM

THENAVIGATOR


Quote:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by mattcoz:
I have evidence that this Academy is actually a decendant branch of the University of Illinois.

http://www.mrbluehands.com


i always knew my wife's stepfather (a u of i alum) was completley and utterly evil....now i have proof. EVIL!!!

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Saturday, March 4, 2006 3:24 PM

MERROVINGIAN


I feel that Blue Sun and the Alliance have mutually-beneficial relationship. Blue Sun finances many operations, provides materials, etc., and in turn also has the leverage to "suggest" policy, and has "key stakeholders", which were referred to in the BDM. The Alliance is the muscle and Blue Sun is the evil empire controlling the universe. Similar to "the Umbrella Corporation" of Resident Evil infamy.

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Saturday, March 4, 2006 5:36 PM

FLETCH2


Quote:

Originally posted by asarian:

Also, in the BDM, Dr. Mathias says:

"I was told that the Alliance's support for the project was unanimous."

Indicating that the Academy, where River is being held, is itself not Alliance! And who else but Blue Sun has enough clout to run a military type facility of this sort?



Except that the bigger the organisation the less connected things are. just because you work for the Alliance doesnt make you the Alliance. Mathias has had an official turn up out of the blue with papers that say he can make an immediate spot review (ie Simon.) Mathias is worried about his job so he's confirming that the project still has support. In effect he's naming his paymaster (the Alliance) that doesnt imply anything more, he could have a project in a government lab, the labs of an outside contractor, even a university. I have known people working for government labs, when funding needs to be renewed they say "hope the government backs my project" not "hope we back my project."

Would an "Operative of the Parliament" be allowed complete unrestricted access to a fascillity operated by a private company even if that company does government work? Guess we don't really know enough about the 'Verse to know.

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Saturday, March 4, 2006 6:04 PM

ASARIAN


Quote:

Originally posted by Fletch2:

Quote:

Originally posted by asarian:


Also, in the BDM, Dr. Mathias says:

"I was told that the Alliance's support for the project was unanimous."

Indicating that the Academy, where River is being held, is itself not Alliance! And who else but Blue Sun has enough clout to run a military type facility of this sort?



Except that the bigger the organisation the less connected things are. just because you work for the Alliance doesnt make you the Alliance. Mathias has had an official turn up out of the blue with papers that say he can make an immediate spot review (ie Simon.) Mathias is worried about his job so he's confirming that the project still has support. In effect he's naming his paymaster (the Alliance) that doesnt imply anything more, he could have a project in a government lab, the labs of an outside contractor, even a university. I have known people working for government labs, when funding needs to be renewed they say "hope the government backs my project" not "hope we back my project."

Would an "Operative of the Parliament" be allowed complete unrestricted access to a fascillity operated by a private company even if that company does government work? Guess we don't really know enough about the 'Verse to know.



I know the Alliance is involved, of course. Maybe they contracted his lab, paid his bill, or are otherwise overseeing it. It's just interesting to see that the Alliance is not running the entire show (as in, without outside help). So, whoever they contracted, they must be pretty big, of course (trustworthiness, stable partner, and such). Blue Sun is a likely candidate. But, like you said, so is a university.

Except, of course, with so much secrecy going on at the Academy, the Alliance must really have, and be able to maintain, a large level of control. I think a university would be too 'leaky' for that. So, I'd still say Blue Sun is the most likely candidate to run the Academy.


--
"Mei-mei, everything I have is right here." -- Simon Tam

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Saturday, March 4, 2006 8:17 PM

FLETCH2


Blue Sun is the only name we have. If you only know of Boeing you would assume that all military aircraft are made by Boeing. All we really know about Blue Sun is that they are a Megacorp whose core business is foodstuffs, what else we think we know is at best supposition. It could be that they ran the Academy as a project for the Government. Indeed from what we know that is as good an explanation as any other, what I'm saying is that it is still a supposition not a fact. We wouldn't know for sure until we hit an episode that filled in the gaps.

I'm still not entirely convinced that River's dislike of Blue Sun is directly connected to her "treatment" any more than Miranda/Reavers proved to be. Hopefully we will find out in the Big Damned Sequel or maybe in a comic book.


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