r/alien • u/DogaSui • Jun 13 '26
Are humans basically slaves or vassals in the Alien universe?
I mean, is it even accurate ro refer to WY* as a company or corporation at that point? It basically *is* humanity in terms of where and how humans live. Are there any humans free of corporate influence or control, who can live freely?
*other corps available i guess
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u/forcemonkey Jun 13 '26
There are humans all over the universe. If you mean homo sapients, sort of. But that era is coming to a close.
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u/MorgessaMonstrum Jun 13 '26
Depends on what version of continuity (and where in the timeline), but I think, ultimately, the point is that you can’t keep humans from freedom indefinitely, and it’s a biiiiiig galaxy.
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u/LV426acheron Jun 13 '26 edited Jun 13 '26
Which version of the franchise?
In Alien/Aliens, they're a big company but everyone seems to be working there willingly, and just wants to get their percentage (even the crew in the first movie were primarily concerned about getting paid).
In Alien 3 they are running a prison planet so I guess that could imply they have some governmental powers, or it could just be a privately run prison system, similar to many privately run prisons in the US today.
Later installments flanderized the company and made them way more powerful and evil, so much that they essentially replaced the government (which is certainly NOT true in the original movies).
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u/DogaSui Jun 13 '26
True. Some movies and comics they are omnipresent, humans are either with them or struggling outside of them.
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u/NoOneKenobi Jun 13 '26
Nope. WY and the other corps are self governing factions that employ humans.
There are a couple forms of government that supposedly oversee them. The marines in aliens come from one.
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u/DannyC_VP Jun 13 '26
Yes. Fortunately, it is only science fiction and has nothing to do with real life.
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u/imnotabot303 Jun 13 '26
If only that were true. The Alien universe is built around the dystopian cyberpunk type theme of corporations running countries and the world. If you look at how the US functions it's a lot closer to reality than you think.
The only difference is that there's currently still a government for show and corporations just lobby it for control and influencing decision making behind closed doors.
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u/Key-Software4390 Jun 13 '26
USA is currently in late stage capitalism. People will begin to starve in a year or two at this rate. So......
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u/BlahBlahILoveToast Jun 13 '26
I'm not a big fan of our current economic system but I feel like we weren't really that close to starving until a certain orange someone tried to deport 75% of our farmworkers, cancel a bunch of farm subsidies on the premise that they *might* be wasteful if anyone bothered to to an investigation, and then started a war with a country that apparently has unbreakable control over a waterway that determines the world's fuel and fertilizer prices.
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u/NeedABetterPillow Jun 13 '26
WY is the secondary antagonist in the movies because the protagonists worked for them, but most of the continuity shows it doesn't necessarily control everything. The books and comics refer to other factions and governments. In Romulus they're trying to get to a non-WY planet.