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I was reading this question, and it got me wondering...

Were any of the Mass Effect production team involved with making, or intense fans of, Firefly — thus suggesting that Mass Effects’s Blue Suns organisation was a tribute or nod to Firefly’s Blue Sun Corporation?

Obviously, any answer here would be out-of-universe.

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    I think an answer to this needs to have some documentary evidence really - from a writer or producer on the show. However the mass-effect wiki does say that this link is 'likely'
    – iandotkelly
    Commented Feb 15, 2012 at 22:32
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    Maybe in Mass Effect 3 the Blue Suns will have a ship called the Firefly.
    – Xantec
    Commented Feb 15, 2012 at 22:59
  • Hmmm, why not? The Firefly class already made an appearance in Battlestar Galactica (RDM).
    – eidylon
    Commented Feb 15, 2012 at 23:01
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    Oddly, in SQL Mass Effect <> Firefly implies Mass Effect != Firefly
    – AncientSwordRage ♦
    Commented Sep 10, 2012 at 22:44
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    True, and I'm a programmer too, so I'm not sure why my mind wrote it that way... Mass Effect <--> Firefly would've been more indicative of what I meant. lol
    – eidylon
    Commented Sep 11, 2012 at 2:05

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Firstly, an introduction of the two groups in question:

Blue Suns (Mass Effect)

The Blue Suns are a "private security organization", in reality a mercenary outfit operating in the Skyllian Verge.

They start out and continue as a mercenary group. Their logo is something like:

Blue sun form mass effect

Blue Sun Corporation (Firefly)

The blue sun corporation in Firefly a large corporate company, selling food and technology. Its logo is seen across the series:

Bluesun firefly

However various operatives are seen in the series that shows the darker side to the company, who seem to be after River (and River seems to even be spooked by their image). They are however not a mercenary group being called out to whoever pays.

As to links between the two, there are a few:

From the Degrees of Whedon tumblr:

  1. Seth Green voices Jeff “Joker” Moreau in ME3. Seth Green was Oz in Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Mass Effect 3 has 1 degree of Whedon.

Even more there are other references to Firefly:

Zaeed at one point calls you "big ***damn heroes," which is a less-censored version of one of the most popular quotes from the show. And

One of joker's quotes if you just stand around him without talking: "Sometimes I just want to disable the internal compensators and pull a Crazy Ivan"

As well as this I ran both cast lists (combined Mass effect 1,2,3 and Firefly) through some bash script filters and I can't find any duplicates besides Adam Baldwin.

I'd say the link was tenuous at best, no more influence here than you might imagine from anything else that's inspired the show (and there are a lot of shout outs, especially in ME2.)

The one thing I did find that might be a link or inspiration is Black Suns a mercenary group from Star Wars.

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    So about as much influence as one might expect between any two programs in the sci-fi/acting community, but probably nothing direct.
    – eidylon
    Commented Sep 11, 2012 at 2:16
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    Yeah, petty much. I doubt anyone from the crew or staff leisure actively thought to imitate the Bluesun corporation.
    – AncientSwordRage ♦
    Commented Sep 11, 2012 at 6:22
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    The idea of a "Crazy Ivan" is at least as old as The Hunt for Red October, so it's possible ME3 and Firefly both independently referenced it. The ME3 writers were certainly aware of Red October since they also threw in a more overt reference to it (something about "singing the Russian national anthem" while the stealth drive was on).
    – Kevin
    Commented Mar 29, 2017 at 1:32

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