Science fiction has a tendency to show corporate officials as villains. Frankly, I don't have much of a problem with this, since, lets face it, many corporation officials are villians. However, the economic analysis that goes on in science fiction television is predictably weak, and the situation is not much more complex in film sci-fi either. The only corporation in science fiction that has really got the extended attention it deserves is Edgars Industries in Babylon 5. The whole fourth season of Babylon 5 examined how William Edgars, the head of Edgars Industries, sought to play Mr. Garibaldi off President Sherdian, in the hopes of buying time to develop an anti-telepath virus. Edgars motives are complex, yet believable for a corporate exec. He isn't an idealist, but Edgars is concerned that the telepaths, particularly Psi Corps, will end up dominating homo sapiens, and becoming homo superiors themselves. Edgars therefore seeks to eliminate the telepath menace before it becomes a power mundanes can not deal with. The portrayal of Edgars is suitably excellent for Babylon 5, as it shows how a good, or at least decent man, can be sucked into Nazi-like plots given the problems of his time.Not many other shows have featured corporations in a major way. Blake's 7 occasionally delved into corporate politics, as did Doctor Who and the X-Files, but many series, most notably Star Trek, hardly touched on corporate greed, to their everlasting and eternal shame (the preacher in me, natch!). Here's hoping that the next dialectical mega-analysis of a mega-corporation in sci-fi isn't another fifty years away.
Reference under Marxism.
Edgers was the first and only name that came to mind when I read the title.
ReplyDeleteYea, there were actually mega-corps in some other series: I think Space Above and Beyond had some, as did Blake's 7. But Babylon 5 did the best job with it.
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