I think this is mostly from the RPG. Maybe some from the comics? I'm a long time fan of the Aliens lore and they were hardly ever bothered about the human political landscape other than "Big corporations do bad things". Countries and other large institutions were mostly hinted at, but rarely developed.
@@Rodrigo_Vega alot also comes from the colonial marines book, that details how the USCM work and operate, their main enamy is the UPP who they constantly have skirmishes with.
@@Rodrigo_Vega Alien vs Predator is the series that builds up humans the most and has the most background. It's a little weird there hasn't been an avp game in an eon.
@@Rodrigo_Vega specifically it was the cancelled alien 3 script from William Gibson that created a lot of it. And the colonial marine operations manual
Mostly of it is thanks to the Alien RPG. Both the core rulebook and the colonial marines module have a lot of the art used in this video and a LOT of lore. And its pretty solid too. Check chariot of the gods too, the first adventure on a trilogy, one of which is the destruction of the settlement mentioned at the end of the video.
You can thank Dark Horse comics. They did a lot tae build up the universe. When Alien started up again with Prometheus that Lore was sorted, trimmed in some areas, grown in others. The UPP was first brought up in William Gibson's rejected Alien 3 script. I strongly recommend the RPG, as it is brimming with lore and worldbuilding.
For those that don't know, one of the early screenplays of Alien 3 was about an arms race between the UPP and Weyland-Yutani who were both researching different xenomorph samples recovered from Bishop's body. Basically a Cold War analogy. I think there was a comic book adaptation of it recently too. Edit: also an audio version with the voices of Lance Heriksen and Michael Biehn which is pretty cool.
That would have been so much better than the "monks in space" story they did for Alien 3. I remember the interview where the plot writer was like "I had this idea of monks in space in a wooden boat, debating what is Evil and what is Good. So I changed the plot to get as close as I could to that." Or something. It was a horrible concept that resulted in an odd movie which killed off the survivors of Aliens, and only left Ripley.
Oh if only the UPP wasn't yet another state socialist project doomed to failure due to its own internal contradictions... True communism cannot be imposed from the top down - only built from the ground up. ... Let no one build walls to divide us, walls of hatred not walls of stone.
In a way this explains one of the questions of the Alien Universe - _why wasn't information about the Xenomorphs and Predators general knowledge,_ just for self defence purposes. If a colony/ship knew the life cycle and capabilities of the Xenomorphs then infestations would be less likely (it's the learning curve that gets people killed), and the same when dealing with the Yutani. It's because various power blocks are hoping to leverage those species into being weaponised. In some of the expanded universe however, Xenomorph infestations become so common (due to nefarious Humans) that specialised squads and counter weapons become common as well.
Hadley's is hope destroyed, the alien from alien 3 movie was melted in iron, the aliens on the Sevastopol station fell down on a gas giant, and so go on, no witnesses
@@АМС1313 and yet, there is no reason for it (and AVP) to NOT be canon. Predator and AVP basically serve as the initial "little green men" experience for humanity. in all the movies, they DO live little to no witnesses beyond select agencies that know (compartmentalization) and the few individuals that bore witness. in short, the Predator and early xenomorph incidents you could say helped inspire the eventual attempts to weaponize the xenomorph and humanity's interest in the stars now that some people knew we weren't alone in the universe.
Android: "I would *love* to raise the crew from cryosleep to have them recover a dangerous alien egg from this planet... but I'm afraid that's against union laws" *roll end credits*
@@westphalianstallion4293 you mean the Iron Bears? They were a private mercenry firm hired by Weyland-Yutani to augment the regular security forces on LV-1201 and we all know how that went.
Oh if only the UPP wasn't yet another state socialist project doomed to failure due to its own internal contradictions... True communism cannot be imposed from the top down - only built from the ground up.
@@PaiSAMSEN "We are convinced that liberty without socialism is privilege and injustice; and that socialism without liberty is slavery and brutality" - Mikhail Bakunin.
Yeah what makes alien unique even after all this time is the aesthetics which somehow manages to perfectly combine retrofuturistism, modernish and futuristic aesthetics
want a Colonial Marines TV series with : Aliens , Predators , Constructors , Synthetic Revealers , UPP , United Americas , The Three Worlds , and a bunch of other " baddies " .
See I love the UPP because for once the bad guy space-leftists aren't ideologically a Stalinist caricature, they're much more realistic commies. The Space-AKs are cool too (SpAKs?)
It's like if someone tried to create the Federation in a universe with no matter replicators, no friendly humanoid aliens and no apocalyptic catastrophe that brought humanity together, along with much harder laws of physics
Factions I would like to see next: 1. The United Americas | Alien/Predator Universe 2. The Union of Socialist Eurasia | 1984 3. The Camarilla | World of Darkness 4. The Republic of Gilead | The Handmaid's Tale 5. The Horde | World of Warcraft
Here to cast another vote for the Camarilla. Both a world-spanning conspiracy and an incredibly limited village-style government coexisting with 20th/21st century politics....
@@himynameisfelipe4042 it was the pilot for rivalries, more focused on the broader relationship between the alliance and horde, so I'd understand if people wanted a more detailed video
Maybe if a UPP colony got infested their interstellar government leaders would just send in a robot army. Then maybe they'd send the cadavers along with some live Aliens frozen inside converted refrigerated cargo trailers shipped by futuristic semi-ton trucks to a secret science research "city" they quickly set up in the Northern "Arctic" region of the planet. Most of the "buildings" would just be troop transport and bulk cargo spaceships along with some modular buildings that kind of resemble Soviet era mass produced buildings. This would look neat in a film. Also Khruschevka were made to be easy to build back in the 1950s, imagine how easy they'd be to build using modern technology and robot construction workers. Like maybe they'd mostly create platoons mostly of knock-off Working Joe style robots armed with like cheap body armour plates, steel helmets and shotguns. Like in real life the Soviet Union made knockoffs of lots of other countries technology that was more technologically primitive yet simpler to produce and in some cases way more rugged. Like look at the real life Soviet Union made ruggedised licensed Fiat car clones. Like imagine if an Alien film protagonist had to temporarily team up with some very physically tough yet terrifyingly mentally low functioning robots in order to survive. Or maybe ironically the UPP Working Joe knockoffs would just have like the intelligence of at least like a kind of dumb high school student or something because it would show that humorously even the "space communists" thought it was a dumb idea to save money and resources by making dumb robots that all share one Wi-Fi connected robot brain, especially since knockoff computer chips are probably not that expensive to make. Also it could be interesting to have talking robot characters in the Alien universe that are clearly not human at all. The Working Joe knockoff robots could be operating under the command of a handful of more intelligent human-like "Bishop like" robots. The "Bishop like" robots could be wielding like "forklift suits (i.e. Alien 2) with each suit equipped with automatic rifle and flamethrower attachments. They could be the creepy amoral scientists sent to study the Aliens and try to modify the Aliens into bio-weapons that can be easily controlled. Maybe a United Americas spaceship that was surveilling another planet gets infested with Aliens which leads to the crew dying, a handful of crewmates escaping in cryogenic life pods and and both the life pods and the ship crashing onto the UPP planet. Then the survivors get woken by the robots and told "you're at the newly founded Science City in the arctic region of the planet of Neo Russia, we confined the remaining Aliens here after they attacked Neo Moscow however now the Aliens are breaking out of captivity, also we don't much care for you spacemen since we believe you're responsible for this Alien infestation".
@@SurprisinglyDeep Maybe but "IF" they thought they were responsible. Then the humans in charge would place them under arrest and order the bots to put them into custody. Although i believe the leader of that installation would soon realize that A. given the time that the infestation occured and the arrival of the colonial marine vessel it would be impossible. Then B. once the xenomorphs escaped containment. Both sides would have to help each other if they were going to survive and have any chance of saving the colony or escaping the facility alive.
@@stevengreen9536 Very true. Also that'd be a cool plot. I'm just thinking that the colonists might blame the spacefarers because they assumed the spacefarers were mucking about with like what they'd assume was like the Aliens habitat or whatnot. (Like if a pedestrian sees a bunch of wild animals barking at someone else then it's be natural for the pedestrian to assume that the other person did something to warrant the animals anger.) Also it seems it's human nature to want to blame other people if a catastrophe causing loss of human life occurs, in an attempt to try and find an ordered pattern out of the chaos and to try to find a reason that the event was not just a senseless horrific random coincidence.
@@SurprisinglyDeep I know but regardless of alliances,politics,etc. The smart individuals will put all that aside for awhile and realize they are in a crisis. Even enemies can temporarily work together to stay alive.
Well this was a wonderful surprise. For someone with no knowledge of the Alien Expanded Universe I am very much hoping for videos on the other nations mentioned here. (And for some reason I feel like Big Trouble in Little China would appeal to the Institute’s staff. Just a random thought)
Break the chains, comrades! Break the chains!!!! You know, if it weren't for supplementary media like RPG books, you might have forgotten that there's more to the Alien world besides hapless soldiers fighting unstoppable alien beasts. I hope you'll do a video on the Xenomorphs soon.
Y'know, personally I feel the writers were a bit unimaginative by making the UPP economically very similar to the later Soviet Union with their more mixed economy- there have been many ideas regarding how computers, the internet, and AI can be incorporated into centralized economic planning since all the way back in the 1970s (see: Project Cybersyn in Chile) and it's something that I think would be really interesting to explore in a sci-fi setting.
Totally agree with you there, I love For All Mankind and love the alternative history of the Soviet Union avoiding collapse and the Cold War extending into space but none the less cringed in the Red Wave short between seasons 2 and 3 that simply had the Soviet Union avoid bureaucratic stagnation though 'market reforms' like modern day China. Alongside the example you gave of Cybersyns you can go back even further to the early 50's and Cybernetics in the Soviet Union that while at first criticised by the conservative party leadership who feared that technological innovation could could disrupt their 'tried and tested' methods of crude, common economy, industrialisation, by the mid 50's moved into popularity as the abstract potential for computers to revolutionise economic planning began to be understood with their ability to instantaneously provide information for economic feedback mechanisms allowing the economy to overcome the so-called 'Socialist Transformation Problem' identified by the bourgeois economist Hayek of a lack of feedback once supply and demand are removed as regulating factors. The 2010 hybrid fiction/non-fiction collection of short stories, Red Plenty, written by the anti-socialist writer Francis Spufford that uses fictionalised for Francis to interject his views into the narrative with kind of fourth wall breaks where he addresses the audience, in spite of his intention to, at best, dismiss economic planning as a utopian dream, features a Soviet Cybersyn mathematician in the late 50's who was struggling against the government to realise socialism through computers, to quote the text directly, "He could see that this would not be possible under capitalism, where all the factories had separate owners, locked in wasteful competition with one another. There, nobody was in a position to think systematically. The capitalists would not be willing to share information about their operations; what would be in it for them? That was why capitalism was blind, why it groped and blundered. It was like an organism without a brain. But here it was possible to plan for the whole system at once. The economy was a clean sheet of paper on which reason was writing. So why not optimise it? All he would have to do was to persuade the appropriate authorities to listen. Suppose that the Soviet economy could be made to grow by an extra 3% a year - an extra 3% a year after year, compounded. It would mount up fast. After only a decade, the country would be half as rich again as it would have been otherwise." While Spufford's intention was to present such people as hopeless dreamers that were doomed to fail in the face of the conservatism of the Soviet state, even if you accept that as true and I think he was probably right as that initial conservatism of the late 50's and 60's turned into outright hostility when the party elite came to understand implementing such politics would destroy by redding them economically redundant, the millions of overpaid, corrupt state bureaucrats, they depended on as their social base to keep themselves in power, even then, it does not follow that such social and economic policies, if implemented in the early period of socialist regime, that is before the crystallisation of an entrenched state bureaucracy, such a socialist system might achieve a level of success economically while avoiding totalitarianism. The next most developed developed theoretical examination of the use of computers for socialist planning following the work around Cybersyn, that party builds of it alongside the limited exploration that did take place in the Soviet Union before it was side-lined can be found in the 1993 book, Towards a New Socialism, by Paul Cockshott and Allin F. Cotterll, the authors putting the book online themselves in 2000 to contribute to the wider theoretical regroupment of the socialist left following the complete ideological capture of the the overwhelming majority of the former communist and social-democratic movement by liberalism and neo-liberalism. So why the lack of imagination in future socialist societies with writers being so limited they are unable to look beyond a nostalgic, idealised version of European social democracy or a unconscious imitation of China when there is a wealth of material out there? I think it honestly just stems from the continued absolute domination of neo-liberal orthodoxy over the developed capitalist countries with no alternative economic system or even discussion being tolerated in the corporate media, education and the largest corporate funded academia. The writers simply can't conceptualise any alternative to the market. This is truly a shame and a loss for realising the limitless potential of fictional non-capitalist societies and civilisations but I honestly don't see this changing for the foreseeable future, at least in more mainstream fiction. For now, I would recommend the Culture novels by the science fiction author Ian M Banks for the best to date example of an intergalactic communist civilisation that has completely overcome the market economy even if the civilisation of The Culture is not without it's pit falls with the disproportionate power influence of The Minds, super advanced AI's, within it.
I knew about the UPP from the aliens fireteam elite game, it's got a bunch of guns that originated from them, they're okay but personally I have a soft spot for three world empire gear.
It's good to get some proper background info for one of the most popular horror franchises; makes me want to know more about this universe and whether or not the xenomorphs and Engineers have greater roles to play in it.
Huh!? This is in Alien lore I've always wanted to dive into that universe more, noticed they have a few books etc Didn't even know about this Nation, very cool!
Definitely, I've never gotten too into the lore but always wondered what contact Humans and Predators have had by the time of the second or third Alien movies - have they fought wars? Is there trade? A no-go zone? &c.
I really appreciate that you didn't go for a simplistic, binary, or grim take on the UPP. Alien as a universe tends to delve into the lowest common denominator of grimdark cynicism to the point of (for me) literally laughable parody. But you presented the UPP with both its strengths and weaknesses, acknowledging that there's a nuance and complexity to them that neither redeems their failings or ignores their virtues (or those of their political adversaries). It made it feel like something real, like yeah I could see something like that happening.
I still have a actual printed copy somewhere of "Aliens: RPG" by Leading Edge Games. I read that thing until it started to fall apart on me. I could never get my friends interested enough to play it and that was okay. I read it for the lore. 🙂
"I'm going to the one place that hasn't yet been polluted by capitalism... SPACE!!!" yes i know space has been polluted by capitalism in this universe but whatever still a banger quote
Ok this is weird, I literally just started playing Alien fire team elite for the first time last night and just heard about the Union for the first time while playing.
Only according to theorists. If you ask me, there are too many discrepancies, and they're extremely unlikely to ever cross over in an official capacity.
@@SuperGman117 too bad they dont sit down and sort it out. Would be pretty awesome if they could somehow connect them. Maybe even add in Dredd universe somehow as well.
@@adamm.6595 Officialy they said no. But also they said we can combine them if we want in our own headcanon, yeah the guy that look over the cannon in the 20 century fox said that we can create our own non official cannon
@@Rodrigo_Vega Back when they made the first two films the soviet union was still a thing and pieces of script that ended up not making the cut mention them as a competing interstellar superpower. The UPP is just that idea revived and renamed to better fit into the future timeline.
@@GaldirEonai yea, the URSS shows up in a lot of sci-fi of the time, but some of this media was done well past that point. Today Aliens is almost "retrofuturism" It's 80s IN SPACE and this factions plays the part. Making the UPP into a rebranded URSS in space is perfectly serviceable in it's tropey-ness but a bit unoriginal and not particularly enthralling as commentary or speculation.
This just made me think of Dawn of Victory, which just makes me sad that it never got released. But I'm still hopeful that we'll see something new someday!
Man I wished the new upcoming strategy Alien game touches more in this lore or maybe a small/big active temporary play into the game. I feel like it's barely going to get touched upon just like how Alien fire team did. At the very least I love the lore within the Alien and Predator universe.
Finally a universe in which Germany corrects, what is in ours long overdue: to become one of the Anarchist/Socialist/Communist strongholds and beacon of hope for all mankind... Something that would at least in theory lead to a Star Trek Utopia.
Oof, for a moment, I thought this was one of the settings you were looking to create and thought, "Wow, that's uninspired." When do we hear more about that new project of yours? It sounds like my dream job to create something new like that. Are you looking for interns? lol
So now there's not only Aliens, Predators and whatever those big fishmen from the Prometheus film are are called. There's also communists. That universe really walks around no rake.
Interesting. While original movies had been focusing on the weyland - yutanni as megacorp Evil, the "space commies" look like nice alternative bad guys...
It's kind of different though. Like this video said the UPP is not actually trying to create a communist state, they're just trying to limit the power of the mega-corporations and give their people in general better living standards. So it's a government system made by well intentioned yet self aware cynical realists with a glass half full mentality made by people saying "we all know what happened with the Soviet Union and the other state communist countries, we all know that trying to make a truly communist state is a completely futile endeavour but let's not try and build an impossible stateless classless society, let's like just try and build a government that values what we think are good principles to live by in terms of a focus around socialism and create worlds where everyone has a decent standard of living". Like they could still be oppressive but thy might not be as bad as many state communist countries, like they probably wouldn't accuse anyone by saying "we accuse you of being a dirty pig dog capitalist" or "we accuse you of being one of the people trying to prevent the communist state from coming into being" but instead they'd probably say "we accuse you of being a selfish person who did something to put his own needs above those of others" even when the person had not done anything illegal. Also it's interesting in that in its struggle for power with United Americas and the Three World Empire the situation is kind of like the 18th century Age of Colonialism except if one of the "empires" was instead kind of like the Soviet Union instead.
The comics, the novelizations and spin off books, the tabletop RPG, lore info dumps in the videogames(and instructions when they were sold on discs), lore stuff in the board games...
For an universe where it's main appeal is being trapped with a horrible alien there's a surprising amount of lore
I think this is mostly from the RPG. Maybe some from the comics?
I'm a long time fan of the Aliens lore and they were hardly ever bothered about the human political landscape other than "Big corporations do bad things". Countries and other large institutions were mostly hinted at, but rarely developed.
@@Rodrigo_Vega alot also comes from the colonial marines book, that details how the USCM work and operate, their main enamy is the UPP who they constantly have skirmishes with.
@@Rodrigo_Vega Alien vs Predator is the series that builds up humans the most and has the most background. It's a little weird there hasn't been an avp game in an eon.
@@Aptonoth That is because the last ones were not that good. The arcade game was AWESOME though.
@@Rodrigo_Vega specifically it was the cancelled alien 3 script from William Gibson that created a lot of it. And the colonial marine operations manual
Blimey I had no idea the Alien universe was this vast! Im in love with the detail depth of this well crafted story
Mostly of it is thanks to the Alien RPG. Both the core rulebook and the colonial marines module have a lot of the art used in this video and a LOT of lore. And its pretty solid too. Check chariot of the gods too, the first adventure on a trilogy, one of which is the destruction of the settlement mentioned at the end of the video.
You can thank Dark Horse comics. They did a lot tae build up the universe. When Alien started up again with Prometheus that Lore was sorted, trimmed in some areas, grown in others.
The UPP was first brought up in William Gibson's rejected Alien 3 script.
I strongly recommend the RPG, as it is brimming with lore and worldbuilding.
@@darthlazurus4382 I'm still new to the Alien universe beyond the movies so I haven't checked the comics yet. I know what I'll read next!
Every gun has a good 20 sentences of lore.
@@P2501-y6u I was just checking him out. Will highly recommend it to anyone from now on
Space Monster: In space, no one can hear you scream.
Space Communist: I HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE BUT MY CHAINS!
Space Monster: 😱
@LakenAnderson
Then the Space Monster looks down to see a grenade in the dead Communist's hand... with the safety pin removed 💀
@@pendragon0905Space Monster: Sh*t.
BOOM!!!
"Trust your enemy to be your enemy, but never trust your neighbor to be your friend." -- UPP saying (from Alien: The Roleplaying Game)
"Always trust Jayjay" my mom just a minute ago
For those that don't know, one of the early screenplays of Alien 3 was about an arms race between the UPP and Weyland-Yutani who were both researching different xenomorph samples recovered from Bishop's body. Basically a Cold War analogy. I think there was a comic book adaptation of it recently too.
Edit: also an audio version with the voices of Lance Heriksen and Michael Biehn which is pretty cool.
That would have been so much better than the "monks in space" story they did for Alien 3. I remember the interview where the plot writer was like "I had this idea of monks in space in a wooden boat, debating what is Evil and what is Good. So I changed the plot to get as close as I could to that." Or something.
It was a horrible concept that resulted in an odd movie which killed off the survivors of Aliens, and only left Ripley.
Yep William Gibson's Alien 3
Wished that script became the movie over what we got. Hoping for a do over in one of these years.
That would have made a much better movie honestly.
They truly escaped to the one place that hadn't been corrupted by capitalism... SPAAACE!
Although in alien it was very much corrupted by capitalism....
To hell comrades
And they will ruin space like all commies do. Better dead then red
"For our demand most moderate are, We only want the Earth"- James Connolly
Unfortunately, the Earth has not yet bent to the benign domination of Ireland, but we are are patient as we are loving of humanity. 😁
I always enjoy seeing the ships each sci fi universe has to offer.
Starts singing the Internationale... or is it the Interplanetare?
Oh if only the UPP wasn't yet another state socialist project doomed to failure due to its own internal contradictions... True communism cannot be imposed from the top down - only built from the ground up.
... Let no one build walls to divide us, walls of hatred not walls of stone.
The Red Blok in AT43 called it the Intersidereal.
The interglactic
Wait a second.. you’re on to something🤯
@@Jesus_OfficalThe Intergalacticale
In a way this explains one of the questions of the Alien Universe - _why wasn't information about the Xenomorphs and Predators general knowledge,_ just for self defence purposes.
If a colony/ship knew the life cycle and capabilities of the Xenomorphs then infestations would be less likely (it's the learning curve that gets people killed), and the same when dealing with the Yutani.
It's because various power blocks are hoping to leverage those species into being weaponised.
In some of the expanded universe however, Xenomorph infestations become so common (due to nefarious Humans) that specialised squads and counter weapons become common as well.
Predator is not canon in alien universe. Aliens don't leave any witnesses)
Hadley's is hope destroyed, the alien from alien 3 movie was melted in iron, the aliens on the Sevastopol station fell down on a gas giant, and so go on, no witnesses
@@АМС1313 it’s semi canon
@@АМС1313 and yet, there is no reason for it (and AVP) to NOT be canon. Predator and AVP basically serve as the initial "little green men" experience for humanity. in all the movies, they DO live little to no witnesses beyond select agencies that know (compartmentalization) and the few individuals that bore witness. in short, the Predator and early xenomorph incidents you could say helped inspire the eventual attempts to weaponize the xenomorph and humanity's interest in the stars now that some people knew we weren't alone in the universe.
Imagine an Alien movie or game involving the UPP instead of Weyland-Yutani.
Didnt have AvP2 these weird russian guys?
Check out William Gibson's screenplay of Alien 3, where the UPP is sourced from.
I think the UPP makes an appearance in Alien Infestation on the DS
Android: "I would *love* to raise the crew from cryosleep to have them recover a dangerous alien egg from this planet... but I'm afraid that's against union laws"
*roll end credits*
@@westphalianstallion4293 you mean the Iron Bears? They were a private mercenry firm hired by Weyland-Yutani to augment the regular security forces on LV-1201 and we all know how that went.
Workers of the galaxy, UNITE!
Oh if only the UPP wasn't yet another state socialist project doomed to failure due to its own internal contradictions... True communism cannot be imposed from the top down - only built from the ground up.
You have nothing to lose but your restraining field.
@@PaiSAMSEN "We are convinced that liberty without socialism is privilege and injustice; and that socialism without liberty is slavery and brutality" - Mikhail Bakunin.
Better dead by the alien than red
Okay, Tyrant.
GLORY TO THE UNION OF PROGRESSIVE PEOPLES!!!
The socialism of the UPP sounds alot nicer than the capitalism of Weyland-Yutani.
Looking forward to the upcoming Three World Empire as well
The rising sun never sets on the Three World Empire!
Yes
I love the grounded and gritty feel of the Alien universe
Yeah, its more realistic than star trek and other shiny sci fi things
Isn’t Blade Runner part of this universe as well ?
@@versace6609 no, not officially
Yeah what makes alien unique even after all this time is the aesthetics which somehow manages to perfectly combine retrofuturistism, modernish and futuristic aesthetics
@@АМС1313 it has been confirmed by the director
want a Colonial Marines TV series with : Aliens , Predators , Constructors , Synthetic Revealers , UPP , United Americas , The Three Worlds , and a bunch of other " baddies " .
Ah yes the UPP! Space Soviets!
See I love the UPP because for once the bad guy space-leftists aren't ideologically a Stalinist caricature, they're much more realistic commies.
The Space-AKs are cool too (SpAKs?)
So they're like The Federation of Planets just less advanced.
Well they think their the Marxist dream but really their a rotten core like the USSR or WarsawPact.
the federation werent space stalinists they just outgrew capitalism
It's like if someone tried to create the Federation in a universe with no matter replicators, no friendly humanoid aliens and no apocalyptic catastrophe that brought humanity together, along with much harder laws of physics
Factions I would like to see next:
1. The United Americas | Alien/Predator Universe
2. The Union of Socialist Eurasia | 1984
3. The Camarilla | World of Darkness
4. The Republic of Gilead | The Handmaid's Tale
5. The Horde | World of Warcraft
Eurasia is from 1984, I believe?
I think they already did the Horde. It is one of the oldest videos I believe.
Here to cast another vote for the Camarilla. Both a world-spanning conspiracy and an incredibly limited village-style government coexisting with 20th/21st century politics....
@@himynameisfelipe4042 it was the pilot for rivalries, more focused on the broader relationship between the alliance and horde, so I'd understand if people wanted a more detailed video
Man would I love to see some stuff from Metal Gear,
From XOF to MSF to FOXHOUND, it's a treasure trove of lore
It would be nice to see how the UPP handles a xenomorph outbreak in the expanded universe. Just to see it from their perspective.
Maybe if a UPP colony got infested their interstellar government leaders would just send in a robot army. Then maybe they'd send the cadavers along with some live Aliens frozen inside converted refrigerated cargo trailers shipped by futuristic semi-ton trucks to a secret science research "city" they quickly set up in the Northern "Arctic" region of the planet. Most of the "buildings" would just be troop transport and bulk cargo spaceships along with some modular buildings that kind of resemble Soviet era mass produced buildings. This would look neat in a film. Also Khruschevka were made to be easy to build back in the 1950s, imagine how easy they'd be to build using modern technology and robot construction workers.
Like maybe they'd mostly create platoons mostly of knock-off Working Joe style robots armed with like cheap body armour plates, steel helmets and shotguns. Like in real life the Soviet Union made knockoffs of lots of other countries technology that was more technologically primitive yet simpler to produce and in some cases way more rugged. Like look at the real life Soviet Union made ruggedised licensed Fiat car clones.
Like imagine if an Alien film protagonist had to temporarily team up with some very physically tough yet terrifyingly mentally low functioning robots in order to survive. Or maybe ironically the UPP Working Joe knockoffs would just have like the intelligence of at least like a kind of dumb high school student or something because it would show that humorously even the "space communists" thought it was a dumb idea to save money and resources by making dumb robots that all share one Wi-Fi connected robot brain, especially since knockoff computer chips are probably not that expensive to make. Also it could be interesting to have talking robot characters in the Alien universe that are clearly not human at all.
The Working Joe knockoff robots could be operating under the command of a handful of more intelligent human-like "Bishop like" robots. The "Bishop like" robots could be wielding like "forklift suits (i.e. Alien 2) with each suit equipped with automatic rifle and flamethrower attachments. They could be the creepy amoral scientists sent to study the Aliens and try to modify the Aliens into bio-weapons that can be easily controlled.
Maybe a United Americas spaceship that was surveilling another planet gets infested with Aliens which leads to the crew dying, a handful of crewmates escaping in cryogenic life pods and and both the life pods and the ship crashing onto the UPP planet.
Then the survivors get woken by the robots and told "you're at the newly founded Science City in the arctic region of the planet of Neo Russia, we confined the remaining Aliens here after they attacked Neo Moscow however now the Aliens are breaking out of captivity, also we don't much care for you spacemen since we believe you're responsible for this Alien infestation".
@@SurprisinglyDeep Maybe but "IF" they thought they were responsible. Then the humans in charge would place them under arrest and order the bots to put them into custody. Although i believe the leader of that installation would soon realize that A. given the time that the infestation occured and the arrival of the colonial marine vessel it would be impossible. Then B. once the xenomorphs escaped containment. Both sides would have to help each other if they were going to survive and have any chance of saving the colony or escaping the facility alive.
@@stevengreen9536 Very true. Also that'd be a cool plot.
I'm just thinking that the colonists might blame the spacefarers because they assumed the spacefarers were mucking about with like what they'd assume was like the Aliens habitat or whatnot. (Like if a pedestrian sees a bunch of wild animals barking at someone else then it's be natural for the pedestrian to assume that the other person did something to warrant the animals anger.) Also it seems it's human nature to want to blame other people if a catastrophe causing loss of human life occurs, in an attempt to try and find an ordered pattern out of the chaos and to try to find a reason that the event was not just a senseless horrific random coincidence.
@@SurprisinglyDeep I know but regardless of alliances,politics,etc. The smart individuals will put all that aside for awhile and realize they are in a crisis. Even enemies can temporarily work together to stay alive.
@@stevengreen9536 Very true. It'd be dramatic if they argued for awhile before teaming up though.
Well this was a wonderful surprise. For someone with no knowledge of the Alien Expanded Universe I am very much hoping for videos on the other nations mentioned here.
(And for some reason I feel like Big Trouble in Little China would appeal to the Institute’s staff. Just a random thought)
Love that the TTRPG came out and gave us an immense amount of lore. Workers of the Middle Heavens, Unite!
Break the chains, comrades! Break the chains!!!!
You know, if it weren't for supplementary media like RPG books, you might have forgotten that there's more to the Alien world besides hapless soldiers fighting unstoppable alien beasts.
I hope you'll do a video on the Xenomorphs soon.
It was a fun new faction in the Alien 3 Audio drama. But the SSV Nikolai Stolko needs a redraw. The music it gets has such a strong presence!
Y'know, personally I feel the writers were a bit unimaginative by making the UPP economically very similar to the later Soviet Union with their more mixed economy- there have been many ideas regarding how computers, the internet, and AI can be incorporated into centralized economic planning since all the way back in the 1970s (see: Project Cybersyn in Chile) and it's something that I think would be really interesting to explore in a sci-fi setting.
Totally agree with you there, I love For All Mankind and love the alternative history of the Soviet Union avoiding collapse and the Cold War extending into space but none the less cringed in the Red Wave short between seasons 2 and 3 that simply had the Soviet Union avoid bureaucratic stagnation though 'market reforms' like modern day China.
Alongside the example you gave of Cybersyns you can go back even further to the early 50's and Cybernetics in the Soviet Union that while at first criticised by the conservative party leadership who feared that technological innovation could could disrupt their 'tried and tested' methods of crude, common economy, industrialisation, by the mid 50's moved into popularity as the abstract potential for computers to revolutionise economic planning began to be understood with their ability to instantaneously provide information for economic feedback mechanisms allowing the economy to overcome the so-called 'Socialist Transformation Problem' identified by the bourgeois economist Hayek of a lack of feedback once supply and demand are removed as regulating factors.
The 2010 hybrid fiction/non-fiction collection of short stories, Red Plenty, written by the anti-socialist writer Francis Spufford that uses fictionalised for Francis to interject his views into the narrative with kind of fourth wall breaks where he addresses the audience, in spite of his intention to, at best, dismiss economic planning as a utopian dream, features a Soviet Cybersyn mathematician in the late 50's who was struggling against the government to realise socialism through computers, to quote the text directly,
"He could see that this would not be possible under capitalism, where all the factories had separate owners, locked in wasteful competition with one another. There, nobody was in a position to think systematically. The capitalists would not be willing to share information about their operations; what would be in it for them? That was why capitalism was blind, why it groped and blundered. It was like an organism without a brain. But here it was possible to plan for the whole system at once. The economy was a clean sheet of paper on which reason was writing. So why not optimise it? All he would have to do was to persuade the appropriate authorities to listen. Suppose that the Soviet economy could be made to grow by an extra 3% a year - an extra 3% a year after year, compounded. It would mount up fast. After only a decade, the country would be half as rich again as it would have been otherwise."
While Spufford's intention was to present such people as hopeless dreamers that were doomed to fail in the face of the conservatism of the Soviet state, even if you accept that as true and I think he was probably right as that initial conservatism of the late 50's and 60's turned into outright hostility when the party elite came to understand implementing such politics would destroy by redding them economically redundant, the millions of overpaid, corrupt state bureaucrats, they depended on as their social base to keep themselves in power, even then, it does not follow that such social and economic policies, if implemented in the early period of socialist regime, that is before the crystallisation of an entrenched state bureaucracy, such a socialist system might achieve a level of success economically while avoiding totalitarianism.
The next most developed developed theoretical examination of the use of computers for socialist planning following the work around Cybersyn, that party builds of it alongside the limited exploration that did take place in the Soviet Union before it was side-lined can be found in the 1993 book, Towards a New Socialism, by Paul Cockshott and Allin F. Cotterll, the authors putting the book online themselves in 2000 to contribute to the wider theoretical regroupment of the socialist left following the complete ideological capture of the the overwhelming majority of the former communist and social-democratic movement by liberalism and neo-liberalism.
So why the lack of imagination in future socialist societies with writers being so limited they are unable to look beyond a nostalgic, idealised version of European social democracy or a unconscious imitation of China when there is a wealth of material out there?
I think it honestly just stems from the continued absolute domination of neo-liberal orthodoxy over the developed capitalist countries with no alternative economic system or even discussion being tolerated in the corporate media, education and the largest corporate funded academia.
The writers simply can't conceptualise any alternative to the market.
This is truly a shame and a loss for realising the limitless potential of fictional non-capitalist societies and civilisations but I honestly don't see this changing for the foreseeable future, at least in more mainstream fiction.
For now, I would recommend the Culture novels by the science fiction author Ian M Banks for the best to date example of an intergalactic communist civilisation that has completely overcome the market economy even if the civilisation of The Culture is not without it's pit falls with the disproportionate power influence of The Minds, super advanced AI's, within it.
I would do many things for a video on the Three World Empire :)
Downloaded Fireteam Elite for the bug hunts, stayed for the lore drops.
… And whatever rumours continue to pass through the vast depths of space, may simply not matter.
Because in space, no-one can hear you scream.
I knew about the UPP from the aliens fireteam elite game, it's got a bunch of guns that originated from them, they're okay but personally I have a soft spot for three world empire gear.
El arsenal de la UPP esta basado en las armas de la plataforma kalashnikov
Wouldn't a country name Union of Progressive Socialist be UPS?
It's good to get some proper background info for one of the most popular horror franchises; makes me want to know more about this universe and whether or not the xenomorphs and Engineers have greater roles to play in it.
week ago i found out about the Alien extended universe and was like "I wish the Templin Institute would cover this"
UPP let’s go
Favorite alien faction
Also weirdly its a union of Spain, Germany, and Russia
EU collapse you woud wish.
A lot can happen in 85 years
Kinda curious how France and Poland tolerate that...
But, like the other guy said, 85 years is a long time.
That's another one for the "worst named sci fi nation", Marc!
oof, big time
Union of Based Peoples.
I'd be really interested in hearing about the Three Worlds Empire.
Huh!? This is in Alien lore I've always wanted to dive into that universe more, noticed they have a few books etc
Didn't even know about this Nation, very cool!
Now that you've finally started delving into the Alien universe, I want to see videos about the Yautja and Xenomorph races.
Definitely, I've never gotten too into the lore but always wondered what contact Humans and Predators have had by the time of the second or third Alien movies - have they fought wars? Is there trade? A no-go zone? &c.
AvP (and the Predators) aren't canon to the main Alien series.
@@dheck1138yeah but they could just do videos about both in their own settings
@@dheck1138 So what? This is the Alien Extended Universe I'm referring to.
I really appreciate that you didn't go for a simplistic, binary, or grim take on the UPP. Alien as a universe tends to delve into the lowest common denominator of grimdark cynicism to the point of (for me) literally laughable parody. But you presented the UPP with both its strengths and weaknesses, acknowledging that there's a nuance and complexity to them that neither redeems their failings or ignores their virtues (or those of their political adversaries). It made it feel like something real, like yeah I could see something like that happening.
Well done TI ! I’m not a big fan of anything outside the original trilogy, but I was fascinated with this.
May we one day make the title of humanity worthy of the laurels and honor we laud upon it.
love this channel, and loved how you show more of this Alien Universe
I still have a actual printed copy somewhere of "Aliens: RPG" by Leading Edge Games. I read that thing until it started to fall apart on me. I could never get my friends interested enough to play it and that was okay. I read it for the lore. 🙂
"I'm going to the one place that hasn't yet been polluted by capitalism...
SPACE!!!"
yes i know space has been polluted by capitalism in this universe but whatever still a banger quote
Ok this is weird, I literally just started playing Alien fire team elite for the first time last night and just heard about the Union for the first time while playing.
Soldier, Outland, and Blade Runner are also in this universe, right? Or at least share a part of it?
Only according to theorists. If you ask me, there are too many discrepancies, and they're extremely unlikely to ever cross over in an official capacity.
@@SuperGman117 too bad they dont sit down and sort it out. Would be pretty awesome if they could somehow connect them. Maybe even add in Dredd universe somehow as well.
@@adamm.6595 It would be cool. You could even throw Avatar in there. The deleted scenes that feature Earth are very classic cyberpunk.
@@adamm.6595 Officialy they said no. But also they said we can combine them if we want in our own headcanon, yeah the guy that look over the cannon in the 20 century fox said that we can create our own non official cannon
UPP's Communauts.
I have a decent knowledge of the Alien extended universe but I don't remember hearing about this faction at all
I think it's much needed new political landscape writen for the tabletop RPG.
@@Rodrigo_Vega Back when they made the first two films the soviet union was still a thing and pieces of script that ended up not making the cut mention them as a competing interstellar superpower. The UPP is just that idea revived and renamed to better fit into the future timeline.
@@GaldirEonai yea, the URSS shows up in a lot of sci-fi of the time, but some of this media was done well past that point. Today Aliens is almost "retrofuturism" It's 80s IN SPACE and this factions plays the part. Making the UPP into a rebranded URSS in space is perfectly serviceable in it's tropey-ness but a bit unoriginal and not particularly enthralling as commentary or speculation.
This just made me think of Dawn of Victory, which just makes me sad that it never got released. But I'm still hopeful that we'll see something new someday!
Way to wrap that up with a David quote. Well done.
Union of Progressive People is a nice name
Should do the Earth Defense Force! from the EDF Games!
please do more alien/bladerunner content
“YOU DOWN WITH UPP?!!”
“YEAH YOU KNOW ME!!!”
So basically one xenomorph is all it takes for war to erupt across space
Man I wished the new upcoming strategy Alien game touches more in this lore or maybe a small/big active temporary play into the game. I feel like it's barely going to get touched upon just like how Alien fire team did. At the very least I love the lore within the Alien and Predator universe.
Hopefully that new FX Alien TV show shows more of the Universe and world building!
Ah yes, the Union of Progressive Peoples, also known as the Templin Institute.
Wait, why?
Last I checked, they are non-partisan civilization researchers?
Finally a universe in which Germany corrects, what is in ours long overdue: to become one of the Anarchist/Socialist/Communist strongholds and beacon of hope for all mankind... Something that would at least in theory lead to a Star Trek Utopia.
Took me 1:30 to realize that it's literally that Alien
Love your stuff. I hope you guys will do something on 'The Last of Us', now that the season has ended.
Are they progressive?
In exactly the same way the DPRK or GDR is/was democratic and a republic.
Somewhat? They're a relatively uninspired copy+paste of the IRL soviet union. Kinda boring honestly.
They're "Progressive Socialist" I guess lol. Who knows? It's set in the far 22nd Century.
No, they are not so advanced as United Americas, but they have much more Human power
Just like PRC who call themself democratics
Ohhhhhh so that's what's UPP. Good video!
Could you make a video about NanoTrasen from Space Station 13?
Syndikate from same game would be most welcome too
I've always believed that the alien universe goes far beyond what the movies portrayed .
the problem with capitalism is that you eventually run out of other people’s land
My humour has degraded so much, I giggled at U.P.P.
You PeePee.
i never knew there was a extended universe until now
So, is this a novel series, an affiliated game, or did I miss a movie trilogy?
Novel series, tabletop rpg, some of the background lore in the video games
It was from the Aliens 3 script famed science fiction writer William Gibson wrote that was never used
Love this narrator so much!
The State Security reminds me of the Stasi to an extent...
"In space, no one can find out how they got that Lenin bust on their drawer."
Oof, for a moment, I thought this was one of the settings you were looking to create and thought, "Wow, that's uninspired." When do we hear more about that new project of yours? It sounds like my dream job to create something new like that. Are you looking for interns? lol
"I will go to the place where capitalism wasn't conquered, TO SPACE"
Please make one about Futurama's Bender units. Development, which metals are they made of, seems to vary interior, cpu
Humanity repeats itself
War never changes.
So now there's not only Aliens, Predators and whatever those big fishmen from the Prometheus film are are called. There's also communists. That universe really walks around no rake.
Is there any official list of which Earth nations are part of which government?
Thank you the Video and the English subtitle.
Time for an Alien category in your playlists?
Finally my countrie gets some camera (iam spanish)
Cherdenko has found his home, apparently.
Who's Cherdenko?
@@SurprisinglyDeepPremier Cherdenko. The head honcho of the Soviet Union from Red Alert 3.
6:08 that’s Sevastopol Station
Huh. I didn't know there was any real lore beyond the movies.
Amazing, I just love the the details and arts
Interesting. While original movies had been focusing on the weyland - yutanni as megacorp Evil, the "space commies" look like nice alternative bad guys...
You guys should do "The Three Body Problem"
Can you make a video about the three world empire because I have never heard of it before and it sounds interesting
So, basically, they are just a revival of the Soviet Union.
Literally copied and pasted into sci fi. I'm sad, wish boomers had had more imagination, but I suppose this is cold war intoxication.
It's kind of different though. Like this video said the UPP is not actually trying to create a communist state, they're just trying to limit the power of the mega-corporations and give their people in general better living standards.
So it's a government system made by well intentioned yet self aware cynical realists with a glass half full mentality made by people saying "we all know what happened with the Soviet Union and the other state communist countries, we all know that trying to make a truly communist state is a completely futile endeavour but let's not try and build an impossible stateless classless society, let's like just try and build a government that values what we think are good principles to live by in terms of a focus around socialism and create worlds where everyone has a decent standard of living".
Like they could still be oppressive but thy might not be as bad as many state communist countries, like they probably wouldn't accuse anyone by saying "we accuse you of being a dirty pig dog capitalist" or "we accuse you of being one of the people trying to prevent the communist state from coming into being" but instead they'd probably say "we accuse you of being a selfish person who did something to put his own needs above those of others" even when the person had not done anything illegal.
Also it's interesting in that in its struggle for power with United Americas and the Three World Empire the situation is kind of like the 18th century Age of Colonialism except if one of the "empires" was instead kind of like the Soviet Union instead.
Does this take anything from Aliens: Fireteam game I wonder?
Where does this lore come from? he movies were unconcerned with greater social entities.
Comics mostly I think
The comics, the novelizations and spin off books, the tabletop RPG, lore info dumps in the videogames(and instructions when they were sold on discs), lore stuff in the board games...
The good guys in the Alien universe.
How it work if there is no ftl?
Do the Three Worlds Empire
I hope next t will be battle tech 😊
Further evidence that the aliens are actually not the most interesting thing in alien
Please do more on the other factions!
Do a video on the Three World Empire
Love these videos!