Summary and Purpose
By 1992 the earth has been ravaged by World War Terminus, an event that can be assumed to have been a global nuclear war. The novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is set in 1992 post-war Los Angeles. The war had left large sections of the planet uninhabited, and a thick radioactive dust coats the atmosphere and is present everywhere. The poor conditions on earth and advances in interplanetary flight have led to the wealthy abandoning earth to live on the colony planets, one of which is on Mars. Earth is still home to many people, some who have chosen not to emigrate, and those who could not reach the minimum requirements in IQ and health tests to be allowed to leave the planet. Mega-corporations like the Rosen Association (Tyrell Corporation in the film) hold their headquarters on earth, and produce synthetic organic humanoids called androids (replicants in the film) which are virtually indistinguishable from human adults. While androids are illegal on earth, they are used for slave labour on the colonies. Occasionally, androids may murder their owners and flee to earth to escape their lives as slaves. Because of this, police departments employ bounty hunters or "blade runners" to hunt down and terminate illegal androids through the use of an empathy test, as the artificial humans cannot replicate natural, empathetic responses like a human can. By the time the novel and film take place, the Nexus-6 Brain Unit has been implemented in newer androids, and it can almost pass an empathy test. When six Nexus-6 level androids escape from their handlers on Mars and arrive in Los Angeles, Rick Deckard, a bounty hunter, is assigned to hunt them down.
This website will highlight and address the dystopian themes that are evident in the original novel, and the loose movie adaptation.
This website will highlight and address the dystopian themes that are evident in the original novel, and the loose movie adaptation.