<P> Rick Deckard is a bounty hunter who becomes a specialist plainclothes police officer with the San Francisco Police Department in the early 21st century, responsible for killing (euphemistically, "retiring") androids that escape from off - world colonies . In the film adaptation, he was / is with the Replicant Detection Division (i.e. Blade Runner unit) of the Los Angeles Police Department . In both novel and film versions, he begins the story as a selfish, self - involved cop who seemingly sees no value in android life . In the novel, his experiences cause him to develop empathy toward androids and all living things . It is implied in the film that he had already begun to undergo this change prior to the start of the film, causing his original resignation some time (around May 2019) before its opening . </P> <P> Deckard is married to Iran, one of the more empathetic characters in the novel . She descends into a depression over the state of humanity, and is able to find the empathy necessary to care for an electric toad at the end of the novel . </P> <P> In the film, the bounty hunters are replaced by police called "Blade Runners", and the androids are called "replicants", terms not used in the original novel . The novel depicts Deckard as an obsequious and officious underling . In the novel Deckard is human and has a wife but because of the many versions of the film and because of script, the backstory of the movie version of Rick Deckard becomes unclear . Viewers have to make up their own minds as to whether Deckard is a human or replicant and therefore has a past . The voice - over in the theatrical release indicates Deckard is divorced, as it mentions an ex-wife . However the voice - over has been removed from subsequent versions and so this detail is not mentioned . If the viewer takes the perspective that Deckard is a replicant then the "ex-wife" only becomes an implanted memory . </P> <P> Before he resigned from his position just prior to the events of the film, Deckard had amassed such a reputation as a Blade Runner that he had gained the nicknames Mr. Nighttime and the Boogeyman . </P>

Do androids dream of electric sheep is deckard a replicant
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