Information

[obeir]

“How does it feel killing your own kind?”

“I don’t retire my own kind, because we don’t run.”

— Sapper Morton and K

This is K. You’d peg him for 30 if you didn’t know better. Refined features, flawless skin. Intelligent eyes that breathe in detail and exhale warmth. Gifted with a grin that masks wry for earnest.

— script excerpt

— comics excerpt

Serial Number: KD6-3.7, called "K" for short (what's in a name?)
Species: Replicant (the in-universe term for biorobotic androids)
Model: Nexus-9
Occupation: Blade Runner (a fucking blade runner, even), owned and employed by the LAPD
Height: 186cm
Build: Slim, athletically lithe, muscular
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Blue — his manufacturer serial number is also visible on the underside of his right eye
Voice/Appearance:

K searches the Denabase (includes how K normally introduces himself to other characters, as "KD6-3.7.")
K submits to his baseline tests
K at the orphanage ("Bigger than you have tried to shut me down. Bigger than you, and they were men, at that." Referring to the fact K isn't recognised as a man or person in his home universe; just a machine obeying its orders.)

First Impressions
While it was made specifically for a game that K is in, it contains a lot of useful and relevant information about him.

Usual attire: His dark green laminated cotton coat with faux shearling collar (that's actually functional) — the lack of any animal products is intentional as they are extinct, a knitted long-sleeve black jumper with a black shirt underneath, sleeveless undershirt, straight cut dark brown jeans, black tactical boots, a modified shoulder holster (based on Safariland 1090), where he carries his blaster gun (a look behind the scenes). When off-duty and at home, he might dress more along these lines.

Bonus suit reference, for if he ever has occasion to wear one.

His LAPD-issued Spinner with its pilotfish drone. A couple interior views. It's a modified car capable of flight, with an interior more similar to aircraft.



(click to enlarge)

Canon: Blade Runner 2049
Timeline: Here and here
Tie-in short films:

[ 2036: Nexus Dawn ] | [ 2048: Nowhere to Run ] | [ Black Out 2022 ]

The FIGHT is quick and it is fierce:

Sapper stabs towards K’s heart. K avoids the blade, only his coat and the wall are pierced by Sapper’s knife now stuck deep into the wall. K breaks Sapper’s hold on the knife, which skids to the floor.

K DUCKS a heavy fist that sinks into the wall where his head just was. Sapper grabs K by his belt and collar, lifting him into the air and slamming him into the wall over and over -- until K’s body GOES THROUGH IT, and --

K crashes onto the floor in the next room.

K recovers quickly, strangely able to withstand the punishment. He sees Sapper charge through the wall to finish the job.

Sapper is on him -- a vice lock around K’s throat -- K gasping for air.

K gets out of Sapper’s grip, and lashes out in rapid succession, his solar plexus, his chin, his throat, crushing his windpipe. His blows are SURGICAL, anatomically precise, like viper bites.

Sapper is stunned, choking, in pain. K kicks Sappers’ knee and the giant drops to the floor like a felled oak tree.

K SNATCHES Sapper’s THROAT -- SQUEEZING -- thumb SLIDING UPWARD as -- Sapper GASPS... FLAILS... hand reaching...

For the dropped SCALPEL... GRASPING IT!

HE STABS K in the SHOULDER.

K accepts the wound and the pain. Only squeezes tighter.

— script excerpt

KD6-3.7

For a brief overview of some of his abilities and details on what Nexus-9 obedience entails, check the permissions page. The 2036: Nexus Dawn short film also explicitly demonstrates Nexus-9 obedience. Because K's been out experiencing the world for a while already, he's less robotic acting than that "newborn" model, but — depending on the canon point he's being played from in any given thread — is no less obedient. His personality is also dependent on what canon point he's being played from due to the changes he undergoes: Once he discovers himself capable of free will (along with [spoilers]), his understanding of his identity and place in the world are fundamentally changed.

K was manufactured to have what's presumably considered an ideal temperament for police work and was designed for combat. In general, he's calm and composed, even-tempered in most situations, and unlikely to panic when things become tense — if anything, he becomes even more focussed. He's exceptionally observant and has a good sense for when people are lying or otherwise attempting to conceal something, though he isn't infallible. He's inquisitive even outside of his detective work and enjoys learning. Before he comes to recognise himself as a person, he's indifferent to the fact he kills his own kind, because he doesn't actually consider the rogue replicants to be the same as him. There's a reason he doesn't refer to it as killing, but "retiring", a term coined by humans; you can't kill something that isn't really alive.

He sometimes keeps things from the replicants he retires (for instance Sapper's cigarettes, and arguably his coat may've been acquired this way, which has a serial number on the back that doesn't match his own.) He has an appreciation for old jazz music, likes to read, learnt how to dance at some point, and indulges in both cigarettes and alcohol when the mood strikes him, though they almost seem more like affectations he's adopted as part of his domestic routine when he arrives home from work. Imitating what he thinks a real person would do. Replicants aren't affected by alcohol, after all. In the case of smoking he's only shown to do so once, possibly just to try it.

Because replicants are designed to be ideal slave labour that require fewer resources than humans, and can also survive in extreme conditions including deep space without the need for protective gear, K isn't required to eat or sleep in order to remain functional, though he's physically capable of doing both, and they will help accelerate recovery and healing. Fun fact: the floorplan of K's apartment doesn't have a toilet, nor is one present in the movie, which I choose to interpret as him not needing one. And as K is legally property of the LAPD and ineligible to own property himself, anything that might require legal documentation to purchase or own are in his handler's name, such as his apartment lease, and any licensing involved with having an AI companion such as Joi. He literally doesn't own anything, not even a name.

As for my interpretation of Rachael's singular ability that no other replicant is shown to be capable of (major spoilers for 2049 follow!): she isn't fully a replicant the way standard, mass-produced ones are. She's a one-of-a-kind prototype that was made specifically for Tyrell (who quite possibly dabbled in illegal human organ transplants/cloning/eugenics with Rachael). She was the first and last of her kind, and reproduction is not possible for standard replicants. As Wallace creepily states, he's already tried — and failed — to "breed" them for his own purposes. This is why the replicant rebellion led by Freysa is ultimately doomed to fail, if their whole fight for freedom hinges on Ana's existence and not, you know, the fact replicants are sentient people and deserve to be legally recognised as such, regardless of their (in)ability to procreate.

My Deerington game application and permissions have additional details about how I interpret canon and play K. Of particular note is that because the term "replicant" is for all intents and purposes a brand name for Wallace Corporation androids, for K it serves as a reminder that he's a commodity, a manufactured product, a slave. The generic term "android" carries fewer negative connotations in his mind, and as such, K frequently prefers "android" when referring to himself or being referred to. This is intentional and something characters are free to pick up on.

EXT. K’S APARTMENT COMPLEX

A grand, old office building. TILT DOWN the building’s facade as K enters...

INT. K’S APARTMENT COMPLEX.

The office building has been hastily and cheaply retrofitted for residential living. DENSELY crowded with FAMILY LIFE. The many RESIDENTS, too poor or genetically problematic to get Off-World, treat the halls and stairway landings like a dorm commons. An extension of their own homes.

Pungent signs of ethnicity everywhere. Colors, carpets, clothes. As many languages as shades of skin. K gives a nod of acknowledgment to a man smoking in the hall. Is acknowledged back with a stream of foreign epithets that follow him up...

INT. K’S APARTMENT COMPLEX. CONTINUED.

FIND K ON THE STAIRS

Walking up 80 stories. Stiff from the fight. An OLD WOMAN bumps into him, expecting him to get out of her way. No one he passes the least glad to see a Replicant.

INT. HALLWAY.

K crosses the hall. ALL his NEIGHBORS’ DOORS are open like market stalls letting in air and letting out CHILDREN. Every home thickly filled, like a hoarder’s garage. Some host SHOPS. FOOD STALLS. Every floor like a town square. K walks past and to his apartment. A BOY, brown-faced, missing an ear, looking up at K, with curiosity and fear.

K opens the lock. Disappears inside. The only one to close his door, which is tagged with a GRAFFITI: “FUCK OFF SKINNER.”

EXT. K’S APARTMENT. NIGHT.

PUSH IN ON K’S WINDOW, as a LIGHT turns on within...

INT. K’S APARTMENT.

A sparsely adorned space in clear contrast to his neighbors. No pretense of cultural heritage. A simple chair. On its arm a valueless paperback novel, well-thumbed, noted, creased. Nabokov’s maddening “PALE FIRE” as it happens, not that we make a thing of it.

K walks in with his package, trying to be discreet, he hides it as...

He turns on a CONSOLE. Perhaps a MUSIC PLAYER, which spins a SINATRA song, “Summer Winds.”

K takes off his coat. Seems more annoyed at the scalpel tear in the fabric than the shoulder wound he sustained under it.

— script excerpt

“We began to recognize in them a strange obsession. After all, they are emotionally inexperienced, with only a few years in which to store up the experiences which you and I take for granted. If we gift them with a past, we create a cushion or a pillow for their emotions, and consequently, we can control them better.”

“Memories! You're talking about memories!”

— Tyrell and Deckard

Retake the falling snow: Each drifting flake

Shapeless and slow, unsteady and opaque,

A dull dark white against the days pale white.

And then the gradual and dual blue,

As night unites the view and the view

— Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire