# Blade Runner: question about Roy Batty's soliloquy **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 4, 2011, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-question-about-roy-battys-soliloquy/573437 "2011-03-04T01:54:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2011, 10:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-question-about-roy-battys-soliloquy/573437/122 "2011-03-10T10:20:25Z")
> [@Askance](#): > > I know, that’s precisely my point. They are humans and can’t be anything else, according to the morality of the mythos. and > [@](#): > > Wow, man, that’s deep. Hey, did you ever think that an atom in your fingernail could be a solar system that some other dude is living in? Heavy shit! I have no dog in this fight but its often good for giggles. You are attempting to discredit a view about a movie because it doesn’t fit what you say is the “morality of the mythos” while also attempting to discredit that view by mocking it as being too “heavy”. Yep, this debate is often good for giggles. ---
**Author:** ![kombatminipig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b5ac83/32.png) [@kombatminipig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kombatminipig)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2011, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-question-about-roy-battys-soliloquy/573437/123 "2011-03-10T13:17:41Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > But just to be ornery, here’s another data point for the debate: Gaff’s praise to Deckard on the roof, after Batty’s death: “You’ve done a man’s work, sir!” Odd wording, it seems, unless…nah. Couldn’t be. Gaff is another argument for the pro-replicant camp, in my opinion. To me, he’s obviously Deckard’s controller. The only character who seems to have known Deckard prior to the movie is Bryant, who may very well be pulling a schtick to convince Deckard that he is human. Besides his captain, Deckard has no familiarity with any other character in the movie who isn’t introduced during the course of the plot. No ex-wife, no drinking buddies, no old cop friends, nothing. In the end Gaff allows Deckard to go rogue because he himself has grown sympathetic to the replicant cause, viewing the humanity of Deckard’s struggle. ---
**Author:** ![PoorYorick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecccb3/32.png) [@PoorYorick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PoorYorick)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2011, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-question-about-roy-battys-soliloquy/573437/124 "2011-03-10T13:57:55Z")
> [@kombatminipig](#): > > In the end Gaff allows Deckard to go rogue because he himself has grown sympathetic to the replicant cause, viewing the humanity of Deckard’s struggle. You mean the end scene where he and Rachel drive off into the sunset so the focus groups don’t get so bummed out? I pretend that scene doesn’t exist. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2011, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-question-about-roy-battys-soliloquy/573437/125 "2011-03-10T15:36:53Z")
> [@Quimby](#): > > I also believe he meant the shoulder of Orion literally. Agreed – if I said, “During the war, I was stationed in the boot-heel of Italy,” would people argue that it didn’t look like a boot-heel when I was there? No, I’d use that term because that’s one way people are used to thinking of it. Similarly, it makes sense for people to call a place “the shoulder of Orion” all the time they are planning, preparing for, and making the journey to it…and when they are back here, describing it to people. > [@spark240](#): > > I think it is absurd to assume that people are traveling hundreds of light years inside four-year lifespans solely on the evidence of this one line. Do you have anything else? What about [relativistic time dilation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_dilation#Time_dilation_and_space_flight)? * * * Does anyone else see some parallels between this movie and the animal rights debate? The replicants are created for our use in a way that real animals can’t be said to have been, yet even that moral freebie doesn’t make us feel good about what happens to them. As soon as we really allow ourselves to drop our assumptions and interact with them, we start to question our absolute right to enslave and kill them. Of course, in the movie, real animals are all already gone (maybe some environmental message in that), so we’re looking at the question in a very narrow way (replicants), not animals generally, but I think it’s somewhat parallel. Once we broaden the definition of who we consider to be in the “in-group,” the question becomes one of _where_ the line is drawn, not whether to draw it at all. Yes, the replicants think and talk like us, to a degree anyway. But Leon doesn’t talk like Roy Batty. Does our reaction to Roy’s eloquence make it all right to kill Leon but not all right to kill Roy? Or is the message more general – who are we to decide who lives free, who lives in slavery, and who dies because he or she is “inferior” according to some criteria we’ve made up? ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2011, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-question-about-roy-battys-soliloquy/573437/126 "2011-03-10T15:40:07Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > …Does anyone else see some parallels between this movie and the animal rights debate? … No. I’ve never given that a thought. ---
**Author:** ![GargoyleWB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gargoylewb/32/199_2.png) [@GargoyleWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GargoyleWB)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2011, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-question-about-roy-battys-soliloquy/573437/127 "2011-03-10T15:44:45Z")
> [@kombatminipig](#): > > …In the end Gaff allows Deckard to go rogue because he himself has grown sympathetic to the replicant cause, viewing the humanity of Deckard’s struggle. Gaff has so few scenes, his motivations aren’t conclusive, but my view is different about Gaff. I see Gaff as being sympathetic to Deckard. Deckard’s a burned-out cop whose lost his wife and kid and is barely keeping his own humanity intact. Gaff is a fellow bladerunner and perhaps sees much of Deckard in himself, admiring him as the best, but seeing the inevitable tragic end of someone he respects. He lets Deckard go, giving Deckard an escape from the otherwise inevitable end (suspension, prison?) to his job and life, but also deliberately lets Deckard know (via origami) that he’s fully aware of Deckard’s actions and motives. He’s a cop, but covering for and shielding his partner is more important. He’s worried about Deckard’s retaining his own humanity, not the replicants discovering theirs. His saying “You’ve done a man’s work” is him saying that, yes, this was a shit job that went sour in ways far beyond any typical replicant retirement, but keep perspective on who you are and what your job is. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2011, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-question-about-roy-battys-soliloquy/573437/128 "2011-03-10T15:58:18Z")
> [@GargoyleWB](#): > > His saying “You’ve done a man’s work” is him saying that, yes, this was a shit job that went sour in ways far beyond any typical replicant retirement, but keep perspective on who you are and what your job is. Up until this point, Gaff had been fairly silent; and when he did speak, it was in the non-English language that everyone spoke. At the end, he speaks with an English accent. I took ‘You’ve done a man’s job, sir!’ as nothing more than a Britishism. For me, _Blade Runner_ is too good a movie to be cheapened by ‘My god! What a _twist!_’ ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2011, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-question-about-roy-battys-soliloquy/573437/129 "2011-03-10T16:13:55Z")
It just occured to me: It was official policy to “retire” replicants who made it to Earth. It doesn’t have to be a given that all of the Bladerunners were passionately supportive of this policy. Indeed, they are the ones who get to know the replicants the most. They see them during some of the most personal moments (reacting to their own imminent demise), and begin to sympathise with the humanity of the reactions. (Note the super-slo-mo death scene with the first girl replicant Decker kills. She’s just running, looking scared. Hardly the image of a dangerous malfunctioning toaster. It does conjure some sympathy with me. Which, apparently, was intentional.) It would be easy for some remote beauracrat to order the termination of these manufactured beings when they don’t have to deal with them so closely themselves. Edit: I know. I know. Decades behind everyone else. Sue me. ---
**Author:** ![Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Swallowed_My_Cellphone)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2011, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-question-about-roy-battys-soliloquy/573437/130 "2011-03-10T16:15:07Z")
> [@Lust4Life](#): > > The original book makes it crystal clear that the replicants came back to Earth from interstellar systems, the movie tries to make that point clearly but has obviously failed. I remember this clearly from the movie. They spell it out from the get-go when they tell Deckard about the job. ETA: Dammit! Why do I always miss all the extra pages in a multi-page thread? :mad: ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2011, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-question-about-roy-battys-soliloquy/573437/131 "2011-03-10T16:24:56Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > He used some of the same footage in both, didn’t he? No. No unicorn footage from Blade Runner was used in Legend. ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2011, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-question-about-roy-battys-soliloquy/573437/132 "2011-03-10T16:26:56Z")
Looking at the quotes on IMDB, this one from Decker: " The report read “Routine retirement of a replicant.” That didn’t make me feel any better about shooting a woman in the back. " Yeah. The Bladerunners get burned out enforcing this policy. That may be why Gaff doesn’t air out Rachael and/or Deckard. The job stinks on ice. ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2011, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-question-about-roy-battys-soliloquy/573437/133 "2011-03-10T16:29:14Z")
I think the “Deckard is a replicant” side makes excellent points, and it makes sense. I’m still on the “Deckard is human” side though. A story about a replicant without humanity who then finds his/its humanity isn’t as good as a story about a human who has lost his humanity and finds it with the help of the very “not-human” replicants he’s been tracking and killing all this time. However, I also think the director had “Deckard is a replicant” in mind, and carefully filmed things so that Deckard \*could \*be a replicant. But, that’s not the movie that got made. It could have been, but it wasn’t. No take-backs. One really HUGE suspension of disbelief I’ve never liked about this movie is how human replicants are. It’s so bluntly a metaphor for slavery. I’ve never bought that the USA would revert to hunting and killing escaped slaves. We don’t need slaves, because we have wage slaves. Of course I love the movie, always have, seen it over 100 times. I choose to ignore the heavy-handed slavery thing, though. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2011, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-question-about-roy-battys-soliloquy/573437/134 "2011-03-10T18:20:30Z")
> [@](#): > > Agreed – if I said, “During the war, I was stationed in the boot-heel of Italy,” would people argue that it didn’t look like a boot-heel when I was there? No, I’d use that term because that’s one way people are used to thinking of it. Similarly, it makes sense for people to call a place “the shoulder of Orion” all the time they are planning, preparing for, and making the journey to it…and when they are back here, describing it to people. The thing is, there are two ways to parse that sentence. “I’ve seen attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion” could mean that I was at the shoulder of Orion, and saw attack ships on fire. If you parse it that way, then it’s exactly analogous to “Italy’s boot-heel”, and the speaker had to have been at Betelgeuse. On the other hand, it could also be parsed to mean that the attack ships the speaker saw were off the shoulder of Orion, in which case it could mean either way, but reads cleaner as “in the direction of the shoulder of the constellation Orion”, putting the speaker somewhere in the general vicinity of Earth (where the constellation Orion is recognizable). Though that could still be any one of many star systems: Most of the stars in Orion are relatively far away, and so the constellation would still be recognizable at some distance from Sol. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2011, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-question-about-roy-battys-soliloquy/573437/135 "2011-03-10T19:25:47Z")
Where might “I saw a sub off Cape Hatteras” imply? Maybe that you were in Iowa, looking at a sub in the Mississippi, and Cape Hatteras was in the background? “Off x” is a nautical term, and when used as a nautical term, does not imply some trick of perspective, but proximity (typically to solid land). I suppose it’s _possible_ that he was using an established nautical term in some new fashion as if it were an artist’s term for perspective. But I’d submit that that interpretation is the stretch, not “ships near an object.” ---
**Author:** ![GargoyleWB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gargoylewb/32/199_2.png) [@GargoyleWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GargoyleWB)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2011, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-question-about-roy-battys-soliloquy/573437/136 "2011-03-10T20:01:46Z")
> [@levdrakon](#): > > … > One really HUGE suspension of disbelief I’ve never liked about this movie is how human replicants are… These are the new Nexus 6 remember. I get the impression that replicants are a very rapidly progressing tech, much like the pace of smart phones today. GHz processors in my pocket driving retina displays holding 10000 songs with full multitasking operating systems? 10 years ago I was impressed that my phone also had an alarm clock. We assume that Gaff and Deckard have spent their years retiring Nexus 1 (probably “Real Doll” level and obviously not human) through Nexus 5 (casually mistaken for human but easily noticed with a short logic/emotion quiz). They are in a new moral world, progressively retiring automatons that are more and more lifelike with each model series and constantly in an arms race with the pace of replicant advancement. Deckard and Gaff are now wrestling with the crossing of the uncanny valley of replicants justifiably being sentient AI. I think it is a mistake to assume that the setting and environment of the bladerunners has been a static one, and the new Nexus 6 challenge gives deeper rationale to their character and actions. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2011, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-question-about-roy-battys-soliloquy/573437/137 "2011-03-10T21:02:24Z")
> [@Jonathan\_Chance](#): > > The important takeaway, IMHO, is that Deckard, being human, realizes that his memories and such are just like Batty’s. Gone like tears in rain. There is no fundamental difference in Roy Batty dying as there is in Deckard dying. His memories will be lost as well. The issue isn’t whether Deckard is a replicant. The issue is that _it doesn’t matter whether he is_. Both groups, natural and manufactured humans, are identical in their mortality and response to it. I would reword that, the important takeaway is that Batty’s memories and emotions are like Deckard’s. Deckard is the point of view character and presumed human, with known characteristics; Batty is the known replicant with the presumed artificial and thus not really real status. To discover that the other is just like us is the point. > [@Alka\_Seltzer](#): > > [FURTHER DERAIL] > > Betelguese is fairly likely to go supernova within the next few thousand years. When it does it will outshine the full moon. It’s even possible this has already happened, but the light hasn’t yet reached us. > > [/FURTHER DERAIL] I get two sources saying it won’t even be as bright as the full moon. [http://www.lifeslittlemysteries.com/will-betelgeuse-really-become-second-sun-1260/](http://www.lifeslittlemysteries.com/will-betelgeuse-really-become-second-sun-1260/) > [@](#): > > “The supernova would hit somewhere around the brightness of a **crescent moon** ,” said Kaler, who has focused his research on dying stars since the 1950s. “It would definitely be visible in full daylight, and it would cast shadows. It might scare the crap out of people to be honest, but it would be nowhere near as bright as the sun.” bolding added [http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/01/21/betelgeuse-and-2012/](http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/01/21/betelgeuse-and-2012/) > [@](#): > > At 600+ light years, a supernova would be pretty bright, but hardly bright enough to be a second Sun, as both article say. Sorry, no Tatooine-like sunsets for us. It wouldn’t even be as bright as the full Moon, really, but certainly far brighter than Venus. Enough to cast a shadow, which would actually be pretty cool. > [@Malthus](#): > > Heh, just chewing the shit here - but what if in fact _everyone_ is a replicant, all of humanity has been replaced - but simply isn’t aware of it? Only the older models actually _know_ they are replicants … 😃 That actually seems to be one of the suggestions of the book. They use the premise of the animals, and android animals, to set up the principle that androids that are not easily distinguishable exist, then reveal that all actual animals have died out and all animals remaining are androids, but that is not widely known so many people think real animals exist, just are rare and ultra expensive. By the end the implication to me was that even the humans themselves were all androids. YMMV. > [@Sr\_Siete](#): > > Not at all. Pain is our natural warning system that keeps us from danger. People born with congenital analgesia, who can’t feel pain, for instance, tend to harm themselves constantly. An equivalent to pain for robots is n absolute given. True, bue he wasn’t speaking about pain as a system for detecting damage, he was talking about the specific act of implating memories that cause the bearer of the memories emotional pain and moral ambiguity. That makes no sense in an artificial being generated to do the onerous and dangerous tasks you don’t wish to subject real humans to. > [@Alan\_Smithee](#): > > The unbelievably wealthy and powerful Tyrell (did you see the size of his building?) coerced the cops into using Deckard instead of a real blade runner to hunt down the Nexus 6s because the best real blade runner had already been shot and Tyrell wanted to see what one of his new human-identical replicants would do if it was sent out into the world with programmed memories and instructed to locate and identify replicants. He didn’t really care if those replicants were actually killed or not; he was quite pleased when Batty came to see him. He wanted to know if he could build a replicant that was so perfect even it would think it was human _even when it had all the information about human-identical replicants and how to identify them_. That certainly changes the meaning and scope of the film. > [@Askance](#): > > He’s not a Bladerunner? What then the hell is the frickin’ movie about? Of course he is. He is explicitly tasked to go a shoot replicants. What’s your definition of a Bladerunner in your perverse universe? You misunderstand. Yes, technically he is a Bladerunner by virtue of being assigned that mission. But **Alan Smithee** ’s point was that in his version, Deckard did not exist before the first scene of the movie, so he wasn’t a Bladerunner any more than he was a taxicab driver or a sandwich eater or a former cop or a left-handed Anabaptist flamenco dancer. He was a new entity starting from a brand new beginning with fake memories and being subjected to his own round of tests that he didn’t realize was occurring. > [@](#): > > Wow, man, that’s deep. Hey, did you ever think that an atom in your fingernail could be a solar system that some other dude is living in? Heavy shit! It is deep, your trivialization notwithstanding. It casts the movie in a very different light, and changes the meaning of the film considerably. Of course, it also makes the point of the loss of humanity by the protagonist in parallel with the humanization of the synthetics a null-point, but you can’t have everything. > [@](#): > > There is not the slightest evidence for a single shred of this ridiculous, what, conspiracy theory about a fictional universe? And I’m amused to read that you recognise there were real actual Bladerunners in the story, So where and who the fuck were they? It certainly is a different way to interpret the movie, and I haven’t seen it in a while, but to say there is not a shred of evidence is erroneous. There are plenty of details pointed out in this very thread that can be interpreted to support the point. That is the issue - it requires _interpretation_. It is a trickier interpretation to be sure, but doesn’t necessarily make it wrong. > [@levdrakon](#): > > One really HUGE suspension of disbelief I’ve never liked about this movie is how human replicants are. It’s so bluntly a metaphor for slavery. I’ve never bought that the USA would revert to hunting and killing escaped slaves. We don’t need slaves, because we have wage slaves. > > Of course I love the movie, always have, seen it over 100 times. I choose to ignore the heavy-handed slavery thing, though. > [@Sailboat](#): > > Does anyone else see some parallels between this movie and the animal rights debate? The replicants are created for our use in a way that real animals can’t be said to have been, yet even that moral freebie doesn’t make us feel good about what happens to them. I think these are related points, ways that science fiction help us explore human nature, past human events, and potential human events if we don’t contemplate them. And it does bear similarity to the animal rights cause right now, especially studies into the nature of consciousness, awareness, and intelligence. It speaks to attitudes toward testing of primates, especially the Great Apes, specifically because of their similarities to humanity and questions about the morality of our treatment of them. It is also similar to questions about artificial intelligence, what it means to be a sapient intelligence, and at what point an artificial construct could potentially obtain rights of a “person”. Clearly current AI doesn’t reach the level anyone is comfortable equating with “personhood”. But researchers in the field are certainly curious about the question, in part because it is an interesting moral question of us some day achieving an artificial construct and recreating an type of slavery. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2011, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-question-about-roy-battys-soliloquy/573437/138 "2011-03-10T21:06:46Z")
> [@](#): > > Where might “I saw a sub off Cape Hatteras” imply? Maybe that you were in Iowa, looking at a sub in the Mississippi, and Cape Hatteras was in the background? The difference is that you can’t see Cape Hatteras from Iowa, but you can see Betelgeuse from Earth. And there’s no evidence that Batty intended it as a nautical term, unless you circularly assume that he was: I might also say, for instance, that I saw a meteor off the shoulder of Orion last night, and I’d just be telling another stargazer which direction to look in. The fact that he refers to it in terms of the constellation, rather than the individual star, I think reinforces this view. ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2011, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-question-about-roy-battys-soliloquy/573437/139 "2011-03-10T21:25:52Z")
I’d be somewhat more likely to say that I saw a meteor _near_ the shoulder of Orion. Of course, in the counter example, I’d be more likely to say that there was fighting off Betelgeuse. Either way, it strikes me as an idiosyncratic usage. It would be amusing if in a sequel, Deckard wondered what the hell Batty was talking about. Maybe he made the whole thing up because he wanted a dramatic speech before he died! ---
**Author:** ![Alka\_Seltzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c89c15/32.png) [@Alka\_Seltzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alka_Seltzer)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2011, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-question-about-roy-battys-soliloquy/573437/140 "2011-03-10T21:44:51Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > The thing is, there are two ways to parse that sentence. I agree that the sentance can be parsed either way, Roy is speaking poetically and not descriptively. However, my interpretation is the reverse of yours, I think the “at Betelgeuse” explanation scans better. It’s appropritate that **Sailboat** pointed out the nautical connection. TVTropes has a page on [Space is an Ocean](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SpaceIsAnOcean), nautical terms are pervasive in Sci-Fi. From a practical point of view, “off the shoulder of Orion” isn’t a useful direction when in space. Ships in space don’t suddenly come to a halt just because they are on fire, and a fire isn’t an instantaneous event. Unless Roy was on an exact parallel course, it would be “Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion… wait, the nipple of Cassiopeia… no, the arse of Pegasus.” If Roy was in the solar system, I think something like “Attack ships on fire off the third moon of Saturn” is better from a poetic and practical point of view. As others have pointed out, he original source material has inter-stellar travel, and the co-screen-writers spin-off story (Soldier) shows he envisioned a universe where that is possible. While Blade Runner is a very different story, is it set in a different context? I also find inter-stellar travel less of a stretch than vast colonies within the solar system. It requires one impressive piece of magic, FTL or jump-gates. However, if you have the technology to build huge self-sustaning colonies, you also have the ability to do the same on Earth, at a far lower cost. For me, the latter scenario isn’t consistant with a ruined planet. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2011, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-question-about-roy-battys-soliloquy/573437/141 "2011-03-10T22:03:00Z")
I actually think that Batty was in some other solar system near ours (alpha Cen or tau Ceti or something), and looking in the direction of the constellation Orion from there. While the ships would drift relative to the background stars, they might do so relatively slowly, depending on the distances between ships, and we don’t know how long Batty was looking at the scene before going back to whatever his part of the battle was. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-question-about-roy-battys-soliloquy/573437.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-question-about-roy-battys-soliloquy/573437.md?page=8)