colony planets

World War Terminus left Earth so polluted by radioactive activity that people chose to immigrate to other planets in our solar system, such as Mars, as the only way to escape the dust. The U.N. encourages emigration to off-world colonies, in hope of preserving the human race from the terminal effects of the fallout from W.W.T. As incentive to leaving the majority of belongs behind and restarting life on another planet, people are promised human-like Nexus-6 androids, or “andys” to be used as a servant.
Many of Dick’s several science fiction novels involve the process of emigrating to and from other planets. Novels with reoccurring references to colony planets include, The Simulacra, written in 1964, and his 1972 novel titled, We Can Build You.
During a 1980 interview conducted by Frank C. Bertrand, Dick said, “In college I was given Plato to read and thereupon became aware of the possible existence of a metaphysical realm beyond or above the sensory world. I came to understand that the human mind could conceive of a realm of which the empirical world was epiphenomenal.” While Dick creates these worlds “beyond or above the sensory world” often in his novels, he never has the reader travel to Mars personally, through one of the characters. All of the characters remain on Earth and therefore the reader is on their own to image what it is like. The other time Dick even brings the reader close to Mars is through the interview of one resident on the Buster Friendly Radio and TV show.
"Let's hear from Mrs. Maggie Klugman," the TV announcer suggested to John Isidore, who wanted only to know the time.
"A recent immigrant to Mars, Mrs. Klugman in an interview taped live in New New York had this to say. Mrs. Klugman, how would you contrast your life back on contaminated Earth with your new life here in a world rich with every imaginable possibility?"
A pause, and then a tired, dry, middle-aged, female voice said, "I think what I and my family of three noticed most was the dignity."
While Dick may have similarities within in novels to have characters experience colony planets, he doesn’t seem to expand upon what the colony planets encompass. “Behind all the space ships, Martian colonies, alien life forms, zap guns, and androids is a writer struggling to understand himself, the world around him, and the worlds within us all.” (Behrens 1) This may be Dick’s own desire to explore an alternative world personally, hence his similarities amongst his novels to have characters experience of reality of a world that is beyond the current realm they, and him, are in.

Bibliography:
Behrens, By Richard. "Scriptorium - Philip K. Dick." The Modern Word. Web. 04 Dec. 2010. .
"The PKDicktionary." DOWNLODE. Web. 04 Dec. 2010. .

animal

Those who remained on Earth after World War Terminus coveted any living creature. For the people who couldn't afford live animals, companies built incredibly realistic replications such as horses, birds, cats, and sheep. Being that any life form remaining after the nuclear war became sacred after many were extinct; animals became a status symbol for those who can own them. The animals let other people know that their owner has wealth and a high social standing on Earth. Like a diamond is rare and therefore is expensive and valuable, so are animals in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Monthly supplements of Sidney’s Animal & Fowl Catalogue provide humans with the listing and prices for animals to further drive humans need to own animals as a way to show status. Everybody and their neighbor can check to see how many every other person paid to get their animals. All characters seem aware of Sidney’s listings as it is mentioned several times throughout the novel as “much-studied.” The main character, Rick Deckard, keeps it with him at all times and factors how many androids he kills as a bounty hunter into what type of animal he can get with his pay check. On page 41 Dick writes, “Sidney's, he thought; they list it in their catalogue as extinct: the tiny, precise type, the E, again and again throughout the catalogue. As the girl walked ahead of him he checked to see, and he was right. Sidney's never makes a mistake, he said to himself. We know that, too. What else can we depend on?” This demonstrates how attached Deckard is to the idea of buying animals if he can rely so heavily on the catalogue that provides the amounts and variety of animals for sale.
The idea of showcasing the importance of animals and treating them with such significance illustrates Dick’s “life-long fascination and love for animals.” (Behrens 1) This element of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? reflects his vision of a world where animals are respected like humans, maybe more. This is proven through the way androids are treated on Mars, as servants to their owners. On page 130 Dick wrote, “Animals require an environment of warmth and love to flourish. Expect for reptiles and insects.” In contradiction to treating animals that way, the androids, who are also made of flesh and human features, are not shown the love and warmth on Mars that the people on Earth show animals. Androids were given to everyone, and not seen as rare, so therefore they were less valued. This relates back to how animals were coveted by owners because they were so rare and became valuable on Earth.

Bibliography:
Behrens, By Richard. "Scriptorium - Philip K. Dick." The Modern Word. Web. 06 Dec. 2010. .
Dick, Philip K. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? New York: Ballantine, 1996. Print.

W.W.T or World War Terminus

The story of Do Androids Dream of Sleep? takes place in 1992, after World War Terminus has spread a cloud of radioactive dust across the Earth, devastating the planet and destroying nearly all of human civilization. Almost all of the world's major cities have been destroyed and much of the human race has been killed. “The U.N. had made it easy to emigrate, difficult if not impossible to stay,” on Earth after the war. (Dick 16) Nobody knows who started the war or how it comes about.
The World War drove entire species into extinction. The Owls were the first ones to die and the other animals followed. “A thousand thoughts came to mind, thoughts about the war, about the days when owls had fallen from the sky; he remembered how in his childhood it had been discovered that species upon species had become extinct and how the ‘pages had reported it each day—foxes one more, badgers the next day, until people had stopped reading the perpetual animal obits.” (Dick 42)
Scenes such as a one described in the above quote take the frequently shocking ideas of what would have occurred during the “Cold War” and turn them into realities in the form of science fiction novels. Author Philip K. Dick wrote Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? during the 1960’s, a time where the world was threatened by the possibility destruction at any time because of the nuclear arms race between the United States, the Soviet Union, and their respective allies. The effects of the nuclear bombs were assumed to be burns, radiation poisoning and related diseases. This period in time is called the “cold war” because it never resulted in actions of mutual destruction.
In the book, Dick makes Earth’s setting to be as if the end results of if the cold war had heated up and nuclear bombs were used. He names the imagined war World War Terminus. He creates to setting on the surface of Earth to be radioactive wasteland and has some areas the effects of the dust is so dangerous that going outside made those who ever exposed to it sick. As seen through the effects of the U.S. dropping bombs on Japan, those results are what occurred to the people that were in Hiroshima. Dick makes it a reality within his novel through creating the setting to be resulted from World War Terminus.
Bibliography:
Dick, Philip K. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? New York: Ballantine, 1996. Print.
"Philip K. Dick." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2010. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 06 Dec. 2010 .

bounty hunters

In Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? bounty hunters are sent from Earth's various police forces to locate escaped androids and "retire" them, earning a thousand dollars for each body. Author Philip K. Dick’s main character, Rick Deckard, is assigned the job to retire eight androids that have recently arrived on Earth after killing their human masters on Mars.
The job of a bounty hunter is to distribute the ”Voigt-Kampff” empathy test, which distinguishes androids from humans. The test involves asking the suspected android several hypothetical questions that a human would respond with through empathy. Androids are unable to produce the necessary human response because of the lack of capacity for empathetic thinking. If determined to be an android, the bounty hunter’s job is to “retire” them, or kill them.
As the androids have become more humanlike, retiring them has become more difficult after he newest models of androids created by manufacturer, the Rosen Association is the Nexus-6 came out.
The role of a bounty hunter is essentially a contradiction to what they’re killing androids for through “dehumanizing effects” to make them not experience empathy toward their target. (Sims 1) Bounty hunters such as Deckard are paid to kill these androids that look and act as humans with jobs and friends. However, as readers discover through the novel, the requirements of being a bounty hunter involve the hunter not having empathetic feelings towards the androids who they are assigned to kill. This is essentially the same as acting as an android is permanently.
Deckard is caught between his personal feelings and the requirements of being a bounty hunter. His job to kill leads him to think about human feelings of empathy, love and loneliness. After meeting Resch, a fellow bounty hunter working at another police station, his moral dilemma deepens after learning that Resch is not an anti-empathic android, but instead a coldhearted and ruthless bounty hunter; everything Deckard no longer wants to be.
The picture that Dick creates of San Francisco as Deckard hunts for androids throughout it is dark and disturbing. This setting may help the reader to get a picture of the internal battle that Deckard faces as a bounty hunter as he questions the nature of his job due to the contradictions the requirements are based on.

Bibliography:
Sims, Christopher A. "The Dangers of Individualism and the Human Relationship to Technology in Philip K. Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?." 67-86. 2009. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed December 6, 2010).

andys or anroids

In hope of preserving the human race from the terminal effects of the W.W.T., andys, short of androids, are given to humans on Mars as compensation for emigrating.
The androids, or synthetic robots, are designed to look and act like a humans. The androids are so sophisticated that it is impossible to tell them from true men or women.
A fraction of these androids have come to the realization that they could escape go to the planet earth to live freely if not caught. After the government heard, they banned androids from earth in fear of them creating havoc while pretending to be humans when truly artificial. One android, known as Inspector Garland, said, “It’s a chance anyway. Breaking free and coming here to Earth, where we’re not even considered animals. Where every worm and wood louse is considered more desirable than all of us put together.” (Dick 125)
The androids desire to escape Mars because they are essentially slaves to their owners on Mars. They are created to be identical to humans but do not have the same freedoms. Their role is to solely please their owners and provide them with everything they need. When they try to leave, the government doesn’t let them. They are also given no compensation for the work they do and are “owned,” not workers, just like a slave is.
Androids also do not seem pleased about their presence on Earth. Luba Luft, an android posing as an opera singer and performer at the War Memorial Opera House said, “I really don’t like androids. Ever since I got here from Mars my life has consisted of imitating the human, doing what she would do, acting as if I had the thought and impulses a human would have. Imitating as far as I’m concerned, a superior life-form.” (Dick 133) It seems as though the androids never quite fit in, whether it is as servants on Mars are escaped robots trying to blend in on Earth.
“Prone to psychosomatic disorders, he also suffered from agoraphobia, depression, suicidal tendencies,” Dick was extremely confused by his place in the world. (Behrens 1) Dick’s own personal experiences of not quite feeling complacent or satisfied may transfer over to the role of androids in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Whether on Mars or on Earth, the never quite have a role that they are happy with. These types of feelings of confused role placement became “a fundamental theme in all of his collected fiction.” (Behrens 1)

Bibliography-
Behrens, By Richard. "Scriptorium - Philip K. Dick." The Modern Word. Web. 06 Dec. 2010. .
"The PKDicktionary." DOWNLODE. Web. 04 Dec. 2010. .

Do Androids Dream of Sleep- Page #13-14

"But they'll look down on you. Not all of them, but some. You know how people are about not taking care of an animal; they consider it immoral and anti-empathic. I mean, technically it's not a crime like it was right after W. W.T. but the feeling's still there."

"God," Rick said futilely, and gestured empty-handed. "I want to have an animal; I keep trying to buy one. But on my salary, on what a city employee makes — " If, he thought, I could get lucky in my work again. As I did two years ago when I managed to bag four andys during one month. If I had known then, he thought, that Groucho was going to die . . . but that had been before the tetanus. Before the two-inch piece of broken, hypodermic-like baling wire.

"You could buy a cat," Barbour offered. "Cats are cheap; look in your Sidney's catalogue."

Rick said quietly, "I don't want a domestic pet. I want what I originally had, a large animal. A sheep or if I can get the money a cow or a steer or what you have; a horse." The bounty from retiring five andys would do it, he realized. A thousand dollars apiece, over and above my salary. Then somewhere I could find, from someone, what I want. Even if the listing in Sidney’s Animal & Fowl is in italics. Five thousand dollars — but, he thought, the five andys first have to make their way to Earth from one of the colony planets; I can't control that, I can’t make five of them come here, and even if I could there are other bounty hunters with other police agencies throughout the world. The andys would specifically have to take up residence in Northern California, and the senior bounty hunter in this area, Dave Holden, would have to die or retire.

"Buy a cricket," Barbour suggested wittily. "Or a mouse. Hey, for twenty-five bucks you can buy a full-grown mouse."

Further Analysis