The Mystery of Dix Huit
A hidden part of Blade Runner's history re-emerges in the tabletop roleplaying game.
The romantic image of a screenwriter tirelessly toiling away, solitary in their isolated cabin in the woods, churning out the manuscript for a Hollywood production is a cliche from a bygone era. Today, it’s not unusual for there to be three or four credited writers, and that doesn’t include script doctors who may come in to ‘punch some things up.’
It’s also quite normal for there to be numerous versions of scripts for a film. Things change due to budget constraints after preliminary shooting has started, or new ideas need to be accounted for, and pretty soon you're looking at the fourth or fifth version of a script.
Blade Runner famously had David Peoples come in to work on Hampton Fancher’s original screenplay. Fancher had already gone through several drafts himself. Add to all this the various versions of the film, and it’s not hard to imagine that many things didn’t make it from page to screen. With this in mind, I discovered a mystery (at least to me) last year involving Blade Runner, a film I have seen numerous times and read many books and articles about.
It started with the purchase of the Blade Runner tabletop roleplaying game. While reading the core rulebook, on page 141 I came across the following passage:
“… Quell is one of the few N-9s at Wallace Corp honored with a name, ranking her among the untouchable “angels” in Niander Wallace’s Dix Huit inner circle…”
So, if you are familiar with Blade Runner 2049, Quell sounds a bit like Luv. But read that line again. What sticks out? ‘Dix Huit inner circle?’ What is that? I had no idea. It certainly wasn’t something I remembered from the original film or the sequel, nor the original book source material or even the comics. What the devil was Dix Huit?
I searched online and didn’t come up with anything there either. So, I assumed it was something new created specifically for the game. Until…
I was browsing the Encyclopedia Blade Runner app one day and stumbled across an entry for Dix Huit! I was stunned. Out of the blue came an answer to a question that was plaguing me. Here’s the entry in full:
Yes, I had answers, but also many new questions! Why was it called Dix Huit Clearance? Why did only four individuals have this level of clearance? Who was Hermann Schlecht? Let’s take each of those individually and see if we can unlock any of these mysteries.
Dix Huit
French for 18. Well, the translation doesn’t seem to help us much. Eighteen people with that level of clearance? No, only four. Access to the 18th floor of the Tyrell ziggurat? That sounds plausible. However, armed now with the knowledge of the existence of Dix Huit, a curious bit of audio from the movie takes on potentially new significance.
When Sebastian and Roy Batty go to confront Tyrell in his living quarters they are temporarily stopped while ascending in the elevator. The speaker in the elevator emits instructions from some sort of security protocol. It does this in several languages, including French. Perhaps there are 18 different levels of security clearance in Tyrell Corp. This is just speculation, but it’s difficult to come up with anything that makes clear sense here.
Four Individuals
Eldon Tyrell: the God of Biomechanics and CEO of the most powerful corporation on Earth. Hannibal Chew and J.F. Sebastian: Independent contractors. Yes, they are highly skilled, perhaps even uniquely qualified. But it seems hard to believe they would rate a clearance level above every other full-time Tyrell Corp employee (that we are familiar with).
Hermann Schlecht
There’s a name I bet you haven’t heard before. I certainly hadn’t. Who was this mysterious character? Once again I turned to the Encyclopedia Blade Runner:
And from there it was time to find the February 23, 1981 screenplay. In the version that made it on screen, you’ll recall the scene where Deckard parks his car and a cop in a spinner gives him a hard time before signing off with the iconic, “Have a better one,” before Deckard himself drives away and the street dwarves are left in the aftermath, like Jawas, to fight over what they’ve pulled off Deckard’s vehicle.
In the 2/23/81 screenplay, that scene plays a little differently. When the cop flies away, Deckard dials up Dr. Schlecht and has a conversation with him. Deckard even mentions the Dix Huit clearance. He then asks Schlecht for info on Sebastian’s location. Schlecht produces the details, and then we go back to the familiar scene of Deckard calling Sebastian, having Pris answer, and then hanging up on him.
All very interesting, but still we are left to wonder, why 18? Why Dix Huit? Time to dig into numerology.
A couple of caveats here. First, I’m not an adherent to numerology. Second, I don’t know that Hampton Fancher is either — though having written the Blade Runner script(s) in the late-70s / early-80s, and living in California, would it shock me to learn that he was at least familiar with numerology? No.
So, how is the number 18 interpreted in numerology? It’s not clear cut, but what I found seems to point to the idea of humanitarianism, independence, and building something of lasting benefit. The underlying idea of the essence of the number 18 is the welfare of humanity.
Interesting. One could imagine that Eldon Tyrell saw himself as someone who was concerned with the welfare of humanity, and who wanted to build something of lasting benefit.
But still, I wonder, why in French? My only answer is that it sounds more exotic and mysterious (to English speakers) than saying ‘eighteen.’
Finally, a tip of the cap to Joe LeFavi, head writer for the Blade Runner TTRPG. It’s clear, as we discussed in our Q&A, that he did tremendous amounts of research while working on the game, and that he loves and is as invested in Blade Runner as much as fans like me.
