Baseline Test

A razor-sharp interrogation to ensure a killer remains nothing more than a machine.

The baseline test is the test the replicant blade runner K has to pass in Blade Runner 2049; failing it marks a replicant as rogue. K, a Nexus-9 replicant who works for the LAPD as a blade runner, is the one shown taking it. Failure of the Baseline Test marks the subject as rogue and leads to their retirement.

Lore & Background

In Blade Runner 2049 K's superior is Lt. Joshi of the LAPD. After K discovers a buried box containing the remains of a female replicant who died during a caesarean section—proving replicants could reproduce biologically—he begins to suspect that his own childhood memories may be real rather than artificial. This leads him to fail a baseline test, marking him as rogue. When K implies to Joshi that he killed the replicant child, she gives him 48 hours to pass the test, or he will be retired himself.

Reader's Guide

The baseline test appears in Blade Runner 2049, where the blade runner K has to take it. Ryan Gosling helped rewrite the dialogue of the scene, which Denis Villeneuve felt was not aggressive enough, using a variation of the "dropping in" technique developed by Shakespeare & Company. In the film, K fails the test after his memories lead him to believe he is the child of a replicant who gave birth, marking him as rogue.