Star Trek: Section 31 – Nanokin interfaces

1 Jun 2026 by Christopher Noessel

As part of the Fritzes Best Interfaces award for 2026, I am reviewing the interfaces in Star Trek: Section 31. This post is about the interfaces used by Fuzz.

Close-up of a fictional alien creature with large eyes and a bulbous head, surrounded by a futuristic setting.

Fuzz is a Nanokin, a species of microscopic, squidlike beings with impressive, tiny spaceships. To engage with his teammates in the human-scale world, he does so by flying into a black-market android built to look like a Vulcan, and controlling it from within. In the film they call both the android and the Nanokin “Fuzz”, but that would get confusing in writing, so I’ll call the android the Vulcanbot. I want to believe that the character concept began as a tardigrade or amoeba, but it got more octopus-like over development. From its tiny spaceship, it can get through tiny holes and cracks in machinery or body modifications, hook in, and cause plot-critical mischief.

Blurry close-up of a person with an open mouth, appearing to shout or scream, set against a blurred background.

Close-up view of an open mouth showing white teeth and dark interior.

When the camera is at the nano-scale, the film uses tilt-shift and floating-particle techniques to emphasize the smallness of Fuzz. That means that only a small strip of things are in focus in any given shot, giving us less visual information to work with than usual. So though I’ll cover it, know I’m working with a lot less than I might ordinarily have.

Nanoship

The ship he flies around in is roughly spherical, and about ten times his own diameter. It kind of looks like him, which is both a funny and philosophical design choice. Its surface ripples in waves similar to the surface of the unnamed Section 31 ship that Sahar pilots above the safehouse planet. I think the implication is that it is made from programmable matter.

A futuristic, abstract organism with a textured surface and glowing elements, surrounded by digital interfaces and data displays, set in a dark, sci-fi environment.

A stylized robotic character with blue elements and intricate textures, set against a blurred background of lights and shapes.

It has retractable, tentacle-like appendages coming out from the hull. They can be extended to surfaces to hold the ship in place and interface with electronics. I counted 20 tentacles in one screen shot, but if they’re programmable matter, they can be made ad hoc.

The interaction design question is how these are controlled, but, with programmable matter, general artificial intelligence, and agents all part of the novum stack for the movie, it might be as simple as a prompt: “When you are near safe access points, create connectors to them.” Since it’s never shown in the film, though, we have to leave it as a guess. I leave it as an exercise for the reader to imagine how it might work with a modern technology stack.

A close-up view of a futuristic digital interface displaying various holographic controls and readings, with glowing blue and white elements.

Futuristic digital interface displaying a star map with various celestial objects and navigation symbols.

There is a curved viewport at the front of the ship, subtending around 120° from the pilot’s view. Additional displays to the left and right of the viewport extend the display surface to around 180° degrees. The viewport features an augmented, highly dynamic display, able to show live video, star charts, big red labels, waveforms of audio—whatever is needed in the moment. Language in the display is both English and Nanokinese (for lack of an official known name of that script in the lower left). Stylistically it has a cyan border with white contents, with dusty lavender highlights. Semi-randomly-wandering line segments appear throughout. Sadly, we do not see Fuzz futzing about with this interface at all, so we cannot evaluate that part of it. But it is the context of both the nanomap and nanolever, discussed below.

Nanomap

A curious element in the center of the volumetric projection console is that of an edge-lit, standing human figure with a transverse ring around the waist. It is always there and does not appear to change throughout the film, regardless of the position of the body he’s in or controlling. It might serve simply as a map of the current body-in-question for alert and display purposes. Stuff like wayfinding or a damage control diagram.

Three individuals looking at a futuristic control panel, with glowing screens and intricate designs in a dimly lit setting.

We don’t see it when Fuzz is in Zeph or Dada Noe, but it would be cool if we saw it change to match the current host. Even cooler if we saw some vague indication of the surroundings around the host. Even coolest if we’d seen one virtual body for Vulcanbot and a second one for Zeph on the dashboard when Fuzz had the ability to remote control both.

Nanolever

When Fuzz’ deception is figured out by Georgiou and his Vulcanbot is face-to-face with a phaser, Fuzz grabs a lever and pulls it toward himself. In response Zeph’s corpse—controlled by his mechsuit—begins to rise, again under the control of Fuzz.

The lever is interesting for two reasons.

First, it’s the only physical control visible we see in the ship. (Fuzz has his tentacles raised above the viewport in a number of scenes, but the shot is from the outside of the ship, so we don’t know if he’s operating controls or just bracing himself.) A physical control is persistent and can’t get lost in occluding windows of a digital display. This tells me that Fuzz knew he might get exposed, and might need to pull the lever at any moment to initiate his ace-in-the-hole plan. The physical lever facilitated that much better than a digital one would.

A close-up view of a pair of scissors in a dimly lit environment, surrounded by various tools and illuminated elements.

Second, look at the physical design. It is textured and curved. These are both features which make it easier for octopus arms to grasp and manipulate. (I’m not a cephalopod expert, but this study says so.) We don’t know if Fuzz’ tentacles function similarly to octopus arms, but it’s a reasonable place to start.

I have less confidence in the two rings at the top of it. A shopping search for “lever controls” shows that none of them feature rings or holes. I’m not an industrial designer, but having those rings seems error prone. Not to grip, but to release. If your fingers or tentacles are in those rings, and some emergency situation requires you to quickly grab something else, you might be critically delayed by the fine motor control required to withdraw from the rings. If the lever is just a stick, releasing is practically a non-issue. So I’m less fond of the rings. If you can think of a good reason for these, let me know in the comments.

An Agent!

Since I started thinking in-depth about agentive technology, I’ve been noting when I see them in sci-fi. It’s rare. Up until Fuzz, Dr. Strange’s Cloak of Levitation has been my go-to example. Literacy in agents is becoming more important over time, and popular media is one way that people learn about it. (Especially its risks.) I was delighted to see a plot-centric use of them in this film.

Close-up view of a futuristic cockpit interface displaying 'Conveyance Autopilot Engaged' with illuminated controls and various gauge indicators. — Look close and you’ll see “CONVEYANCE AUTOPILOT ENGAGED” across the screen.

Vulcanbot is an agent while Fuzz is in Zeph, and then Zeph-corpse is an agent as Fuzz is fighting Georgiou to escape. Vulcanbot even handles the b-plot battle with Sahar before being caught in the climactic explosion.

A character wearing a black outfit with pointed ears appears to be pleading or expressing distress in a brightly lit, futuristic setting.

This literacy of what an agent is and what it’s capable of is critical to the protagonists’ fates. If Georgiou hadn’t sussed it out, the team might have split up from unresolved suspicion. Fuzz would have snuck away and San would have returned with the Godsend to the Terran Empire and used it to return and conquer Prime. So her agent-literacy saved the day.

The central role this agent played in the film is one reason I really loved it. Of course even more interesting would have been to see how Fuzz expressed his commands for the agents and monitored their performance against those goals, but because this needed to be hidden for the Big Reveal, we don’t get to.

A missing signal

One important feature that is only weakly implemented in the Vulcanbot and should be stronger when we implement similar technologies in the real world: Agent-mode signals. These signals would convey to observers whether the technology is being operated by a human sentience or when it is being driven by agentive software.

A smiling young man with light blond hair and pointed ears, wearing a red jacket and layered necklaces, standing in front of glowing teal lights.

Of course Fuzz is deeply vested in deception. Vulcanbot acts a little strangely when in agent mode, but it’s because the AI is not rich enough to mimic Fuzz on autopilot. It’s easy to imagine that if it could have been a perfect mimic, Fuzz would rather that.

But for us in the real world we want to know what we’re dealing with. It changes how we interact and what our expectations are. I argued for these deliberate design interventions in the context of Google Duplex way back in 2018, just not on this blog. So let me assert them here. A more ethical Vulcanbot would shift to a modulated voice as a hot signal when it was operating agentively, and interject a cold signal when circumstances called for it.

Delicious woke

Star Trek has addressed queerness before. I’m glad to see it again, considering how the weird MAGA Trump-suckup regime is trying to villainize and scapegoat trans people like the Nazis did with Jewish people here in my home country. And, to be clear, fuck that nonsense.

Though there’s a diegetic “excuse” as to why it is, the perceptual truth is there’s something invisible inside a character that has us accepting a masculine version for most of the movie, and then accepting a feminine version at the end. Same body, different behaviors, sci-fi reason.

A character with pointed ears and a stylish green outfit is speaking in a futuristic setting with various technological elements in the background. — There’s just something inside that informs who this character is and how they behave, even if it doesn’t match your expectations from the outside. Best not to think too much about it.

The rationale is there, so the queer-o-phobes don’t have a good excuse to reject it outright. Diegetically, the invisible part is binarily gendered. Diegetically, that’s what informs the Vulcanbot’s outward behavior, not *gasp* actual genderqueer-ness. It’s fantastically designed for the right kinds of cognitive dissonance.

Perfect for Pride Month. Maybe we can have Nanokin as a teeny tiny marshal for the next sci-fi Pride Parade.

A vibrant street scene during a parade with a large, abstract spherical object in the foreground. The background features crowds of people celebrating with rainbow flags and colorful decorations. — After Dykes on Bikes, of course.

Nice going, team Fuzz, and happy Pride month!

Next up: The quadrant-destroying weapon commissioned by Georgiou (currently scheduled for 11 Jun 2026)

Jefferson Projection

18 Jan 2016 by Christopher Noessel

When Imperial troopers intrude to search the house, one of the bullying officers takes interest in a device sitting on the dining table. It’s the size of a sewing machine, with a long handle along the top. It has a set of thumb toggles along the top, like old cassette tape recorder buttons.

Saun convinces the officer to sit down, stretches the thin script with a bunch of pointless fiddling of a volume slider and pantomimed delays, and at last fumbles the front of the device open. Hinged at the bottom like a drawbridge, it exposes a small black velvet display space. Understandably exasperated, the officer stands up to shout, “Will you get on with it?” Saun presses a button on the opened panel, and the searing chord of an electric guitar can be heard at once.

Inside the drawbridge-space a spot of pink light begins to glow, and mesmerized officer who, moments ago was bent on brute intimidation, but now spends the next five minutes and 23 seconds grinning dopily at the volumetric performance by Jefferson Starship.

During the performance, 6 lights link in a pattern in the upper right hand corner of the display. When the song finishes, the device goes silent. No other interactions are seen with it.

Many questions. Why is there a whole set of buttons to open the thing? Is this the only thing it can play? If not, how do you select another performance?Is it those unused buttons on the top? Why are the buttons unlabeled? Is Jefferson Starship immortal? How is it that they have only aged in the long, long time since this was recorded? Or was this volumetric recording somehow sent back in time? Where is the button that Saun pressed to start the playback? If there was no button, and it was the entire front panel, why doesn’t it turn on and off while the officer taps (see above)? What do the little lights do other than distract? Why is the glow pink rather than Star-Wars-standard blue? Since volumetric projections are most often free-floating, why does this appear in a lunchbox? Since there already exists ubiquitous display screens, why would anyone haul this thing around? How does this officer keep his job?

Perhaps it’s best that these questions remain unanswered. For if anything were substantially different, we would risk losing this image, of the silhouette of the lead singer and his microphone. Humanity would be the poorer for it.

Let’s fade out

21 Oct 2013 by Christopher Noessel

As if five posts about sex weren’t enough. Now: drugs.

Francis arrives at Logan’s apartment with a young woman on each arm, laughing and talking as if intoxicated. Once inside, Logan’s friend Francis takes a small mirrored bottle and tosses it up to the ceiling, saying, “Let’s fade out!” The bottle breaks on the ceiling, its container dissolving into the air, and spreading a pink smoke into the air. Logan, Francis, and the women laugh and stand in the smoke for a moment before collapsing together on the couch. They “fade”, whatever that is.

The drug delivery system is a nice one for aesthetic reasons. You throw it against a surface in a celebratory manner, where it makes a pleasant tinkling sound before spreading the candy-colored smoke, which everyone can inhale together for its intoxicating effects. Since the shards of the bottle disappear completely, there is no danger of being cut or cleaning up.

It’s also delivers a particular social signal. Vaporization is a quick way to get an intoxicant into the bloodstream, and the cloud means everyone at the party can get intoxicated together at the same time. (And there’s a mesmerizing, swirling smoke to look at as the high takes hold.) Still, much of a cloud is wasted as it dissipates, unused. This would be part of its appeal: an expensive high that advertises how wealthy and generous the provider is. Like they were “makin’ it rain,” or showing off a bottle of Cristal at a club, the conspicuous consumption signals the wealth and priveleges that mark the Sandmen as more desirable partners.

It wouldn’t be for everyone, but for a small subset of the population, this would work on several levels.

Krell technology

9 Oct 2012 by Christopher Noessel

Morbius is the inheritor of a massive underground complex of technology once belonging to a race known as the Krell. As Morbius explains, “In times long past, this planet was the home of a mighty and noble race of beings which called themselves the Krell.”

Morbius tours Adams and Doc through the Krell technopolis.

“Ethically as well as technologically, they were a million years ahead of humankind; for in unlocking the mysteries of nature they had conquered even their baser selves seemingly on the threshold of some supreme accomplishment which was to have crowned their entire history, this all but divine race perished in a single night.

“In the centuries since that unexplained catastrophe even their cloud-piercing towers of glass and porcelain and adamantine steel have crumbled back into the soil of Altair, and nothing—absolutely nothing—remains above ground.”

Despite this advancement, unless we ascribe to the Krell some sort of extra sensory perception and control, much of the technology we see has serious design flaws.

Morbius plays half-a-million-year-old Krell music.

The first piece of technology is a Krell recorded-music player, which Morbius keeps on the desk in his study. The small cylindrical device stands upright, bulging slighty around its middle. It is made of a gray metal, with a translucent pink band just below the middle. A hollow button sits on top.

The cylinder rests in a clear plastic base, with small, identical metal slugs sitting upright in recessions evenly spaced around it. To initiate music playback, Morbius picks one of the slugs and inserts it into the hollow of the button. He then depresses the momentary button once. The pink translucent band illuminates, and music begins to flow from unseen speakers around the office.

Modern audiences have a good deal of experience with music players, and so the device raises a great many questions. How does a user know which slug relates to what music? The slugs all look the same so this seems difficult at best. How does a user eject the slug? If by upending the device, one hopes that the cylinder comes free from the base easily, or the other slugs will all fall out as well. It must have impressed audiences to see music contained in such small containers, but otherwise the device is more attractive than usable.

Morbius inputs the combination to open the door.

Many Krell doors are protected by a combination lock. The mechanism stands high enough that Morbius can easily reach out and operate it. Its large circular face has four white triangles printed on its surface at the cardinal points, and other geometric red and yellow markings around the remainder. A four-spoke handle is anchored to a swivel joint at the center of the face. To unlock the door, a user twists the handle such that one of its spokes lines up with the north point, and then angles the handle to touch the spoke to the triangle there, before returning the handle to a neutral angle and twisting to the next position in the combination. When the sequence is complete, the triangles, the tips of the spokes, and a large ring around the face all light up and blink as the two-plane aperture doors slide open.

Even Walter Pigeon has trouble making sense of this awkward device. There appear to be no snap-to affordances for the neutral angle of the handle or the cardinal orientations, leaving the user unsure if each step in the sequence has been received correctly. Additionally, if the combination consists of particular spokes at this one point, why are the spokes undifferentiated? If the combination consists of pointing to different triangles, why are there four spokes instead of one? Is familiarity with some subtle cue part of the security measures?

Morbius shares operation of the Krell encyclopedia.

All of Krell wisdom and knowledge is contained in a device that Morbius shows to Adams and Doc. It consists of an underlit scroll of material sliding beneath a rectangular hole cut in the surface of a table. To illuminate it, Morbius turns one of the two ridged green dials located to the left of the screen about 45 degrees clockwise. To move the scroll, Morbius turns the other green dial clockwise as well.

Why is the least frequently used dial, i.e. the power button, closer than the more frequently used button, i.e. the scroll wheel? This requires the reader to be stretched awkwardly. Why is the on-off dial free spinning? There appear to be only two states: lit and unlit. The dial should have two states as well. If the content of the pages is discretely chunked into pages, it would also argue for a click-stop rather than free-spinning dial as well, but we do not get a good look at the scroll contents. One might also question the value of a scroll as the organizing method for a vast body of information, since related bits of information may be distractingly far apart.

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