Tag Archives: amber

The Royal Talon piloting interface

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Since my last post, news broke that Chadwick Boseman has passed away after a four year battle with cancer. He kept his struggles private, so the news was sudden and hard-hitting. The fandom is still reeling. Black people, especially, have lost a powerful, inspirational figure. The world has also lost a courageous and talented young actor. Rise in Power, Mr. Boseman. Thank you for your integrity, bearing, and strength.

Photo CC BY-SA 2.0,
by Gage Skidmore.

Black Panther’s airship is a triangular vertical-takeoff-and-landing vehicle called the Royal Talon. We see its piloting interface twice in the film.

The first time is near the beginning of the movie. Okoye and T’Challa are flying at night over the Sambisa forest in Nigeria. Okoye sits in the pilot’s seat in a meditative posture, facing a large forward-facing bridge window with a heads up display. A horseshoe-shaped shelf around her is filled with unactivated vibranium sand. Around her left wrist, her kimoyo beads glow amber, projecting a volumetric display around her forearm.

She announces to T’Challa, “My prince, we are coming up on them now.” As she disengages from the interface, retracting her hands from the pose, the kimoyo projection shifts and shrinks. (See more detail in the video clip, below.)

The second time we see it is when they pick up Nakia and save the kidnapped girls. On their way back to Wakanda we see Okoye again in the pilot’s seat. No new interactions are seen in this scene though we linger on the shot from behind, with its glowing seatback looking like some high-tech spine.

Now, these brief glimpses don’t give a review a lot to go on. But for a sake of completeness, let’s talk about that volumetric projection around her wrist. I note is that it is a lovely echo of Dr. Strange’s interface for controlling the time stone Eye of Agamatto.

Wrist projections are going to be all the rage at the next Snap, I predict.

But we never really see Okoye look at this VP it or use it. Cross referencing the Wakandan alphabet, those five symbols at the top translate to 1 2 K R I, which doesn’t tell us much. (It doesn’t match the letters seen on the HUD.) It might be a visual do-not-disturb signal to onlookers, but if there’s other meaning that the letters and petals are meant to convey to Okoye, I can’t figure it out. At worst, I think having your wrist movements of one hand emphasized in your peripheral vision with a glowing display is a dangerous distraction from piloting. Her eyes should be on the “road” ahead of her.

The image has been flipped horizontally to illustrate how Okoye would see the display.

Similarly, we never get a good look at the HUD, or see Okoye interact with it, so I’ve got little to offer other than a mild critique that it looks full of pointless ornamental lines, many of which would obscure things in her peripheral vision, which is where humans need the most help detecting things other than motion. But modern sci-fi interfaces generally (and the MCU in particular) are in a baroque period, and this is partly how audiences recognize sci-fi-ness.

I also think that requiring a pilot to maintain full lotus to pilot is a little much, but certainly, if there’s anyone who can handle it, it’s the leader of the Dora Milaje.

One remarkable thing to note is that this is the first brain-input piloting interface in the survey. Okoye thinks what she wants the ship to do, and it does it. I expect, given what we know about kimoyo beads in Wakanda (more on these in a later post), what’s happening is she is sending thoughts to the bracelet, and the beads are conveying the instructions to the ship. As a way to show Okoye’s self-discipline and Wakanda’s incredible technological advancement, this is awesome.

Unfortunately, I don’t have good models for evaluating this interaction. And I have a lot of questions. As with gestural interfaces, how does she avoid a distracted thought from affecting the ship? Why does she not need a tunnel-in-the-sky assist? Is she imagining what the ship should do, or a route, or something more abstract, like her goals? How does the ship grant her its field awareness for a feedback loop? When does the vibranium dashboard get activated? How does it assist her? How does she hand things off to the autopilot? How does she take it back? Since we don’t have good models, and it all happens invisibly, we’ll have to let these questions lie. But that’s part of us, from our less-advanced viewpoint, having to marvel at this highly-advanced culture from the outside.

Black Health Matters

Each post in the Black Panther review is followed by actions that you can take to support black lives.

Thinking back to the terrible loss of Boseman: Fuck cancer. (And not to imply that his death was affected by this, but also:) Fuck the racism that leads to worse medical outcomes for black people.

One thing you can do is to be aware of the diseases that disproportionately affect black people (diabetes, asthma, lung scarring, strokes, high blood pressure, and cancer) and be aware that no small part of these poorer outcomes is racism, systemic and individual. Listen to Dorothy Roberts’ TED talk, calling for an end to race-based medicine.

If you’re the reading sort, check out the books Black Man in a White Coat by Damon Tweedy, or the infuriating history covered in Medical Apartheid by Harriet Washington.

If you are black, in Boseman’s memory, get screened for cancer as often as your doctor recommends it. If you think you cannot afford it and you are in the USA, this CDC website can help you determine your eligibility for free or low-cost screening: https://www.cdc.gov/cancer/nbccedp/screenings.htm. If you live elsewhere, you almost certainly have a better healthcare system than we do, but a quick search should tell you your options.

Cancer treatment is equally successful for all races. Yet black men have a 40% higher cancer death rate than white men and black women have a 20% higher cancer death rate than white women. Your best bet is to detect it early and get therapy started as soon as possible. We can’t always win that fight, but better to try than to find out when it’s too late to intervene. Your health matters. Your life matters.

Jasper’s car dashboard

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Jasper is a longtime friend of Theo’s who offers his home as a safe house for a time. Jasper’s civilian vehicle features a device on its dashboard that merits some attention. It is something like a small laptop computer, with a flat-screen in a roughly pill-shaped black plastic frame mounted in the center of the dashboard. The top half of this screen shows a view from a backward-facing camera mounted on the vehicle.

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The lower half shows a number of different mode- and context-aware displays. The first we see is an overhead schematic of the vehicle, showing pulses moving back and forth from the front to the rear of the car, similar to Prius dash displays that display the transfer of power between the brakes and the battery.

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As the vehicle nears Jasper’’s house, the overhead schematic view draws up and is replaced with a column of text, which is in turn replaced by a circular object with animated rays projecting from it. Neither Jasper nor Theo gives the screen any notice during the scene.

Several dings

It’s dangerous to ask drivers to parse columns of text while operating a vehicle. Information must be glanceable.

The monochrome display seems to unnecessarily constrain the color palette. It’s good to give color-blind users modes that optimize the display for monochrome, and if we’re being generous, we can presume Jasper’s done just that.

But on the other hand, the monochrome minimizes the distractions that the mode switching causes. Note that the rapid changes that happen when Jasper is not on open road, but nearing a building. His attention should be on navigating the space ahead of him rather than on the screen. Maybe the monochrome helps ameliorate this.

Lastly note that the dashboard also features a full keyboard beneath the screen, positioned for the driver’s use. Since we never see it in use, let’s hope it’s not actually meant to be used while driving. Better would be a more suitable input mechanism like voice that doesn’t occupy the driver’s hands and eyes to use.

But wait

But those dings make more sense when we consider the interface narratively. The big clue is why would it persistently show a backward-facing camera when he’s driving forward? Can’t he just use the rear-view mirror? It seems to be something a normal driver wouldn’t concern themselves with. But it is something that a member of an underground resistance might be interested in, to use computer vision algorithms to help him know if he or she was being tailed or there was some threat behind him. That clue (along with the contrast to Syd’s car display) hints that this is not an off-the-shelf system, but something that Jasper has hacked together for himself. Maybe the software is shared amongst resistance members.

In any case, a homemade system can’t be expected to have the same level of usability as a professionally designed one. So narratively, this interface earns a pass.

Avengers, assembly!

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When Coulson hands Tony a case file, it turns out to be an exciting kind of file. For carrying, it’s a large black slab. After Tony grabs it, he grabs the long edges and pulls in opposite directions. One part is a thin translucent screen that fits into an angled slot in the other part, in a laptop-like configuration, right down to a built-in keyboard.

The grip edge

The grip edge of the screen is thicker than the display, so it has a clear, physical affordance as to what part is meant to be gripped and how to pull it free from its casing, and simultaneously what end goes into the base. It’s simple and obvious. The ribbing on the grip unfortunately runs parallel to the direction of pull. It would make for a better grip and a better affordance if the grip was perpendicular to the direction of pull. Minor quibble.

I’d be worried about the ergonomics of an unadjustable display. I’d be worried about the display being easily unseated or dislodged. I’d also be worried about the strength of the join. Since there’s no give, enough force on the display might snap it clean off. But then again this is a world where “vibrium steel” exists, so material critiques may not be diegetically meaningful.

Login

Once he pulls the display from the base, the screen boops and animated amber arcs spin around the screen, signalling him to login via a rectangular panel on the right hand side of the screen. Tony puts his four fingers in the spot and drags down. A small white graphic confirms his biometrics. As a result, a WIMP display appears in grays and amber colors.

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Briefing materials

One window on the left hand side shows a keypad, and he enters 1-8-5-4. The keypad disappears and a series of thumbnail images—portraits of members of the Avengers initiative—appear in its place. Pepper asks Tony, “What is all this?” Tony replies, saying, “This is, uh…” and in a quick gesture, places his ten fingertips on the screen at the portraits, and then throws his hands outward, off the display.

The portraits slide offscreen to become ceiling-height volumetric windows filled with rich media dossiers on Thor, Steve Rogers, and David Banner. There are videos, portraits, schematics, tables of data, cellular graphics, and maps. There’s a smaller display near the desktop where the “file” rests about the tesseract. (More on this bit in the next post.)

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Insert standard complaint here about the eye strain that a translucent display causes, and the apology that yes, I understand it’s an effective and seemingly high-tech way to show actors and screens simultaneously. But I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention it.

The two-part login shows an understanding of multifactor authentication—a first in the survey, so props for that. Tony must provide something he “is”, i.e. his fingerprints, and something he knows, i.e. the passcode. Only then does the top secret information become available.

I have another standard grouse about the screen providing no affordances that content has an alternate view available, and that a secret gesture summons that view. I’d also ordinarily critique the displays for having nearly no visual hierarchy, i.e. no way for your eyes to begin making sense of it, and a lot of pointless-motion noise that pulls your attention in every which way.

But, this beat is about the wonder of the technology, the breadth of information SHIELD in its arsenal, and the surprise of familiar tech becoming epic, so I’m giving it a narrative pass.

Also, OK, Tony’s a universe-class hacker, so maybe he’s just knowledgeable/cocky enough to not need the affordances and turned them off. All that said, in my due diligence: Affordances still matter, people.

Perimeter Fences

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Jurassic_Park_Perimeter_Fences01Each of the dinosaur paddocks in Jurassic Park is surrounded by a large electric fence on a dedicated power circuit that is controlled from the Central Control Room. The fences have regular signage warning of danger…

Jurassic_Park_Perimeter_Fences04…and large lamps at the top of many towers with amber and blue lights indicating the status of the fence.

Jurassic_Park_Perimeter_Fences02 Continue reading →

Abidjan Operation

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Avengers_BartonCompromised

After Hawkeye is enthralled by Loki, agent Coulson has to call agent Romanoff in from the field, mid-mission. While he awaits her to extract herself from a situation, he idly glances at case file 242-56 which consists of a large video of Barton and Romanoff mid-combat, and overview profiles of the two agents. A legend in the upper right identifies this as STRIKE TEAM: DELTA, and a label at the top reads ABIDJAN OPERATION. There is some animated fuigetry on the periphery of the video, and some other fuigetry in windows that are occluded by the case file. bartoncompromised

Continue reading →

Flight Recorder

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Jack flies the airship most of the way to the TET when he decides to listen the recordings of the Odyssey. He presses the play button on the recorder, it makes a beep and an electronic voice says, “Flight recorder playback for the Odyssey mission, 3 May 2017.” Then the playback starts.

First, real flight recorders

Before starting the analysis of the black box in Oblivion I thought it could be helpful to do some research on real-word black boxes. That way I had a reference point, something to compare this to. Oddly enough, there is a lot of information on the internet about the required recording and survival aspects of the device, but not much about means to find it after a crash. Beacons and transmitters are mentioned, but not many requirements to facilitate a person actually spotting it. Anyway, after that research I came up with a list of requirements for the device. It must…

  • Survive extreme temperature, pressure, and water conditions.
  • Record both ship and crew´s data on the flight.
  • Be easy to find in a crash site.
  • Provide quick access to the stored data.

You can think of modern flight recorders as big and tough hard drives that make digital recordings of both ship data and cockpit voice. Most modern commercial jets use a “quick access recorder” that stores data in a removable memory that can be plugged in to a common computer. And some recorders can also have an USB or Ethernet port for quick access, too. But often the device is damaged by the crash, and the full data needs to be accessed with special equipment.

So it’s against these requirements that we can analyze the real-world design of the flight recorder.

And really, this thing is like a Christmas tree of attention getting lights and sounds in comparison.

Great: Commanding attention

I have to give it to them here, they did a really good job. Aside from the normal design patterns for black boxes, the flight recorder in the movie provides other ways to find the device. The flashing white light can be easily spotted in the dark —and also on the day if bright enough. Even more, flashing is one of the most attention-getting signals that there are, neurologically speaking. And it can be instantly associated with an electronic device, while a fixed flight could be taken as a reflection on some debris.

Irregular flashing is even more powerful: A pattern that is semi random (or stochastic in the literature), with some flashes slightly offset from the main pattern. That difference in the flashing is even more attention getting that a regular one. This too would be really helpful in a crash site where you have an important amount of flashes going on as well: police cars, ambulances and fire cars. In that situation, the randomness of the flashing can help in distinguishing the device from the surroundings.

Julia was wandering through the Odyssey´s wreckage when she heard a soft and repeating sound. She pulled out some wreckage to find the flight recorder. These sound signals help her to locate the device more precisely when at close distance, even when it´s covered by debris if the sound is strong enough.

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She takes it out to give it a look, and it´s here when we see the device.

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When Julia finds the recorder, she knows that she and Jack need to carry it back to the Tower to better examine it. And as the recorder is kind of heavy, Julia folds out an small handler and uses it to lift up the recorder.

Great: Even better than a flash memory

The recorder in the movie also provides a way to instantly access the voice recordings of the crew. It uses a display and several buttons in a way that is similar to a music player, and building on a known mental model means that anyone looking for the device is going to be able to use it.

Assistive tools for the emergency mode

The recorder in the movie also seems to have two different modes or settings, an “emergency” mode when it has to be found and another mode to play the recordings. As with real flight recorders, the emergency mode could be activated by internal sensors. These could detect the crash via a sudden and/or significant change in velocity, for example. But it ought to have a manual control of some sort to return to normal mode.

When Julia finds the recorder, the device was beeping and using a light as beacon. It also had two status LEDs turned on and the small display was showing a graph curve in red. In contrast, when Jack is hearing the playbacks, the recorder doesn´t show any of those functions. Both the beeping, the lights, and the small screen display are all turned off, and the graph isn´t showing anymore.

What is that red graph supposed to mean anyway?

It´s not very clear what the purpose of the small screen display is. What is it meant to communicate? Additionally the display is oddly placed next to the controls of the recorder, which implies a mapping that doesn’t really seem logical. But mapping is not the only issue, because when the recorder is actually playing, this display is always off.

Given that It´s only on when Julia finds the recorder and the device is capable of playing the recordings by itself, it might be a way to tell the amount of battery life of the device. Although even then, a graph is something that shows change through time. When you need to know the energy levels at one specific moment, using a common battery indicator, or even a depletion bar would work better.

So maybe the graph is telling us that the device has some way of recharging itself. In that case, the graph could be showing charge and discharge cycles—or energy consumption rates—and by association also telling about some problem with the charging system. Even assuming this is the case, it´s odd that the display is always off during playback so it probably has some control to turn it on and off.

A screen dedicated to sound.

The recorder uses another, bigger display to show a number that indicates some time value, like recording or playback time. The bottom half of the display shows a spectrum analyzer of the recording playing at the moment, but when the recorder is not working this part of the display remains empty. During the movie we see that the recorder plays only sound, i.e. the voice recordings during the mission.

This screen offers some visualization but showing the spectrum analysis of the playback seems like a secondary feature. You know, given that it´s not necessary to actually hear the playback. But the display has a MODE button, so maybe the recorder can also record video to take advantage of the full size of the screen. In that case maybe the crew of the Odyssey just chose to only record audio, be it for privacy or to save storage space for the rest of the mission.

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Jack was already in space and closing in to the Tet. And as he has to maintain his cover until he gets inside the Tet with the bomb, he stops the recording of the Odyssey.

After getting permission to dock in the Tet, Jack the returns to the playback. But the recording suddenly stops when the command module of the Odyssey got inside the Tet, then there´s only static and an—end of recording—message.

After getting permission to dock in the Tet, Jack the returns to the playback. But the recording suddenly stops when the command module of the Odyssey got inside the Tet, then there´s only static and an—end of recording—message.

But again, we never actually see the recorder playing video. And the display has a low resolution, monochrome screen—like some early PDAs. So making sense of any video playing from there would definitely be a challenge.

Gravitic distortion

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As Ibanez and Barcalow are juuuuuust about to start a slurpy on-duty make out session, their attention is drawn by the coffee mug whose content is listing in the glass.

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Ibanez explains helpfully, “There’s a gravity field out there.” Barcalow orders her to “Run a scan!” She turns to a screen and does something to run the scan, and Barcalow confirms that “Sensors [are] on” As she watches an amber-colored graticule distort as if weighed down by an increasingly heavy ball while a Big Purple Text Label blinks GRAVITIC DISTORTION. Two numbers increment speedily at the bottom-right edge of the screen and modulus at 1000. “There,” she says.

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So many plot questions

  • What kind of coffee cups can withstand enough gravity to tip the contents 45 degrees but remain themselves perfectly still and upright?
  • Why did they need the coffee cup? Wouldn’t their inner ear have told them the same thing faster?
  • Why is the screen in the background of the coffee cup still blinking OPTIMAL COURSE?

Of course we have to put these aside in favor of the interaction design questions.

First the “workflow”

Why on earth would they need to turn on sensors? Aren’t the sensors only useful when they’re sensing? If you have a sense that something is wrong, turning on the sensors only confirms what you already know. This is still more of that pesky stoic guru metaphor. This should have been an active academy that warned them—loudly—the moment nearby gravity started looking weird.

The visualization is not bad…

Let’s pause the criticism for one moment to give credit where credit is due. The grid vortex is a fast and reliable way to illustrate the invisible problem that they’re facing and telegraph increasing danger. Warped graticules have been a staple of depicting spacetime curvature since Disney’s 1979 movie The Black Hole.

The gravity well as depicted in The Black Hole (1979).

The gravity well as depicted in The Black Hole (1979).

This is also the same technique that scientists use to depict the same phenomenon, so it’s got some street cred, too.


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The same thing can be shown in 3D, but it’s visually noisier. Moreover, the 2D version builds on our sense of basic physics, as we can easily imagine what would happen to anything nearing the depression. So, it’s mostly the right display.

…But then, the interaction

Despite the immediacy of the display, there’s a major problem. Sure, this interface conveys impending doom, but it doesn’t convey any useful information to help them know where the threat is coming from or what to do about it after they know that doom impends. (Plus, they had to turn it on, and all it tells them is, “Yep, looks pretty bad out there.”) To design this right, they need a sense of the 3D vector of the threat as compared to their own vector, and what the best available options are.

Better: Augmented reality to telegraph the invisible threat

Fortunately, we already have the medium and channel for Ibanez and Barcalow to immediately understand the 3D direction of the threat in the real world and most importantly, in relation to the ship’s trajectory and orientation, since that’s the tool they have on hand to avoid the threat. We’ve already seen that volumetric projection is a thing in this world, so the ship should display the VP just outside the ship’s viewports. The animation can illustrate the threat coming from the outside on the outside, and fade once the threat gets to be in a range of visible light. In this way there’s no 2D to 3D interpretation. It’s direct. Where’s the unexpected gravitic distortion? Look out the window. There. There is the the unexpected gravitic distortion. The HUD display would need to be aimed at the navigator’s seat, but for very distant objects, e.g. out of visible light range, the parallax shift wouldn’t be problematic for other locations on the bridge. You’d also have to manage the scenario where the threat comes from a direction not out the window (like, say, through the floor) but you can just shift the VP interior for that.

Including a screen comp by Deviant artist scrollsofaryavart.

Including a screen comp by Deviant artist scrollsofaryavart.

Next, you could use VP inside the ship to show the two paths and point of collision, as well as best predicted paths (there’s that useful active academy metaphor again.) Then we can let Ibanez trust her own instincts as she presses the manual override to steer the ship clear. I don’t have the time to comp an internal VP up right now, so I’ll rely on your imagination to comp this particular part of a much better solution than what we see on screen.

Sleep regulator

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TheFifthElement-redmike-003

To make your flight as short as possible, our flight attendants are switching on the sleep regulator, which will regulate your sleeping during the flight.

First, props to screenwriters Luc Besson & Robert Mark Kamen for absolutely nailing annoying airline doublespeak. “Regulate your sleeping” means “knock you unconscious,” and even when Korben raises a finger to interject, the flight attendant ignores him and presses a button to begin “regulating his sleep.”

Given that ignoring passenger interruptions is standard operating procedure, it’s a nice design feature that the berths are horizontal and less than a meter tall. Even if a passenger was somehow all the way at the top of the berth, the fall to the cushy flooring would likely do them no harm.

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The panel has four rounded rectangles: One for each person who might be in the berth? On approach, an amber, underlit toggle button is already on. She presses an adjacent toggle button, which glows yellow, and Korben passes out immediately. Three pairs of steady lights illuminate on the right side of the panel, one pair yellow, the other two red, but it is not clear what these indicate.

On arrival to the planet Fhloston Paradise, the attendants press the yeloow buttons and the passengers awake immediately.

Analysis

Let me be blunt. The panel is a pretty crap interface, with no labeling to indicate what the buttons mean and no security to prevent mischievous passengers from messing with other passengers. (Imagine the poor kid trapped inside and subject to the button flicking of a sibling.) There’s no clear medical monitoring on the outside, which you’d think would be vital with any interface that affects biology like this. Even if a centralized station had the monitoring details elsewhere on the ship, anyone passing by should get some indication of what’s happening.

Admittedly, this is an interface with complex attention-getting needs. The attendants need to know that the regulator is working, and that bears a light. But the attendants also need to know when something is medically trending poorly or just plain failing, and that also bears a light. It would be important to clearly distinguish these signals, since confusing one for the other could be deadly.

Better would have been a well labeled system-is-operating signal facing the attendant when she is standing at the panel, and another well-labeled, blinking, loud, system-needs-attention signal that can be seen down either end of the hallway. Let us pray that they never, ever remake this film, but if there’s a directors cut, this interface could use a makeover.

The breach

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The breach is not well-handled by the systems around the control room. Not only do the lights not have a local backup power source, but the screens on the background display Big Labels saying unhelpful things like, “ESCAPE ALERT – UNKNOWN SECURITY BREACH.” If you were designing a system specifically to control nightmare monsters to sacrifice helpless victims, I think the first thing your risk officer should work out is a system that can recognize and withstand when one of those two things (monsters or victims) was out of place. The least you could do is provide users with extremely clear status messages about them.

Sitterson and Truman scan the video monitors for Dana and Marty.

Escape hatch

After the breach, we see one more interface for the stage managers: an old escape route. Even though Control is world-critical, its designers imagined that things could go haywire. Presuming that other scenarios are going fine, if all hope is lost in this one, the stage managers have a way out of the control room. We only get a few glimpses of this interface, but it looks to be a computer-controlled security access lock whose 8-bit graphics imply that it was implemented in the early 1990s, around the time when Microsoft Windows 3.1 was the dominant computing paradigm.

Sitterson desperately enters his PID.

After working desperately a bit, Sitterson is able to get the system to a screen that asks for his PID. He uses a rubber-key keypad below the screen to enter it, and is told “SECURITY OVERRIDE GRANTED.” In this way he is able to open the trap door and escape the monsters swarming the control room.

Especially given the amount of stress that a user is likely to be under while using this interface, and the infrequency with which it must be used, it seems absolutely cruel to secure the door by a memorized identification number. Unless that PID is used frequently enough to become habit, it’s unlikely to be remembered when the user is trying to escape death. Better is to use the ID cards already seen in the film in combination with some biometric scan like retina or finger print.

The “Resources”

There is a system in place to manage the “resources,” the nightmare creatures available to be chosen by the victims for their sacrifice. This management includes letting them out to the surface, putting them back in place safely, and containment throughout the intervening year between sacrifices.

Dana and Marty experience the cages from the perspective of a monster

The one interface element that we do see in use is the one that Dana and Marty use to release the imprisoned nightmare monsters throughout the complex. It is a single kill-switch button labeled “SYSTEM PURGE”, located on a panel in the security booth that overlooks the main elevator bank. While hiding from approaching security forces, Dana notices the switch beneath the monitoring screens. She flips a protective switch cover to enable it, sees a confirming amber light, and then slams down on the kill switch. Moments later, the first of several waves of nightmare monsters are released through the elevator doors into the complex.

Dana slams the System Purge kill switch.

From a story viewpoint, this is an awesome moment where the story becomes utter chaos and the workforce of jaded sacrificers get their horrible, horrible come-uppance. But from a design standpoint, it’s utter nonsense. Imagine a nuclear power plant where the kill switch, which is accessible through an unlocked door and labeled clearly for any saboteur to read, dumps live fuel rods and heavy water onto the heads of the plant operators. Or a zoo where the animals-are-furious-and-hungry switch dumps the animals right onto the grounds. A system like Control, with global reach and resources, would find some other space into which this murderous tsunami can be vented, and ensure proper security around the activation mechanism. Still, this makes for hilarious chaos and the “happy” ending, so as audience members we’re glad Control messed up on its design strategy.

Marty had already been shown to be able to hack Control’s electronics upstairs, so I suspect the narrative decision about the purge switch was made to give Dana some additional agency in this part of the story, and add some punch to the onset of the final act, so we’ll count that as a minor quibble, too.