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Even before the first episode has released, the promotional material for Star Trek: Starfleet Academy has been generating a lot of buzz. There’s been talk about Paul Giamatti getting to indulge his inner-Trekkie while chewing scenery, whether CW-style teen drama belongs in Star Trek, and about still not giving us Star Trek: Legacy. But there’s one part of the early Starfleet Academy footage we’ve seen that deserves more attention: the fact that Captain Nahla Ake of the USS Athena, chancellor of Starfleet Academy, wears glasses.
In the first scene released from the show, Nahla Ake (Holly Hunter) deals with a sudden threat in classic Star Trek fashion, getting information from her bridge crew. To take a better look at a monitor, Ake pulls on a pair of peepers. That’s a surprising choice, one that tells us everything we need to know about this new leader.
Seeing the Future
Eyeglasses may be common in our world, but they rarely show up in Trek. There are two famous examples of people with eyewear in the Star Trek franchise. One, of course, is Geordi LaForge, who wore a VISOR (Visual Instrument and Sensory Organ Replacement) across all seven seasons ofStar Trek: The Next Generation.
But those weren’t glasses. They fed Geordi’s brain different types of sensory impulses, which were similar to those of eyesight, but functioned differently. Not only did they pick up things that human eyes could not, such as UV light, but the signals produced images that made no sense to sighted people. When Picard looks through Geordi’s VISOR in season 1’s “The Heart of Glory,” the images make no sense to them because he’s interpreting them through different processes. Thus, when Geordi starts wearing ocular implants in Star Trek: First Contact, effectively gaining a new set of eyes, he stops wearing the VISOR.
The technological advancements of Geordi’s VISOR and implants underscore a point made by the second most pronounced use of glasses in Star Trek, the pair that Bones gives Kirk in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
The glasses are McCoy’s way of ribbing Jim about his advancing age (a topic they’ll revisit in each of the next four movies). It’s not just that Kirk is old and his eyesight is failing; it’s also that they are an antique, a relic of the past, just like the Captain-turned-Admiral himself. In fact, Bones even states that he usually prescribes something called Retinax V for vision loss.
Between the reference to Retinax V and the gift, McCoy highlights a fact about the 24th Century and beyond: people don’t need glasses. Of course, Trek has always tried to be forward-looking, finding a balance between celebrating scientific achievements and not erasing different abilities or modes of expression. As Stephanie Roehler wrote for StarTrek.com, Geordi keeps his VISOR and implants (and Picard stays bald) because “accommodations, function, and acceptance are prized over being more ‘normal.’”
An Intentional Look
Which brings us back to Nahla Ake’s decision to strap on a pair of spectacles. She obviously puts them on to serve a purpose, getting a better look at the screen. And she seems to treat them like any other piece of ship’s equipment, as demonstrated by the way she hands them to her XO Lura Thok (Gina Yashere) before dispensing orders.
Thus, her decision to wear glasses isn’t a mere fashion choice. Rather, it’s a strategic choice, part of the mentality that makes her a captain and a teacher. Nahla Ake is part Lanthanite, a new species introduced with Pelia in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. While we still don’t know much about Lanthanites, we do know this: they live for a very long time and they develop attachments to the chotchkes they collect. Sometimes, these collections can help out in a jam, as when Pelia had to run landline phones throughout the Enterprise in “The Sehlat Who Ate Its Tail” from season 3. But usually, Lanthanites collect things to remember the past, to keep record of the connections they make to people who have come in gone in their long lifetimes.
When Nahla Ake puts on a pair of glasses, she’s making a connection to the past. She’s grounding herself in some long gone moment before making a decision like the orders she gives. That connection to the past is particularly important when one remembers that Starfleet Academy takes place after the final seasons of Discovery, in the 32nd century. The connection she made may very well go all the way back to before The Original Series, possibly even Enterprise.
We can read two things from Nahla Ake’s decision to wear glasses. One, that she cares about people. Presumably, she keeps the glasses because they remind her of someone from the past, someone now long since expired. The fact that she, a person who lives so long and forms so many relationships would prioritize a single person, tells us that she’s not going to be one who too quickly puts the needs of the many before the needs of the few.
Second, the decision tells us that she trusts what she knows. She’s certainly not a luddite and will make use of modern technology. She’s the captain of a 32nd century starship, after all. But she clearly has faith in a simple pair of eyeglasses that she doesn’t extend to a VISOR or ocular implants. This tells us that she’s not the type of captain who will go chasing after the latest fad. She makes her decisions slowly and thoughtfully.
The Captain’s Style
These two qualities of Nahla Ake matter precisely because there are so many questions around Starfleet Academy. Trek has never done teen drama before and there are legitimate concerns about melding a genre known for big emotions and bad decisions with a franchise that prioritizes reason and professionalism.
It’s still too early to say if Starfleet Academy will work as a Star Trek show, but when Nahla Ake puts on her glasses, we can plainly see she’s the right type of captain.
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy premieres on Paramount+ on January 15, 2026.
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