Mueller device

Picture of the Mueller Device as seen in Alias 1x01.

A Mueller device is a mysterious piece of technology in the US television series Alias. It usually appears as a hook-shaped armature which levitates a red-orange liquid-filled sphere. It is named for Oskar Mueller, a chemist who was believed to have invented it, though it is later revealed to have been invented by Milo Rambaldi. Based on dialogue throughout the series, it apparently works by containing compressed liquid in an ionization sphere, and can perhaps alter the substances it contains.

The device first appears and is identified in the very first episode of the series. The first device seen is small and portable, easily transported by one person. It is by single-handedly obtaining this first device that Sydney Bristow allays the suspicions of Arvin Sloane regarding her loyalty to SD-6. When Sydney unhooks the device from its power supply, the levitating sphere collapses into what appears to be ordinary water.

The device next appears in the final episode of season 1. Sydney and Michael Vaughn are tasked to Taipei to destroy it, and are surprised to discover how much larger this device is. They are able to destroy the device and the levitating sphere again collapses into what appears to be ordinary water. The volume of water is such that it appears that Vaughn is drowned, setting up a cliffhanger for the first season finale. Later during the second season it is revealed that this water was somehow altered into a plague incubator. Vaughn is infected during his near-drowning, and is saved only via the use of a device Sark had created that generates genetically tailored antidotes.

The device is not seen again until season 4. In the episode "Another Mister Sloane" the team discovers a large-scale device in Santiago at the compound of an Arvin Sloane impersonator, dubbed "Arvin Clone" by APO. Parts for smaller scale devices are also found. While the final dispensation of the device and components is not shown, presumably APO destroys them. In the same episode, "Arvin Clone" exhibits a small-scale device, which in the episode "In Dreams..." is used to affect the behavior of certain bees which have been bred for reduced aggression. The device increases their aggression to the point where swarms of them attack and kill a number of monks who are Followers of Rambaldi. The status and whereabouts of this device are unknown.

The device makes its final appearance in the concluding two episodes of season 4. In "Search and Rescue" the effect of the device and the new sphere itself is seen in raw video footage sent to Marshall Flinkman by a hacker friend in Moscow. The sphere is on a tremendous scale, well in excess of anything previously seen, estimated by Marshall to be over six city blocks in diameter. It is hovering over the city of Sovogda, Russia. The closing moments of the episode feature APO team members skydiving into Sovogda with the ball in the background. In the season finale, "Before The Flood", the Mueller device is deactivated and apparently destroyed by the deluge of water contained within the sphere.

It is in these episodes that the function of the Mueller device is revealed. When activated, the device generates a "sub-audible frequency" which combines with chemical contaminants (seeded into the water supply around the world by Sloane under cover of humanitarian relief work). Anyone who's consumed tainted water (known as "the infected") is affected by the signal. They become hyper-aggressive and ultra-violent, attacking in packs and in the absence of any non-infected will turn on each other. Additionally, if the device is not deactivated properly, the contents of the sphere will be released in an incredibly toxic form. Based on a statement made in season 2 when Vaughn became ill following exposure to the Taipei device, the toxins may be viral in nature.

In the final episode of the series, a Mueller device-like effect is seen in conjunction with another Rambaldi artifact known as The Horizon; however, several things indicate that this wasn't a Mueller device. First, a reddish fluid drained from the levitating sphere into the Horizon; no other Mueller device ever leaked fluid from the sphere. Second, when the sphere was disrupted it was shown to be filled with the red fluid; the sphere of every other deactivated or destroyed device was composed of water and reverted to water. Third, the Horizon (which was not a component of any other Mueller device) was placed on what appeared to be a stone altar rather than a metal device. And finally, the fluid from the sphere apparently had the power to confer immortality or at the least extremely rapid healing; no other Mueller device was ever shown or described to have such a property.

The aftermath of exposure to a Mueller device is the driving motivation for Sloane through much of season 5. In "Before The Flood", his daughter Nadia Santos is infected. Sloane's desperate search for a cure leads him to become the pawn of a new criminal organization called Prophet Five.