Summary
- Chief O'Brien began as a background character and became one of the most important people in Starfleet history.
- His character development in TNG foreshadowed his success on DS9, where he became a fully realized character.
- O'Brien's role as an engineer was unique, delivering believable technobabble and keeping Deep Space Nine running.
Colm Meaney's Chief Miles O'Brien began his Star Trek career as an unnamed background character on Star Trek: The Next Generation, before becoming one of the main characters on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and "the most important person in Starfleet history" according to Star Trek: Lower Decks. One of the few enlisted men in Star Trek, Chief O'Brien appeared throughout TNG season 1 merely as a background character. He did not even receive a name until TNG season 2, making his ultimate Star Trek journey even more surprising. Soon after being given his name, O'Brien also received the job title of transporter chief, a position he would hold for most of his time on TNG.
In season 2, episode 7, "Unnatural Selection," Chief O'Brien gets a last name, more lines than he has ever had, and plays a major role in the plot. When Dr. Katherine Pulaski (Diana Muldaur) contracts a virus that causes her to age rapidly, Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) and Chief O'Brien concoct a plan to use the transporter to save her. O'Brien manipulates the transporter and then uses some of Dr. Pulaski's DNA to reconstitute her pattern without the virus that was killing her. While he may have had a quiet beginning, O'Brien went on to appear in 225 Star Trek episodes, second only to Michael Dorn's Lt. Worf.
Chief O'Brien's 10 Best Star Trek TNG & DS9 Episodes
Miles O'Brien is "the most important man in Star Trek history," played by one of its best actors, as proved by O'Brien's best TNG and DS9 episodes.
Chief O'Brien's Future Star Trek DS9 Success Was Set Up By TNG
O'Brien became "The Most Important Person In Starfleet History."
In Star Trek: The Next Generation's "Unnatural Selection," Chief O'Brien not only gets a name, but he's also instrumental in saving the day, foreshadowing his eventual success on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Throughout the rest of TNG, O'Brien gets more character development, becoming just as important to many storylines as the show's main characters. Proud of his Irish heritage and prone to shoulder injuries while kayaking, O'Brien is also one of Star Trek's most human and relatable characters.
While O'Brien becomes a more fully realized character on DS9, several character-defining moments happen before he transfers to the space station. In TNG season 4, episode 11, "Data's Day," Miles marries his wife Keiko (Rosalind Chao), who would become a recurring character on DS9. In the following episode, "The Wounded," O'Brien has to reckon with his past in the Federation-Cardassian War and confront his former commanding officer. A season later, in TNG season 5, episode 5, "Disaster," O'Brien not only saves the Enterprise, but he also becomes a father, when Keiko gives birth to a daughter named Molly (Hana Hatae).
In Star Trek: Lower Decks, season 1, episode 3, "Temporal Edict," a professor lecturing about Starfleet history refers to Miles O'Brien as "the most important person in Starfleet history," while standing near a giant golden statue of O'Brien.
Chief O'Brien Redefined The Star Trek Engineer
No one could deliver technobabble like O'Brien.
In both Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Chief O'Brien is a different kind of Starfleet chief engineer. He is Star Trek's everyman character, who worked his way up from transporter chief on the Enterprise-D to chief of operations on space station Deep Space Nine. O'Brien could make even the most ridiculous technobabble solutions sound believable, and he kept Deep Space Nine up and running despite its haphazard mix of Cardassian, Bajoran, and Federation technologies. With his ability to repair just about anything, O'Brien feels like the TNG era's answer to Chief Montgomery Scott (James Doohan) from Star Trek: The Original Series.
Only O'Brien could deliver a line like this and make it sound believable: "Well, I'd have to get into the biofilter bus to patch in a molecular matrix reader. That's no problem. But the waveform modulator will be overloaded without the regeneration limiter in the first stage circuit." (From TNG's "Unnatural Selection")
Despite there always being something to fix on Deep Space Nine, Miles still found time to spend with his wife and daughter. Most of Star Trek's main characters have devoted themselves almost entirely to their careers, leaving little room to raise a family, but O'Brien finds time for both. Miles strives to be a good father and a good person, and stands up for what he believes in, proving his loyalty to Starfleet and to his friends time and again. O'Brien also faces more hardships than any other Star Trek character, but he still maintains a positive attitude most of the time. Not only is Miles O'Brien "the most important person in Starfleet history," but he's also one of Star Trek's most relatable and well-realized characters.
Star Trek: The Next Generation & Star Trek: Deep Space Nine are available to stream on Paramount+.
Star Trek: The Next Generation
- Release Date
- 1987 - 1994-00-00
- Network
- Syndication
- Showrunner
- Gene Roddenberry
Cast
Jean-Luc Picard
Commander William T. Riker
WHERE TO WATCH
- Writers
- René Echevarria, Maurice Hurley, Richard Manning, Melinda M. Snodgrass, Tracy Tormé, Hannah Louise Shearer, Stuart Charno, Ira Steven Behr, Sara B. Cooper, Peter Allan Fields, Herbert Wright, Frank Abatemarco, Burton Armus, Hilary Bader, Morgan Gendel, David Kemper, Michael I. Wagner, Philip LaZebnik, Robert McCullough, Susan Sackett, Nick Sagan, Fred Bronson, Robert Hewitt Wolfe, Sam Rolfe
- Franchise(s)
- Star Trek
- Seasons
- 7
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