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Thread: "Smiley"

  1. #1
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    "Smiley"

    Miles O'Brien is called Chief Petty Officer by Worf's father. Yet, it really looks like he's wearing the two pips of a Lieutenant.

    What gives? What pip style did he wear in DS9?
    Uruz - Alexander Skrabut - uruzrune@gmail.com

  2. #2
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    On TNG he was a Full Lieutenant and Chief of Transporters (hence Chief as an appelation)

    When he went to DS9 he somehow become a Non-Com and no longer wore lt's pips but instead a new enlisted tag.

  3. #3
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    I think that he was always an Enlisted Chief, and that the costume designers and such couldn't agree on a way to properly display his rank on his uniform.

    For instance, I can recall the episode with the Cosmic String, where O'Brien, Ro and Troi were on the bridge, and O'Brien was bossed around by Ro, who was just an Ensign.

    Poor Chief O'Brien...in my campaign, he became an Officer, earned the rank of Commander, and became a Chief Engineer, so he couldn't be bossed around so much!

    Just the way things happened in my Trek universe...your universe may differ!



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  4. #4
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    Actually, Riker called O'Brien "Lieutenant" in a secoind-season episode. The problem seems to have arisen with the very episode mentioned - the writer, only knowing he was called "Chief" (as in Chief of the Transporter Department) assumed this meant he was a Chief Petty Officer. Unfortunately, this became the official rank, even though it contradicted earlier established facts.

    In my campaign, I go on the theory that Worf never returned to his own universe in Parallels, but rather to a very similar one where O'Brien was only a senior NCO rather than a junior officer, never having taken the field commission offered him by Captain Maxwell after the Battle of Setlik III.

    YMMV

  5. #5
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    Originally posted by Owen E Oulton
    In my campaign, I go on the theory that Worf never returned to his own universe in Parallels, but rather to a very similar one where O'Brien was only a senior NCO rather than a junior officer, never having taken the field commission offered him by Captain Maxwell after the Battle of Setlik III.
    So everything since Parallels is new? Interesting take.

  6. #6
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    Works for me. Wth all the time travel in the Star Trek series, I just figure every show is linked to the others, but each is kinda it's own universe. That way you can overlooki the terrible continuity errors within the series, as well as from one to the other.

    That's one of the reasons Enterprise doesn't bug me. It's not quite the same universe. In reality, I just conside it a remake of TOS. At least there's a whole lot less crappy technobabble. Figure every time the temporal crap happens, the universe gets tweaked a little -- after all the added mass and energy from a future visitor would have an effect -- no matter how slight -- on the universe; the mathematics of the universe change, no matter how slight. In hte right place and time, it might allow the Patriots to make it to the Superbowl. In another, it might blow our star apart...or worse, allow Al Sharpton to be president.

    Thats why each of our camapigns is a separate entity...time travel.

    Oh, well...it was an attempt....
    "War is an ugly thing but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feelings which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."

    John Stuart Mill

  7. #7
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    Just face it...its just another massive continuity error which was never properly explained and personally I don't really care if they should. I just take it that O'Brien had always been a noncom - confirmed by Worf's father - and leave it at that.
    Arise, arise, Riders of Theoden!
    Fell deed awake: fire and slaughter!
    Spear shall be shaken, shields be splintered,
    a sword-day, a red-day, ere the sun rises!
    Ride now, ride now! Ride to Gondor!

    Theoden King: The Return of the King

  8. #8
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    Really don't have an opinion on this, but it gets my one post closer to my promotion and leaves al of the post online, as I get ready to sign off, with me as the last respondent.

    Woo hoo! Who says I don't have goals?
    "War is an ugly thing but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feelings which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."

    John Stuart Mill

  9. #9
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    IMO, Miles began his Starfleet career as an enlisted security specialist, was given a field commission and made tac officer by Ben Maxwell, but then decided he didn't like being an officer and requested a demotion to petty officer before he was transferred to DS9.

    I think that's the most believable way to try to put the facts together in a half-way coherent career history.
    + &lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;<

    Blessed be the Lord my strength, which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight. Psalm 144:1

  10. #10
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    For what it's worth, the new Star Trek: The Magazine (May 2002) has a short article on this topic. They don't come out and say "it was a continuity goof" but they seem to lean toward him being an enlisted man from the get-go.

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