7

In "All Good Things" O'Brien's rank (past) is ensign. O'Brien is in a red uniform and wearing a single pip on his collar. Picard refers to him as Chief, but O'Brien doesn't correct him or seems surprised. Picard also puts him in charge of the plasma inducer modifications and then O'Brien gives an order to Ensign Fletcher, who responds aye sir. Nocoms are not refered to as sir.

Would this not confirm the theory that O'Brien's rank in the pilot episode was a field promotion? Due to having a skeleton crew?

GalacticCriminal
  • 1,415
  • 9
  • 16
  • I've edited the title to be more descriptive of what I think you're asking. If I've misunderstood please correct it. In the future can you also try and use more descriptive titles for what your question actually is? – TheLethalCarrot Nov 07 '19 at 14:27
  • 2
    What is Miles O'Brien's rank in the pilot episode? Same as his rank in every episode: MASTER OF ALL HE SURVEYS – Paul D. Waite Nov 07 '19 at 14:37
  • 2
    Possible dupe of Was Chief O' Brien demoted from Lieutenant to Chief? – Valorum Nov 07 '19 at 14:38
  • 1
    See also https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/31524/why-was-miles-obrien-never-promoted and https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/60540/why-did-obrien-start-out-as-a-transporter-chief-in-tng . In retrospect, it's possible that Miles is a construct planted in Starfleet by the Q to f— with nerd brains in our universe. – Paul D. Waite Nov 07 '19 at 14:40
  • @Valorum I notice he was wearing a single pip, isn't that the rank of ensign? – GalacticCriminal Nov 07 '19 at 14:40
  • In the original script, he was referred to as "Ops Officer"; The OPS OFFICER looks at Data, surprised. – Valorum Nov 07 '19 at 14:41
  • I think he was demoted to be a non-commissioned officer after the pilot. Even though later he somehow becomes chief of engineering on DS9. – Jack B Nimble Nov 07 '19 at 14:43
  • 1
    @JackBNimble - It was never confirmed that he'd been demoted. He's just portrayed as having inconsistent ranks – Valorum Nov 07 '19 at 14:48
  • @Valorum I understand your meaning, but Picard refers to him as Chief while he's in the past. This doesn't phase O'Bren, so my point is it could lead credence that he was field promoted. After which he was demoted back to Chief Petty officer. – GalacticCriminal Nov 07 '19 at 14:48
  • There is a big section on his memory alpha page covering all the inconsistencies with his rank. – Darren Nov 07 '19 at 14:54
  • @GalacticCriminal - Sure. This is just one example of his retconned (and inconsistently portrayed) rank – Valorum Nov 07 '19 at 14:55
  • https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Miles_O'Brien#Problematic_rank_history – Darren Nov 07 '19 at 14:56
  • @Valorum What I meant is from the writers point of view, he was demoted, I didn't mean to suggest he was demoted inside StarFleet. – Jack B Nimble Nov 07 '19 at 15:06
  • To add to the confusion that ever is O'Brien's rank: when he's addressed as "chief" that could be because he's the transporter chief, not because he's a CPO. – OrangeDog Nov 07 '19 at 16:31
  • I think it was the writers screwed up majorly (because there was major chaos in the making of TNG anyways) and they couldn't work together to figure out how to fix the "O'Brien Conundrum", so he was left to bounce all over the place in a world of confusion as to his rank. – MissouriSpartan Nov 07 '19 at 18:24

1 Answers1

7

In pilot episode of The Next Generation, Miles O'Brien wears the rank of Ensign and is part of the Command division, since he wears a red uniform with only one pip.

However, his rank and position have been wholly inconsistent throughout the series, which seems to be because he was mostly a background character for most of TNG, used when it fitted the story without much consideration being given to his own backstory, as Ronald D. Moore said in an AOL chat:

"O'Brien was originally just a day player on TNG and very little, if any, thought went into his rank or background for quite a while."

You can read more on O'Brien's rank inconsistencies on the Memory Alpha article.

Sava
  • 8,789
  • 2
  • 36
  • 79