By Trevor Law

I was watching Star Trek: Deep Space Nine the other day and it hit me: the weirdest crap happens to Miles O’Brien. It seems so odd that such a normal guy would have so many strange things happen to him. For those that don’t know Chief Miles Edward O’Brien was a character in Star Trek: the Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. For shows that had shapeshifters, parallel universes, and aliens who looked liked they belonged at a metal concert, he was an island of normal. He felt like the guy you ask if you are having trouble with your car, or need advice on the best kind of power tool to buy. Maybe that is why the writers took great pleasure in having the most bizarre things happen to him.

#14 The time he went undercover for…some reason. (DS9: Honor among thieves)

The plot is that the Chief goes undercover and infiltrates the deadly Orion Syndicate. While there he befriends and the screws over a man named Bilbe. The episode is great and shows the great acting of Colm Meaney, and shows the complex emotions undercover agents must go through when doing their job. This episode isn’t weird per say but it IS weird that it’s him. O’Brien is a soldier and an engineer not a spy! They even say they can’t use someone in Starfleet security to do the mission but there had to be better options in ALL of Starfleet than him. Then again he does the job so maybe Starfleet knows what it’s doing.

Star Trek Deep Space Nine – The Complete Sixth Season

#13 The time Rumpelstiltskin comes to life and annoys the crap out of him. (DS9: If wishes were horses)

In defense of Deep Space Nine, weird stuff happens to everyone this episode, but the strangest crap is for the Chief. Imagine just telling your daughter a bed time story and the fairy tale creature you are talking about come to life and starts following you around acting like a little jerk. Eventually, they figure out it’s aliens just trying to understand all of their imaginations (season one and two of DS9 wasn’t the strongest) and when they leave everything goes back to normal.

#12 The time he become the leader of a random village to fight a monster cloud(DS9: Storyteller)

You read that right. So the crew of DS9 gets a distress call that the leader of a local village is sick. Bashir and O’Brien go to help and while there, they discover the leader fights off all the peoples bad feelings with a story and that once a year, for a few days, it manifests in the form of an angry cloud monster. The old storyteller makes O’Brien the new storyteller just before he dies. O’Brien does his best but the bad whatever starts to take over and only by the timely intervention of the assistant storyteller was the day saved. Its then that they figure out that’s what the storyteller had intended to happen all along and everyone goes home happy! (Man! Season one was bad!)

Star Trek Deep Space Nine – The Complete First Season

#11 The time he became really really tiny (DS9: One little ship)

I just…don’t even know what to say on this one. So he, Bashir, and Jadzia become tiny while in a runabout investigating an anomaly. Because you know, science! While sciencing all over the anomaly, Jem’Hadar troops take over the the Defiant and with the help of a tiny runabout they liberate the ship! Yah science!

#10 The time he got chewed out by Captain Kirk (DS9: Trials and Tribble-ations)

Ok so we just broke into the top ten here with, a dead hero from the past chews you out for a bar fight. I mean, look the episode is fun and a great time. You see the crew go back in time to keep Kirk from being killed by a bomb and changing the timeline but during it a bar fight breaks out and while O’Brien is impersonating an officer from the past, he is put in front of Kirk and reprimanded. That would be like being yelled at by General MacArthur while saving his life for, well, starting a bar fight with some Commies!

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: The Complete Series

#9 The time his 8 year old daughter gets turned into in a feral wild child. (DS9: Time’s Orphan)

Ok so the whole O’Brien family is out on a picnic when his daughter falls into an ancient alien device that sends her into the past. They are able to get her back, but not before she is aged into an eighteen year old and become feral. She freaks out in confined spaces, doesn’t know how to speak clearly and eats with her hands. This family can’t even take a freaking picnic without something happening! They are able to turn her back but not before thinking they have lost her forever, TWICE. The writers must really hate this family.

#8 The time he was kidnapped by the Cardassians. (DS9: Tribunal)

So this might not seem that weird but hear me out. So O’Brien is doing his thing, fixing up Deep Space Nine, when an old friend drops by. They talk for a bit and then things get, you guessed it ,weird for him. He is kidnapped by the Cardassians, stripped, tortured, and put in a show trial where his guilt has already been determined and only the sentencing remains. They accuse him of terrorism and are about to sentence him to death when it’s discovered it was all a frame job! A double agent working for the Cardassians had replaced his old friend eight years ago. That’s right, of all the people in the galaxy for this crap to happen to, it was the Chief. Couldn’t frame anyone else but nooo he had to have the old double agent war buddy.

#7 The time he watched his own clone die. (DS9: Whispers)

So the title spoils this one a bit but a long story short the episode follows around Miles as it feels more and more like the entire station is conspiring against him. It turns out they are because he is clone! You don’t find out until the end of the episode when he is dying in the real Miles’s arms that he was a clone made to do some nefarious purpose by the Paradin government. His lasts words were “tell Keiko I love her.” So yeah Miles saw that, but I’m sure that’s the least emotionally scaring thing that happens to him.

#6 The time he was in the mind of dying secret agent with his best friend. (DS9: Extreme measures)

Where do they come up with this stuff?! We aren’t even in the top five yet! So Bashir and O’Brien are trying to find a cure for a disease that is killing their friend Odo. Bashir finds out the evil Section 31 is behind it and decides to capture one of their agents. Sloan, a member of section 31, shows up and tries to kill himself when he is captured. Bashir stabilizes him and decides to use a dangerous procedure to go into his mind and find the information. O’Brien decides to go with him so they pal around in a dying man’s head finding all sorts of weird crap, cause of course he does.

#5 The time his wife got possessed by a demon thing (DS9: The Assignment.)

So the Chief’s wife comes back from digging around in caves on Bajor when she comes back saying she is all possessed and will kill Keiko if he doesn’t do as he is told. She makes him go around turning DS9 into a big death beam to kill the worm hole aliens, also known as the Prophets. Keiko is possessed by one of their enemies, a Pa’wraith. She nearly gets him to do it, but never give the chief a weapon that is DESIGNED to kill you. He turns it on the evil alien and saves the day, with science and engineering.

#4 The time HE is possessed by an evil alien. (TNG: Powerplay)

So the Enterprise is cruising around, exploring and sciencing all over the galaxy when they find the wreckage of a federation ship. They investigate and several members of the crew, including, you guessed it, THE CHIEF are possessed by aliens that turn out to be beings of pure energy that were banished here. The whole planet is their prison and they try to hijack the Enterprise. At one point O’Brian is holding his own wife and child hostage. Cause, ya know, only this could happen to him.

Star Trek: The Next Generation – Season 5 [Blu-ray]

#3 The time he spends 20 years in jail, in his freaking mind! ( DS9: Hard time)

So I will admit it, this one gets at me. O’Brian violates some minor law on an alien world and so as punishment they give him 20 years worth of memories and make him think he has spent that entire time in a jail cell. During that time he befriends an alien and then kills him for hoarding food. He is nearly driven mad by the guilt of the entire thing and it’s a surprisingly powerful and thoughtful episode on what prison does to someone.

#2 The time he travels back in time and sees his own death, TWICE! (DS9: Visionary)

So the Chief is in a wacky accident and keeps traveling six hours into the future. I just want to make something clear, every part of this is weird. So he sees things like, his own death, twice, and the entire destruction of Deep Space Nine. He is able to solve the entire thing by pumping more of the radiation into him that caused him to jump forward, this allows him to figure out it is all a Romulan plot and allows him to save himself and the whole station! Oh but not before watching a past version of himself die, and an alternate future version of himself go back in time and take his place. Yah Chief! Also how many more times can he be emotionally scared?! Well….

#1 The time his wife got turned into a 12 year old girl. (TNG: Rascals)

I mean…I don’t know how it gets any more messed up than this. The poor guy finds his wife is now a kid and is pretty understandably freaked out about the entire thing. What’s worse, Keiko seemed more or less fine about it and said things like “but I’m still your wife.” Which I seriously doubt helped him at all. Thankfully it is fixed quickly, otherwise I’m positive one of the Federation’s most awkward divorces would have followed.

Star Trek: The Next Generation – Season 6 [Blu-ray]

And there you have it! Poor O’Brien has a lot of pretty weird crap happen to him, not sure why but if you are in the Star Trek Universe, stay the heck away from him! Unless you enjoy weirdness.

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