Written by Joshua Tyler | Published
Science fiction is often at its best when unusual science fiction circumstances are used to highlight real-world issues. One of the best examples of this is the way science fiction deals with PTSD and the horrific realities of torture.
Star Trek, in particular, has never been shy about dealing with torture. One of Star Trek: The Next Generation The best episodes of the Leadership Series revolve around this topic, and it has sparked many discussions about counting lights. However, as much as characters like Picard or Kirk have suffered, no one in the series, and perhaps not in the entire history of the human race, has suffered more than a central science fiction character.
He was not an officer. He was not a scientist. He is a conscript man without any rank. He’s a guy who rolls up his sleeves and gets to work in the dirt.
His name is Miles O’Brien. He is a union man.
Miles Edward O’Brien (Colm Meaney) is introduced in Star Trek: The Next Generation first episode and she returned as a recurring and supporting cast member. He appeared regularly throughout The next generation He works as Head of Transportation at Enterprise.
His working position has endeared him to both fans and the show’s creators. So, when it came time for the Star Trek premiere, Star Trek: Deep Space NineO’Brien was chosen as the character who would serve as the head of operations for this show. I suspect he would never have accepted the transfer, had he known the hell that was about to follow.
After arriving in the first episode. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine He quickly embarked on a week after week mission to destroy Miles O’Brien’s body, soul, and mind. There have even been times when the show has succeeded, although it usually bounces back. Mostly.
At first his torment was simple annoyances like the station always stopping, his wife constantly nagging him, or being forced to go hunting through crawl spaces looking for Vols. However, Miles O’Brien’s torture soon took on a darker tone. After seeing his full personality, there is now no doubt that Miles O’Brien is the most tormented person in the history of the Federation. And perhaps in every fantasy.
What follows is an account of the most horrific ways in which this beloved worker was brutally persecuted.
And no, we’re not talking about marrying Kiko. That would be too bad though.
The torment of Miles O’Brien
Hell insight
in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine In the season 3 episode “Visionary”, Miles ends up accessing a future version of himself, before actually dying. Again, in fact, he dies.
This wasn’t some fake sci-fi show, it would be okay in the end. Deep Space Nine It completely kills Miles. Then to make matters worse, he was replaced by his future self. Since then, everyone has been pretending that the real Miles, the Miles who was murdered, never existed.
Miles, who replaced him, is likely suffering from constant existential dread. He’s doomed to spend the rest of his life wondering if he’s really the person everyone thinks he is, or if he’s just a terrible version of his future self.
A court of humiliation and pain
in Deep Space Episode Nine “Court”, it’s as if Miles has finally caught a break. He’s on a nice vacation with his wife, at least until he’s tortured and falsely imprisoned by the Cardassians.
The Cardassians are particularly good at torture, and do everything they can to make President O’Brien suffer. It culminates in the hapless Starfleet officer having one of his own teeth extracted with pliers, before being told that he has already been declared guilty and will soon be executed.
Eventually, his friends proved he was set up and released him, but the fact that he spent an entire week being physically abused in Cardassia’s brutal prison system, while expecting to die, all because he wanted to go on vacation, forced him to let some things go. A kind of permanent psychological damage.
The Time Orphan makes the President watch his daughter being destroyed
Sometimes the torture Miles experiences is because of what happens to others. Miles O’Brien prides himself on being a devoted family man and an excellent father. So, of course, in the Season 6 episode “The Orphan of Time,” his daughter Molly falls into a time portal.
By the time Miles recovered Molly, she was ten years old and spent that time living alone as a feral animal. His little daughter was gone and in her place was some kind of crazy barbarian. He is forced to return her to the time portal and accept her as dead, as she is too damaged to live in the normal world.
Eventually, a younger version of Molly comes out of the portal, and Miles gets her back, but he still has to spend weeks dealing with the older, psychotic version and suffers the pain any parent would experience when they realize their child is gone. .
Crazy whispers
in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine In the season 2 episode “Whispers,” President Miles O’Brien returns to the space station after completing an engineering mission on another planet, only to discover that his crewmates and family are acting strangely toward him. Everyone is strangely distant and suspicious.
O’Brien is no fool and soon notices subtle changes in the station’s operations. As he tries to uncover the reason for this sudden transformation, his paranoia grows, pushing him to investigate further.
Tension mounts when O’Brien decides to flee the station on a hitchhiking tour, convinced that everyone is part of a conspiracy to replace or harm him. Pursued by his friends, he heads to a meeting of Federation ambassadors, thinking he must warn them of a possible infiltration of DS9.
However, in a dramatic twist, it is revealed that O’Brien is actually a replica, created by an unknown entity, and the real President O’Brien is safely undergoing surgery on the station. The episode ends tragically for the imitator O’Brien, who is fatally shot just as he begins to understand his identity.
This episode may seem like a rare win for the real O’Brien, but it’s not. O’Brien has been left extremely unsettled by the whole ordeal. He is particularly moved by the clone’s desperate attempts to connect with his family and the crew, which highlights the struggle for identity and belonging. The real Miles tries to reconcile the fact that his version, although not the real him, shared many of his memories and emotions as he interacted with the people he cared about.
20 years of torment in difficult times
What Miles O’Brien endures in season 4 Deep Space Nine The “Hard Times” episode may be the worst torture anyone has ever endured.
It begins when President O’Brien shows interest in some alien technology and ends up wrongly accused of espionage. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison and thrown in prison.
In case you haven’t noticed, Miles spends a lot of time in prison. This time it won’t come out.
Over the course of this episode, we watch the decades pass as the former COO lives out the rest of his life in a horrific prison cell. He is often on the verge of starvation. He is not allowed to have visitors or contact with the outside world. His only socialization is with another prisoner, who eventually becomes his best friend.
Conditions became very bad, and both O’Brien and his friend began to lose their minds. The guards abandon them and stop feeding them. On the verge of complete starvation, with half their wits already lost, Miles and his friend begin fighting over the few scraps of food they have left. In the ensuing conflict, Miles deliberately and brutally kills his best friend.
That sounds bad enough, but this is no ordinary prison. It is a simulation of prison, taking place only in his mind. What seemed like decades to Miles was actually only a few seconds in reality.
For President Miles O’Brien, this is absolutely true, and always will be. However, the twenty years he spent there were not real, and when they ended, he returned to his normal life as if it had never happened. Only to him did it happen.
The things he believes he has done and endured fuel his severe PTSD, causing him to attempt suicide rather than move on. Dr. Bashir talked to him and put him into therapy, but Miles O’Brien wasn’t quite right again.
President O’Brien’s endless torment
We could turn this into a whole book, there are a lot of terrible things in the president’s story.
There was a time when Starfleet intelligence forced Miles to go undercover and pressured him to intentionally kill his friend.
There is his distant past that haunts and torments him even before we meet him. Before we knew Miles on TNG, he was a soldier fighting in brutal conflicts against the Cardassians, and barely survived to tell the tale. So of course he ends up being forced to serve on an old Cardassian space station and befriend the enemies who killed his comrades.
There is more. Like the time he almost died due to an ancient bio-weapon
Or that strange incident when an alien takes control of his wife’s body and threatens to kill her, unless he sabotages the station. Miles is left protecting his daughter from her mother, a terrifying prospect any father could endure.
President O’Brien is the most important person in Star Trek
If there’s any consolation here, it’s that it seems Miles has finally been recognized for his courage and perseverance. In the distant future then Star Trek: Deep Space NineMiles O’Brien is known as one of the most important people in Starfleet history.
He was immortalized at three Star Trek: Lower Decks The “Time Ordinance” episode takes place during a scene in the “distant future” where the class learns about noteworthy people in Federation history. The scene ends with the unveiling of a massive golden statue immortalizing President O’Brien as one of Starfleet’s greatest figures.
Why was O’Brien chosen for this honor? It’s never stated, but it may be the case, that surviving so much torment makes him an ideal Starfleet officer.
Or it might be for the best, because Miles O’Brien, like his predecessor Sean, is more than just a hero. He’s a union man