You know something O’Brien it probably is the McGyver of the 23 century and you’re right trip should’ve been captain.
Well, considering he was lined up to replace Trip, it seems a logical assumption that he was He had some fun with the Orion Girl, so kudos for that
Hard to say since engineering seems to be something most characters can do when the script demands it. I guess I'd have to say LaForge. I get the impression O'Brien was more of a fixer-upper than anything else. Fantastic at his job, but probably without the same level of training as LaForge. Scotty would be runner up. Seems Starfleet became more professional since his days in engineering, which would probably give Geordi an edge.
That Kelby! Yeah, he was an engineer of sorts but someone who sabotages his own ship can hardly be said to be good at his job. I am glad he isn't on the list.
He was a replacement Chief Engineer, there is no duplicity about it But if you go back a few posts you'll see that I said, in response to the question re who's the best Chief Engineer, I said it wouldn't be Kelby.
Now I don’t like Kelby but there are mitigating circumstances. He was under the influence of Orion pheromones. Now before you say trip wasn’t effected that is only because of his relationship with T'Pol. Some how he gain her Vulcan immunity to the pheromones. Kelby wasn’t so fortunate.
But somehow I believe that what Kelby did is what he wanted to do all along. The Orions just removed his inhibitions. When he realized that Trip was coming back, ruining his chances of promotion, it must have made him go nuts.
Scotty got my vote. He hates Klingons. He didn't talk a lot of technobabble. The only thing he'd elaborated on was the time to fix it after he told you it was impossible to fix. He was always in the nick of time. Then he got drunk.
Oh yes allowing the pride of starfleet be stolen by Orions is exactly what he wanted to happen. While he didn’t like trip for possibly stealing his promotion I don’t think he would ruin his record and reputation by doing a stupid, and possibly treasonable, thing like that.
You could say the same about the traitor in Terra Prime, the one that shot himself in the head! Was he under the influence of Orions too? Kelby was just the same kind of guy. In France, we have had recently young people with pretty much normal childhoods who radicalized themselves and sometimes committed acts of terrorism. No Orion there either.
Well the point is I don’t believe he meant to do what he did. So tell me what did he had to gain by sabotaging the enterprise. Terra prime had a reason. It was a racist reason but it was still a reason, domination of earth and to decide earth destiny. Also Kelby went back to work on the enterprise as seen in the terra Prime 2 parter. And by the way considering that the head of terra prime used alien technology to keep himself alive, you never know maybe aliens like the Orion’s were involved. I’m sure many alien races did not want an alliance between earth and other races. So I guess starfleet sees something you can’t. That he was under someone else’s control and to give him another chance. I’m sure you rather they throw him out an airlock. And by the way the brain washing terrorists get is in a way just like the influence of the Orion pheromones.
O'Brien had also difficult things to master. With all the Cardassian technology aboard DS9 he had to make work. There were episodes where he had to deal with booby traps....
Yes, maybe I am biased but I really don't like that Kelby. There is something about him that just rubs me up the wrong way.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booby_trap I didn't know that. I thought it would be wise to look it up before Data could ask....
Geordie was clearly the "best" engineer, but will never get his due from racists, who see him as just "buck" eye-candy ... *eye roll*