O'Brien was clearly not a wasted character, as the LOWER DECKS episode "Temporal Edict" established him as 'perhaps the most important man in Starfleet history' when we see a statue of him while a class is in session.
How would the Federation have treated Jem'Hadar prisoners of war?
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O'Brien was clearly not a wasted character, as the LOWER DECKS episode "Temporal Edict" established him as 'perhaps the most important man in Starfleet history' when we see a statue of him while a class is in session.
Yeah like, a cameo or an inclusion in something but... there's not a lot of meat there for a story.
If they did the Starfleet Academy show right and didn't make it Discovery-based, setting in the PIC-era, having O'Brian around as the grizzled old professor would be awesome.
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This makes me angry now because i'm envisioning O'Brian as like, Space Severus Snape. And I want that. I can see O'Brian as a the scary dude all the cadets are afraid of but like, actually he's doing everything he can to help them out along the way.
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Nah, that wouold only make him boring.
I want O'Brien as he was on Deep Space Nine!
People change. It's more boring for somebody to just stagnate and be exactly the same forever.
O'Brien is a guy who has a pretty consistent personality. I don't you would see much difference other than you could now play some old man stuff to the mix which would play well with his already established everyman personality. You can bring Keiko back to because the actor is still very active as a actor. We could see the kids more grown up. Maybe one of them is a cadet or a ensign even, Wouldn't want both of them though to be in Starfleet. He would be surrounded by new actors though. The main thing though is Colm Meaney is a great actor. Who would not want to take advantage of that?
Stagnation is better than changes to the worst.
Just look at what they call "entertainment" today.
Bad and boring.
That's the thing, I the old man/everyman plays well into the intimidating professor with a heart of gold. I think it fits his character perfectly. O'Brian has always been somewhat on the gruff side with a dry sense of humor. Factor in age and authority, younger people tend to find that kind of stuff intimidating.
I can see a guy like O'Brian enjoying "ballbusting" with the cadets.
I definitely wouldn't want to see the way-to-cliched now "something terrible happened that made O'Brian miserable", even though that is kind of on par with DS9's need to torture O'Brian every few episodes. He would just be Mile O'Brian... kind of screwing with cadets. That's 100% in character for him.
I agree. I also wouldn't want them to go to that to dark place. It's the future and Molly died in a shuttlecraft accident. Keiko killed herself out of grief and he and his son no longer talk to each other. He has become a alcoholic teacher who spends his nights with a bottle watching holographic home videos of when he and his family were all happy and alive and together. It isn't until a new young student that reminds him of his younger self does he start to find a reason to really start living again.
I would prefer it he and Keiko are happily married. Both have sore backs and all the stuff that comes with getting old but for the most part are enjoying life. The kids are grown up and living their life. O'Brien is even thinking of retiring until he meets a young student who reminds him of his self and decides he wants to stay and teach some more.
He does run into conflict with the new head of Starfeet Academy who wants to make the place more military oriented and isn't into all that space exploration stuff so much. That's because she grew more cynical after the Dominion War and felt Starfleet had become to soft.
I would prefer it he and Keiko are happily married. Both have sore backs and all the stuff that comes with getting old but for the most part are enjoying life. The kids are grown up and living their life. O'Brien is even thinking of retiring until he meets a young student who reminds him of his self and decides he wants to stay and teach some more.
He does run into conflict with the new head of Starfeet Academy who wants to make the place more military oriented and isn't into all that space exploration stuff so much. That's because she grew more cynical after the Dominion War and felt Starfleet had become to soft.
Agree to disagree.
Stagnation is boring. Period. It means nothing changes. It means that you offer nothing new to learn, there's no change to adjust, adapt and accept new challenges. That's the definition of stagnation. Bad =/= boring. Change is not always good but you can learn from it and make the most of it.
If Star Trek claims it's inspirational and aspirational roots then it needs to be willing to deal with the pain of being human. “It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not weakness, that is life.” ― Jean-Luc Picard
I would too. I would like a character to age gracefully, to take on the next stage of life with the same level of enthusiasm as he had previous ones, but willing to be the mentor rather than on the front line. To me, the Academy is the perfect place to do this.
Exactly so.
I say O'Brien lives pretty much happily ever after. He might have a few flashbacks of that prison sentence, but not many; Julian's treatment couldn't erase it, but was able to reduce it to a blur, like a long tequila binge but without the barfing. By and large, he and Keiko grow old together, watch their kids grow up, and he is a well regarded professor at the Academy. He dies at the age of 139, one year short of Dax's prediction, surrounded be three generations worth of his progeny, including a couple of Starfleet captains.
It's time for the O'Brien Must Suffer mantle to be lifted from the chief's shoulders and descend on someone else.
It's time for the O'Brien Must Suffer mantle to be lifted from the chief's shoulders and descend on someone else.
Harry Kim held it up rather beautifully.
Then we need an actor who can play Suffering Man as well as Meaney.
Child and wife dead, and descending into alcoholism seems like an awfully dark plot for Star Trek. Shuttlecraft accidents in normal civilian service should be extremely rare! There hasn't been a passenger fatality in American aviation since 2019, and we haven't had the benefit of another few centuries of safety development.
Maybe Keiko and Miles' real home could be in Japan or Ireland and Miles stays in S.F. for 4 days a week while the academy is in session.
Child and wife dead, and descending into alcoholism seems like an awfully dark plot for Star Trek. Shuttlecraft accidents in normal civilian service should be extremely rare! There hasn't been a passenger fatality in American aviation since 2019, and we haven't had the benefit of another few centuries of safety development.
Maybe Keiko and Miles' real home could be in Japan or Ireland and Miles stays in S.F. for 4 days a week while the academy is in session.
Yeah, but they need to lay off him too... the promotion prospects of Data, the romantic luck of Worf, the suffering of O'Brien, almost as many deaths as Janeway, and a multi-Trek era conspiracy to humiliate him... when's it enough?!
O'Brien at least had a family (a supportive wife, two adorable kids, and even a cat) and reached a high rank. Not to mention a statue.
To have him share his wisdom from being Suffering Man. And show that there can be a light at the end of the tunnel.
Stagnation as such could be boring, I admit that. But character destruction is even more boring and also destructive.
What I wan is stories in an established timeline where the main characters are active and highly alive. petriod.
I don't have any interest at all to read about O'Briens life as an aged and boring has-been while in the same book reading about ensign Izzy Podborski duing O'Briens previous job on the station (but not as good) or about some Captain Ebenezer Firefly as Sisko's replacement or Dr Bibi Tobacco doing Bashir's job. Why, because I find those new characters bland and boring compared with the original characters.
In short, when I read a DS9 story, then I want it to be about the original characters. I could say the same about TV episodes as well as long as it includes the original cast members and not some replacements.
Otherwise it will be like the current NCIS where all the orignal characters have been replaced, a reason why I don't follow the show anymore, just watching it occasionally when I have nothing else to do. The stories are still good.
OK, I could probably think that Captain Firefly and Ensign Podborski are decent characters if the show up inn a new story or movie on some new ship or on a station in the Idran system on the other side of he wormhole.
If the stories are good and the characters accpetable, I might start to like them or at least accept them (as I do when i pretend that the current NCIS is a spinoff set in another town). But it would be very hard to watch DS9 or read books about DS9 if the original characters aren't involved.
And the most stupid things to do are changes just for the sake of changing. That never ends good.
Once upon a time, there was a good hard rock band who were "up there" among the worlds best. They had a distinctive style and was a great live act who packed the arenas.
Then one day, they decided to make a somewhat different album with more adapted music, more sythezisers and such.
However, the record flopped and many fans thought they had sold out. "They don't sound as they used to" was a major complaint.
So when they made their next record, they went back to the previous style.
But it was too late. They never got the popularity back in the same way that it had been before, even if they continued to tour and make records.
The suffering is part of his past. That stuff stays with you. But it doesn't mean you can find happiness and peace as well. It also the stuff that would lend to him being a good teacher because he has seen things, awful things in his life and that gives you experience. The irony in my idea is O'Brien who is like a old solider is the one wanting to make Starfeet like it was before the Dominion War where as the new Commandant is also a old solider but her suffering has lead to her becoming more cynical so she wants Starfleet to be more military like. Both with similar past but both took away a different lesson from it.
But this wouldn't be a continuation of DS9. It would simply have a former DS9 character as a main character. And a TNG one as well since he of course first started on TNG. You can also look at the change being similar to how the TOS characters are somewhat different due to age in the TOS movies. Yet at their core they are still the same people.
