• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Hilarious Meme about O'Brien

Was the transporter room supposed to be manned all the time..? Eight hours without a chair..?
 
I'd argue a meme is a continual joke or image used as a punchline. Not a comic strip.
Sorry, but you'd argue wrong - it doesn't automatically have anything to do with jokes, although a joke can be one.

meme
mēm
noun
1. an element of a culture or system of behavior that may be considered to be passed from one individual to another by nongenetic means, esp. imitation.
 
There's this misunderstanding between the real notion of meme and what is known on Internet as memes (Grumpy Cat, The Most Interesting Man in the World, Oh myyyy, the troll face*). At the end, a comic strip series based on the same running gag is not different of Grumpy Cat hates Dinseyworld and Grumpy Cat hates christmas, etc.

*Wait a minute, a rage comic is a comic strip.
 
Wouldnt it be more accurate to say that these are actually 'viral' because they are being spread around unmodified. don't they only become memes when they get modified or 'similar but different' items get passed around, for example lolcats.

re what's O'Brien actually do all day? if we assume that there are numerous transporter rooms in the ED, often underutilised, it would make sense that, any one time, a number of them are offline for maintenance, and thus just cycles around. Also if they are all near each other, O'Brien probably supervises transporter operations. It wouldn't surprise me if he were able to monitor the function of all transporter rooms from his station.

It was probably just a protocol thing that when senior staff were being beamed, it is customary that the chief transporter engineer would usually do it, and would he pop out from maintenance or supervision to transport senior staff, or take over in an emergency.
 
He definitely has Netflix or Hulu Plus on the panel, and just spends all his time watching stuff.

Funny comics, though.
 
don't they only become memes when they get modified or 'similar but different' items get passed around, for example lolcats.
Nope. Reread the definition of "meme" I posted. Pretty straight forward, really. A meme goes viral when it has a sudden rapid spread like viruses do.
 
It's a funny strip, but O'Brien is the *Chief Transporter Officer*, and I think he probably has a lot more to do than these strips imply, even if most of it is pretty menial supply clerk type stuff.

Example: Crewman Oxbridge decides she's tired of the design of the dresser in her quarters and wants a new one? Too big for her personal replicator, so she picks out a design and then speaks to O'Brien, who schedules the replication using the cargo replicators and then moving it through the transporter system to her room in such a way as to make sure the power required is drawn during an off-peak period and that transporter availability is not hindered any more than absolutely necessary.

In this capacity, he probably also checks power provisioning to where the new item (say, a new monitor) is going to be placed and makes sure that everything is kosher with that, too.

He probably ALSO has primary responsibility for maintaining the equipment in the equipment lockers in the transporter rooms - phasers, tricorders, etc.

And I would imagine the transporter equipment itself requires regular maintenance - in fact, I seem to remember O'Brien mentioning this or that about their maintenance on occasion.
 
don't they only become memes when they get modified or 'similar but different' items get passed around, for example lolcats.
Nope. Reread the definition of "meme" I posted. Pretty straight forward, really. A meme goes viral when it has a sudden rapid spread like viruses do.

The title of the thread is still not really apt. It should be "Hilarious comics about O'Brien" to be a better description.

Also there is both a common and more technical definition for what an Internet meme is. And even then there is some variation in more "official" definitions. I would argue that it's pretty clear this is not a meme in the colloquial sense.

There is no replication or mimicry, it doesn't involve multiple authors copying or changing the works.

An Internet meme is an idea, style or action which spreads, often as mimicry, from person to person via the Internet, as with imitating the concept.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_meme
 
The Trek BBS, sucking the fun out of anything related to star trek since the 90s...:rolleyes:

No wonder the new movies didn't go down well here :p
 
Chief O'Brien actually had a breakdown partway through Season 6 of TNG. All of DS9 is just the Chief's rehabilitative holodeck therapy.
 
When did they change O'Brien from a lieutenant to a noncom anyway? And why did they make that decision? Him being a lieutenant made more sense.

O'Brien probably spent more time maintaining the systems than he did actually working them but it still must have been boring. Also, he must have gotten excitement whenever there was a comprehensive mineral survey or something. A dozen teams beaming up and down from the surface, different minerals being beamed to different departments.

As boring as O'Brien's job was, you have to think a majority of the ship had an even more boring job. Like, imagine who was second in command of transporters. Whenever anything important happened, O'Brien got woken up to take his place. Also what about the people doing the mineral surveys?
 
When did they change O'Brien from a lieutenant to a noncom anyway? And why did they make that decision? Him being a lieutenant made more sense.

There is some uncertainty about that, but since everyone called him "Chief", which up until then everyone just thought it was because he was the chief transporter operator, they decided to retconn him as an a non-com starting Season 6 to lay the foundation for DS9.
You can read all about it in his memory-alpha article:
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Miles_O'Brien#Problematic_Rank_History
 
When did they change O'Brien from a lieutenant to a noncom anyway? And why did they make that decision? Him being a lieutenant made more sense.

There is some uncertainty about that, but since everyone called him "Chief", which up until then everyone just thought it was because he was the chief transporter operator, they decided to retconn him as an a non-com starting Season 6 to lay the foundation for DS9.
You can read all about it in his memory-alpha article:
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Miles_O'Brien#Problematic_Rank_History

O'Brien was said to be a non-com as early as "Family" in the fourth season when Worf's adopted father greets O'Brien as a fellow enlisted man saying something to "can you imagine my son becoming an officer?!"
 
When did they change O'Brien from a lieutenant to a noncom anyway? And why did they make that decision? Him being a lieutenant made more sense.

There is some uncertainty about that, but since everyone called him "Chief", which up until then everyone just thought it was because he was the chief transporter operator, they decided to retconn him as an a non-com starting Season 6 to lay the foundation for DS9.
You can read all about it in his memory-alpha article:
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Miles_O'Brien#Problematic_Rank_History

O'Brien was said to be a non-com as early as "Family" in the fourth season when Worf's adopted father greets O'Brien as a fellow enlisted man saying something to "can you imagine my son becoming an officer?!"

As I recall that was considered a mistake at the time.
 
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top