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By Joshua Tyler
| Revealed
Science fiction is usually at its greatest, when uncommon sci-fi circumstances are used to spotlight actual world points. Among the finest examples of that is the way in which Science fiction handles PTSD and the horrific realities of the observe of torture.
Star Trek particularly, has by no means shied away from coping with torture. One in all Star Trek: The Subsequent Technology’s best episodes, “Chain of Command”, revolves round it, and has spawned quite a few discussions in regards to the counting of lights. But, as a lot as characters like Picard or Kirk have suffered, nobody within the franchise, and perhaps not within the historical past of your complete human race,vhas suffered a couple of pivotal sci-fi character.
He wasn’t an officer. He wasn’t a scientist. He’s an enlisted man with none rank. He’s a person who rolls up his sleeves and will get to work within the grime.
His identify, is Miles O’Brien. And he’s a union man.
Miles Edward O’Brien (Colm Meaney) was launched in Star Trek: The Subsequent Technology’s very first episode and returned as a recurring, supporting solid member. He was recurrently featured all through The Subsequent Technology’s run because the Enterprise’s transporter Chief.
His workmanlike place endeared him to each followers and the creators of the present. So, when the time got here for Star Trek’s first spinoff, Star Trek: Deep Area 9, O’Brien was chosen because the character that might act as that present’s Chief of Operations. I think he by no means would have accepted the switch, had he recognized the hell that was about to observe.
After his arrival within the first episode, Star Trek: Deep Area 9 rapidly launched into a week-after-week mission to interrupt Miles O’Brien’s physique, his spirit, and his thoughts. There have been even occasions when the present succeeded, although he normally bounced again. Principally.
At first his torments had been extra minor annoyances just like the station at all times breaking, fixed nagging from his spouse, or being compelled to go searching by crawlspaces for Voles. Nonetheless, the torture of Miles O’Brien, quickly took on a a lot darker tone. After seeing his full character arc, now there’s no query that Miles O’Brien is essentially the most tormented particular person within the historical past of the Federation. And perhaps in all of fiction.
What follows is an account of essentially the most horrific methods through which this lovable working stiff was viciously persecuted.
And no, we’re not speaking about being married to Keiko. Although, that might be fairly unhealthy.
THE TORMENT OF MILES O’BRIEN
A Visionary Hell
Within the Star Trek: Deep Area 9 season 3 episode “Visionary,” Miles finally ends up working right into a future model of himself, earlier than really dying. Once more, really, dying.
This wasn’t a kind of faux sci-fi present, he’ll be okay ultimately deaths. Deep Area 9 totally kills Miles off. Then so as to add insult to harm, he’s changed by his future self. From then on, everybody pretends the true Miles, the Miles who was killed, by no means existed.
The Miles that changed him seemingly endures fixed, existential dread. He’s doomed to spend the remainder of his life questioning whether or not he’s actually the particular person everybody thinks he’s, or if he’s only a freaky future clone of himself.
A Tribunal Of Humiliation And Ache
Within the Deep Area 9 Episode “Tribunal,” it begins out seeming like Miles has lastly caught a break. He’s off on a pleasant trip along with his spouse, a minimum of till he’s tortured and falsely imprisoned by the Cardassians.
The Cardassians are particularly good at torture, and so they do all they’ll to make Chief O’Brien undergo. It culminates within the hapless Starfleet officer, having one in all his enamel ripped out with pliers, earlier than being informed he’s already been declared responsible and can quickly be executed.
Finally, his friends show that he’s been framed and free him, however the truth that he spends a whole week being bodily abused in Cardassia’s brutal jail system, whereas anticipating to die, all as a result of he wished to go on a trip, needed to depart some type of lasting, psychic injury.
Time’s Orphan Makes The Chief Watch His Daughter Destroyed
Generally the torture Miles endures, is because of what occurs to others. Miles O’Brien, prides himself on being a loyal household man and a very good father. So, after all, within the season 6 episode “Time’s Orphan,” his daughter Molly falls right into a time portal.
By the point Miles will get Molly again, she’s aged ten years and spent that point dwelling alone as a feral animal. His little woman is gone and in her place is a few type of crazed barbarian. He’s compelled to ship her again into the time portal and settle for her as useless, becaus she’s so broken she will be able to not reside within the regular world.
Ultimately, a youthful model of Molly comes out of the portal, and Miles will get her again, however he nonetheless needed to spend weeks coping with the psychotic older model and going by the anguish any mum or dad would undergo once they understand their little one is gone.
Demented Whispers
Within the Star Trek: Deep Area 9 season 2 episode “Whispers,” Chief Miles O’Brien returns to the house station after finishing an engineering job on one other planet, solely to find that his crewmates and household are behaving surprisingly in the direction of him. Everyone seems to be oddly distant and suspicious.
O’Brien’s no idiot and he rapidly notices refined adjustments within the station’s operations. As he tries to uncover the explanation for this sudden shift, his paranoia grows, driving him to research additional.
The stress escalates, when O’Brien decides to flee the station in a runabout, satisfied that everybody is a part of a plot to interchange or hurt him. Pursued by his personal mates, he heads to a gathering of Federation ambassadors, believing he should warn them of a possible infiltration on DS9.
Nonetheless, in a dramatic twist, it’s revealed that O’Brien is definitely a replicant, created by an unknown entity, and the true Chief O’Brien is safely present process surgical procedure again on the station. The episode ends tragically for the replicant O’Brien, who’s fatally shot simply as he begins to know his personal id.
That episode may sound like a uncommon win for the true O’Brien, but it surely’s not. O’Brien is left deeply unsettled by the entire ordeal. He’s notably affected by the replicant’s determined makes an attempt to attach along with his household and the crew, highlighting a battle for id and belonging. The actual Miles, tries to reconcile the truth that his duplicate, though not actually him, shared a lot of his reminiscences and feelings whereas interacting with the folks he cares about.
20 Years Of Torment In Laborious Time
What Miles O’Brien endures within the season 4 Deep Area 9 episode “Laborious Time,” stands out as the worst torture anybody has ever skilled.
It kicks off when Chief O’Brien reveals curiosity in some alien expertise and finally ends up wrongly accused of espionage. He’s sentenced to twenty years and thrown in jail.
In case you haven’t observed, Miles spends plenty of time in jail. This time he doesn’t get out.
Over the course of that episode, we watch the many years go by because the now former Operations Chief lives out the remainder of his life in a horrific jail cell. He’s usually on the verge of hunger. He’s not allowed guests or contact with the surface world. His solely socialization is with one other prisoner, who ultimately turns into his greatest buddy.
Situations grow to be so unhealthy, each O’Brien and his buddy begin to lose their minds. The guards abandon them and cease feeding them On the sting of complete hunger, with their wits already half gone, Miles and his buddy begin preventing over the few scraps of meals they’ve left. Within the ensuing battle Miles intentoinally and brutally kills his greatest buddy.
That sounds unhealthy sufficient, however this isn’t a standard jail. It’s a jail simulation, that solely occurs in his thoughts. What appeared like many years to Miles was in reality just a few seconds in actuality.
To Chief Miles O’Brien it’s totally actual, and at all times will likely be. But, the twenty years he spent there weren’t actual, and when its over he’s thrust proper again into his regular life prefer it by no means occurred. Solely, to him it did occur.
The issues he believes he did and endured, feed intense PTSD, inflicting him to try suicide reasonably than proceed on. Physician Bashir, talks him down and will get him in remedy, however Miles O’Brien isn’t fairly proper once more.
Chief O’Brien’s Countless Torment
We might flip this into a whole e book, there are such a lot of horrible issues within the Chief’s story.
There was that point Starfleet intelligence compelled Miles into going undercover and pressured him into deliberately getting his buddy killed.
There’s his distant previous which is already haunting and tormenting him earlier than we even meet him. Earlier than we knew Miles on TNG, he was a soldier preventing in brutal conflicts in opposition to the Cardassians, barely surviving to inform the story. So after all he finally ends up being compelled to serve on an previous Cardassian house station and make mates with the enemies who killed off his comrades.
There’s extra. Just like the time he nearly died from an historical biogenic weapon
Or that weird incident when an alien takes management of his spouse’s physique and threatens to kill her, except he sabotages the station. Miles is left defending his daughter from her personal mom, a horrifying prospect for any father to endure.
Chief O’Brien Is The Most Necessary Particular person In Star Trek
If there’s any solace available right here, it’s that it appears Miles was ultimately acknowledged for his bravery and perseveerence. Within the far off future past Star Trek: Deep Area 9, Miles O’Brien is acknowledged as one of the crucial essential folks in Starfleet historical past.
He’s immortalized within the third Star Trek: Decrease Decks episode, “Temporal Edict”, throughout a scene in “the far future” the place a classroom learns about noteworthy folks in Federation historical past. The scene ends with the reveal of an enormous golden statue, immortalizing Chief O’Brien as one in all Starfleet’s best figures.
Why was O’Brien chosen for this honor? It’s by no means acknowledged, however it might very effectively be, that surviving all these many torments finally ends up making him into the right Starfleet officer.
Or it might simply be that he’s the most effective, as a result of Miles O’Brien, like his ancestor Sean, is greater than a hero. He’s a union man.
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