Miles O'Brien

Miles Edward O'Brien was born in Killarney, Ireland, Earth on 1 September 2332. (DS9: "Whispers")

Following his service during the Federation-Cardassian War, he was stationed aboard the USS Enterprise and served as transporter chief for several years. He later jumped at the opportunity when he was offered a promotion to Chief of Operations aboard starbase Deep Space 9, although the switch did not sit as well with his wife Keiko. Together, Miles and Keiko had two children, Molly and Kirayoshi. The Dominion War nearly tore the family apart, however, and when it had finished, Miles was happy to accept a teaching position at Starfleet Academy on Earth. (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)

Career
In 2350, at the age of 18, O'Brien joined Starfleet as an enlisted crewman. His father had wanted Miles to take up a place at the Aldebaran Music Academy and become a concert performer, but he chose a life in Starfleet instead. (DS9: "Shadowplay")

Assignment aboard the Rutledge
One of his first assignments during the Cardassian wars was aboard the USS Rutledge, under the command of Benjamin Maxwell, where he served first as a conn officer.

In 2362, O'Brien was present at the aftermath of the Setlik III massacre, where his technical skill was useful in repairing a field transporter, allowing himself and thirteen other Starfleet personnel to escape a Cardassian patrol. This earned him a promotion to primary Tactical Officer. O'Brien also served as part of a squad to aid the survivors of the massacre as Cardassians were still patrolling the settlement; he helped a group of women and children but was ambushed by two Cardassians. He was able to incapacitate one of them but he got into a fight with the other and was forced to kill his assailant. Until then, O'Brien had never killed anything or anyone (he was even worried about swatting mosquitos as a child) and the incident left him with a deep-seated resentment towards Cardassians, bordering on outright racism on occasion. He often referred to them by the derogatory term "Cardies." Many years later, he remarked to Glinn Telle that it was not Cardassians that he hated, but rather the person he became because of them. (DS9: "Emissary", "Captive Pursuit", "The Homecoming", "The Siege", "Tribunal", TNG: "The Wounded")


 * Note that the often-accepted date of 2347 for Setlik III, based on inference from "Realm of Fear" and "Paradise", is rejected in favor of the concrete timeline established by "Tribunal", "Rules of Engagement" and "Whispers". For more information, see: Setlik III massacre.

Assignment aboard the Enterprise-D
O'Brien transferred to the USS Enterprise-D in 2364, with the rank of chief petty officer, under the command of Captain Jean-Luc Picard. During the Farpoint mission he was assigned as relief flight controller. He also stood duty in the security department, but was most often seen filling duty as transporter chief, where he was involved in, among other events, the rescue of Captain Picard from the Borg in 2367.
 * In "Where Silence Has Lease", O'Brien was shown (and referred to) as a full lieutenant working as transporter chief.

During the Klingon Civil War, O'Brien also made use of his training as a tactical officer, following Lieutenant Worf's resignation from Starfleet. As a result, he was heavily involved in the deployment and maintenance of the tachyon detection grid that ultimately decided the conflict. (TNG: "Redemption, Part II")

In 2367, Miles was forced to confront his former commanding officer, when Captain Maxwell went rogue, launching attacks on Cardassian outposts and ships inspite of a peace treaty between the Federation and Cardassia. It was O'Brien's knowledge of transporter systems that allowed him to beam aboard Maxwell's ship, the Phoenix, while her shields were up, giving him a chance to reason with Maxwell, ultimately preventing further bloodshed. (TNG: "The Wounded")

Assignment aboard Deep Space 9
By 2369, O'Brien had been operating transporters for 22 years. In that year, O'Brien left the Enterprise, transferring to Deep Space 9 with a promotion, assigned the role of chief of operations. His primary task during the early days of his posting was to repair the damage done during the withdrawal of the Cardassians from the station. He was instrumental in moving the station from its orbit of Bajor out to the Denorios Belt, following the discovery of the Bajoran wormhole. (DS9: "Emissary")

Not long after, O'Brien received a note on his record for violating the Prime Directive, after assisting in the escape of a Tosk, one of the first contacts from the Gamma Quadrant, disobeying direct orders from Commander Sisko. Tosk was a being raised to be the prey in a hunt by those known as the Hunters. (DS9: "Captive Pursuit")

He later found himself entangled in local Bajoran politics and folklore when visiting a remote village on the planet. Following the death of the local sirah, O'Brien was thrust into the role, forcing him to try and maintain the unity and strength of the inhabitants against a Dal Rok. (DS9: "The Storyteller")

In 2369, O'Brien's assistant Neela attempted to assassinate Vedek Bareil. O'Brien discovered the plot and informed Sisko just in time to save Bareil's life. (DS9: "In the Hands of the Prophets")

He assisted Kira in rescuing Li Nalas from a Cardassian labor camp, and defended the station against the Circle, a Bajoran terrorist group who wanted the Federation to leave the sector. (DS9: "Homecoming", "The Circle", "The Siege")

In 2370, O'Brien was assisting the T'Lani and Kellerun militaries in disarming and neutralizing their harvester weapons when a sabotage attempt exposed him to deadly nanobiogenic gel. In the resultant escape and rescue, he almost succumbed to his injuries, but was saved by Julian Bashir, an act which developed their friendship (see Personal, below). Several months later, while assisting in preparations for a Parada peace conference on Parada II, O'Brien was kidnapped and replaced with a replicant, created to disrupt the conference. That duplicate O'Brien later died after others became aware of the threat he posed, and the real O'Brien was recovered by DS9 personnel. (DS9: "Armageddon Game", "Whispers")

Later in 2370, Quark tried to use Bashir and O'Brien in a raquetball scam. He had fixed the game in O'Brien's favor and with everyone betting on Bashir, intended to clean up. O'Brien became stranded on a earth colony with Sisko, where a force field made it unable to leave the planet. O'Brien found out that it was an artificial field and was able to turn it off. (DS9: "Rivals", "Paradise")

In December of that year, O'Brien was arrested by Cardassian forces and put on trial for allegedly supplying weapons to the Maquis, based on, among other evidence, a falsified voiceprint. The charges were later discovered to be part of a conspiracy to discredit the Federation and give the Cardassian Union a stronger position from which to negotiate, and O'Brien was released. (DS9: "Tribunal")

In 2371 O'Brien helped disable a self-destruct mechanism on the station left by the Cardassians. He helped rescue Sisko from the past, and also worked with a group of female Cardassians on a science project on the station. One of the scientists wanted to become romantically involved with him, but he refused. (DS9: "Civil Defense", "Past Tense, Part II", "Destiny")

O'Brien was killed later in 2371, after becoming infected with delta-series radioisotopes following an accident aboard the station. This, coupled with the presence of a cloaked Romulan warbird nearby, had the effect of shifting him forward in time by several hours. His death occured when he deliberately contaminated himself further in order to determine the exact cause of events he had witnessed. He was 'replaced' by his counterpart from the timeline he visited. Thus, events that occurred to O'Brien from this point on involved the future version, rather than the 'original'. (DS9: "Visionary")

When the Klingons attacked and invaded Deep Space 9 in January of 2372, O'Brien defended Ops against boarding parties, suffering minor injuries in the attack. At the time of the attack, O'Brien had been completing the retrofit of the station's weapons arrays. (DS9: "The Way of the Warrior")

His image was used by Bashir in his holo-program, Julian Bashir, Secret Agent, as the assassin Falcon. (DS9: "Our Man Bashir")

Later that year, Miles was temporarily relieved of his duties by Captain Sisko, following a visit to the planet Argratha. O'Brien had been (falsely) accused of espionage, and was given the simulated memory of a 20-year prison sentence. O'Brien became paranoid and emotionally distressed upon returning to the station, attempting suicide on at least one occasion. (DS9: "Hard Time")

In late 2372, O'Brien commented that his career had included service on half a dozen ships. Even though none of those vessels had cloaking devices, O'Brien was so used to the Defiant being cloaked that he felt vulnerable aboard uncloaked ships.

He took part in the joint effort between the Federation and Jem'Hadar to track down a group of renegade Jem'Hadar soldiers that captured an Iconian gateway. (DS9: "To the Death")

In 2373, O'Brien took part in an infiltration mission to the fortified Klingon moon of Ty'Gokor in an attempt to expose Gowron as a Changeling. For the mission, Miles had to be surgically altered to appear Klingon. (DS9: "Apocalypse Rising")

O'Brien, as part of a Defiant away team, discovered a crashed Jem'Hadar ship on a planet. When a Vorta and a team of Jem'Hadar came to retrieve the ship, a fight broke out. A crewman O'Brien had become close to, Enrique Muñiz, also died as a result of wounds he received in battle, and this affected O'Brien deeply. (DS9: "The Ship")

While away on Bajor, Keiko became possessed by a Pah-wraith. It threatened to kill Keiko unless O'Brien helped it to blow up the wormhole. He tricked it on the way to the wormhole and shocked it to drive it out of Keiko. He also went back in time to the original Enterprise and met Captain Kirk, helping to stop a Klingon from assassinating Kirk and changing history. (DS9: "The Assignment", "Trials and Tribble-ations")

On an assignment to Empok Nor to get a part necessary for the station, he and his team found two Cardassians in stasis. Upon waking, they murdered some of the team before Garak killed one of them. Garak became infected with a drug in the Cardassians' systems and turned into an insane murderer, killing the other soldier and one of O'Brien's crew before O'Brien was able to disable him and return him to the station for treatment. (DS9: "Empok Nor")

Service during the Dominion War
O'Brien was partly responsible, along with Rom and Jadzia Dax, for creating and deploying the self-replicating minefield that blocked Dominion ships from entering the Alpha Quadrant, an event which precipitated the Dominion War. Miles abandoned the station with the rest of the station's Starfleet compliment, taking station aboard the Defiant, where he remained for the first three months of the war. (DS9: "Call to Arms")

Along with the rest of the DS9 command crew, O'Brien was pulled from front-line duty to take a captured Jem'Hadar vessel behind enemy lines. Despite his love of field rations, O'Brien bemoaned the lack of a replicator aboard the commandeered vessel. When the vessel crash-landed shortly after achieving its objective, O'Brien tore his uniform, much to his chagrin and the amusement of his colleagues. (DS9: "A Time to Stand")

He was part of the away team that confronted the Jem'Hadar on a planet after both sides crashed. The Jem'Hadar were betrayed by their Vorta and led into an ambush. The Vorta had run out of ketracel-white and feared the Jem'Hadar would kill him. (DS9: "Rocks and Shoals")

Following their rescue by the Rotarran, Miles took part in Operation Return, which successfully recaptured the station. He resumed his duties aboard the newly-retaken Deep Space 9. Shortly thereafter, he played a ceremonial role in the wedding of Jadzia Dax and Worf. (DS9: "Sacrifice of Angels", "You Are Cordially Invited")

In mid-2374, O'Brien was recruited by Starfleet Intelligence to infiltrate the Orion Syndicate arm on Farius Prime. During the mission, Miles grew friendly with Liam Bilby, a Syndicate operative. After Bilby was killed attempting to assassinate the Klingon ambassador, O'Brien took in his cat, Chester, as a family pet, and paid money into an account for his wife. (DS9: "Honor Among Thieves")

He helped rescue the Defiant after it had been taken over by the Jem'Hadar. His daughter fell into a time portal placing her 300 years in the past. Upon being rescued, she was a teenager who had lived her life in a prehistoric era. She was unable to cope, and when returned into the portal found herself as an eight year old, where she helped guide herself back to her parents. (DS9: "One Little Ship", "Time's Orphan")

Following the death of Jadzia Dax at the end of 2374, O'Brien took part in the Rotarran's successful assault on the Monac shipyards, a mission intended by Worf to get his wife into Sto-vo-kor. (DS9: "Shadows and Symbols")

Later in 2375, Miles disappeared on New Sydney while attempting to track down Morica Bilby, Liam's wife, who had disappeared from her home on the planet. O'Brien's mission was unauthorized, and he received a reprimand as a result. (DS9: "Prodigal Daughter")

Shortly before the final battle of the war, O'Brien took part in the attempt to restore Vic Fontaine's casino. It had been taken over by Chicago gangsters. (DS9: "Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang")

Shortly before the end of the war, O'Brien accepted a position at Starfleet Academy as a professor of engineering. Following the Battle of Cardassia, O'Brien departed Deep Space 9 for Earth, to take up this new role. (DS9: "What You Leave Behind")

O'Brien was later detatched to the Starfleet Corps of Engineers on Cardassia Prime as a part of the Federation's relief efforts, while Keiko was in charge of the planet's botanical renewal efforts following the Dominion War. (DS9 novel: Worlds of Deep Space Nine, vol. 1: "Cardassia: The Lotus Flower")

As of stardate 49648.0, O'Brien had served aboard a half dozen starships, participated in 232 separate combat engagements, and had been decorated by Starfleet on 15 occasions. (DS9: "Rules of Engagement", "Broken Link")

Family and Childhood
O'Brien has traced his ancestry back to the 11th century Irish king Brian Boru (whom he would occasionally play in a holosuite program). Another notable O'Brien ancestor was Sean Aloysius O'Brien.

O'Brien was raised on real food; his mother believed that replicated food was less nutritious. She even handled and cut actual meat. (TNG: "The Wounded")

O'Brien had two brothers, but his mother was a fosterer who raised many more than three children. His mother passed away in 2368 and his father, Michael, remarried a year later, though Miles had never met his new stepmother. (DS9: "Whispers") His relationship with his father had been a somewhat rocky one during Miles' adolescence; Michael was the one who had pushed Miles to pursue his music career, making him practice at least once a day, and was somewhat upset by his son's enlistment in Starfleet. The two later reconciled, however, and the elder O'Brien is now extremely proud of his son and his accomplishments. (DS9: "Shadowplay", "Trials and Tribble-ations" novelization)

As a child, O'Brien had a morbid fear of spiders. Following a mission on Zayra IV where O'Brien was forced to make a critical repair in a Jefferies tube containing Talarian hook spiders, he found that his fear had lessened, and he later kept a Lycosa tarantula, named Christina as a pet aboard the Enterprise-D. (TNG: "Realm of Fear") He married Keiko Ishikawa aboard the Enterprise on October 24th, 2367, and the couple had their first child, Molly, the following year. Both joined O'Brien aboard DS9, albeit reluctantly on Keiko's part, where their second child, Kirayoshi, was born in 2372. O'Brien had a difficult time dealing with this pregnancy, mainly as a result of the baby's forced 'relocation' to Kira Nerys, which saw the two struggling with a mutual attraction - one which both agreed to put aside. (TNG: "Data's Day", "Disaster", DS9: "A Man Alone"; "The Begotten")

As a ritual before going into battle, O'Brien recorded a "goodbye" message for his family in the event of his death. Each time he did so, he believed it would be the one they would hear. Between 2367 and 2372, he had recorded a total of eleven messages. (DS9: "To the Death")

Friends and Pastimes
During his childhood, Miles developed keen construction skills. Despite doing poorly in mechanical aptitude tests, he spent many hours constructing model starship engines, and models of subspace transciever assemblies. He also did a great deal of hiking, climbing mountains in his native Ireland. (TNG: "All Good Things...")

Aboard Deep Space 9, O'Brien forged a strong friendship with Julian Bashir, the station's CMO. Their friendly rivalry encompassed racquetball, darts, and other activities. The two were frequent users of the station's holosuites, usually for historical reenactments of events such as the Battle of Britain, and even created their own programs, including an accurate depiction of the Alamo.

O'Brien's one continuing passion was kayaking, and he frequently found himself visiting sickbay or the infirmary for shoulder injuries sustained during programs. This eventually resulted in humeral socket replacement surgery in 2371 (although the injury that necessitated the operation was not sustained through the sport). This did not end O'Brien's shoulder problems - he suffered a torn rotator cuff four years later, while practicing baseball with the Niners.

He maintained his love of music, playing the cello in a string quartet aboard the Enterprise. O'Brien was also a fan of detective fiction novels, particularly Mickey Spillane and his character Mike Hammer, a preference he passed on to Odo, to whom he frequently loaned books.

A favored drink of O'Brien's was coffee: Jamaican blend, double-strong, double-sweet. (DS9: "Whispers")

Alternate realities

 * In the anti-time past created by Q, Miles was puzzled by Captain Jean-Luc Picard's knowledge of his hobby building model ships. The time-traveling Picard learned the information about O'Brien in a conversation years later. (TNG: "All Good Things...", "Booby Trap")


 * In an alternate timeline created when the USS Defiant crashed on Gaia, O'Brien had many descendants among the crash survivors, including Miranda. (DS9: "Children of Time")

Pendragon timeline
After the destruction of Deep Space Nine during in 2372, O'Brien continued to serve as chief engineer on the Defiant until the end of the Federation Civil War.

In 2377, he masterminded Project Restoration, relocating Empok Nor to the Bajoran system to serve as a new DS9. The project was completed in January 2379. (PDN: "Restoration")

Background notes

 * Memory Alpha lists 2328 for O'Brien's birth, which seems based on a long chain of inference from "Realm of Fear" and "Paradise", taken with his statement in "Shadowplay" that he joined Starfleet at 18. However, "Whispers" established his birthdate as 2332, and that fits with his "twenty-two years" of service as stated in "Rules of Engagement". This article reflects the imperical dates, rather than inference.