The Rough Road for O’Brien Begins Here

Jim’s Take on Episode 2.14: “Whispers”

Another great tradition of DS9 begins with this episode. Because O’Brien is the beloved and adorable “everyman” of Starfleet, the writers can’t resist coming up with strange ways to inflict awful tortures and emotional damage on him! This is the first of many really weird and terrible things that will happen to the most important person in Starfleet history. However, no matter how bad things get, this episode makes it clear that Miles O’Brien will always come through undefeated because IT NEVER PAYS TO MESS WITH MILES O’BRIEN! Those who do decide to mess with O’Brien do so at their own peril and, in the end, they WILL lose. 

This story gets off to an intriguing start with O’Brien on the run in a runabout, dictating a personal log about the incomprehensible events he’s lived through for the last 52 hours. Everyone on the station, including his own wife and child, starts treating him very oddly. None of them seem like themselves and everyone wants to know weird details about what happened when he met with the Paradas to prepare for an upcoming summit on the station. O’Brien is quickly convinced that he’s been caught up in some sort of massive conspiracy. How many people on the station have been replaced or controlled? It seems like it may even have affected the rest of Starfleet. Ultimately, he is left with no choice but to flee the station and try to warn the Paradas.

SERIOUS SPOILER: This whole episode hinges on the reveal that the O’Brien we follow from the beginning of this story is not, in fact, OUR O’Brien, but a replicant, essentially a “photocopy” of the original who was programmed to return to the station and assassinate someone, derailing the Parada peace talks. While this whole thing is tragic, and leaves me feeling genuinely heartbroken for the copy, who absolutely feels that he IS Miles O’Brien, what really becomes clear is that O’Brien can beat everyone else at everything! This Miles is only a copy, but he outsmarts everyone on the station. They know something is up with him and they’re trying to figure it out, but he defeats them at every turn. Starfleet and Bajor’s finest KNOW this guy is not really O’Brien. They are observing him and closely monitoring him to figure out what he’s up to. Even though they are fully on alert and trying to contain him, he out-foxes them, out-engineers them, and out-fights them. He escapes the station and eludes pursuit until he reaches his eventual objective. One not-quite-O’Brien beats the whole rest of the crew and his creators, who intended to use him for their own purposes. “O’Brien out!” is the ultimate Starfleet mic drop. 

There will be many more challenges and bizarre tortures for O’Brien in the years ahead, but we can all rest easy in the knowledge that he can handle anything that comes his way. One Miles O’Brien can outsmart a whole space station, and even a planet or two, full of intelligent and efficient operatives. Sure, the Paradans could make an undetectable replicant, but they were not prepared for what happened when they gave him the powers of Chief O’Brien. Odo is a great security officer, but he can’t hold O’Brien. And Ensign DeCurtis…well, he never stood a chance. 

“O’Brien out!”