Newsgroups: rec.arts.startrek.current
Subject: Re: One LAST Time, O'Brien's rank.  After this, NO MO
From: cstone@husc8.harvard.edu (christopher stone)
Date: 11 Jan 93 19:26:08 EST
Organization: Harvard University Science Center

In article <1993Jan10.215710.608@rivers> ph9991_manfr@rivers.acc.uwrf.edu writes:
>
>
>Right.
>
>
>I will explain this all one time only.  I will do it once, and this will
>have to suffice for the entire net.  
>I am sure I am not the only person who is sick to the end of their existence
>of this "What's O'Brien's rank?" FAQ.  
>
>Therefore, you all get one day.
>If ANYONE else, doesn't matter how new you are to the Net, ANYONE asks 
>this same question ever again after 10 pm Monday night, I will flame them
>via email, and I encourage anyone else equally sick of this to do the
>same.  
>
>and I do mean flame......
>

Noted.  From henceforth we will discuss it after 10 pm on *Tuesdays* :)

What goes around comes around... :)


>Right.  One last time.
>
>Once upon a time, here on this very net, last May I believe this happened,
>we had a flame-war.  The war concerned what the bloody hell O'Brien's
>rank was.  A few people here kept trying to tell us he was a Chief
>Petty Officer, whilst many of us asserted he was a Lieutenant.
>The Lieutenant camp believed him to be a Lt. because of his collar pips
>and his position of some authority on the ship.
>The Petty Officer camp referred to the writer's intentions for the character,
>and to a line in "Family" where Sergei Roshenkov (spelling?) calls O'Brien
>a CPO.  
>
>We argued, and we argued.  We argued a little more, and eventually we came
>to no conclusion whatsoever, except that both Paramount and us were
>very confused over what his rank indeed was supposed to be.  
>
>This argument happened over the break in production on TNG, and then when
>the first episodes of Season Six came along, O'Brien's pips had suddenly
>changed!  Proof, if ever we needed any, that Paramount does indeed read the
>Net.  Anyway, the idea behind this pip change was to clarify once and for
>all what in Hades and other Underworlds his rank actually is.
>
>Paramount has spoken: he is a Chief Petty Officer and always has been.
>Period.
>

While I too am tired of this thread, let's at least get the solution right:
now, he wears one hollow pip, which does not necessarily indicate enlisted
personnel, but rather ensign (j.g.) or something like that.  Don't ask me
what an ensign (j.g.) is -- perhaps someone who earned his commission via
something like ROTC and not in the academy and hence starts out as an officer
below full ensign?  Or perhaps enlisted personnel who got promoted -- it's
probably not uncommon in Starfleet for enlisted personnel to get promoted,
as Starfleet generally doesn't stand on ceremony (saluting and such :)).
I think enlisted personnel don't have *any* pips; watch the security officer
in "A Matter of Honor" or that Vulcan in "The Drumhead" as an example.

The only conclusion we can really draw is that the situation is quite 
ambiguous.

Personally, I say that each individual can call O'Brien by whatever rank
he or she personally choses until there is canonical evidence to the 
contrary.  Right now, I still think the best evidence is "Loud As A 
Whisper," in which Riker said he was a lieutenant, but others can
legitimately disagree.

>Now, I personally disagree thanks to them getting his pips wrong up until
>now and a few lines scattered here and there through the series, but it's
>cemented in duranium now and we have to live with it.

Again, where is it canonically stated that