www.ditl.org

After watching a few early episodes of DS9 recently, I couldn't help feeling that the ability of the character of Miles O'Brien was quite overstretched. From being the guy who worked the transporter aboard the Enterprise to being able to fix quite literally fix every broken thing in the universe. A classic example for me was DS9: Battle Lines. Quote lifted from Memory Alpha:

"The magnetic deflection of a runabout's hull is extremely weak. The probes will never be able to detect it."
"They will if I outfit them with a differential magnetometer."
"A differential magnetometer?"
"Mm-hmm."
"I've never heard of a differential magnetometer. How does it work?"
"I'll let you know as soon as I finish making one."
- Dax and O'Brien

I'm sure you could name many other techno-babble featured episodes as well. As a whole, could he really have been that good? As an enlisted man, he wouldn't have even had SF training, is that right?

His inital status as an enlisted man is a contentious issue, at best. However, it was established that he was something of an engineering prodigy at a young age. Also, each franchise has to have an engineer who is capable of regular superhuman feats of wizardry - it's a law of 'Trek.

He would have had training, just not academy training which likely would have focused more on leadership than wrench turning anyways.

Yup, I have found in my time around the military that officers generally know how things are supposed to work and the enlisted folks know how to actually get things to work they way they need to. He would, as someone above stated, lack the leadership training but would likely have extensive practical knowledge of how things worked and how to fix things.

They even made a point of mentioning that Starfleet was known for such technical wizzardry once, when a Vorta said something like "I suppose you have one of those Starfleet engineering types who can turn rocks into replicators?"

However, O'Brien was also seemingly able to design and construct completely new pieces of tech as will. And nearly everything worked as planned.

When it was really needed how often did a series' engineer's crap actually backfire though?

That said a differential magnetometer isn't really that out there. All you're doing is measuring a magnetic field at two points and giving the difference between them.

GrahamKennedy wrote:They even made a point of mentioning that Starfleet was known for such technical wizzardry once, when a Vorta said something like "I suppose you have one of those Starfleet engineering types who can turn rocks into replicators?"

Rocks and Shoals.

He tells Sisko in DS9:Paradise that he didn't know a "turboshaft from a trasporter" befroe he got to the Cardassian Front. He had to figure out how to get a field transporter working in order to get himself and 13 men of Setlik 3. He figured it out, and is then made Tactical Officer aboard the Rutlidge, which is how he got the goldshirt.

Mark wrote:However, O'Brien was also seemingly able to design and construct completely new pieces of tech as will. And nearly everything worked as planned.

That's almost a prerequisite of being a SF engineer, it seems.

Tyyr wrote:When it was really needed how often did a series' engineer's crap actually backfire though?

That said a differential magnetometer isn't really that out there. All you're doing is measuring a magnetic field at two points and giving the difference between them.

technically since it's deriving, shouldn't it only need one point and be able to tell you the rate of change in the magnetic field

Sorry, you can get back to your actual topic now.

No, because it's not that kind of differential.

Early DS9 episode...forget the name...three ambassadors visit the station, Lwaxanna turns up with her sites on Odo, computer gets a 'virus'.....I'm sure at some point during the episode, Bashir says something along the lines of 'our chief of operations is one of the finest in SF'... oh yeah? Why was he assigned to work the transporter for seven+ years aboard the flagship then? If he were that good, surely that would clearly be beneath him. Maybe it's because the minstrel boy to the war is gone, In the ranks of death ye will find him.

Ah, but he is the Transporter Chief on the finest starship of the fleet! Surely that puts him head and shouders of your average starship Captain at least.

thelordharry wrote:Early DS9 episode...forget the name...three ambassadors visit the station, Lwaxanna turns up with her sites on Odo, computer gets a 'virus'.....I'm sure at some point during the episode, Bashir says something along the lines of 'our chief of operations is one of the finest in SF'... oh yeah? Why was he assigned to work the transporter for seven+ years aboard the flagship then? If he were that good, surely that would clearly be beneath him. Maybe it's because the minstrel boy to the war is gone, In the ranks of death ye will find him.

Or Bashir is BS-ing trying to soothe the Ambassadors?