Chief Engineer Miles O’Brien (Colm Meaney) is the kind of Star Trek character who always seems to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sometimes, though, that works out in his favor. The Starfleet officer had a knack for getting into trouble on The Next Generation. His storylines on Deep Space Nine were just as chaotic, and just as likely to have him narrowly escaping the clutches of death.
Season 3, episode 17, “Visionary,” starts off simply enough. Chief O’Brien has been in an accident in the operations center of DS9. Dr. Julian Bashir (Alexander Siddig) checks him out and finds nothing seriously wrong. Still, Dr. Bashir and Captain Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks) order O’Brien to relax for a while. Later, though, he passes out. O'Brien quickly realizes that this is linked to him taking short trips to the future. It turns out the plasma conduit accident scrambled his biology a bit, leaving Chief O’Brien with time-traveling abilities just in time to prevent his own death. Meanwhile, there’s a hidden plot, and the clock is ticking for the crew to intervene before it’s too late.
How Did Miles O'Brien Time Travel?
TV science has been the backbone of Star Trek since the first introduction of transporters and hyposprays. It’s what holds the franchise together, and it’s on full display in “Visionary.” Dr. Bashir initially diagnoses Chief O’Brien with radiation poisoning and injects him with a familiar Star Trek medicine, hyronalin, to counter the stomach-turning side effects. The chief is later playing darts with Quark (Armin Shimerman) when he has a vision of himself talking to the Ferengi on the Promenade, and then passes out. Later on, Chief O’Brien’s in the midst of having that same conversation when he looks over and sees the past version of himself, and so does Quark.
Lt. Commander / First Officer Jadzia Dax (Terry Farrell) describes it as a “temporal disturbance” and plans to look over Dr. Bashir’s medical scans to see if the radiation poisoning caused Chief O’Brien to shift through time. At first, it’s the type of time-related hijinks one might expect from any Star Trek series. Chief O’Brien travels into the future and sees a fight break out between visiting Klingons and Romulans. Dr. Bashir thinks they’ve acted on Chief O’Brien’s vision in time to prevent the brawl. When it breaks out anyway, the chief’s temporal twin shows up just in time for them to save each other. However, these time-travel antics take a darker turn when he travels forward just in time to witness his own death.
Sometimes, Star Trek characters have the worst luck when it comes to making heads or tails of a time travel situation gone awry. In Chief O’Brien’s case, however, each vision, including that of his death, has a starting point and takes place five hours into the future. When Commander Dax scans the surrounding area of DS9, she finds low traces of tetryon emissions. Chief O’Brien identifies the pattern of these particles as irregular and Commander Dax suggests that a quantum singularity must be at the center of it all, since they are known to cause temporal displacement.
Eventually, they determine that Chief O’Brien absorbed delta-series radioisotopes during his accident in the operations center. These made him sensitive to the time displacement effects of the unidentified quantum singularity. If the blatant use of TV science in this episode left fans feeling lost, luckily Captain Sisko comes through with a simple explanation: Chief O’Brien’s body is being pulled around like a magnet through temporal space with a toll being taken on his body that might result in his death.
Okay, so maybe it’s not that simple. But it does explain his situation in a way that fans understand what needs to be done about it.
What Happened To Miles O'Brien At The End Of His Journey?
The solution to Chief O’Brien’s time issue turns out to be even more wacky than the problem itself, though certainly not the weirdest Star Trek plot point fans have seen. Dr. Bashir is planning on giving the chief his last treatment to rid his body of the delta-series radioisotopes to avoid his untimely death when Chief O’Brien gets his next vision. He sees himself piloting a runabout as the DS9 crew evacuates the inhabitants as the station is being destroyed. The plan pivots to Dr. Bashir flooding Chief O’Brien’s body with delta-series radioisotopes.
The idea is that Dr. Bashir can adjust the isotopes in the chief’s body to match the frequency of the yet-identified quantum singularity, thus giving Chief O’Brien the ability to travel only three hours into the future instead of five. It’s a huge gamble on his health, but he’s willing to take it to prevent even more death from the destruction of DS9. No wonder Star Trek fans love him!
Using the time travel hijinks to his advantage, O'Brien finds out that the visiting Romulans are behind the most recent plot despite their efforts to frame the Klingons. Everything goes according to plan and, the day is saved.
Of course, since this is Star Trek, things don’t go so smoothly on Chief O’Brien’s end. He gets all the answers he needs from his future self, but the grasping claw of death catches up with him in the very operations center this all started in. The Chief O’Brien of the present succumbs to death due to the excess of delta-series radioisotopes in his system, and he sends his future self back in his place. It’s a smart solution and an easy one to pull off since they’re only three hours apart.
Captain Sisko and Major Kira get the information they need to confront the Romulans who’ve been giving them grief, exposing them for their deceitful attempt to destroy the wormhole out of fear of the Dominion. Security Officer Odo (René Auberjonois) has no more reason to suspect the Klingons in his custody.
Chief O’Brien is the only one left feeling wrong-footed and out of his time element. It’s not like he was months or years older than his other self. Still, it’s pretty traumatic for Chief O’Brien to have seen his own death twice. Star Trek goes on to put Chief O’Brien through increasingly life-changing events, but at least he gets to walk out of this one as the obvious hero of the day.