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In "All Good Things" O'Brien's rank (past) is ensign. O'Brien is in a red uniform and wearing a single pip on his collar. Picard refers to him as Chief, but O'Brien doesn't correct him or seems surprised. Picard also puts him in charge of the plasma inducer modifications and then O'Brien gives an order to Ensign Fletcher, who responds aye sir. Nocoms are not refered to as sir.

Would this not confirm the theory that O'Brien's rank in the pilot episode was a field promotion? Due to having a skeleton crew?

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  • I've edited the title to be more descriptive of what I think you're asking. If I've misunderstood please correct it. In the future can you also try and use more descriptive titles for what your question actually is?
    – TheLethalCarrot ♦
    Commented Nov 7, 2019 at 14:27
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    What is Miles O'Brien's rank in the pilot episode? Same as his rank in every episode: MASTER OF ALL HE SURVEYS
    – Paul D. Waite
    Commented Nov 7, 2019 at 14:37
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    Possible dupe of Was Chief O' Brien demoted from Lieutenant to Chief?
    – Valorum
    Commented Nov 7, 2019 at 14:38
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    See also scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/31524/… and scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/60540/… . In retrospect, it's possible that Miles is a construct planted in Starfleet by the Q to f— with nerd brains in our universe.
    – Paul D. Waite
    Commented Nov 7, 2019 at 14:40
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    @JackBNimble - It was never confirmed that he'd been demoted. He's just portrayed as having inconsistent ranks
    – Valorum
    Commented Nov 7, 2019 at 14:48

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In pilot episode of The Next Generation, Miles O'Brien wears the rank of Ensign and is part of the Command division, since he wears a red uniform with only one pip.

However, his rank and position have been wholly inconsistent throughout the series, which seems to be because he was mostly a background character for most of TNG, used when it fitted the story without much consideration being given to his own backstory, as Ronald D. Moore said in an AOL chat:

"O'Brien was originally just a day player on TNG and very little, if any, thought went into his rank or background for quite a while."

You can read more on O'Brien's rank inconsistencies on the Memory Alpha article.

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