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Webcomic / Chief O'Brien at Work

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Just another day in the life of Chief O'Brien.

Chief O'Brien at Work is a webcomic created by Jon Adams that focuses on the day-to-day struggles of Star Trek: The Next Generation character Transporter Chief Miles O'Brien. The comic lampoons the Star Trek universe by showcasing just how dull a job like being the ship's transporter chief is compared to the glamorous adventures of the away teams and command crew. It's also not afraid to showcase just how terrible Chief O'Brien's life is.

The webcomic can be viewed here.


Chief O'Brien at Work provides examples of:

  • All Just a Dream: If something good is happening to O'Brien, you can assume it is.
  • Blatant Lies: Lieutenant Borgberg swears they are not Borg.
  • Body Horror: When O'Brien melds himself with his clone and becomes, according to his wife, "a horrible monstrosity."
  • Bungled Suicide: O'Brien tries to hang himself in 265, but the artificial gravity fails and Engineering is in no hurry to correct the problem.
  • Butt-Monkey: O'Brien's life is a never ending slew of disappointment and loneliness.
  • Card-Carrying Villain: Armus is a (self-proclaimed) godlike being of ultimate power who gets his power from being evil, as evil is the ultimate power, and who brags about how much he loves hurting and torturing people.
  • The Casanova: Riker's quite a ladies' man, much to O'Brien's chagrin.
  • The Chew Toy: You'd feel sorry for poor O'Brien if his pain weren't so fun to behold!
  • Comically Missing the Point: When Worf tells O'Brien that the teleporter room's button hasn't worked in years and out of pity Geordi just programmed the computer to pretend that O'Brien pressing the button does something, O'Brien is just shocked and happy because no one has ever taken pity on him before.
  • A Day in the Limelight: After O'Brien is apparently killed by a space monster, Wesley becomes the main character for a few comics, with the comic's title becoming Wesley Crusher, Interdimensional Bachelor.
  • Death Seeker: The chief's usually sour demeanor lightens up at the prospect of an alien intruder putting him out of his misery.
  • Driven to Suicide: In one episode O'Brien beams himself into space. This is just one instance however. Although he's always alive by the next episode.
  • Empty Shell: In #344, Geordi tests an experimental new teleportation technique on O'Brien that runs the risk of stripping away his soul and leaving him a hollow shell of a human if it goes wrong. When he asks O'Brien afterwards how he feels, he says the same as always: completely empty and soulless.
  • Energy Being: After ascending to godhood, Wesley has become a being of pure energy (but still wears his sweater).
  • Everyone Has Standards: No matter how desperately lonely O'Brien is, even he is creeped out by Q and doesn't want his friendship after Q reveals he's perfectly fine with (what he thinks is) O'Brien marrying a 12-year old.
  • Extreme Doormat: O'Brien.
  • The Faceless: Riker is typically depicted as being slightly out of frame whenever he makes an appearance.
  • Fourth-Date Marriage: Exaggerated: Wesley proposes to Bev'orly before their first date even starts.
  • Hand Wave: The explanation for how O'Brien survived after being torn in half and left to drift in the vacuum of space for thousands of years? "The mysteries of space, I guess."
  • Hiding Behind the Language Barrier: A pair of aliens, believing that O'Brien's universal translator is broken, take the opportunity to talk about how utterly pathetic he is and wonder openly if he'll ever get the courage to kill himself in order to escape the torment of his life.
  • Hope Spot: Too many to count.
  • It's All About Me: Wesley is comically self-absorbed, being more concerned about impressing the aliens who asked for his help with how smart he is and how cool his powers are than actually saving them. He's also completely willing to let O'Brien die in front of him just so he can brag about resurrecting him.
  • I Want My Mommy!: O'Brien calls out for his mother when he realizes he's about to die after being torn in half by a space monster.
  • Jerkass: Riker is unapologetic in his slowly crushing of what remains of O'Brien's hope. The rest of the Enterprise crew can also fit this.
  • Jerkass God: After seeing that O'Brien was torn in half by a space monster and is now slowly bleeding out, Wesley tells him that with his godlike powers he could easily turn back time to make it so that never happened... but instead prefers to watch him die and will just resurrect him afterwards. When he finally does (seemingly) die, Wesley just ditches his body to help aliens in exchange for a date.
  • Kick the Dog: The Micky Mouse simulation refusing listen to O'Brien when he tells him he really needs to talk to someone, not because of limits placed on his software but because he just doesn't feel like it.
  • Legally Dead: O'Brien is so forgettable that the crew assume he's dead when no one bothers to relieve him of his shift. After O'Brien contacts Picard, Picard decides not to fix the error because it's easier than going through the paperwork.
  • Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: It's very likely that "Uncle Riker" is Molly's real father.
  • Mistaken for Pedophile: After accidentally turning his wife into a 12-year old due to an accident with the teleporter, O'Brien is mistaken as a pedophile who married a child and ends up locked up for several comics. The only one who comes to his aid is Q, who uses his powers to resolve the whole thing.
  • Perpetual Frowner: O'Brien's always sporting the same sour look in every episode.
  • Physical God: Wesley somehow has obtained the powers of a god and ascended to become an Energy Being who can travel to other dimensions, reverse time, resurrect the dead, and shrink entire planes of existence. Despite that, he's still extremely immature and self-absorbed.
  • Power Perversion Potential: O'Brien isn't above beaming Tasha Yar into his transporter room when she's changing.
  • Running Gag: Many. Riker having an affair with O'Brien's wife, the computer being able to do O'Brien's job, and no one invites O'Brien to poker night.
  • Screw Yourself: After being rejected by everyone he asked out, Wesley created a duplicate of himself to date. Upon finding out that was his sole reason for existing, the duplicate decided to uncreate itself and vanished.
  • Teleporter Accident: Par for the course for a Star Trek comic. O'Brien manages to get Ensign Barclay killed in one.
  • Yank the Dog's Chain: Just when you think O'Brien is about to get a break...

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