Star Trek's Most Tortured Character Isn't Who Fans Would Expect

Published Oct 3, 2026, 6:01 PM EDT

Derek is the Training Lead for ScreenRant. Before his current position, he spent 20 years working in games, TV, and film while also writing for several entertainment sites.
Derek is also the co-host of three pop culture podcasts: Across the Omniverse, The Bad Batch, and Watch Men.

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There's no shortage of tortured characters in Star Trek. From Captain Pike destined to spend his life trapped in a life support chair, to Captain Picard and the four lights, members of Starfleet don't have the easiest lives, which is part of what keeps fans coming back for more. We like to see the characters we love pushed to their limits and beyond, only to persevere. It not only makes for some very good stories, it also reminds us that we, too, can overcome the challenges that stand before us. Hopefully those challenges don't take place in Cardassian interrogation rooms, but no one knows what the future holds.

But in all of Star Trek, there is one figure who has suffered more than any other. This man, who was never a captain but was certainly a union man, saw the worst of the galaxy and somehow came through it all with a smile on his face. His resolve serves as a testament to the power of humanity to keep moving forward even in the most dire of times. He may not be the most beloved figure in Star Trek history, but Senior Chief Petty Officer Miles O'Brien stands tall as the shining example of what Star Trek is all about: family, integrity, and intelligence.

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Played by Colm Meaney, Miles O'Brien appears in more Star Trek episodes than anyone aside from Michael Dorn's Worf. O'Brien goes so far back that he appears in the first episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation handling the flight controls on the battle bridge. He showed up again later in the season as a security officer, but finally found his home in the transporter room in the second season, which is also when he was finally given a name.

For a show that tried to stay focused on the main characters, TNG spent a fair amount of time building out O'Brien's life. Popping up in more than 50 of the show's 178 episode run. He marries botanist Keiko Ishikawa and the two have a daughter they name Molly. He stands up to captains he doesn't agree with, and even gets possessed by evil spirits. Then, when Deep Space Nine started, Meaney went from an occasional appearance to a major character. And Miles O'Brien went from a rather happy-go-lucky guy to a man who would be endlessly put through the wringer by the show's writers.

Miles O'Brien Was Tortured Time And Again

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While The Next Generation tended to focus on the hopeful elements of the future that Star Trek envisions, Deep Space Nine took things to a darker place. This was a series that was filled with morally dubious decisions, including Captain Sisko going through some very questionable actions to force the Romulans into joining the Dominion War. But the writers seemed to have a special place in their hearts for Miles O'Brien, and that place was filled with bile. Across DS9's seven seasons, Miles O'Brien:

• Had his teeth pulled out by Cardassians while on trial for a crime he didn't commit.
• Was replaced by a replicant after being kidnapped by Paradan government to mess with peace talks.
• Died after being irradiated and was replaced with a clone of himself.
• Served 20 years in a horrific prison where he was forced to kill his cellmate, only to learn that the whole thing was implanted in his mind and only a few hours passed for everyone else.

That is far from everything poor Miles was subjected to in DS9. And the series also gave O'Brien a fair amount of PTSD from his time before he became a crewmember on the Enterprise and witnessed a massacre on Setlik III during the Cardassian War.

And yet, through it all, Miles always managed to have a pretty cheerful outlook on life. Sure, he could get grumpy sometimes, and he and Keiko fought a lot (though many fans think that may have been a sort of foreplay for them!), but considering all the terrible things he endured, the chief was a pretty chipper fella. At the heart of it, Miles O'Brien is the perfect example of what Deep Space Nine was all about. That life can be hard — really hard — but it can be great, too. That, at the end of the day, after the teeth pulling and long prison sentences that actually weren't very long but surely left him scarred for life, Miles knew he had friends and family who loved him, who made all the pain and suffering worth it.