Our good Chief O'Brien is the subject of the long overdue 16th article of A Siskoid by any other name, an in-depth look at the -oids (skewed versions of the characters we all know and love) presented in Star Trek, all this in order to perhaps guess at future Personnas and AU personnel for the CCG. Without further presentation, I give you...
O'BRIOIDS
1-Miles O'Brien: Already have this one thanks to Fajo. Not an -oid of course (unless a Cardie is in the place - just joking).
2-DS9 version: Also not an -oid, but since he's as yet unseen, let us speculate. His abilities should take a jump upward from the Fajo card since he's gone from Transporter Chief to Head of Engineering for an entire station. At the same time (and this saddens me to no end) he's inexplicably dropped from Lieutenant (in TNG) to petty chief officer, a non-com lower than an ensign! Consequences? Probably none for the game. Expect a nice link to the station (something to do with repairs? Could we see a Station that can be damaged?), another super-ENGINEER probably (rather than the useful ENG/SEC combo) and he'll lose the restriction box. Anyone disagree?
3-Ensign O'Brien: Before he was transporter chief, Miles manned the helm of the Enterprise as (according to the credits) "Ensign". This was only for the pilot (and its reprise in "All Good Things..."), but there it is. Maybe just add this one to the First Season Premiums I've talked about so often in these pages? An OFFICER with Navigation and the ability to tow away Q-Nets (not canonical but a neat ability nonetheless - hey, I'm just dreamin' here). Oh, and he's still an ENGINEER (having built model engines as a kid).
4-Falcon: A great holographic personna! Essentially a SECURITY personnel with great Strength but lowsy Integrity, he would be a prime target for a special ability. Download Disengage Safety Protocols? (Or maybe they're always disengaged for him.) If he's nice, we'll put him on the list for Ocular Implants.
5-Smiley: The Mirror universe Miles. A tinkerer who would wind up with ENGINEER, Treachery and Transporter Skill for sure, plus an ability like downloading any unique ship already on the table as a Mirror (AU) counterpart (I'm thinking of the alt-Defiant episode). Too strong? Just give him a Nemesis icon matching evil Sisko or something.
6-Tobin Dax: This is the Dax host parceled out to Miles in "Facets", a nervous nail-biter of a man. Still no clue how (if at all) such "personnas" could make it into a game (play splicing ritual Event on table; if any Dax present, download any Facet to any personnel present - one per turn. Facet counts as a Personna for that personnel who goes back to your hand until brought back, then discard facet. How's that?) In any case, Tobin is a relatively minor host (with Navigation skills), but perhaps his nervousness could be translated as a Transporter Armbands-like ability. Running scared...
7-Tiny O'Brien: The minuscule O'Brien from "One Little Ship" in which he gets shrunk along with a Runabout. See my article on Bashir for some cool ideas in relation to this. Not much of a future though.
8-From Bashir's head: From "Distant Voices", in which O'Brien played the part of Julian's paranoia and fear. The "Mind Location" petition rolls on, with this card as a possible download, again Armbands-like perhaps (why is O'Brien so often portrayed as a jumpy coward?) (More under Bashiroids.)
9-Conolly: DS9's answer to Galen. You get the chance to "witness" for O'Brien as he goes against the space-mob! A good, strong, non-aligned personnel with a variety of technical skills, an Equipment download (where does he get all his little toys?), etc. On an odd track, could he have the Starfleet Intelligence skill? Like a non-aligned Tal Shiar, that. This personnel's a sure bet down the road.
10-Possessed O'Brien: Let's go back to TNG for a second. Remember the episode "Power Play"? Miles was in that. He was possessed by an evil disembodied spirit. Never make it as a Personnel card, but a Dilemma - why not? As boarding ships and intruders in general become more evolved in the game, Parasitic invasions and other mind-control is going to become more and more useful.
11-Time-jumping O'Brien: In "Visionary", O'Brien starts jumping back and forth through time. Siskoid articles have dealt with the phenomenon before (namely for the Picard in "All Good Things..." and the Sisko from "The Visitor"). How is this one different? Different from Picard in that there is no Personna switch. Different from Sisko in that he isn't "tied" to another personnel with a "tether". Unique in that he exists simultaneously with his other self and in the paradox he causes (namely, that the O'Brien left alive at the end of the show isn't the one we were following all along). How about a Personna (or Event if you want to extend it to other personnel) you can play on even a deceased character (I mean discarded)? Maybe with the Temporal Causality Loop-like ability to undo certain actions that led to its original death, or the destruction of the vessel it was on. Maybe at the cost of its life. And maybe only reportable if a cloaking device was present. That would go along with the show's events anyways. Too complicated? How about just replacing him with a downloaded personna or AU version upon death?
12-Inmate Miles O'Brien: From "Hard Time", the long-bearded Miles O'Brien that eventually would kill his friend Ee'Char. It was all a virtual simulation of course, but no less real to O'Brien. Anything to be done here? Replacing all of O'Brien's skills with Circle-Drawing and Food-Hording doesn't look like a great option. Or could this be yet another potable Mind Location? (With Inmate O'Brien and Ee'Char as "natives".) Think of it as a special Penalty Box where personnel could slowly (actually, quickly!) lose their skills.
13-Klingon O'Brien: "Apocalypse Rising" remains one of my favorite episodes, even if O'Brien made a lousy Klingon. No Honor, no great fighting skill... Aww, just make him Download those Changeling detectors, and double the effects of the Blood Wine Event (big drinker like him? why not?) for him. Another sure shot.
14-Changeling imposter: I've detailed my take on Morphing in the Bashiroid article (seems like an important one, eh?), and this Founder from "Homefront" in much the same way: an O'Brien "shape" card with some of his skills, the ability to espionnage Federation missions and the guarantee that no Fed away team would ever involve him in a personnel battle (well, Sisko didn't try).
15-Replicant Miles: Cool cool episode ("Whispers") in which we follow what only seems like O'Brien for an entire show as everyone acts strangely around him. Turns out he's not the real Miles, but a replicant (à la Bladerunner) who only thinks he's Miles O'Brien. As a card? An exact duplicate of O'Brien that you can use jointly (as long as they're never present together) who eventually fulfills his programming and kills a certain personnel present at the end of a countdown or when a predetermined event occurs. Or a "Brainwashed" Personnel played when you've captured the real one? (But then again, capture has yet to be specific enough.)
16-Sci-fi writer: Like most of the characters, I don't remember his name in "Far Beyond the Stars", but like Benny(Sisko), there's not a whole lot to do with a writer beyond giving him the Writing skill. My idea for these guys was to have them "imagine" (download) science fiction concepts related to their characters. As an SF writer, O'Brien was facinated by robots (it becomes a running gag). Let's have him download androids and maybe Exocomps then. Well, that was easy.
17-Prophet:As I first mentioned in Sisko's article, the Prophets appear in the shows in the likenesses of all the regular characters. What I would like to see then, are Prophet cards (perhaps attainable through a Wormhole Doorway or contact with an Orb) that have effects related to the personna taken. Miles-Prophet would be the technical wiz of the group (do they have such things?), the one who lets ships through the wormhole and made the Dominion fleet disappear. He might download Transwarp Conduits to any ship or bounce enemy ships across the spaceline. I dunno.
18-Storyteller: In "The Storyteller", O'Brien is given the mantle of (let's say it once more) Storyteller of a Bajoran village. It's his job to keep a (perhaps imaginary) gaseous creature at bay by rallying the townspeople into cooperation. I'm not expecting this to become a true blue (actually true brown, as it would be Bajoran - unless they get dark blue like on their sealed deck box) personnel card, it might just as well be something like Arbiter of Succession I guess. Following the episode, he might have the ability to pool personnel attributes and skills like some Borg drones we know. Conceptually, it might make "enhanced storytelling" (promised by Decipher some time back) possible. But what does "enhanced storytelling" mean? Possibly something that makes the game's events closer to those of the episodes, or favors strategies that do. We'll see.
19-Classic Trek O'Brien: The Tribbles episode yielded a number of neat "Classic Trek" icon characters including this one. I can see the card image now: O'Brien being grilled by Kirk in the famous line-up. Potential restriction box: automatically attacks any Classic Klingons present. (How's that for encouraging personnel battles?) Potential skills: Automatically stun an opponent (great right hook!) and ENGINEER I suppose.
Taking into account that I'm not counting costume changes as O'Brioids (like Battle of Brittain garb and Miles in hippie duds), did I miss anything? Other -oids with not much meat on their bones include those of "Dramatis Personae", "Fascination", "Babel", etc. Personnel affected by Dilemmas are not necessarily -oids.
