I was watching TNG last night and I saw he had the rank pips of an Ensign. However, in DS9, he has stated several times that he is an enlisted man and a different rank pip is on his collar. If Starfleet has enlisted personnel, why don't they show up more often?
Posted Dec 19, 2019, 3:56 PM UTC
I believe he was a Chief Petty Officer.
It's complicated: http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/inconsistencies/uniforms1.htm#ranks (scroll down a couple of paragraphs)
He was addressed as "lieutenant" while wearing the rank in the second season, so it depends on how much you want to ignore.
He’s Chief Petty Officer. So he’s lower than an ensign. Not sure why they don’t show more enlisted men but it would be very interesting.
Edit: lol guess some chief petty officers are downvoting
Don't ever make the mistake of telling a CPO they're lower than an ensign!
Especially if they've got hash marks up their arm.
"On a different scale altogether than an ensign" might be a better way of wording it.
IIFC, Roddenberry wanted a future where most (if not all of) the crew were officers because it showed there was more education, or something like that.
What was Captain Picard's rank?
Captain?
O’Brien’s rank insignia fluctuate wildly in TNG to the point where it’s best to just write it off as a mistake and leave it.
In DS9 he is a Senior Chief Petty Officer, a high ranking non-commissioned officer. Strictly speaking, that meant that Nog outranks him but in practice no junior officer would ever dare act superior to a CPO because of the vast gulf in experience.
It’s established that most of O’Brien’s engineering staff on the Defiant are non-commissioned engineers as well.
First couple seasons are always best to take with a grain of salt. By season 4 he was well-established as a CPO. There was a fun bit of dialogue between him and Worf's dad over it :)
I used to work with a retired CPO and he was always telling stories about how generals would greet him before higher ranking officers. He always had stories to tell.
no proper junior officer would ever dare act superior to a CPO. I've seen a few JO do this to some great results.