Riker/O'brien Feud?

[Strongtattoo]

Hi everyone,

On DS9 the other night, (The one where Riker's duplicate hijacks the
Defiant), the Riker character reacts very negatively to Chief O'Brien,
saying "He has nothing to say to him."

Why does Riker hate O'Brien? Is there a site or link to a timeline that
explains such things?

Just curious,

T

[Exeter]

Post by Strongtattoo
On DS9 the other night, (The one where Riker's duplicate hijacks the
Defiant), the Riker character reacts very negatively to Chief O'Brien,
saying "He has nothing to say to him."
Why does Riker hate O'Brien?

It's Tom Riker pretending to be Will Riker. O'Brien was probably just as
confused as you were. Tom Riker said it so that O'Brien wouldn't want to
"chat about old times," thereby figuring out that it wasn't Will Riker.

[Elvis Gump]

Post by Strongtattoo
Hi everyone,
On DS9 the other night, (The one where Riker's duplicate hijacks the
Defiant), the Riker character reacts very negatively to Chief O'Brien,
saying "He has nothing to say to him."
Why does Riker hate O'Brien? Is there a site or link to a timeline that
explains such things?
Just curious,
T

I don't think the explanation was more than Tom Riker knew that he couldn't
bluff his way past O'Brien so he merely acted so bizarrely angry that
O'Brien, having no clue what was going on would steer clear of him.

I think he didn't know O'Brien was actually stationed there in the first
place and his feigned anger was improvised on the spot when caught off
guard. Pretending to be Wil Riker with his rank meant that no one was likely
going to say to him "hey what gives?"

[c]

Could also be that "Tom Riker" only came into existence because of a
transporter accident and O'Brien was a Transporter Chief before DS9

Clive

[Bo Raxo]

Post by c
Could also be that "Tom Riker" only came into existence because of a
transporter accident and O'Brien was a Transporter Chief before DS9
Clive

Man, that was one of the hokiest technobabble explanations in all of Trek.

Didn't matter though, it was a terrific episode. Frakes did an incredible
acting job, it really did seem like two completely different people.

[Graham Kennedy]

Post by c
Could also be that "Tom Riker" only came into existence because of a
transporter accident and O'Brien was a Transporter Chief before DS9

Nope. The accident happened years before the TNG episode,
well before Riker ever met O'Brien and before O'Brien had
anything to do with transporters.

[SKNavis]

Post by c
Could also be that "Tom Riker" only came into existence because of a
transporter accident and O'Brien was a Transporter Chief before DS9

Sorry, but that's really flimsy... Unless you had suffered some really serious
transporter psychosis (which TNG told us hadn't happened in a very long time),
it would be incredibly irrational to have a deep-seated grudge against anyone
who'd ever operated a transporter! I think the simplest explanation here is
the most reasonable one. Tom needs to cover his ass and O'Brien is the one
person on DS9 who can blow that cover. Seems obvious to me.

Peace,
Shaun

[c]

Post by SKNavis

Post by c
Could also be that "Tom Riker" only came into existence because of a
transporter accident and O'Brien was a Transporter Chief before DS9

Sorry, but that's really flimsy... Unless you had suffered some really serious
transporter psychosis (which TNG told us hadn't happened in a very long time),

I don't think it's that flimsy - if I was morooned somewhere for several
years; found I had been dublicated by a transporter accident; found that my
double had attained a high rank and I was still a lowly Leiutenant and
finally found my double had dumped Troi - well I would be pretty fed up with
the way life had worked out - and as the original incident was caused by a
transporter - then O'Brien is an obvious (but yes irrational) choice of
person to blame. And yes, in blaming O'Brien it also means he doesn't need
to talk to him reducing the risk of blowing his Marqui cover.

Clive

[Bo Raxo]

Post by c
I don't think it's that flimsy - if I was morooned somewhere for several
years; found I had been dublicated by a transporter accident; found that my
double had attained a high rank and I was still a lowly Leiutenant and
finally found my double had dumped Troi - well I would be pretty fed up with
the way life had worked out - and as the original incident was caused by a
transporter - then O'Brien is an obvious (but yes irrational) choice of
person to blame. And yes, in blaming O'Brien it also means he doesn't need
to talk to him reducing the risk of blowing his Marqui cover.
Clive

And once you ended up in a Cardassian prison, serving a life sentence, you'd
muse that perhaps being marooned on that M-class planet all alone wasn't so
bad after all.

Bo

[SKNavis]

Post by Elvis Gump
I don't think the explanation was more than Tom Riker knew that he couldn't
bluff his way past O'Brien so he merely acted so bizarrely angry that
O'Brien, having no clue what was going on would steer clear of him.

Exactly. No offense to anyone who was baffled by this, because it seems to pop
up here every time that episode is shown, but it seemed obvious to me way back
in '94/'95 or whenever it first aired.

Post by Elvis Gump
I think he didn't know O'Brien was actually stationed there in the first
place and his feigned anger was improvised on the spot when caught off
guard.

Yup! This discussion came up a couple of months ago, and someone correctly
pointed out that O'Brien was already on DS9 by the time "Second Chances" aired
on TNG. I'm not sure what the stardates used on TNG and DS9 were at that
point, but it's probable that Tom Riker had never even met O'Brien. The Chief
walks on to the bridge, says with a smile "Commander! How are you?," and Tom
realizes he must a be an old friend of Will's and has to quickly make something
up.

I mean, think about it. Even if Will Riker did have a grudge against O'Brien
(which he didn't), why would Tom know about it or even care? He probably never
met O'Brien prior that run-in on the Defiant, and he was just trying to cover
his tracks.

I suppose they could've stuck in a scene later on where O'Brien says "Oh, he
was trying to trick me so I wouldn't learn the truth," or something along those
lines, but I appreciated that DS9 was willing to let their audience figure
these things out on their own. Sort of like when Bashir is captured by the
Dominion, a Founder is impersonating him for a month (roughly four episodes) on
the station, but the viewers don't learn that until he suddenly turns up in a
Dominion penal colony. It was brilliantly done, and the writers didn't feel
any need to beat the viewer over the head with it. That's probably still my
favorite DS9 moment ever, and its the kind of thing that set DS9 apart from the
other Treks, esp. the two series that followed it.

Peace,
Shaun