#024 - O’Brien vs. O’Brien, Picard vs. Picard
As far as I can tell, letting your players improvise is simultaneously the best and worst thing you can possibly do in a role-playing game, a lesson I guess Geordi is going to learn the ancient-fashioned way. And I’m a little worried about the toll this whole thing might take on Keiko and Miles relationship.
But boy are lightbulbs going off in Picard’s head right now. Unexamined possibilities! Riker may be Picard’s Number One, but deep down inside we all know that Picard is Picard’s number one fan.
I was trying to figure out what rank to give Miles here, since the DS9 assignment is a promotion but I’m not sure what to or even what from. He was apparently referred to as both a Petty Officer and a Lt. junior grade on TNG, and at some point later on in DS9 it’s made finally explicit that he’s a Sr. Petty Officer, but it’s not clear to me whether at that point he became one or someone just said it out loud finally, and nobody seems to be really sure up to that specific point what he’s actually been in the mean time. And I don’t know anything about military hierarchy and officer ranks except that Captain Picard is damned sure a Captain and also whatever I’ve learned from getting people killed in X-Com.
So if someone wants to sort this whole thing out in the comments, please feel free.
tk
The psychosocial territory of the Miles/Keiko roleplay brain-swap was almost immediately out of hand; I enjoyed it, and enjoy it, but it's hard to unpack what either of their specific motivations would be here to be, like, clowning pettily on themself to jab at the other. Deep well of "are you two okay" with them. Deep well filled with red flags.
In the comments, someone addressed the rank issue by pointing out that yes in fact it's a fucking mess.
Also from the comments: Gene Roddenberry's previous TV show, a contemporary military drama called The Lieutenant with a main character named William Tiberius Rice.