Star Trek

The rank pins distinguish between the 2 levels of LT just as they distinguish between the 2 levels of commander.  Either way, LT is a higher rank than CPO.

the problem is that they havent always been consitent with how the pips were used.

O'Brien was called, in dialog, a cheif petty officer as far back as TNG's 4th season episode "Family".

And at that time he was wearing what we believe to be full Lt rank pips.

it seems that, at the time, the inlisted ranks shared the same looking pips as the Lt grades.

Riker referred to O'Brien as LT.  I would side with Commander Riker about the correct rank of someone on his ship over someone who stepped off a transporter pad & saw O'Brien for the first time.  While there were some occasional inconsisitencies in the pins being applied to uniforms in some scenes or episodes with characters whose ranks were known, those were just occasional errors by the costuming department.  O'Brien routinely wore the rank pins of a full LT.

like I said, he was only call LT, once in the series, and that was at a time when the writers didnt even have a full name for the character.I would side with the title and rank most offten cited trew out the series and not a 1 line comment made very early in the series.

And there was nothing routine about it,O'Brien's rank pins change quite a few times in the series.In all; his years, the character had 4 different pin displays on his neck collar.

In TNG's Encounter at farpoint, he wears red,1 pip and is called "COMM". In TNG: "Lonely Among Us" he is seen with yellow, the same1  pip and credited as a Security Guard.TNG: "The Child", credited as Transporter Chief. Wears the two pips of a Starfleet Lieutenant.In TNG: "Where Silence Has Lease" he wears the same pips and is called "Lieutenant" by Riker.

TNG: "Unnatural Selection".he finally gets a last name, still wearing the 2 pips of a lieutenant but was adressed as chief.

TNG: "Family" addressed as "another Chief Petty Officer" by Sergey Rozhenko, but was shown wearing Lieutenant's pips, and is given a first (and middle) name

TNG: "Realm of Fear" This episode marks the first time that O'Brien wears the single hollow pip with his regular uniform, O'Brien is given direct orders by Reginald Barclay (who is a Lieutenant Junior Grade) thus firming up the idea that O'Brien is an enlisted NCO as opposed to an officer.

DS9: "Emissary" as "Chief of Operations". For the next three years, O'Brien wears a single hollow pip insignia

DS9: "Shadowplay" where his title is stated to be Senior chief specialist. Appears also in the past segment of TNG: "All Good Things..." wearing the single pip of a Starfleet Ensign which is consistent with what was worn during "Encounter at Farpoint"

DS9: "Hippocratic Oath", O'Brien has begun to wear a new insignia reminiscent of the chevron rank used by modern day Master Chief Petty Officers in the U.S. Navy

What I meant was that through the majority of TNG, O'Brien wore the rank pins of a full LT, and they were usually pretty consistent with others in the show aside from the occasional mistakes with the costuming of the characters whose ranks were more obvious.

And what I'm talking about is not mistakes but delibrate changes to O'Briens pip ranks and not mistakes.The examples I posted were not mistakes.

To bottomline this issue, just because he had 2 solid pips doesnt mean he was a Lt.. The shows creators never thought to invent a special ranking system for the inlisted ranks till mid/late DS9's run.

They only called him Lt once early in TNG,he is called cheif nearly as early.In season 4 he's called a CPO and the rank pips he wore are irrelevent because the evidence indicates that the inlisted core and the officers shared the same rank insignia system till the DS9 episode "Hippocratic Oath"

Ro Laren was planned to be a main character in Deep Space Nine, never O'Brien. The creators of Deep Space Nine wanted a strong-willed Bajoran character who would engender interpersonal conflict with the station's commander, Benjamin sisko. However, Michelle Forbes turned down the role, so another Bajoran character named Kira Nerys was created instead.