WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Season 1, Episode 3 of Star Trek: Lower Decks, "Temporal Edict," now streaming on CBS All Access.
Star Trek has introduced plenty of iconic characters over its expansive run, from Captains James T. Kirk and Jean-Luc Picard to Benjamin Sisko and Kathryn Janeway. Now, the latest episode of Lower Decks concludes with a surprise flash-forward epilogue long after the events of the animated series as a group of young students learn about Starfleet's legacy and the spacefaring organization's most important lessons that have been imparted for generations. And as the epilogue wraps, both the laziest and most important figures in the history of Starfleet are revealed, with the latter being a fan-favorite character from series past: Chief Miles O'Brien.
After learning that the crew of the U.S.S. Cerritos have completed their regular tasks well ahead of schedule and use the buffer time to lounge around the starship as it handles Starfleet's most tedious, bureaucratic assignments across the Federation, Captain Carol Freeman creates a monitoring program that tightly monitors the crew's efficiency, including senior officers, at all times. This new program quickly runs the crew ragged, as they flit from task to task to beat the clock while the ever-vigilant Ensign Boimler manages to stay on top of his work.
As a routine diplomatic mission goes horribly off the rails, the ship is invaded by the Galrakians who recently have joined the Federation. Still visibly exhausted by the Captain's new policy, the crew does not put up much of a struggle as deck-by-deck, the ship falls to the hostile raiders. Sequestered to the bridge, Boimler convinces Freeman that buffer time is a necessary part of increasing crewmember efficiency and effectiveness, with the Captain reinstating the buffer privilege motivating the crew to drive off the Galrakians. For his example, the Starfleet recognizes the buffer time regulation as the Boimler Effect, with the ensign skeptical about having a rule allowing crew members to take their time on the job bearing his name.
The flash-forward reveals that the Boimler Effect is still very much taught, with a statue of Boimler shown to the students, while Boimler himself is regarded by the instructor as exceptionally lazy. The class then begins to learn about Chief O'Brien, who received his own statue and the distinction as one of the most important figures in Starfleet history. Introduced as the Transporter Chief and a senior engineer on Star Trek: The Next Generation, O'Brien would become Chief Engineer on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, running the eponymous space station as it served as the focal point of the cataclysmic Dominion War.
As the long-suffering engineer on board Deep Space Nine, Miles O'Brien finally gets the overdue recognition he has always deserved, presumably for his service on the U.S.S. Enterprise-D and his subsequent space station assignment. As for Boimler, who has always dreamed of making a difference and long-lasting impact on Starfleet and the Federation, the junior officer got his wish, albeit with the dubious distinction as an ensign that successfully argued for the right for Starfleet officers to inflate their work time and proceed with their tasks at a leisurely pace.
Star Trek: Lower Decks stars Tawny Newsome as Ensign Beckett Mariner, Eugene Cordero as Ensign Rutherford, Jack Quaid as Ensign Brad Boimler, Noël Wells as Ensign Tendi, Dawnn Lewis as Captain Carol Freeman, Jerry O'Connell as Commander Jack Ransom, Gillian Vigman as Doctor T'Ana and Fred Tatasciore as Lieutenant Shaxs. New episodes premiere Thursdays on CBS All Access.