17. Visionary

A Romulan delegation visits Deep Space Nine in order to receive intelligence about the Dominion promised to the Romulans by Starfleet. Complicating matters is the presence on the station of a crew of Klingons, another alien race with a history of poor relations with the Romulans.

Chief O'Brien, as an unexpected side-effect of radiation exposure, begins experiencing time shifts, each five hours into the future. He witnesses a bar brawl, in which he saves his future self from being stabbed by Klingons. In another time jump, he sees his future self killed by an energy beam in a corridor near the Romulans' quarters. On returning from the time jump, he reports the incident; the resulting investigation detects the trap being installed by the Klingons, leading to the Klingons' arrest, preventing the energy beam event O'Brien witnessed.

In another time jump, he witnesses the destruction of the station. He deliberately subjects himself to more radiation in order to time shift only three hours into the future in order to see exactly what causes the destruction: a cloaked Romulan warship reveals itself and begins firing on the station. After telling his future self about his mission, he dies of radiation poisoning. It falls to the future O'Brien to go back in time to warn Commander Sisko about the Romulans' plot. Sisko, speculating that the Romulans intend to destroy the station and the wormhole in order to cut off further contact with the Gamma Quadrant, aims the station's weapons at the cloaked ship and has the Romulan delegates ejected from the station.

Later, O'Brien uses his limited knowledge of the future to annoy the profit-hungry Quark.