star trek voyager harry kim promotion

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Why harry kim never got promoted on voyager.

Star Trek: Voyager’s Harry Kim remained a lowly ensign over the show’s entire seven-year run, much to the frustration of Kim’s actor Garret Wang.

Star Trek: Voyager 's Harry Kim remained a lowly ensign over the show's entire seven-year run, must to the frustration of actor Garrett Wang. Kim was Voyager's primary operations officer after the ship was flung into the distant Delta Quadrant, over 75 years away from home. Young and inexperienced, Kim filled the role of wide-eyed space explorer previously filled by the likes of Pavel Chekov and Wesley Crusher.

After the show's first few seasons, Kim began to fade a bit as a character. Once the former Borg drone Seven of Nine joined Voyager 's cast in season 4, many of the show's supporting cast suddenly felt like background characters, Kim included. Wang dutifully portrayed the diminished Ensign Kim for the show's entire seven-season run, though he did have a request for the show's writers and producers - give Harry a promotion. A trusted and important member of Captain Kathryn Janeway's senior staff, Wang thought it was only logical that Kim would be in line to become a lieutenant.

Related: Star Trek Just Had An Amazing Callback To Voyager Season 5

Why Harry Kim Was Never Promoted On Voyager

Wang's simple request that Harry Kim get a little bit of character development in the form of a promotion was summarily denied by producer Rick Berman. Berman's explanation was that, in a situation like Voyager's, career advancement would be decidedly more difficult, as human resources were finite. In Berman's estimation, somebody had to be the ensign, and Harry Kim drew the short straw.

While that's a somewhat reasonable explanation, the reality of the situation was a bit more complicated. Voyager was something of a troubled production, constantly taking on network interference and declining ratings. Blame for the show's uninspiring performance would fall on plenty of people in front of and behind the camera, but by all accounts Berman thought Harry Kim was simply not working as a character. Kim was very nearly dropped from the main cast at the beginning of season 4, though Wang appearing in an issue of People Magazine as one of the world's 50 most beautiful people earned the character a reprieve; Jennifer Lien's Kes got the axe instead.

Early life and education [ ]

Harry Kim as an infant in the virtual reality

Prior to his birth, Kim was lucid enough to form memories of being in the womb. ( VOY : " The Cloud ") He was born in 2349 , the only son of John and Mary Kim . ( VOY : " Caretaker ", " Eye of the Needle ", " Favorite Son ") While Kim was born on Earth in South Carolina , he grew up in another location. ( VOY : " One ")

Growing up, Kim's parents used to tell him how special he was, as they had been trying to have a baby for years until he came along. To them he was their miracle child, they spoiled him rotten, and made sacrifices so he could have everything he wanted. When he was older, Kim claimed that he never felt like he deserved kind of devotion his parents gave him. He didn't see what was so special about himself, so he used to imagine that he had hidden powers , and thought he would grow up to be stronger than a Klingon , or was able to read people's minds – anything to make him more than just an average kid. ( VOY : " Favorite Son ")

In 2355 , Kim visited a haunted house with his family. ( VOY : " Collective ")

In the third grade , Kim had to memorize the greeting recorded aboard Friendship 1 . ( VOY : " Friendship One ")

Kim as a boy

In 2358 , Kim suffered from a case of the Mendakan pox . ( VOY : " Favorite Son ") The same year, he joined his parents on a humanitarian mission to a colony that had just suffered from a radiation disaster. While there, the Kims visited a hospital , and Harry wandered off by himself to an area where he wasn't supposed to be. In this area, he saw many sick and dying, including a little girl on an operating table . As he watched, the doctor called for a scalpel , and the little girl looked at Harry, her face was filled with fear . ( VOY : " The Thaw ")

Despite of his parents being "practically tone deaf ", Kim loved music . ( VOY : " Favorite Son ", " One ") Kim played clarinet in the Juilliard Youth Symphony . When he served on the USS Voyager , he forgot his clarinet. ( VOY : " Caretaker ") He later replicated one with his replicator rations and went on to perform with a jazz combo of officers, " Harry Kim and the Kimtones ". ( VOY : " Virtuoso ") Kim also later played the saxophone . ( VOY : " Ashes to Ashes ", " Lineage ")

Also among his personal interests were sports . Kim participated in tennis and Parrises squares , but his favorite sport was volleyball . ( VOY : " One ")

Starfleet Academy [ ]

All his life, all Kim ever wanted to do was join Starfleet , so that could go into space and explore the Galaxy . ( VOY : " Caretaker ", " Favorite Son ")

He aced the quantum theory portion of the Starfleet Academy entrance exam . ( VOY : " Imperfection ")

Kim attended Starfleet Academy from 2366 to 2370 . ( VOY : " Non Sequitur ")

While at the Academy, Kim was warned about the Ferengi . ( VOY : " Caretaker ") He also learned about the self-aware Moriarty hologram and how it took over the Enterprise -D . ( VOY : " Alter Ego ")

Among his Academy curriculum was a survival course taught by Commander Zakarian , someone who he later admitted never really liking. ( VOY : " Caretaker ") After he took Starfleet History at the Academy, Kim always wondered what it would be like to live during the late 23rd century . ( VOY : " Flashback ")

During his Academy years, he became close friends with Lyndsay Ballard , who lived across the hall in the student dorm. He even changed his class schedule so he would be in the same classes as Ballard. She taught him to ice skate , despite his dislike for cold weather. He never mentioned to her that he had a crush on her, not until he met her again in 2376 . ( VOY : " Ashes to Ashes ")

As a cadet at Starfleet Academy, Kim was involved in numerous athletic events as both the captain of the Velocity team and a three-time Academy champion of Parrises squares player. ( VOY : " Tsunkatse ")

Kim was a member of the Falcon Squadron , a training squadron assigned to the Third Academy Training Wing . Upon the successful completion of the program, was awarded a Flight Proficiency Award . ( VOY : " Non Sequitur " set decoration )

A certificate related to the Quadcentennial

On Earth, the quadricentennial of Apollo 11 's landing on the moon in 1969 was celebrated. Starfleet Academy gave out a certificate in relation to it in some way. As a cadet , Kim was one of the recipients. ( VOY : " Non Sequitur ", " Nightingale " set decoration )

During his last year at the Academy, he had a roommate named James Mooney MacAllister , who was known to study algorithms until dawn . This forced Kim to wear a mask to help sleep, which he grew fond of, as it reminded him of his mother's womb , of which he still retained memories. He retained the practice of wearing the mask at night throughout his Voyager assignment. McAllister helped Kim get through his fourth year quantum chemistry . ( VOY : " The Cloud ")

Kim was editor of the school newspaper his senior year. As editor, he monitored subspace transmissions, where he got reports from some of the first activity by the Maquis against the Cardassians after the signing of the Federation-Cardassian Treaty . Without advising his professor , Kim wrote an editorial on the potentially controversial topic and the cadets became polarized on the issue. They debated the pros and cons of the subject and through his article, gained an insight into the entire history of the Maquis political rebellion. ( VOY : " Investigations ")

Harry graduated from the Academy as valedictorian of his class, having earned Interstellar Honors on Stardate 47918. He requested duty aboard the USS Voyager on Stardate 47923 and was given his first field assignment as a bridge officer aboard Voyager early the following year. ( VOY : " Non Sequitur ", " The Disease ")

Aboard Voyager [ ]

Kim on the Caretaker's array during his first mission as a Starfleet officer

In 2371, Kim was assigned as operations officer aboard Voyager . He joined the ship at Deep Space 9 , and was very nervous about his first assignment, to the extent that he did not know how to address Captain Kathryn Janeway . Tom Paris , who was the polar opposite of Kim, befriended him.

During Voyager 's maiden voyage , the ship was transported to the Delta Quadrant by the Caretaker's array , along with the Maquis ship, Val Jean . After both crews were subjected to various medical tests, they were returned to their respective ships. However, Harry Kim and B'Elanna Torres , a Maquis, were not. They were transferred to an underground Ocampan medical facility by the Caretaker . It was at this time that Torres would refer to Kim as " Starfleet ," a nickname she would frequently use during their Voyager commissions. Kim and Torres persuaded an Ocampan nurse to show them a route that could lead to the surface . They were eventually rescued by Voyager . ( VOY : " Caretaker ")

Kim with Ayala

Kim later discovered a micro-wormhole in the Delta Quadrant that led to the Alpha Quadrant , Tom Paris proposed petitioning the Federation Astronomical Committee to officially designate the wormhole Harry discovered as the " Harry Kim wormhole ." It was later determined that wormhole was a dry well, as travel through it would have placed the crew twenty years in the past , to a time when Kim was only two years old. ( VOY : " Eye of the Needle ")

On an away mission to an asteroid , Kim found an alien burial ground. When the team was beamed up, Kim was switched with one of the bodies in the burial capsules, and a dead alien was beamed aboard Voyager . The real Harry Kim found himself on the Vhnori homeworld . The Vhnori believed he was from the afterlife . When he told them he was from a place where there were just dead bodies, he shook their belief in the afterlife. He persuaded Hatil Garan , a Vhnori, who was going to submit to euthanasia to ease his family's burden in caring for him, to change his mind about dying. He took Garan's place and was returned to the asteroid and rescued by Voyager . ( VOY : " Emanations ")

When Voyager visited the Sikarians , Kim met a woman named Eudana , who was using an instrument which Harry mistook for being musical in nature, but when she said it measured weather patterns, he correctly deduced that nonlinear resonances in the atmosphere allowed the device to function. She then asked if he was a scientist , to which he responded that was sort of right. She wanted to be alone with him and took him to a planet that was thousands of light years away. Her people could fold space and travel great distances in a short time. This technology could have reduced the length of Voyager 's return home. The Sikarians, however, would not give up the technology due to their laws. ( VOY : " Prime Factors ")

During a holoprogram of the epic poem Beowulf , Kim, who had assumed the title role, was captured by photonic lifeforms who had assumed one of the characters, Grendel , in the program. The Doctor rescued him, along with Chakotay and Tuvok . ( VOY : " Heroes and Demons ")

In the attack by the Botha , who could cause hallucinations , Kim believed he saw his girlfriend Libby . ( VOY : " Persistence of Vision ")

Voyager was accidentally duplicated by a spatial scission phenomenon. Each ship was unaware of the other's existence, and both tried to stabilize their rapidly draining antimatter supply with a series of proton bursts . One of the two ships, slightly phased apart from the other, fired the protons first, heavily damaging the other in the process; the damage also caused the infant Naomi Wildman to die in her failed delivery operation. The Harry Kim from the damaged Voyager was killed after being blown through a hull breach . When the undamaged ship was forced to self-destruct after being overrun by Vidiian forces, that ship's Harry Kim took the infant Naomi Wildman and transferred to the other ship. ( VOY : " Deadlock ")

The Clown turns Harry's fear of growing old into a reality

At one point, Kim entered an artificial reality stasis created by Viorsa's species . They had created it to survive a natural disaster . When he entered, in his subconscious state, he was confronted by The Clown . The Clown was fear personified and survived by being linked to humanoid sensory functions. He had already killed some members of Viorsa's species in stasis by literally frightening them to death. Kim could not wake up and became a prisoner of the entity. He was rescued by Janeway when she tricked The Clown into releasing the prisoners in exchange for her. She substituted her hologram for herself. ( VOY : " The Thaw ")

Kim warning Janeway of a volcano erupting on Hanon IV

In 2373 , Kim and Paris were falsely arrested and were incarcerated in an Akritirian maximum security detention facility , where they suffered great physical and mental abuse. Even though Janeway found the real terrorist who had actually committed the crime, the Akritirians refused to release them. Kim attended to Paris's wounds when he was stabbed by an inmate. With no medical assistance available, Kim made a deal with another inmate for some supplies to clean up his crewmate and friend. Later, Kim almost killed Paris when he found a delirious Paris taking apart the tool that Kim had used to neutralize the force field surrounding the prison. He regained his composure and fought furiously to defend Tom against the other inmates when Voyager attacked the prison and freed them both. ( VOY : " The Chute ")

Kim taken ill by a macrovirus

In 1996 , when Voyager was in orbit of Earth after entering a temporal distortion from 2373, Captain Janeway left Kim in command of the ship while she, Chakotay, Paris and Tuvok went to Los Angeles to locate Braxton . Kim later took Voyager down into Earth's atmosphere to beam Janeway and Chakotay from Chronowerx Industries and from Henry Starling and Dunbar , as the long-range transporters were offline. Janeway later told Kim that he didn't do too badly for his first time in the command chair . ( VOY : " Future's End ")

In early 2373, he fell in love with a holodeck character, Marayna , who was actually an alien remotely manipulating the character. He became very jealous of Tuvok when the holodeck character became infatuated with Tuvok. The alien was a lonely operator assigned to a deep space array near a nebula . ( VOY : " Alter Ego ")

Kim discovering his Taresian spots

Later that year, Kim began to exhibit the appearance of alien spots on his face. When Voyager visited a planet inhabited by the Taresians , they explained that Kim was conceived on their world, but his embryo was implanted in an Earth woman, to bring an infusion of new genetic material back to their race. At first, Kim decided to stay on his "true homeworld", but later Kim realized that Taresian men are killed on their wedding night after the women extract enough genetic material to conceive children. In fact, he was not Taresian at all but was infected with a retrovirus that produced his supposed Taresian DNA . The crew was able to disrupt a force field around the planet and beam up Kim and leave the area. ( VOY : " Favorite Son ")

Kim infected with Species 8472 cells

At the end of the year, Voyager arrived in Borg space . They found a passage that seemed devoid of any Borg . After a fleet of cubes had passed Voyager , ignoring it, Kim determined that the fleet had been destroyed. Upon investigating the debris, he was attacked by Species 8472 and wounded. His body was invaded by alien cells that were destroying his own cells. He was cured when The Doctor used Borg nanoprobes to cure him. ( VOY : " Scorpion ", " Scorpion, Part II ")

Kim, with Paris as Bobby Davis

Kim and The Doctor were two of the members of the crew not put into the Hirogen holoprogram hunts after the Hirogen captured Voyager . Kim was forced to continue to expand and upgrade the hunting holoprograms. He worked on a way to disable the neural blockers used by the Hirogens, so the crew could remember who they were. He was successful and helped rescue the crew by disabling the holoprograms. ( VOY : " The Killing Game ", " The Killing Game, Part II ")

Kim and Paris examining the Silver Blood

On exploring a demon planet, his DNA was used by Silver Blood aliens to duplicate him, so they could experience consciousness. ( VOY : " Demon ")

In 2375 , Kim helped build a technologically-advanced shuttle called the Delta Flyer . That same year, Kim encountered the Malon . They attempted to steal an advanced multi-spatial probe belonging to Voyager . Kim, along with Paris, Seven of Nine and Torres, used the shuttle to retrieve the probe and fight off the Malon. ( VOY : " Extreme Risk ")

Kim with Seven of Nine in 2375

He became involved with a Varro female named Derran Tal who was a rebel planning on separating the Varro generation ship. This affair brought him in conflict with Captain Janeway who disapproved of the relationship. He defied Janeway and continued to see Derran. Kim developed a biological bond that the Varro called the shared heart. The Doctor developed an antidote for the condition. After the Varro ship left and he and Darren parted, Kim refused to take medicine for his lovesick condition, because the pain would remind him of the happiness he felt. ( VOY : " The Disease ")

About nine months after the events on the demon planet , Kim's Silver Blood duplicate and the rest of Voyager 's duplicate crew, experienced severe cellular degradation, initially believing they were the real crew and operating the real starship. Kim spearheaded the drive to return to the demon planet when Chakotay became too sick to function, ultimately convincing the dying duplicate Janeway. After most of the senior staff ranked above him died, he became acting first officer and later acting captain after Janeway died. Kim then tried to hold together a quickly-disintegrating ship, until it could return to the Demon Planet and safety. In the duplicate Voyager 's last minutes, the desperate crew detected glimpses of the real Voyager through degraded sensors, and Kim sent a final plea for help – tragically warranting only a vague distress call entry in Janeway's captain's log. ( VOY : " Course: Oblivion ")

Harry Kim as Buster Kincaid in the holonovel The Adventures of Captain Proton

He and Paris discovered that their favorite holoprogram, The Adventures of Captain Proton , had mistakenly been taken seriously by an alien race of photonic lifeforms . They believed that they were about to be attacked. They had to defeat the program's villain, Doctor Chaotica , to stop the alien attack on Voyager . ( VOY : " Bride of Chaotica! ")

After receiving a distress call on the night shift , Ensign Kim diverted Voyager to the site. After confidence-boosting approval from Chakotay on "doing the right thing", senior command crew granted Kim the opportunity to expand his leadership skills, by leading an away mission for assistance. They found an artificially-intelligent probe -like machine, known as a Series 5 long-range tactical armor unit , which had crashed on the planet. At The Doctor's insistence that they beam the device aboard for repairs – after some debate, Kim prudently added security measures to the investigation, and transferred it to sickbay due to the probe's bio-neural components. Torres discovered the device was actually a weapon of mass destruction, and the warhead then hijacked The Doctor's program, trapping Torres and Kim in sickbay with The Doctor's control abilities. Using persistent diplomacy, technical analysis and citing The Doctor's growth as an AI, Kim was instrumental in showing and reasoning with the warhead that its launch was a mistake, and that the weapon's intentions and stubborn denial of rescinded orders could cause it to fail its mission to protect its originating people, by inciting an accidental second war. The weapon failed to convince its newly arrived identical warp-capable warheads about the rescinded orders – these new weapons then threatened Voyager 's destruction if the damaged warhead was not re-integrated into their fleet for final blind destruction of their enemies. Kim's sadness was soothed, when despite the potential loss of its new-found enlightenment, the weapon found a new way to protect its people: destroying its brethren while traveling in subspace. ( VOY : " Warhead ")

Kim often found time to relax on the holodeck. He and Paris created a new holoprogram called Fair Haven . He dated one of the characters, Maggie O'Halloran , who Paris turned into a cow as a prank. When the other characters in the program saw it, they believed that Kim and Paris were evil spirits and attempted to send them back to the otherworld . The characters had become self-aware due to a hologram failure. ( VOY : " Fair Haven ", " Spirit Folk ")

Later, he became reunited with a crewmate for whom he had romantic feelings. Ensign Lyndsay Ballard had been killed in an away mission, only to be discovered by the Kobali who resurrected her. They reanimated her by altering her DNA and transformed her into a Kobali. The Doctor used medical techniques to begin the transformation of her back to Human form, but too little of her Human DNA remained for him to complete the procedure. He was, however, able to use cosmetic techniques to make her appear Human. Her Kobali father boarded Voyager and asked her to come back; when she refused, his ships opened fire on Voyager . Kim tried to persuade her to stay, but she had been transformed into a Kobali and wished to save Voyager from future attacks, so she left. ( VOY : " Ashes to Ashes ")

As a member of an away team Kim retained memories of a massacre which took place many years ago. The memorial was put in his neural pathways by a synaptic generator left as a monument on the planet he visited. Kim suffered terrible guilt because the memories of the soldier, who had killed two civilians, was transposed on him. ( VOY : " Memorial ")

Kim, along with Paris, Chakotay, and Neelix , were on the Delta Flyer , when a Borg cube tractored the shuttle inside the cube. The cube was piloted by Borg children who were left alone after a virus had killed the adults. Kim was injured, but recovered and attempted to destroy the cube's generator. He and the others were rescued by Seven of Nine after she persuaded the children to let them go. ( VOY : " Collective ")

He was stranded on a pre-industrial planet with Torres. He was able to restore the shuttle, when Torres was able to secure minerals and metals for stories she gave to the local playwright. He and Torres returned to Voyager . ( VOY : " Muse ")

In 2377 , Kim helped defeat the Borg and destroy Unimatrix Zero . ( VOY : " Unimatrix Zero ")

In testing out the new Delta Flyer , he and Paris entered themselves in the Antarian Trans-stellar Rally , only to find out that the woman he had feelings for, Irina , was a terrorist trying to sabotage the race. ( VOY : " Drive ")

Kim's ready room

Kim assumed his first command when he took over a Kraylor medical transport , so-named Nightingale , during a conflict with the Annari . He believed that the ship was carrying medicine , but was really a prototype ship carrying a newly developed cloaking device . ( VOY : " Nightingale ")

Kim congratulated his friend Tom Paris on his impending fatherhood and joked with him that his life would soon start spinning out of control. After Paris and his wife B'Elanna Torres started having problems, Kim accepted Paris' request to sleep in his quarters. ( VOY : " Lineage ")

Kim took command of Voyager when nearly the entire crew was kidnapped and brainwashed by the Quarren and put into their workforce. Taking command also put Kim into conflict with The Doctor, who had been in command after Janeway re-activated him as an ECH . Kim and The Doctor put their differences aside after the crew was successfully recovered. ( VOY : " Workforce ", " Workforce, Part II ")

Kim and Chakotay investigate a missile silo

In 2378 , Kim was part of an away team sent to an alien planet to retrieve an early Earth probe called Friendship 1 . It was Voyager 's first official mission from Starfleet in seven years. However, Neelix, Tom Paris, and Joe Carey were captured by the natives , whose atmosphere on the planet had been poisoned by radiation from the probe. However, Kim and Chakotay were able to escape back to Voyager aboard the Delta Flyer . Kim later assisted Voyager 's crew in removing the harmful contaminants in the atmosphere using modified photon torpedoes . ( VOY : " Friendship One ")

The Doctor incapacitates Kim in the holodeck

Later, Kim was in command of Voyager when the Delta Flyer II sent an emergency message to the bridge from Captain Janeway. Janeway told Kim that she wanted to see Commander Chakotay in her ready room as soon as possible. Janeway told Chakotay and the rest of the senior staff that a species called the R'Kaal demanded that Voyager be disassembled, as warp travel through their region of space was forbidden. Janeway claimed that she barely made it back to Voyager in one piece from them. She also claimed that she had made a compromise with them; that they would surrender their warp core and settle on the nearest M-class planet. However, Chakotay had become concerned about Janeway's behavior and asked Kim to decode a transmission from the R'Kaal's Supreme Archon , Loth . Kim discovered on the holodeck with Chakotay that Loth was merely a holodeck character created by The Doctor. Suddenly, The Doctor, disguised as Chakotay, subdued Kim with a hypospray .

Harry Kim in command of Voyager

The Doctor, who had also disguised himself as Janeway, hid Kim in Voyager 's morgue , where he also hid Chakotay's body. Kim and Chakotay were later found by Tom Paris, after The Doctor escaped with Voyager 's warp core to deliver to Nar and Zet , who were holding Captain Janeway hostage. After the hostage crisis was over and the warp core was recovered, The Doctor's program began to malfunction after he had taken on many holographic templates of the crew. The Doctor, believing he was about to be lost forever, recounted to Kim when he told B'Elanna Torres that his saxophone playing during his recital the previous month reminded him of a wounded targ . Fortunately, The Doctor was saved after Torres deleted all the extraneous data from his program. ( VOY : " Renaissance Man ")

Kim is overcome with emotion after arriving at Earth

Later in 2378, Kim began to get excited about returning home again, when Seven of Nine discovered numerous neutrino emissions inside a nebula, which translated into a number of wormholes. Paris jokingly told Kim that one of them could lead into his parents' living room. Voyager entered the nebula, but found it to be infested with Borg. Janeway ordered Voyager be taken out of the nebula at once. Kim, not wanting to give up on the possibility of returning home, tried asking Paris to help him take the Delta Flyer inside the nebula. Paris, about to become a father, refused. However, a short time later, Admiral Kathryn Janeway time traveled from the year 2404 to try and get Voyager home sooner. With the advanced technology she brought from the future, Voyager dealt a crippling blow to the Borg by infecting them with a neurolytic pathogen and destroying one of their transwarp hubs . Voyager emerged from a transwarp hub in sector 001 after destroying a Borg sphere and Kim returned to Earth after seven years lost in the Delta Quadrant. ( VOY : " Endgame ")

Later career [ ]

Sometime after Kim returned home, Ensign Brad Boimler was able to procure a Voyager plate that Kim had signed. ( LD : " We'll Always Have Tom Paris ")

Alternate realities and timelines [ ]

In one alternate timeline created in 2371, after his shuttle entered an alien time stream that changed his timeline. Kim found himself back in San Francisco , assigned to the Starfleet Engineer Corps , living with Libby, who was at the time his fiancée . Instead of taking a posting aboard Voyager , he worked as a starship design specialist who received the Cochrane Medal of Excellence for Outstanding Advances in Warp Theory , a certificate of completion for completing Academy Extension Course #4077 , and a Flight Proficiency Award from Starfleet Academy. His first major accomplishment was designing the new tetryon plasma warp engines for the USS Yellowstone . He was helped by Cosimo , one of the aliens, and the Tom Paris of that timeline (without Kim, it was Paris who Quark tried to rip off – he attacked the Ferengi, was arrested by Odo , and was still in the brig when Voyager left DS9), to return to Voyager . ( VOY : " Non Sequitur ")

In another timeline, Kim married Linnis Paris , the daughter of Tom Paris and Kes . The couple had a son named Andrew . He had previously served as the best man at Paris and Kes' wedding . ( VOY : " Before and After ")

In yet another timeline, Kim and Chakotay flew the Delta Flyer to Earth after Voyager was destroyed due to a mistake of Kim's, an erroneous phase correction to the slipstream threshold of the quantum slipstream drive he chiefly designed. Fifteen years later, as fugitives, they found Voyager and "fixed" history. With a Borg temporal transmitter that they stole from Starfleet they sent a message back in time to prevent the crash. Kim had blamed himself for what happened to Voyager , and as such was more aggressive to The Doctor (the only survivor of the crash because he was a computer program). For example, he threatened to shut him down for good if he didn't help save Voyager , something The Doctor was reluctant to do since it meant altering the timeline. After Kim failed yet again to save Voyager , and with the Flyer , damaged by the USS Challenger , three minutes from a warp core breach , he completely fell apart, bursting into tears and bitterly accepting his final failure. The Doctor, however, would have none of it, and gave Kim the idea (which, due to his obsession with trying to get Voyager home, had not even crossed his mind) that, rather than preserving the slipstream, he should try to avoid the disaster by ending the flight before it was too late, a suggestion Kim excitedly realized was in fact possible. His broken spirit rejuvenated by the knowledge that, while a return to the Alpha Quadrant was out of the question, the ship and crew could still be saved, Kim succeeded at the last possible second by using The Doctor's mobile emitter to power the transmitter and send a message to Voyager , dying with his arms raised in triumph. ( VOY : " Timeless ")

Captain Harry Kim in an alternate 25th century timeline

In yet another timeline, Kim commanded the Nova -class starship USS Rhode Island in the early 25th century . He was on a four-year mission , missing a number of events, including Chakotay's funeral.

His return by 2404 coincided with the ten-year reunion of Voyager 's return to the Alpha Quadrant, where he met, for the first time since she was an infant, Naomi Wildman's daughter, Sabrina .

Later was sent by The Doctor – who contacted Kim directly to keep the matter "in the family" – to stop Vice Admiral Janeway from interfering with the past 33 years of history. However, she convinced him to assist her by holding off two Klingon ships . ( VOY : " Endgame ")

Relationships [ ]

Kim was very close to his parents, Mary and John Kim . He was in contact with them every week, even during his training missions. His mother was a schoolteacher. She became upset because Harry had left his clarinet behind when he was assigned to Voyager , and she did not have enough time to send it to him. ( VOY : " Caretaker ", " Eye of the Needle ")

On his mother's birthday in 2377, he got to speak to his parents face-to-face for the first time in seven years. During the conversation his mother stated that Kim was very popular with her eighth graders. Kim's parents were bothered that he hadn't been promoted. ( VOY : " Author, Author ")

Harry had a cousin on his father's side named Dennis Kim . They had a mutual friend, Maxwell Soroyan , who was killed by the Maquis a few years prior to 2377 . When the USS Voyager reestablished communications with the Alpha Quadrant , Dennis wrote a letter to Harry in which he talked about Soroyan's death. ( VOY : " Repression ")

Harry also had an ancestor named Uncle Jack who was a starship pilot. ( VOY : " 11:59 ")

Friendships [ ]

Tom paris [ ].

Friends through the best of times, and the worst

After Voyager became stranded in the Delta Quadrant , Kim became good friends with Tom Paris. They often spent much time together in the holodeck . During their time on Voyager , Kim became Paris' best friend.

Paris, trying to get Kim to go on a double date with the Delaney sisters

Paris first met Harry Kim on board Deep Space 9 , where a Ferengi bartender named Quark wanted to sell Kim some crystals. Quark was about to scam Kim, when Paris sunk the deal the Ferengi wanted to make and prevented Kim from paying too much for the crystals.

When Paris reported on board Voyager , Kim noticed the cold behavior between some of the crew and Paris. Kim found out that there was an accident as a result of a pilot error which Tom tried to hide by falsifying reports but which he finally admitted was his fault. After Paris told him to stay away from him, Kim told him he could choose his own friends and their friendship started. ( VOY : " Caretaker ")

They had double dates with the Delaney sisters and spent a lot of time in the holodeck. Kim was shy and unsure around the opposite sex, and went to Paris for relationship advice. In Paris' opinion, Kim always fell in love with the wrong women. ( VOY : " Prime Factors ", " Revulsion ", " The Disease ", " Ashes to Ashes ")

Kim playing kal-toh with Tuvok

Aboard Voyager , Kim was often seen enjoying a game of kal-toh with Tuvok , although he was unable to defeat the Vulcan officer during the seven years of Voyager 's return trip to the Alpha Quadrant. ( VOY : " Endgame ")

Romances [ ]

Libby and Harry (2371)

Kim had a girlfriend named Libby, whom he met, by accident, at a Ktarian music festival , where he was sitting in her seat. After the incident, it took Kim three weeks to work up the courage to ask her on a date. After Voyager became stranded in the Delta Quadrant , in 2371 , Kim held on to his love for Libby and often woke up in the middle of the night calling her name, hoping for a response. ( VOY : " Non Sequitur ")

Kim and Ballard

Despite his continued affection for Libby, Kim had many failed relationship attempts while aboard Voyager . He confessed to a long-held infatuation with Academy classmate Lyndsay Ballard , who died during a shuttle mission and was then revived by an alien race known as the Kobali . ( VOY : " Ashes to Ashes ") Kim's other failed infatuations include crewmate Megan Delaney , ( VOY : " Time and Again ") a holographic character named Marayna , ( VOY : " Alter Ego ") and an alien terrorist named Irina . ( VOY : " Drive ")

In 2374 , Kim became infatuated with Seven of Nine shortly after she was released from the Borg Collective . Seven, however, did not return the affection due to her incomplete understanding of Human culture. When she confronted Kim regarding his feelings for her, she attempted to initiate an intimate encounter with him, forcing an awkward Kim to defuse the situation. The result of their encounter, however, did set the foundation for developing a friendship. ( VOY : " Revulsion ")

Harry kissing Derran Tal in 2375

In 2375 , Kim became involved in a forbidden affair with a Varro engineer named Derran Tal . Harry fell deeply in love with Derran, in part because of a special bond created between the two called olan'vora , which he contracted following intimate relations with the Varro. ( VOY : " The Disease ")

Holograms [ ]

Harry Kim has been holographically duplicated on a number of occasions.

• Recreations of crew members from Voyager and the Jupiter Station Holoprogramming Center were seen by The Doctor during a holographic malfunction in 2371 . This simulation, or daydream, included Harry. ( VOY : " Projections ")
• The entire crew of Voyager was recreated by Tuvok for his Insurrection Alpha program. ( VOY : " Worst Case Scenario ")
• The Doctor took holographic images of the entire crew of Voyager in 2375 during their annual physicals . ( VOY : " Latent Image ")
• Lt. Barclay 's recreated most of the crew of USS Voyager at the Communications Research Center on Earth for the Pathfinder Project in 2376 . ( VOY : " Pathfinder ")
• In 2378 , Seven recreated the crew of Voyager to perfect her social skills, including Kim. ( VOY : " Human Error ")
• The Doctor's holonovel Photons Be Free was set aboard the USS Vortex and crewed by characters based on the crew of USS Voyager , albeit the names were changed to protect the innocent. The character of Kymble was based on Harry Kim. ( VOY : " Author, Author ")
• The Kyrian Museum of Heritage in the 31st century used the program The Voyager Encounter to detail their encounter with the Warship Voyager , as an aid to a history lesson. In this simulation 'Lieutenant Kim' was portrayed as a brutal interrogator who would beat prisoners in an attempt to extract information. ( VOY : " Living Witness ")

Appendices [ ]

Appearances [ ].

Harry Kim appears in 166 of the 168 episodes of Star Trek: Voyager . Thus, only the two episodes he does not appear in are listed here for brevity.

• " Fair Trade "
• " Blood Fever "

Background information [ ]

Harry Kim was played by actor Garrett Wang throughout the run of Star Trek: Voyager . Taylor Chong portrayed the infant Harry Kim in the second season episode " The Thaw " and actor Kenny Yee portrayed Harry Kim as a child in the flashback scene in the third season episode " Favorite Son ".

According to the VOY Season 2 DVD trivia text version of " The 37's ", an early production name for Harry Kim was Jay Osaka.

In the original, 1994 Writer's Bible for Star Trek: Voyager , the following biography was given for the character: [1] (X)

Kim, the Ops / Communication officer, is a Human of Asian descent, and had the happiest day of his life when he reported to duty aboard Voyager . He knew his parents were proud – though he was a bit embarrassed by their hugs and kisses as they said good-bye – and that meant a lot to him. As the only child of a couple which had tried for years to conceive, he was their great pride, their golden child. He grew up with love, warmth, and support, and an assumption that he would excel at whatever he chose. More than anything, he wanted to fulfill that expectation, to repay his parents for their undying devotion to him. And he had always done that, through his shining academic career and his graduation with honors from the Academy. After Voyager was swept to the far reaches of the galaxy, when he realized he would never see his parents again and they would believe him dead, his greatest regret was for the pain they would feel. But if Harry was raised with love and care, he was also raised in a somewhat sheltered way. He had no worries, no cares, and whatever minor annoyances life might have brought were deflected from him by his parents. So Harry has some growing up to do. Having never experienced adversity, he has fewer of the tools for coping than some of the others. Though he tries to keep such thoughts from surfacing, he's scared. He's over his head in this mission; he thought he'd be gone a month and then go home to share his adventures with his folks. But what has happened is unthinkable, and often he has the sensation that it's just a bad dream, that he will wake up in his bedroom at home, to the sound of his mother singing in the garden and his father hammering copper plate for sculptures. He goes about his duties with diligence – it's comforting, somehow, to have a job to do – but more than anyone else, Harry is suffering. The others know this, and in their varying ways, try to give the young man a helping hand. Their methods range from Chakotay's stern insistence on duty to Janeway's comforting maternal presence, but among the crew there is no one who doesn't like Harry Kim.

In the script for " Caretaker ", Harry Kim was described as " a young Starfleet Ensign in his early twenties. Looks fresh scrubbed and right out of the Academy. " According to numerous interviews with Garrett Wang, over the course of Voyager 's run, Wang actively petitioned both the writing staff and Rick Berman to promote the character of Harry Kim to lieutenant , thus mirroring similar promotions of Tom Paris and Tuvok . Wang's views were also shared by a large number of fans who felt it was unrealistic and even silly to show Harry Kim as an ensign after several years of experience in the Delta Quadrant. According to Wang, in response to his protests, he was repeatedly told "Someone has to be the ensign. " and thus his character was never promoted.

Regarding his character's ethnic background, Wang explained on his podcast The Delta Flyers that he believed, with the last name Kim, that his character was Korean-American. Wang also remembered a conversation with Brannon Braga during the development of Star Trek: Enterprise where Braga suggested Kim was Chinese-American. [2]

According to Wang, Eric Steinberg was a runner up for the role of Harry. [3]

Apocrypha [ ]

According to the video game Star Trek: Starship Creator , Harry's father is named Han Myong Kim and his mother is named Shin Ok Kim.

In the Voyager relaunch book series, Kim gets back together with Libby and is promoted to full lieutenant (like many of his crewmates, Kim is promoted two steps in rank, to make up for the time spent in the Delta Quadrant where he could not normally receive promotions). Kim then serves under Captain Chakotay aboard Voyager as chief of security .

In the novel Pathways , it is stated that a George Mathers was Kim's roommate at the Academy, not James MacAllister. Mathers developed a serious crush on Kim, only to be severely disappointed to the point of moving out when he found out that Kim was heterosexual. However, it is possible that MacAllister simply became Kim's roommate after Mathers moved out.

According to the Star Trek Online tie-in novel The Needs of the Many , Harry Kim became the chief of security of Starbase 11 in 2400 . Kim appears in the second expansion, Delta Rising (voiced once more by Garrett Wang) as captain of the USS Rhode Island and Starfleet envoy to the Kobali , a race under siege by the Vaadwaur . In the mission "Dust to Dust", it is revealed that the Kobali had found the body of the original Harry Kim from the episode " Deadlock " and had reanimated him as a Kobali named Keten. Kim and the Rhode Island also fight alongside now-Admiral Tuvok and Captain Tom Paris in the war against the Iconians . In the "Kings and Queens" storyline, Kim now commands the USS Inouye fighting against the incursion of the mirror universe Borg Kingdom. In the episode "Scorpion's Abyss", Kim joins Captain Ezri Dax in a mission to seal a dimensional vortex used by the Borg Kingdom to invade fluidic space , and discovers that the Borg King is his own mirror universe counterpart.

According to The Autobiography of Kathryn Janeway , Kim eventually married Libby after his return to the Alpha Quadrant and he gets promoted to captain rapidly.

In an alternate timeline featured in the Star Trek: Myriad Universes novella A Gutted World , Voyager was never stranded in the Delta Quadrant. Kim served as operations officer until the ship was destroyed by the Cardassians in the Dorvan sector in 2373.

External links [ ]

• Harry Kim at StarTrek.com
• Harry Kim (Star Trek) at Wikipedia
• Harry Kim at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
• Harry Kim at the Star Trek Online Wiki
• Keten at the Star Trek Online Wiki
• 2 ISS Enterprise (NCC-1701)

Star Trek: Fans Will Never Forgive Voyager For This Missed Opportunity

Star Trek: Voyager explored the Delta Quadrant of the galaxy and succeeded returning to Earth but failed one of its prominent characters.

Star Trek: Voyager was an attempt to get back to basics for Star Trek . The series tried something a little different with Deep Space Nine , taking place on a space station rather than a starship. But for Voyager, the creators felt it was time to go back to what fans remembered the franchise to be. This time, though, it was going to be a little different as the ship explored an unexplored region of space.

Voyager traveled through the Delta Quadrant for seven years and encountered a vast number of threats, including internal ones. Everybody pulled their weight, worthy of their own holiday. Many of the crew members would have settled for a promotion, and a couple of people received one. Not Ensign Harry Kim, though. Garrett Wang's character would go through seven years of heroics without ever being recognized — an oversight that irks fans to this dak.

RELATED: Star Trek: Voyager - Who Is Seska?

Other Characters Promoted on Voyager

During a mission in the far reaches of the galaxy's Alpha Quadrant, the starship Voyager encountered an entity known as the Caretaker. This entity abducted the crew of Voyager, looking for a suitable replacement for himself to take care of the Ocampa, but deemed everyone on the crew unsuitable. When he died, he released Voyager from captivity, but left them stranded on the other end of the Delta Quadrant, a region of space unexplored by Starfleet and most other alien civilizations found in the Alpha Quadrant. From there, their entire mission became getting home (with one or two pitstops along the way).

As one can imagine, promotions aren't a priority when lost in space. The crew directs all their focus on rationing resources, forming alliances, and avoiding the many enemies that lurk throughout the unexplored region of space. However, that didn't stop Captain Katheryn Janeway from promoting her chief security officer, the Vulcan named Tuvok.

The series establishes from its pilot episode that Tuvok and Janeway served together for many years. In fact, when the series starts, Tuvok is undercover on Chakotay's ship, disguised as a fellow Maquis. Tuvok proves himself time and time again as a valuable member of the crew, earning himself a much-needed promotion. In season four, episode five, "Revulsion," Captain Janeway promotes Tuvok to the rank of Lieutenant Commander for his dedication and selflessness. This is the first promotion audiences saw in the show, which raised questions about other characters receiving a promotion.

In season five, Lieutenant Tom Paris, Voyager's pilot, receives the ship's first demotion . Janeway knocks him to down to Ensign for insubordination, putting him at the same rank as his best friend Harry Kim. However, that didn't last too long. In the season six finale "Unimatrix Zero," Captain Janeway and First Officer Chakotay surprise him with a promotion back to Lieutenant for "exemplary" service. Ensign Harry Kim rightfully makes a remark about himself not receiving a promotion, to which he receives a blink or two.

Why Harry Kim Was Never Promoted on Voyager

The U.S.S. Voyager was Ensign Harry Kim's first field posting with Starfleet, and easily his most exciting. It turned into a lot more than he ever expected. Throughout the expanse of the series, Harry proved himself a valuable member of Voyager, despite his various unattainable crushes . He arguably did more for the benefit of Voyager than any other member of the crew.

In one instance, the ship lost phase variance after passing through a plasma drift. Two Voyagers existed in the same space and shared the same anti-matter, causing a lot of metaphysical issues. By the end of the episode after a failed attempt to merge the two ships back into the same phase variance, the two crews determined only one could survive. Janeway sent Harry to retrieve the newly born Naomi Wildman ( one of the children born during Voyager's exile ) and join the other Voyager that was going to survive. While the other crew is technically identical to the crew Harry worked with, they're simultaneously strangers to him. He followed orders that he knew meant leaving his crew behind to die.

In arguably Harry Kim's best episode , set 15 years in the future, an older Harry fixes a mistake he made in the past that destroyed Voyager. He succeeds by sacrificing himself in the future, such that Voyager never gets destroyed, and the crew ends up surviving. There's documented proof of Harry's success too in a video journal he sent to himself. Not to mention all the other times Harry died while in service of Voyager, it was right of him to speak up about Tom getting promoted over him.

Garrett Wang, who played Harry Kim, requested Harry receive more development in the series, including a promotion. Unfortunately, producer Rick Berman denied his request, claiming that somebody needed to be an Ensign and that somebody was Harry Kim. He elaborated, saying that in Voyager's situation, career advancement would be difficult. However, that didn't stop Tuvok from advancing to Lieutenant Commander, or Tom Paris getting demoted and promoted.

Berman wasn't particularly fond of Harry Kim as a character and nearly axed him from the main cast in season four. However, Garrett's appearance in People Magazine as one of the world's "50 Most Beautiful People" saved him, as it demonstrated his popularity with audiences. Kes ended up exiting the series instead. Seeing other characters receive promotions felt like a slap in the face, and it makes Berman's explanation weak. It's no wonder audiences witnessed Harry Kim die as many times as he did.

MORE: Star Trek: Voyager - Who Are The Hirogen?

Why Ensign Harry Kim Should've Been Promoted On Voyager

Ensign Harry Kim ( Garrett Wang ): classy clarinet player, scrappy sidekick to Captain Proton, and practically the only officer on the U.S.S. Voyager not to get a raise. 

For seven seasons,  Star Trek: Voyager left a Starfleet crew stranded in the Delta Quadrant. In all that time Harry Kim performed his fair share of heroics, and yet by the time Voyager finds her way back to Earth, he's still an ensign. That's messed up. If everyone onboard Voyager had stayed the same rank throughout, that would be one thing — but that's not what happened!

For one thing, half the ship isn't officially Starfleet — they're Maquis. The Maquis, whether you choose to see them as freedom fighters or terrorists, don't exactly hold to the rules and regulations of Starfleet officers. And yet, in the pilot episode, Maquis leader Chakotay (Robert Beltran) is immediately promoted to the rank of First Officer. B'Elanna Torres (Roxanne Dawson) is a member of the Maquis, too, but by episode two, she's the head of Voyager 's engineering section. Tom Paris (Robert Duncan McNeill) is a criminal that Captain Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) gave a second chance to. He starts as a lieutenant, gets demoted to ensign, and then gets promoted back to lieutenant. Neelix (Ethan Phillips) gave himself the job of ship morale officer before essentially waltzing in to the ship ambassador role.

What about Harry Kim, Star Trek: Voyager ?

Bad boy Tom Paris kept Harry Kim from looking good

If Will Riker (Jonathan Frakes) is the primary obstacle to Data (Brent Spiner) getting promoted on the Enterprise on Star Trek: The Next Generation , then the same can be said about Tom Paris when it comes to Harry Kim on Star Trek: Voyager .

Despite being the son of an admiral, Paris not only betrays Starfleet by joining the Maquis, but he openly admits that he did it for money. Just a quick reminder regarding the 24th century — people in the Federation don't even need money! Essentially, Tom Paris did crimes to look cool.

Unsurprisingly, both Starfleet officers and the Maquis aren't big fans of Tom Paris. For some, sweet, puppy-dog reason, though, Harry Kim decided that Tom Paris would be his best buddy, through thick and thin. Even when Tom tells Harry that their association will hurt Harry's career, Harry still sticks by Tom Paris. Paris pretty consistently makes mistakes in the first few seasons of Voyager . His ongoing disagreements with Chakotay aren't great. There's an episode ("Ex Post Facto") where Paris flouts Starfleet regulations entirely, participates in extra-marital hanky panky, and nearly drags Voyager into an intergalactic war as a result.

For every time Paris loses rank or falls in love with the A.I. of an evil ship ("Alice") for some reason, Harry stands by him. The rest of the crew eyes Harry Kim a little suspiciously as a result. If Tom Paris had only been a better friend and a better officer, Harry Kim would've probably been a lieutenant by season 3.

Harry Kim has persevered through incredible trauma

Harry Kim has faced quite a bit of trauma, and excelled basically every time. In the pilot episode ("Caretaker"), Kim and B'Elanna get kidnapped, infected, and held captive by an alien who drags  Voyager unwillingly to the Delta Quadrant. While B'Elanna responds with rage and frustration, Mr. Kim keeps his cool, builds a rapport with the Ocampa, and works out an escape plan even though he's dying. This is, effectively, Harry Kim's first away mission and he absolutely nails it.

In "Emanations," the same thing happens again. Kim is accidentally whisked away to a parallel dimension where he has to handle first contact with a group of aliens for whom his very existence suggests their concept of an afterlife isn't real. Not only does Harry find his way back to Voyager , he also saves the life of a man he's never met who's about to be unfairly euthanized. Afterwards, Harry is so ready to get back to work that Janeway has to tell him it's okay to take a beat and process what's happened to him.

Speaking of Harry Kim being put through the absolute wringer, he dies trying to save the ship! Harry Kim dies in "Deadlock," but because the episode involves two Voyager s existing at the same time, another Harry Kim lives to tell the tale — saving the life of Samantha Wildman's (Nancy Hower) baby in the process. To be very clear: The Harry Kim we continue on with after "Deadlock" is a version whose ship and everyone on it were destroyed, but he just keeps on living and trying to get folks home!

Most people would never recover from any of these traumas, but Harry Kim keeps on keeping on. How is he not a lieutenant, at least?

Harry Kim has tried to get Voyager home so many times

Harry Kim also has a stellar track record when it comes to actually trying to get Voyager home. In point of fact, he's arguably come closer than anyone else except for Captain Janeway herself.

In "Eye of the Needle," it's Kim's keen eye that discovers what might be a stable wormhole back to the Alpha Quadrant. It turns out that Kim is absolutely right! Even though the wormhole is micro in size, Voyager discovers that there's a way to transport the crew through the wormhole to the other side safely. Unfortunately the wormhole doesn't just traverse space, it also travels backwards in time — approximately 50 years. While Kim seriously considers the possibility of traveling through the wormhole anyway, Janeway decides against it. Let it be known, though — Harry Kim found a way home by episode 7.

Not three episodes later, Harry Kim does it again! In "Prime Factors" while the rest of the crew is too busy hanging out on what is, essentially, a hedonistic planet full of swingers, Kim literally puts his own romantic life on pause when he realizes these aliens have the technology to get Voyager home.

There's a problem with this trip home, too (otherwise the show would've been very short). The current leaders of the Sikarians (the hedonistic aliens) don't want to trade, but another group on the planet is willing. Kim takes the information to Janeway, but she isn't able to seal the deal. While the technology would never have worked with Federation technology, given enough time it's hard not to believe that Harry and B'Elanna couldn't have found a way.

Harry Kim learned how to be a captain from Janeway herself

In the finale of Voyager , Admiral Janeway decides that the conditions which ultimately brought Voyager home were insufficient because of the consequences to some of the crew. As a result she travels back in time to convince her past self to use Borg technology and get the crew home years ahead of schedule. Short version: It works!

Part of what makes Janeway a great captain is that she's willing to shoulder the big consequences in order to keep her crew safe and get them home. Janeway's resilience and ability to navigate around Starfleet rules when it's necessary is a big part of what proves she's a truly great leader.

Let's talk about "Timeless" for a moment. In this episode, Voyager is prepared to use a slipstream drive to get home, but a miscalculation from the shuttlecraft guiding them leads them to an icy death instead. Just like alternate-future Admiral Janeway, an older Harry Kim who survived in the shuttlecraft dedicates the rest of his life to figuring out what went wrong so he can go back in time and correct it. Starfleet is against what Kim is doing, but together with Chakotay and the Doctor, Kim defies orders, and sacrifices it all to save Voyager from it's frozen demise.

Has Harry Kim shouldered impossible burdens? Yes, he has. Has Harry Kim done everything he can to get Voyager home, even at great sacrifice to himself? Yes, absolutely, he has done all those things. Is Harry Kim more deserving of a promotion than Tom Paris? Yes, so let's go back and time like Harry Kim would and fix this!

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• Starfleet personnel
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• Starfleet ensigns
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• View history
• 1.1 Early life
• 1.2 Aboard Voyager
• 1.3 Return to the Federation
• 1.4 25th century
• 1.5.1.1 Return to Voyager
• 2.1 Connections
• 2.2.1 Appearances
• 2.2.2 References
• 2.3 External link

Biography [ ]

Early life [ ].

Kim was born in the year 2349 in Monterey , South Carolina on Earth to John Kim and Mary Kim . ( VOY episode : " Eye of the Needle ", VOY episode : " One ", VOY episode : " Author, Author ", VOY novel : Pathways )

Kim's best friend as a child was Alex . Kim and Alex would stay in contact with each other through communicators and discuss musicians such as Georges Bizet and Niccolò Paganini . Alex later moved to Singapore , far out of range of their communicators. The pair solved the problem by using a communication satellite to boost the signal. ( VOY - Invasion! novel : The Final Fury )

As a child, Harry Kim was exposed to Rigellian fever while playing with Orion children from an Orion diplomat's entourage. He was placed in quarantine for three days, but never developed symptoms. ( VOY novelization : Caretaker )

At the age of fourteen, Harry was hiking with his father when the elder Kim tumbled over a ridge and was knocked unconscious. Harry initially panicked, however the two were soon helped by a group of Starfleet cadets on a wilderness survival exercise. While his father was treated for his injuries, Harry (who had only heard of the organisation in passing) learned all about Starfleet and became determined to attend Starfleet Academy .

For the next few years, Harry threw himself into studying the required fields in which he'd been lacking with anything resembling a personal life tossed to the side. As a result, he aced the written test and was called in for an interview. When he was asked why he wanted to join Starfleet, Harry read a carefully prepared answer about Starfleet's proud history, principals and legacy. As a result, Harry was certain he was to be admitted but had an chance encounter with Boothby who wasn't so sure based on Harry's attitude. Harry was later informed he failed, but was free to reapply the following year. Harry briefly considered going to another school, however his mother insisted that he'd worked too hard and ordered him to try again. Harry, whose mother had never demanded anything from him before, agreed but wanted to know what had let him down. To that end, he sought out Boothby who told Harry that he had come across as too cocky and his carefully prepared answer about Starfleet wasn't what the Admirals who had interviewed him wanted to hear; they wanted to know about him , not Starfleet. For the next year, Harry decided to catch up on some of the things he'd missed out while preparing for the academy; becoming more social, resuming his music and even started dating. When he reapplied, Harry was accepted with 'great distinction'. ( VOY novel : Pathways )

In 2370 , during his last year at Starfleet Academy , Kim wrote an article for the Academy newspaper on the Maquis . ( TNG novel : The Best and the Brightest )

Aboard Voyager [ ]

In late December 2373 , Voyager unfortunately entered Borg space . However, the crew's fears were slightly assuaged when they discovered an area of space, dubbed the " Northwest Passage ", which was devoid of Borg activity. After Voyager had been passed by a fleet of fifteen Borg cubes , which had ignored the Federation starship, Harry determined that the fleet had been destroyed. Deciding to investigate, Captain Kathryn Janeway ordered Harry, Commander Chakotay and Lieutenant Tuvok to transport over the wreckage of a cube and investigate. Shortly after beaming over, Harry was attacked by a member of Species 8472 and wounded, his body infected by alien cells which were destroying his own. Beamed back to Voyager for emergency treatment by the Doctor and Kes , he was eventually cured after the Doctor developed a method of modifying Borg nanoprobes to attack the alien cells. ( VOY episodes : " Scorpion ", " Scorpion, Part II "; VOY - Infinity's Prism novel : Places of Exile )

Return to the Federation [ ]

Harry finally returned to Earth at the end of 2377 when Voyager traveled inside a Borg sphere through a transwarp conduit into the Alpha Quadrant . ( VOY episode : " Endgame ")

Kim married Libby and they had four children. ( VOY novel : The Autobiography of Kathryn Janeway )

25th century [ ]

Holding the rank of commander , Kim was made head of security at Starbase 11 alongside improving Neutral Zone -adjacent starbase defenses in 2400 . ( ST website  : The Path to 2409 )

Harry Kim in 2410

By the year 2410 , Harry Kim had been promoted to Captain and given command of the USS Rhode Island . He joined his fellow Voyager crewmates in efforts to explore the Delta Quadrant that had become accessible via a series of Iconian Gateways leading through the Solanae and Jenolan Dyson spheres . ( STO - Delta Quadrant mission : " The Kobali Front ")

He was primarily stationed in and around Kobali Prime . During his time there, he attempted to contact Jhet'leya , but she refused to answer. During his time there, he discovered that the Kobali had been secretly hiding stasis-held Vaadwaur and using the ones who died to replenish their numbers while the Vaadwaur sought to regain control of their races. Kim was determined to put a stop to this practice towards the Vaadwaur, but was stopped due to the Prime Directive . A compromise was later reached to allow the Vaadwaur to have the bodies returned to them.

Sometime after the Vaadwaur civil war, an AQA admiral and Harry was called back to Kobali Prime to protect the temple again. After securing the temple, the admiral and Harry investigated the temple and discovered something shocking - the Kobali had possession of the Harry Kim that was sucked out into space. Not only that, but he was alive and causing trouble in the temple. The two discovered Jhet'leya as well, who revealed that she and other Kobali found his body and set about turning him into Kobali. However, as his mind was stuck at the time of his jettisoning, he was seeking to return to Voyager , accidentally setting off signals to the Vaadwaur, making them think more of their brethren were awoken. The trio raced to stop the other Harry Kim from contacting Voyager , lest it causes the destruction of the ship and a reignition of a war, chasing him to a Hirogen satellite after he stole the Kobali's flagship. The three are able to get this Harry to finally stand down, with Captain Harry Kim vowing to make the Kobali change their ways, that the gift of revival should be a choice. ( STO mission : " Dust to Dust ")

Alternate realities [ ]

In an alternate timeline in which the Cardassian Union did not withdraw from Bajor in 2369 , Kim was the operations manager of a version of Voyager which was not stranded in the Delta Quadrant by the Caretaker in 2371 .

He was killed in 2373 when Voyager was fired upon in the Dorvan sector by a fleet of Cardassian Galor -class warships armed with phased polaron beam weapons, which they had procured from their newfound Gamma Quadrant allies, the Dominion . Although Voyager had lost many of its crewmembers in recent months, Captain Janeway was very upset by his death as he had shone as the operations manager. Only the previous day, she had received news from Starfleet Command that his promotion to lieutenant junior grade had been approved. Voyager itself was destroyed by the Cardassians only minutes after Kim's death. ( TNG - Myriad Universes novel : A Gutted World )

In another alternate timeline, Kim miscalculated vital information for the quantum slipstream drive . As a result, Voyager crashed on an ice world and the crew was killed on impact. Kim and Chakotay made it back to the Alpha Quadrant on the Delta Flyer . He then spent many years attempting to correct his error. ( VOY episode : " Timeless ")

In an alternate timeline in which the USS Voyager was forced to turn back from its journey home to Earth , Kim was promoted to Lieutenant by 2374 and assigned to the Vostigye Union patrol craft Ryemaran . ( Star Trek: Myriad Universes novel : Places of Exile )

First Splinter timeline [ ]

When he returned to Earth in 2378 , he was met by his parents and Libby Webber . He was also promoted to lieutenant . Harry and Libby rekindled their old romantic relationship, but Harry was unaware that Libby was now working for Starfleet Intelligence as a deep cover agent.

Harry soon aided Admiral Kathryn Janeway in breaking Seven of Nine , Icheb , and the Doctor out of Starfleet holding cells. The Voyager crew then retook their ship and was able to stop the attempted Borg assimilation of Earth. Harry was repeatedly helped by receiving secret messages from "Peregrine" whom he never discovered was actually Libby. ( VOY novels : Homecoming , The Farther Shore )

Return to Voyager [ ]

Harry has assumed the role of security chief and tactical officer aboard Voyager . ( VOY novel : Homecoming )

Harry still served aboard the Voyager in 2381 when the Borg Collective launched their invasion of the Federation . He was the bridge watch officer when Tom Paris received a prerecorded message from his father Admiral Owen Paris ; Harry had to report that Starbase 234 had been destroyed by the Borg , killing Owen. ( ST - Destiny novel : Gods of Night )

Voyager was part of the allied task force that assembled at the Azure Nebula while the USS Aventine and USS Enterprise -E scouted subspace tunnels . Kim monitored the Bridge in the absence of Chakotay and Tom Paris , but called them back to the Bridge when one of the tunnels unexpectedly opened. He armed weapons and shields as over seven thousand Borg cubes poured from the tunnel, but they were quickly overrun. ( ST - Destiny novel : Mere Mortals ).

In 2379 , Kim revealed to Tom Paris that he and Libby had officially broken up due to her refusing his marriage proposal twice. By 2381 , she was engaged to her superior, Aidan Fletcher at Starfleet Intelligence. ( VOY novel : Full Circle )

Following the revelation that B'Elanna and Miral were still alive, Harry refused to speak to Tom and was deeply hurt by what Tom had done. It took a holodeck session with Hugh Cambridge in a Captain Proton program to help them heal their friendship. ( VOY novel : Unworthy )

In 2381, after the successful decryption of a distress call that Voyager had received while still stranded in the Delta Quadrant, Captain Chakotay awarded Kim a commendation for his work. He also entered into a romantic relationship with Nancy Conlon . After Tom Paris was ordered to return to Earth in 2382 to attend a hearing with his mother over the custody of his daughter, Harry was made temporary first officer. ( VOY novel : Protectors )

In 2382 Harry was present during negotiations with Confederacy of the World of the First Quadrant and was assigned to General Mattings' ship during an officer exchange. During the battle between Voyager and the Devore Imperium , he protested to Captain Chakotay regarding Admiral Janeway's decision to surrender herself to them. ( VOY novel : Acts of Contrition )

Appendices [ ]

Connections [ ], appearances and references [ ], appearances [ ], references [ ].

• PIC novel : Firewall

External link [ ]

• Harry Kim article at Memory Alpha , the wiki for canon Star Trek .
• 1 ISS Enterprise (NCC-1701)
• 3 Ferengi Rules of Acquisition

One Of Picard's Cut Cameos Would've Allowed A Beloved Star Trek Character To Finally Rank Up

This article contains spoilers for the series finale of "Star Trek: Picard."

The acclaimed final season of "Star Trek: Picard" has come to a stirring and satisfying end — and, with it, the conclusion to the decades-long journey of Patrick Stewart's Jean-Luc Picard and the rest of the beloved crew of explorers from "The Next Generation." But part of the difficult task laid on the shoulders of showrunner and director Terry Matalas involved uniting multiple different shows set around the same time period. That meant tying together loose threads from "Deep Space Nine" like the Changelings, long-missing members of "The Next Generation" such as Ro Laren (Michelle Forbes), and characters from "Star Trek: Voyager" including Tuvok (Tim Russ) and Jeri Ryan's Seven of Nine.

By the end of the finale, the dual threat of the Borg and the Changelings are vanquished once more and seemingly for good. Pulling off such a daring mission required every trick and every remaining ally that Picard and the crew of the U.S.S. Titan could possibly muster up, but apparently, there were meant to be even more cameo appearances waiting in the wings to help our heroes save the day.

One would've involved another key member of the "Voyager" crew: a certain Ensign Harry Kim. Portrayed by Garrett Wang throughout all 7 seasons, Kim has long stood out as a fan-favorite highlight of what's commonly considered a lackluster series. He could've finally received his time in the spotlight had initial plans for the final season of "Picard" panned out, but that was unfortunately not the case. In a recent interview, Matalas explains why.

Justice for Harry Kim!

During a roundtable interview attended by /Film's Vanessa Armstrong, "Star Trek: Picard" mastermind Terry Matalas reveals that there were early plans to bring on board one of the most undervalued characters in all of "Trek." An oversight that soon turned into a years-long running gag, Harry Kim's inability to rise through the ranks of Starfleet after the starship Voyager found itself lost for years in the far-off Delta Quadrant caused no shortage of laughs and consternation among the fanbase. Having first boarded Voyager as a lowly Ensign, he proved his worth time and time again ... only to end his run on "Voyager" as, you guessed it, still an Ensign.

Yet unlike characters such as Captain Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) or Robert Duncan McNeill's Lieutenant Tom Paris, Kim has never again appeared in "Trek" canon since the finale of "Voyager." That would've finally changed — along with a long-awaited promotion — had things worked out on "Picard," but alas! According to Matalas:

"He was captain actually. [...] I talked to Garrett [Wang] about this and he was very, very disappointed. He was [a] captain and yeah, that's all I can say about it. Again, it's time, it's money. We also didn't want to step on 'Star Trek: Prodigy's toes. It was, but again, you don't want to be greedy, right? It's just, it's ... We're talking about Frontier Day, right? Truly if you had another 20 minutes on Frontier Day, you'd be seeing everybody. You'd be seeing everybody who's in Starfleet in 25th century. You want to know what everybody's up to. But yeah, that was that."

The plot involving Frontier Day allowed some other deep-cut cameos to take shape , but apparently Kim's return was simply not meant to be ... for now, at least.

Hope for the future?

The interesting part of Matalas' comment above, of course, is his reference to "Star Trek: Prodigy." The animated series takes place only a handful of years after the events of "Voyager" and has even made way for characters such as Janeway and her right-hand man, First Officer Chakotay (Robert Beltran), to appear on the show. As much of a pleasant surprise as it would've been to see Wang once more in live-action as a much older and wiser (and promoted) Captain Harry Kim for a few moments at some point in "Picard," perhaps the franchise has bigger things in store for the character.

"Prodigy" has had even more reason to expand on the fates of the Voyager crew and Matalas may have tipped his hand that Kim could eventually show up. In the long run, fans would likely accept a more substantial role for Kim in "Prodigy" than a brief moment of naked fan service in "Picard" for a character who, out of the entire cast, only really matters to Seven of Nine. As it is, "Picard" had a lot going on throughout its third season, so it's easy to imagine why Kim's cameo would be among the first to go for the sake of scheduling and budgets.

But that's the thing about "Trek" — no element of the franchise remains a redheaded stepchild for long. (Okay, except maybe "Star Trek: Into Darkness" or that movie with Picard's clone ). "Voyager" may not have the sterling reputation as some of its more widely-celebrated peers, but the creatives in charge and Trekkies alike all seem eager to give the cast their due. Here's to one day getting to see Harry Kim once more on-screen ... this time, with those four pips on the uniform signifying the rank of Captain.

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Published Dec 15, 2023

Celebrating One of Star Trek: Voyager's Great Friendships

Let’s explore the friendship between Harry Kim and Tom Paris with some of the best moments over the years!

StarTrek.com / Charlotte Tegen

There have been so great examples of friendship from Star Trek: Voyager , including Janeway and Seven , but another perfect pair of companionship come from the friendship of Harry Kim and Tom Paris.

As we celebrate Garrett Wang's birthday, we're spotlighting our favorite instances when our dynamic duo had each other's back, altered history, or taught one another something.

Work Hard, Relax Harder

I think you're working from an old rule book, Paris.

Harry Kim, "The Cloud"

"The Cloud"

StarTrek.com

Highlighted in Voyager 's "The Cloud," the crew comes across a mysterious nebula, which Captain Janeway believes may contain a resource that could be used for their benefit while also hoping it boosts the ship's morale.

In the mess hall, Harry Kim suggests to Tom Paris they should have invited the captain to join them. Paris, however, believes ensigns don't invite captains to sit down; captains want respect, not courtesy, and they most certainly don't want to get chummy with lower ranks. Harry thinks that line of thinking is a touch outdated.

Meanwhile, the crew begins to encounter various challenges while exploring the "nebula" and its nucleogenic cloud. With their ship depleted of their energy reserve, Tom takes an opportunity to show Harry one of his holoprograms, "Paris 3," which is based on a pool hall he would hang around during his Academy days, in an effort to get his friend to loosen up and relax a bit.

Once their crisis is averted, Harry invites Janeway to join the crew on the holodeck for Tom's holoprogram, helping her to not only to relax, but also interact more with her crew.

Friendship Forever

This man is my friend. Nobody touches him!

Harry Kim, "The Chute"

"The Chute"

In the third-season episode "The Chute," during a Shore Leave gone awry, Harry and Kim are incarcerated together in a dangerous penal colony prison on false charges related to a terrorist bombing. They both work together to face vicious conditions, including violence brought on by other inmates and other challenges that must be over come to survive. Their friendship pushes them through and they are able to collaborate an escape plan.

Before they can put their plan in motion, Tom is stabbed by a brutal inmate. Unable to secure medical assistance, Harry begins to work some deals with another inmate in order to keep their plan in motion as well as garner supplies to clean up Tom's wound. As Tom nears closer to death, Harry tries desperately to instigate a prison break, but fails to get everyone's cooperation. For all of Harry's efforts, Tom nearly ruins everything when in a delirium, he disables the tool that Harry had fashioned to neutralize the prison's forcefield. Harry comes close to killing his friend, but regains his senses just in time. After all, who hasn't wanted to kill their best friend?

Once rescued by Janeway and Tuvok, Tom is treated by The Doctor, who reveals to the duo, that the "clamp" enforced on all prisoners affected the wearer's nervous system by encouraging aggression and violence. As the friends seek out a hearty and much dreamt about meal, Harry apologizes to Tom for almost killing him. However, he reassures his friend, " You want to know what I remember? Someone saying, 'This man is my friend. Nobody touches him.' I'll remember that for a long time ." The trials of this episode is a huge turning point for their friendship.

Not-So-Perfect Reality Check

What about Danny Byrd? He isn't so lucky. And Tom Paris? Fate wasn't so kind to him. No, it isn't supposed to be this way. I'm supposed to be on Voyager in the Delta Quadrant. And that's where I have to go.

Harry Kim, "Non Sequitur"

"Non Sequitur"

In the second-season "Non Sequitur," Harry Kim wakes up in an alternate timeline, in 24th Century San Francisco, where he never served aboard Voyager . Instead, he seemingly has a perfect life as a design specialist at Starfleet Headquarters and a fiancée who loves him dearly. His friend Danny Byrd takes his spot aboard Voyager when it disappeared in the Badlands. Not only that, he discovers that Tom Paris wasn't on the crew manifest either; he's been paroled and currently resides in Marseilles, France.

Harry learns how his reality has been altered; his shuttlecraft intersected with a species' timestream, scrambling his timeline and sending him back to the life he would have known if he hadn't joined Voyager 's crew. Unwilling to take advantage of his fortunate circumstance and condemn his two friends Danny and Tom to this fate, Harry convinces Cosimo, a member of that species sent to Earth to watch over him, to help him restore his reality.

Despite the possibility of losing both his original reality and his current timeline, and landing somewhere else in the space-time continuum, Harry is determined to return to where he belongs. With Cosimo and the alt-Tom Paris' help, they manage to recreate his shuttle accident in a timestream, including a core breach.

Harry finds himself back in his correct reality in the midst of an emergency transport onto Voyager before his shuttle explodes. Relieved to see his best friend at the helm and grateful for his sacrifice, Harry tells Tom he owes him one.

Role Models

Sometimes I wish I could be more bold, more confident with women, more like you." "Like me? You might want to reconsider that, Harry. There may be prison time involved.

Harry Kim and Tom Paris, "Favorite Son"

'Favorite Son'

In this third-season adventure, Harry Kim starts to question his identity following Voyager 's encounter with a Nasari ship. Aided by a Taresian ship, they inform the crew that Harry is one of their own, welcoming him "home." They explain that he was conceived on Taresia before they used a human on Earth as a surrogate, to bring an infusion of new genetic material back to their race. Harry decides he wants to stay with the Taresians to learn more about their species and himself.

The Doctor discovers that Harry isn't actually Taresian; they deliberately infused him with their DNA during an away mission. As it turns out, Taresian women went out of their way to make him feel like he belonged on their world so he would leave Voyager . Soon, Kim uncovers that Taresian men aren't able to voluntarily leave; they're killed after the women harvest and extract enough genetic material to conceive children.

Surviving the ordeal and saved by Voyager , Harry admits embarrassment from being conned by these sirens; but not just that, it was his desire to be someone other than himself. He wishes he was more like Tom when it comes to women. Tom reassures him that he's been trying to be more like Harry since he's been on Voyager . After all, Harry's his role model; he's "reliable, hard working, extremely punctual." Not only that, he's also "polite."

During difficult situations it is easier to persevere with friends by your side and the companionship of Harry Kim and Tom Paris during their voyage on the Voyager is a wonderful example of how friendship can strengthen someone and make them a better person.

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Christine Dinh (she/her) is the managing editor for StarTrek.com. She’s traded the Multiverse for helming this Federation Starship.

Star Trek: Voyager missed a prime opportunity to promote Harry Kim

By chad porto | dec 20, 2022.

Star Trek: Voyager missed a chance to finally promote Harry Kim.

Depending on who you ask in the US Navy, a person is an ensign for anywhere from two to four years, or depending on their execution and abilities they are promoted sooner, or later. Harry Kim was an ensign for at least seven years with the USS Voyager.

Lost in the Delta Quadrant, and having to watch the Maquis get ranks and jobs higher than his own, Kim was left an ensign for the duration of the ship’s travels. While Kim did violate the Prime Directive by engaging in a carnal affair with an alien race, Kim was largely a good officer.

Even when he was getting sucked out into space to his death, only to be replaced by a “mirror” version of himself. Kim has largely been a good crew member. Yet, he was never promoted, and fans have always wondered why?

Well, the prevailing idea was that there were only so many jobs, so many spots and so many promotions to be had while the Voyager was lost in the Delta Quadrant, so of course, promoting Kim was not a priority or a realistic idea, until it was.

Enter the fifth season episode of Voyager, “Thirty Days”. In it, then Lieutenant Tom Paris attempts to destroy an oxygen mining operation in what amounts to an act of terrorism.  He was sentenced to the brig for 30 days and demoted to ensign.

At that moment, an opportunity was ignored to not only promote Kim but to add some interesting tension to the dynamic.

Harry Kim should’ve replaced Tom Paris as Lieutenant

Paris would be promoted back to lieutenant, this time junior grade a year later in the season six finale, “Unimatrix Zero”. However, I have a better idea and it would have seen Kim get promoted to lieutenant instead of Paris, pitting the two best friends against each other for a little while due to the jealousy and tension that the promotion may bring.

Paris and Kim were never really at one another’s throats and this idea wouldn’t see the two become mortal enemies, but it would have given Kim a chance to not only voice his support for his own promotion but justify it to the audiences.

He survived an attack from Species 8472 for crying out loud. He’s more than earned a promotion and taking Paris’ spot on the roster sheet, so to speak, would be a great way to do it, while creating some interesting drama to flesh out.

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Harry Kim promotion theory

Discussion in ' Star Trek: Voyager ' started by Charles Phipps , Apr 3, 2024 .

Mres_was_framed! Captain Captain

The pattern from the early versions of the series and onward, with Jose Tyler, Chekov, Geordi in TNG season 1, would seem to suggest that Starfleet has some practice of having a younger officer in one of the main bridge positions, who is of lower rank but can attend the staff meetings, and is a part of the command crew but has a lower rank. That person also tended to be an emotional character that let the audience know how it felt to still be trying to "fit in" to the way things are accomplished on that starship. It seems like this is why Kim is in the position he is in as an ensign. Usually, that officer was in the command "pit" but Voyager's bridge has the Chief of Operations on an upper level. I would suggest that Chekov's navigator role had some parallels to the OPS or CONN roles in TNG, Geordi was at CONN during season 1. Admittedly, Geordi was a LTJG, and I don't really know about Jose Tyler, but for Harry to have not climbed the ranks my have been in part in order to keep him in the role these other officers had on other shows. I bet there are more examples of this type of officer.  

fireproof78 Fleet Admiral Admiral

Mres_was_framed! said: ↑ Admittedly, Geordi was a LTJG, and I don't really know about Jose Tyler, but for Harry to have not climbed the ranks my have been in part in order to keep him in the role these other officers had on other shows. Click to expand...

Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

fireproof78 said: ↑ No. Click to expand...

Charles Phipps Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

I remember when Keith RA DeCandido did a review of "Dark Frontier" and he just was reduced to angrish in his text when the Borg said there were 140 people onboard the VOY. Clearly showing the writers didn't care about all of the casualties the ship had suffered with no new recruits in the five seasons. https://reactormag.com/star-trek-voyager-rewatch-dark-frontier/ The Borg examine Voyager and declare there are 143 lifeforms on board, and I can’t even with this anymore. They’re obviously just throwing random numbers out. Oh, and a shuttlecraft is sacrificed to the Borg, so they’re now down ten shuttles. Click to expand...

Charles Phipps said: ↑ I remember when Keith RA DeCandido did a review of "Dark Frontier" and he just was reduced to angrish in his text when the Borg said there were 140 people onboard the VOY. Clearly showing the writers didn't care about all of the casualties the ship had suffered with no new recruits in the five seasons. https://reactormag.com/star-trek-voyager-rewatch-dark-frontier/ Click to expand...

evilchumlee Captain Captain

fireproof78 said: ↑ Still should have been promoted due to acting as a department head. Click to expand...

evilchumlee said: ↑ Put these two together because, this. At least partly. Starfleet doesn't work like modern day militaries do. Rank really isn't as important as job, but yes... job often dictates rank. I think both of the quoted statements have levels of true and not true. I don't believe that being a rank higher than Ensign is necessary to be a department head, it just depends on the circumstance and department. Kim was Chief of Operations... if the rest of the Operations Department were enlisted crewman? There's really no need to have anything higher than Ensign for that department. "Operations" has always been something of an ill-defined department in Trek but especially on Voyager, Kim being a "department head" often seemed like he was the head of... himself. Kim basically *IS* Operations on the ship. We never see Kim with any kind of direct reports or anything of the nature, unlike Chakotay (obviously), Tuvok, or Torres. The oddball here is Tom Paris, who makes Lieutenant and while ostensibly being the head of the... conn department(?) also doesn't seem to have any reports under him. At the same point by the time Paris makes Lieutenant, he IS pulling double-duty in Sickbay as well. We never see it, but I suspect Paris would also be in charge of the shuttlebay which would give him a few reports. It's never mentioned, but through observation when near anything happens in the shuttlebay, Paris is involved with it. Operations on Voyager... just doesn't seem to consist of much. "Ops" seems to generally be the 24th century equivalent of "Science Officer" while also taking care of more mundane ship functions. Voyager doesn't have an extensive science crew and later on Seven of Nine just completely usurps what on other ships would probably be "Stellar Cartography". Click to expand...

Guy Gardener said: ↑ The actual "job" is irrelevant. Click to expand...

Oddish Admiral Admiral

Guy Gardener said: ↑ Harry is his own boss, and writes his own reports about himself, but the Doctor hates Harry. Click to expand...

Lynx Vice Admiral Admiral

Oddish said: ↑ So much that he let another ensign die so that Harry could live. Another justification bites the dust. More likely they would review all promotions and field commissions Janeway made upon Voyager's return to Earth. And, review the records of all crew she didn't promote. Realistically, Harry was probably putting on lieutenant pips mere days after Voyager returned, and that's assuming it didn't happen the way Una McCormack says it did, and that Janeway's final act as Voyager's captain was to promote him herself. Because Voyager was still far from home. Tuvok's new rank was likely to be in effect for years, even decades. If you want to die on the hill that's fine, but know that I'm coming, and I'm driving a tank. That's not a bad thought. Harry's career could easily be permanently damaged by a reprimand and seven years of ensignhood. S31 might be a chance at a fresh start. Definitely. As was the reactivation of Tom and Chakotay's commissions, and the commissions granted to the Maquis. It was all reviewed upon Voyager's return. Awww... I once was part of a 1300-post debate on why Ron and Hermione were a perfect/appalling match... I was hoping to break that record here. There are no good excuses, so people have to settle for ridiculous ones. He's only socially inept, or temperamental, or bratty, or whatever when circumstances require it. In general, he is a competent, well-liked, and well-rounded officer. He's not quite as variable as Janeway is, though. Click to expand...

Lynx said: ↑ When it comes to promotions and such after Voyager got home, I go for the solution presented in many of the "Voyager Relaunch" books, that all of them were accepted in Starfleet and kept their ranks or were promoted, Like Chakotay, Torres, Paris and Kim too. Since they did such a good job for seven years and after all the mess with the Dominion War and everything Starfleet had been through, it is the most logical solution. No organization with at least some sanity dumps a bunch of people who have been doing and still are doing a good job. Click to expand...

WarpTenLizard Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

If memory serves, all of the promotions happened before Voyager made contact with Starfleet , except for Tom getting his old rank back after being demoted. My theory is that Starfleet just told her "no more promotions."  

Kor Fleet Admiral Admiral

We all would have liked to see Harry get promoted. But what would have been the benefit? Generally it seems that full Lieutenants can be department heads. But even as a mere ensign, Harry was already the Operations Officer, and he sat in senior staff meetings as the head of his department. A department of one person? Well, presumably, anyone else who occupied the Ops station on other duty shifts reported to him. On the Enterprise D, the Operations Officer, Data, was a Lieutenant Commander. In addition to Ops duties, he was also next in chain of command after Riker. Maybe if Harry had gotten a promotion, he would have moved higher up the chain of command, in addition to being Ops Officer. Kor  

Kor said: ↑ We all would have liked to see Harry get promoted. But what would have been the benefit? Generally it seems that full Lieutenants can be department heads. But even as a mere ensign, Harry was already the Operations Officer, and he sat in senior staff meetings as the head of his department. A department of one person? Well, presumably, anyone else who occupied the Ops station on other duty shifts reported to him. On the Enterprise D, the Operations Officer, Data, was a Lieutenant Commander. In addition to Ops duties, he was also next in chain of command after Riker. Maybe if Harry had gotten a promotion, he would have moved higher up the chain of command, in addition to being Ops Officer. Kor Click to expand...

evilchumlee said: ↑ Harry Kim is such an interesting character, far more than I had realized during Voyager's run. He's so damn good at his job, while being so damn bad at interacting with people. Click to expand...

Charles Phipps said: ↑ But Kim? NO ONE KNOWS. Click to expand...

Oddish said: ↑ And no one's going to for quite awhile, I wager. The character "belongs" to PRO, but the latest season didn't feature him and it's completely up in the air if Netflix will be interested in actually continuing it. Remember that they basically bought S2 ready made, a pretty good bargain. Making a S3 will require a greater investment. And if LD is over before his involvement in PRO is sorted out, there will be no more shows set in the timeline he existed in. Click to expand...

Charles Phipps said: ↑ Depends on Legacy. You could easily have him show up as an Ensign on Seven's ship and she's like, "I didn't know you were here!" Click to expand...

Oddish said: ↑ I wonder if Janeway was gaslighting him, telling him how awesome an officer he was and treating him like an incompetent. Click to expand...

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