Harry Kim's promotion... or lack of it.

[Guy Gardener]

What was her rank in Shattered?

But Naomi would have needed another growth spurt to take academy classes beside Icheb, which would mean dumping Scarlet?

http://www.yourprops.com/ADULT-NAOM...ostume-Star-Trek-Voyager-TV-1995-YP65475.html

Yup.

Full lieutenant in just 15 years.

 

[Kobayshi Maru]

Its sad that even in the Trek universe where the rules of rank are often played pretty loosely, that Harry still can't get promoted. I'm pretty sure if the series had gone to an 8th season, Naomi Wildman would have been made Lieutenant before him.

It's likely she already had more influence than him over Janeway, even in season six.

 

[bbjeg]

... Harry didn't have a staff. His 'department' was his console connected to the ship's sensors. If there's a problem with those sensors, it's Belanna's territory, if there's an intruder near a sensor, it's Tuvok's problem and book-smart Harry is a nobody next to Seven when it comes to upgrading the ship. Harry's rank was fine with his position.

Even if we're just talking about his bridge duties, the crew who manned his station while he was sleeping, while he was on away missions, in meetings with Janeway, while he was on the holodeck getting chumped by girls, during his off time... That's his staff, and considering how much time he didn't spend sitting at the operations station on the bridge, I suspect that it's at least 5 people...

The other operators sound more like coworkers than underlings. If there was a problem while Harry was off duty, they'd report to whoever was in command, not Harry, and when he comes back on shift, he won't need a briefing or a PADD because all the information is on his console. On the other hand, if there was a catastrophic problem in engineering, dangerous space to traverse, or tactical issues to resolve and B'ellana, Tom, and Tuvok were off duty, they'd be called in.

With Star Trek, seniority doesn't automatically mean you get promoted. In that TNG episode were Q "saves" Picard from being stabbed during college, he wasn't the Captain he was ultimately supposed to become because he didn't take risks. That episode shows that regardless of how long you serve, promotions goes to those willing to risk it all. Tuvok's getting shot at, Tom's dodging shit, and B'ellana's stopping the ship from blowing up (and covering Harry's butt should any of his systems fail). What risks does Harry take upon himself?

 

[Guy Gardener]

Seniority (X number of seconds since you achieved this rank) is how we figure out who is the most prominent person of any one rank, or at least in (some of )the armed services today.

An Ensign with 15 years of seniority might be the king of the Ensigns, but then so is a Lieutenant Junior grade on their first day.

What you are describing are "floaters" but Voyager is a small crew to start off with and then they lost a third of their crew. I doubt they have the crew to spare to just have people waiting like understudies to just pick up where the A-team left off when they go to get their hero on.

Theoretically the Star Fleet crew can be floaters, because they had the right education, but the Maquis would be specialists with unfortunate holes in their skillsets that would make them unusable for a lot of star ship work, even if at what they know, they are just as good or better than the Star Fleet generalists.

The supreme Irony is that the only job that all the Maquis would be superb at, and maybe even better than the Starfleet crew, would have been security. That would mean that Tuvok took maybe half the Maquis, armed them, and then taught them how to kill better, quieterly and faster, which in the first month in the Delta Quadrant must have seemed like an extremely racist adventure only a fool would take part in if the Scorpion fabel means a damn.

 

[bbjeg]

Seniority (X number of seconds since you achieved this rank) is how we figure out who is the most prominent person of any one rank, or at least in (some of )the armed services today...

I wasn't saying seniority doesn't show prominence, I said it doesn't demand advancement. Harry may just be the top ensign.

 

[Guy Gardener]

I'd agree with that.

Except that Harry got lost in the DQ on his first day.

The only Ensigns he outranks by seniority are the Maquis with the "honorary" rank of Ensign who became Ensigns 4 days after he became an Ensign(As I type this I realise that we should be counting his seniority from his graduation, not his posting on Voyager.) or the enlisted crew on Voyager who were promoted to Ensign to replace the dead, which again only gives Kim 4 days seniority.

It's not a noticeable gap that would have real life consequences like all the other Ensigns looking up to Kim with starry eyes like he is a god.

Most of the Ensigns on Voyager who were Ensigns before Caretaker would have weeks to years of seniority over Harry.

"Sigh"

If Kim had taken over the kitchen from Neelix or the Sickbay from the EMH, which would have taken MUCH longer, Kim would have been promoted to full lieutenant?

(It's how Lister tried to outrank Rimmer on Red Dwarf.)

Does that mean that Chell was promoted between Homestead and Renaissance Man?

 

[Kobayshi Maru]

... Harry didn't have a staff. His 'department' was his console connected to the ship's sensors. If there's a problem with those sensors, it's Belanna's territory, if there's an intruder near a sensor, it's Tuvok's problem and book-smart Harry is a nobody next to Seven when it comes to upgrading the ship. Harry's rank was fine with his position.

Even if we're just talking about his bridge duties, the crew who manned his station while he was sleeping, while he was on away missions, in meetings with Janeway, while he was on the holodeck getting chumped by girls, during his off time... That's his staff, and considering how much time he didn't spend sitting at the operations station on the bridge, I suspect that it's at least 5 people...

The other operators sound more like coworkers than underlings. If there was a problem while Harry was off duty, they'd report to whoever was in command, not Harry, and when he comes back on shift, he won't need a briefing or a PADD because all the information is on his console. On the other hand, if there was a catastrophic problem in engineering, dangerous space to traverse, or tactical issues to resolve and B'ellana, Tom, and Tuvok were off duty, they'd be called in.

With Star Trek, seniority doesn't automatically mean you get promoted. In that TNG episode were Q "saves" Picard from being stabbed during college, he wasn't the Captain he was ultimately supposed to become because he didn't take risks. That episode shows that regardless of how long you serve, promotions goes to those willing to risk it all. Tuvok's getting shot at, Tom's dodging shit, and B'ellana's stopping the ship from blowing up (and covering Harry's butt should any of his systems fail). What risks does Harry take upon himself?

So the only way to get promoted is to reduce considerably your chances of living to a ripe old age. I guess it's starfleet way of resolving their retirement budget deficits...

That's also how you end up with commanding officers with a death wish like Commodore Decker...

 

[bbjeg]

^Quite a few commodores and admirals are nuts in Star Trek.

...
If Kim had taken over the kitchen from Neelix or the Sickbay from the EMH, which would have taken MUCH longer, Kim would have been promoted to full lieutenant? ...

He'd definitely have stronger grounds for promotion if he had multiple roles. Look at Tom; not only did he warrant a promotion due to his piloting Voyager from weekly danger, but he was the doctor's assistant too, and an inventor (discovering ways to turn oneself into a lizard).

 

[Guy Gardener]

I feel like a broken record.

Tom was a department head.

The difference between Tom's department and everyone else's department is that flying the ship is cool and fun.

But yeah, rosters, performance evaluations, promotions, demerits, demotions, drills, further qualifications.

Let's assume that there were ten people who could be as good a pilot as Tom, but there's still another 40 people on the crew that were qualified enough to sit behind the helm even thought they weren't no savants about it.

A third of the crew wanted to fly the ship that were allowed to fly the ship, and Tom being in Charge of that Department had to decide who that was at any given second of the day, and every now and then slip in some one unqualified for half an hour while he's standing behind them because it's a nice thing to do. Winawish shit y'know. Or they give him a dozen replicator rations?

I remember a novel where something weird happened and Dr McCoy was piloting the Enterprise.

No one was happy about that, even McCoy.

 

[urbandefault]

I'm sure that a lot of people who are stuck in a dead end job with no chance of promotion in the foreseeable future empathize with poor Mr. Kim.

It's almost inevitable that someone will eventually post "Je Suis Harry."*

*Yes, it's in bad taste and offensive. I wouldn't do it myself, and I don't recommend that others do it. But you have to keep a sense of humor, even in the darkest of times.

 

[Catarina]

The writers say "someone had to be the ensign." no! This isn't a skit, a serial, or a sitcom. it is a show with a message and it involves character growth. He wouldn't be ensign forever.

 

[urbandefault]

The writers say "someone had to be the ensign." no! This isn't a skit, a serial, or a sitcom. it is a show with a message and it involves character growth. He wouldn't be ensign forever.

What's the message?

 

[Guy Gardener]

Samantha was an Ensign, and we needed at least another hundred and 20 episodes of her loveliness.

 

[bbjeg]

^I assumed that Samantha would become the O'Brien (TNG years) of Voyager. She was a fine and sweet crewmember who knew the senior staff and juggled raising a kid in deep space.

 

[Guy Gardener]

8 episodes in 5 years.

Nancy makes her on TV now.

 

[Lance]

Tom was a department head.

Tom was more than just a department head. He was also every member of the department. As well as being the department head of every other department as well, probably.

I still don't where he found time to fly the ship, what with all the time he had to be in sickbay mopping patients' brows. Tom did a 26 hour work day.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Harry Kim. Ensign born, Ensign bred, and one day, he'll be Ensign dead.

 

[Lance]

^ "Deadlock".

Kim is fated to be an Ensign in purgatory, always to die and be replaced by a parallel counterpart. Forever and ever and ever.

 

[bbjeg]

I'm sure Harry got a promotion after returning to Earth. His vast knowledge of the Delta Quadrant will put him at the head of some deep space vessel's science division, or in a class as a professor, or even as a Captain, he's got the command hours logged with his night shift job. I just don't think he was warranted a promotion on Voyager.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

Harry had never really done anything that sticks out in my mind to warrant a promotion.