Tuvok. How old is he supposed to be anyway?
- Thread starter urrutiap
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In "Flashback" he says he was 29 years old when on the Excelsior (for the sake of simplicity let's just assume he meant that in Earth years and not Vulcan years). So, when he was on Voyager 78 years later, he was 107 years old, or thereabouts.
Of course, there was that line in "Fury" saying Tuvok was going to hit three digits soon. Janeway might have been mistaken, though. And in "Alice" the characters were trying to guess his age but it wasn't stated outright. So I'll just stick with 107.
Kor
Of course, there was that line in "Fury" saying Tuvok was going to hit three digits soon. Janeway might have been mistaken, though. And in "Alice" the characters were trying to guess his age but it wasn't stated outright. So I'll just stick with 107.
Kor
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I definitely read somwhere about a descrepancy in Tuvok's age. Posssibly there were conflicting statements about his birth year or birth stardate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuvok#Overview
"Flashback" is near the beginning of the third season, and Tuvok seems to be about 107 years old in it. "Unimatrix Zero" is at the end of the sixth season about 4 years later. 107 plus 4 is 111, 112 minus 4 is 108. So some people might think those are close enough, others might think they conflict.
If Vulcans use a base 9 numbering system three digits would be our number 81, if they use base 10 three digits are our number 100, if they use a base 11 system three digits is our number 121, if they use a base 12 system three digits is our 144. Proponents of using a base 12 system claim it has many advantages, so possibly the Vulcans consider it logical to use a base 12 system.
In science fiction stories there can be a difference between the amount of time since a person was born and the amount of time they have been alive. A character in science fiction can be older or younger than the number of years since they were born.
I wonder if he was originally intended to be younger than he eventually turned out to be - perhaps Flashback necessitated him being 100+ so that he could have served on the Excelsior.
I'd have imagined an officer of Tuvok's ability would have held a rank significantly above lieutenant by the time the 2370s roll around even taking into account a career break.
Also ignore the dismissive dig about '9 seconds on Google' - this is a discussion board where people have conversations about Star Trek like we're doing now.
I'd have imagined an officer of Tuvok's ability would have held a rank significantly above lieutenant by the time the 2370s roll around even taking into account a career break.
Also ignore the dismissive dig about '9 seconds on Google' - this is a discussion board where people have conversations about Star Trek like we're doing now.
I don't recall the source, but I seem to recall Tuvok was always meant to be an older character, in fact they were looking at older actors until Tim Russ auditioned and everyone liked him.
.Here's my reply on this subject from Scifi Stack exchange I posted a while back:
If you do simple math from the year of Praxis' explosion (2293) and detract 29 (because at the time, Tuvok was 29 years old according to episode 'Flashback'), then according to this, Tuvok was born in 2264.
The episode in which Janeway gives Tuvok a birthday cake was called 'Fury'(Season 6, episode 23). Since Voyager was launched in 2371, 'Fury' would have taken place in 2376 given that the earlier episode Muse has a stardate of 53896 (and Unimatrix Zero is the last episode in this season which has a stardate 54014) - there are 2 episodes between Fury and Unimatrix Zero (which doesn't seem like enough time to place Fury in 2377).
That would make Tuvok 112 years years old in episode 'Fury'... and 108 years old in episode 'Meld'.
So, in this instance, Janeway seems to be wrong... and Tuvok's statement that he's been studying violence for over 100 years is accurate.
Not sure why he never corrected Janeway... but it could have been simply for the purpose of continuing to keep her in the dark. After all, she implies in 'Fury' that it took 'exhausting research' to find out his age, and he wasn't exactly forthcoming with this data with everyone else (which is odd, considering that his SF record would have likely had this information).
If you do simple math from the year of Praxis' explosion (2293) and detract 29 (because at the time, Tuvok was 29 years old according to episode 'Flashback'), then according to this, Tuvok was born in 2264.
The episode in which Janeway gives Tuvok a birthday cake was called 'Fury'(Season 6, episode 23). Since Voyager was launched in 2371, 'Fury' would have taken place in 2376 given that the earlier episode Muse has a stardate of 53896 (and Unimatrix Zero is the last episode in this season which has a stardate 54014) - there are 2 episodes between Fury and Unimatrix Zero (which doesn't seem like enough time to place Fury in 2377).
That would make Tuvok 112 years years old in episode 'Fury'... and 108 years old in episode 'Meld'.
So, in this instance, Janeway seems to be wrong... and Tuvok's statement that he's been studying violence for over 100 years is accurate.
Not sure why he never corrected Janeway... but it could have been simply for the purpose of continuing to keep her in the dark. After all, she implies in 'Fury' that it took 'exhausting research' to find out his age, and he wasn't exactly forthcoming with this data with everyone else (which is odd, considering that his SF record would have likely had this information).
Sometimes, explaining sloppy writing can be difficult. If the VOY writers couldn't even count to 38, how can we expect them to count to 112?
Vulcan only joined the UFP if their citizens/people never had to reveal their age, next of kin or marital status to offworlders, especially if they joined the human Starfleet e.g Journey to Babylon, Amok Time etc
I don't think that's canonical though.
Nothing of the kind was ever mentioned in fact.
Tuvok's birth date would likely have been part of his SF biographical data (which would be needed to create an accurate psych tests and other things needed to 'challenge' him - though living in a fairly harsh environment of Vulcan, most of the challenges in SF academy weren't exactly of the same calibre).
It was a joke.
The Voyager behind the scenes book says that Robert Guillaume (tv's 'Benson') was the original choice by the producers for the role of Tuvok.
Guillaume would have been sixty seven at the time of filming. Definitely the older mentor figure the producers were originally going for.
Doesn't he explicitly turn 100 in Fury?
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