Tuvok's Rank

[Tom]

We know the wardrobe department messed up the first few episodes of Voyager by have Tuvok a Lt. Commander even though the script (dialogue) and opening credits said he was a Lieutenant, but I have always maintained he should have actually been a Lt. Commander in the first place. Lets look at what we know from episodes like Flashback:

- Tuvok joins Starfleet 80 years earlier than Flashback (about 2293 or so), his first assignment as Ensign is to the USS Excelsior under Sulu's command.

- After the incident with Sulu and the Klingons, Ensign Tuvok resigns from starfleet for 50 years, has a family studies the Kolonar etc..

- He rejoins starfleet 30 years before voyager, the big question is did he resume as an ensign or did he have to go though the academy again?

- In those 30 years we also know he taught at the academy for 16 years.

So in the remaining 14 years he is still a Full Lieutenant? So thats only 2 promotions going from Ensign to Lieutenant Jr. Grade then to Full Lieutenant. You would think he would be a Lt. Commander (as he finally did become in later in Voyager). I suppose he could messed up some where along the line or maybe he was in a different department, then switched to security.

 

[Lord Garth]

I'm guessing he resumed as Ensign then got promoted to Lieutenant JG in short order taking into account his experience. Maybe within one year.

Tuvok was most likely a Lieutenant when he was teaching at the Academy. Since he'd outrank all the cadets no matter what his rank was anyway, he didn't need to be promoted during those years. That knocks off another 16 years.

If we take "50 years" literally, then he returned to Starfleet in 2343. Voyager starts in 2371. 28 years for Tuvok to be back in service.

I already accounted for 17 of those 28 years, so what about the other 11?

We can divide them three ways:
1. Tuvok in a position as Lieutenant JG.
2. Tuvok in a position as full Lieutenant before teaching at the Academy.
3. Tuvok in a position as full Lieutenant after teaching at the Academy.

It can work. But I agree, Tuvok should've been a Lt. Commander from the beginning.

 

[Red Ranger]

We know the wardrobe department messed up the first few episodes of Voyager by have Tuvok a Lt. Commander even though the script (dialogue) and opening credits said he was a Lieutenant, but I have always maintained he should have actually been a Lt. Commander in the first place. Lets look at what we know from episodes like Flashback:

- Tuvok joins Starfleet 80 years earlier than Flashback (about 2293 or so), his first assignment as Ensign is to the USS Excelsior under Sulu's command.

- After the incident with Sulu and the Klingons, Ensign Tuvok resigns from starfleet for 50 years, has a family studies the Kolonar etc..

- He rejoins starfleet 30 years before voyager, the big question is did he resume as an ensign or did he have to go though the academy again?

- In those 30 years we also know he taught at the academy for 16 years.

So in the remaining 14 years he is still a Full Lieutenant? So thats only 2 promotions going from Ensign to Lieutenant Jr. Grade then to Full Lieutenant. You would think he would be a Lt. Commander (as he finally did become in later in Voyager). I suppose he could messed up some where along the line or maybe he was in a different department, then switched to security.

Fleetlord:

I think your last line would be a good explanation. Tuvok was originally in the sciences division, which I get the impression promotions through the ranks don't happen as rapidly. So I'd guess Tuvok was back in the science division for a time when he rejoined Starfleet.

It would also explain his friendship with Janeway, as she started in the sciences before moving to the command track.

I agree wholeheartedly Tuvok should've been a lieutenant commander from the get-go.

Red Ranger

 

[Tom]

Perhaps the reasons the producers did not want him a LT. Commander is they wanted to make the audience more accepting of Janeway making Chakotay second in command vs Tuvok who was close in rank to get that position. Where there any other Lt. or full Commanders left in the crew after 'The Caretaker' I don't remember any, there were more Ensigns shown then any other rank.

 

[Bacl]

A few thoughts on this:

Tuvok walked away from Starfleet for a considerable amount of time (50 years). Rejoining would mean having half a century of updated protocols, technology, etc, to catch up on. Since he left as only an ensign, they'd likely stick him right back at the beginning.

Tuvok left Starfleet for very strong reasons. His views of non-Vulcans and Starfleet itself are expressed quite firmly in "Flashback." Starfleet likely knew his true reasons for leaving (especially since he did not seem to hide his ideology anyway). Starfleet would likely want to keep an eye on him for awhile, just to make sure Starfleet was the right fit for him. They likely told him as much, a logical concern.

Tuvok taught at the academy, and Professors don't get promotions. I would imagine your advancement stops while you teach at the academy. This would have slowed things down considerably.

Given Vulcan lifespan, and strict philosophies, it is highly likely that many Vulcans in Starfleet serve together, or at least are often under each others mentorship, etc (as possibly evidenced by the repeated mention of all-Vulcan starships). Time to such along-lived, patient, and logical species is likely very different than it is to a human. An ensign Vulcan on a Vulcan starship might find his superior officers telling him that he should stay in his post for a full decade, after all, a few years to a human are not unlike a few decades to a Vulcan. Vulcans would not covet promotion, as their ego needs no stroke, and they might even cherish the time to master every detail of their duty, while attending to their own private studies.

Finally, it is very likely that Tuvok had been up for a promotion more or less right around the time Voyager got lost. Janeway had become his mentor, and where she went, he went. His mission to spy on Chakotay was likely going to be the crowning jewel that got him his promotion, preserved delicately for Voyager's first mission.

Assuming the Caretaker had not snagged them, and that Tuvok's mission had been a complete success, Janeway's first words to him as he stepped upon Voyager would have likely been, "Congratulations, lieutenant commander!"

 

[Praetor]

I don't think there were any other Lt. Commanders or full Commanders left after 'Caretaker.' When you think about it, we didn't see any full Commanders at all... XO Cavitt was a LtCmdr and I believe the Doctor was too. We didn't see the Chief Engineer at all.

I think it's clear the reason the production reduced Tuvok was to make him clearly subordinate to Chakotay. They tended to butt heads a lot at the beginning, and I suppose the powers-that-be felt it would be better if Chakotay was in clear authority.

If we're to go strictly by visual evidence, might this also explain Tuvok's changing pips on screen? He started as a LtCmdr then inexplicably dropped to Lt, perhaps because Janeway felt that it would make the crew seem more united if there was a clear command hierarchy? I suppose she couldn't very well give a former Maquis terrorist who had resigned from Starfleet a promotion to Commander, so demoting Tuvok was easier, and if rank really is just a title, why would the logical Tuvok care anyway if it was for the good of the ship?

 

[Tom]

But then why not promote him in the first season?? I mean she gave the Maquis provisional ranks and Tom Paris a field commission to Lieutenant JG. We don't now how many commanders (beyond the dead first officer) had died in the 'The Caretaker' but it was clear that Tuvok was third in charge, why not make him a Lt. Commander to better reflect that. Shit, Data was third in command and was a LTC as was Worf (and sometimes Jazdia) as third in command on DS9 (Defiant or station).

 

[Tom]

If we're to go strictly by visual evidence, might this also explain Tuvok's changing pips on screen? He started as a LtCmdr then inexplicably dropped to Lt, perhaps because Janeway felt that it would make the crew seem more united if there was a clear command hierarchy? I suppose she couldn't very well give a former Maquis terrorist who had resigned from Starfleet a promotion to Commander, so demoting Tuvok was easier, and if rank really is just a title, why would the logical Tuvok care anyway if it was for the good of the ship?

All the scripts and dialouge (as well as opening credits) had him a just a Lieutenant from the get-go) this was a wardrobe screw up, but i guess everyone screwed up since no one cought it for four episodes. Braga smoking his crack again..

 

[Praetor]

But even so, it is there.

 

[hammerhead]

You also have to remember that Chakotay's provisional rank pin indicated he was a Lieutenant Commander! That was never changed in the whole series and it does match up with the reference in TNG's "Journey's End" that a Lt.Comm had just resigned from Starfleet over the Maquis cause. So maybe they thought it would be illogical for Janeway to appoint Chakotay over Tuvok if they had the same rank so Tuvok had to be a Lieutenant the whole time and that follows through with why Paris had his rank pips changed to LT JG from LT full so that Tuvok outranked him.

 

[Lynx]

In the books "Mosaic" and "Pathways" which were written by Jeri Taylor when she was still one of the people in charge of the show, Tuvok is referred to as "Ensign Tuvok" when he first meets Janeway, at a hearing after one of Janeway's first missions as Captain.

In the book "Pathways", in the chapter about Tuvok's life before Voyager, it is stated that:

"His reinsignment as ensign might have been difficult for people of his age to accept but Tuvok saw it as a just decision. He had made his choice years ago to leave Starfleet, it should be he, not Starfleet who paid the consequences."

Nothing is mentioned in the book about any promotion during the time when Tuvok served under Janeway on the ship Bonestell so I assume that he was promoted to Liutenant shortly before the mission as undercover agent among the Maquis.

 

[Timo]

Life would be easier if we didn't take into account those somewhat screwy books, though.

All the scripts and dialouge (as well as opening credits) had him a just a Lieutenant from the get-go) this was a wardrobe screw up, but i guess everyone screwed up since no one cought it for four episodes.

Well, it's either a wardrobe screw-up or a dialogue screw-up. It's basically up to us to decide which.

If we accept that Tuvok was a LtCmdr from the beginning, and was then demoted as the consequence of his mutiny in "Prime Factors", then we have to pretend we don't hear about half a dozen dialogue references that specify him as "Lieutenant", not as "Lieutenant Commander". And many of those references come in situations of formal introduction, where the full rank should have been specified.

However, if we do this, we gain some benefits. For one, Tuvok's career (as originally questioned in this thread) makes more sense. For another, Janeway can be argued to never have promoted anybody past his or her pre-"Caretaker" rank, thereby providing an explanation to why Kim never got past Ensign rank, either. Most of the costuming errors go away, too: Tuvok really is of the rank indicated by his pins - except in "Cathexis", where his pins fluctuate back and forth between the two ranks. And all the other rank pin changes that took place at the end of the first season would also cease to be costuming errors and would instead become plot points, indicating demotion of the mutineers of "Prime Factors" and of the overall bad boy Paris.

I don't think there were any other Lt. Commanders or full Commanders left after 'Caretaker.' When you think about it, we didn't see any full Commanders at all... XO Cavitt was a LtCmdr and I believe the Doctor was too. We didn't see the Chief Engineer at all.

XO Cavit was shown to be LtCmdr, yes. The human CMO had those pins as well. And "Imperfection" has a very prominently displayed list of casualties that includes two LtCmdrs and one Cmdr, none of whom is named Cavit - so we might surmise that one of those LtCmdrs was the human CMO, while the other two titles would go to major department heads who perished in "Caretaker".

Why would the ship have an officer who outranks the XO? Possibly because said officer is not in the direct chain of command. Thus, the Commander could perhaps be the Chief Science Officer, an academician who doesn't mess with command - or possibly the Chief Engineer, who doesn't get up to the bridge except in very special situations. The latter might make the most sense, considering that the ship was of a novel type and perhaps still undergoing shakedown, thus warranting an exceptionally qualified CEO.

As for the remaining LtCmdr, perhaps the Chief Operations Officer (Kim's never-seen superior and department head) held that rank. Or perhaps there was a Chief Flight Controller who was Stadi's superior. Or even an alternate Chief of Security, filling in during Tuvok's absence, and conveniently perishing when Caretaker's beam struck.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Lynx]

^^
I decided to use the books as reference in this case since they are after all written by a person who was one of the people in charge of the show when those books were written and published.

They are also the only source of information in this case.

OK, there are some odd things and contradictions in the Voyager books but, as we can see here, there are odd things and contradictions in the TV episodes as well.

 

[Tom]

Well the pre-caretaker Chief Engineer dies also, he/she could have been a Lt or full Commander for all we know. No matter what you say about the dialouge, the open credits in Season 1 list him as Lieutenant, so the evidence really just points to a wardrobe mix-up.

 

[2 of 10]

All I ever heard his rank described was Lt. Commander.

 

[Timo]

As said, there are about half a dozen episodes from the first half of the first season that explicitly identify him as either "Lieutenant", or "Lieutenant Tuvok".

Now, the word "lieutenant" as such could be interpreted in many ways. Riker was Picard's lieutenant, that is, his trusted assistant, while holding the rank of Commander. Rom was Quark's lieutenant. Tuvok could have been the basically lifelong lieutenant of Janeway, in terms of their professional and private relationship. And, of course, the opening and ending credits aren't canon: in the Trek reality, Tuvok is no more required to be a "lieutenant" than he is required to be an impostor whose real name is Tim Russ.

However, as said, some of the occasions where we hear Tuvok addressed as either "Lieutenant" or "Lieutenant Tuvok" are situations of formal introduction or address. It just wouldn't do to use a colloquial expression there when formal rank is called for. Examples:

"Eye of the Needle":

Janeway: "Welcome to the Delta quadrant, Captain. My first officer, Commander Chakotay. Lieutenant Tuvok, head of security. Chief Engineer Torres and Operations officer Kim."

"Ex Post Facto":

Minister Kray: "Captain. It's unfortunate we must meet under these circumstances."
Janeway: "My chief of security, Lieutenant Tuvok."

"Prime Factors":

Janeway: "Did Jaret explain what he meant when he said Gath had no intention of helping us leave?"
Kim: "No, he just made it clear that our only choice was to get the trajector technology from him."
Tuvok: "He may simply want us to believe that so we would deal with him."
Janeway: "Possibly. But somehow I suspect he’s right. Thank you for coming to me with this, Ensign, It may muddy the situation somewhat, but it helps me force the issue. Dismissed."
Kim: "Goodnight, Captain, Lieutenant."

To be sure, these three are the only cases in the show where it would be absolutely necessary to assume that the word "lieutenant" in connection with Tuvok must describe his exact rank. All other occurrences could be to his status as Janeway's trusted lieutenant, much like Sisko liked to call Odo his constable.

So the choice remains: do we ignore these three pieces of aural evidence and trust the rank pins and the general logic of a high-ranked Tuvok? Or do we ignore the rank pins and the logic, and trust the three pieces of aural evidence?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Ensign_Redshirt]

Tuvok was a lieutenant all along and didn't get promoted to lieutenant commander until the 4th season.

I for one don't need in-universe explanations why a costume error was made.


I wonder what the fan explanation is for Miles O'Brien's "demotion" from full lieutenant to non-commissioned officer (well, in that case it wasn't a costume error, but a retcon).

 

[Timo]

You'll regret asking.

I'll simply claim that he never was a Lieutenant, and that the single and twin TNG rank pins on his collar denoted CPO and SCPO instead. That is, they were of some different, distinct color that made them NCO pins rather than officer pins, and our TV sets fumbled the colors. (A single pin would have corresponded to the >>>. collar plate, while the two pins corresponded to the eventual >>>: plate seen on O'Brien's DS9 collar.)

After all, here the preponderance of evidence is on the side of O'Brien being a NCO throughout his career, with just half a dozen early TNG episodes to suggest otherwise by collar pins, and one bit of highly ambiguous dialogue to potentially support the officer interpretation. On the matter of Tuvok's first-season rank, the evidence is more like fifty-fifty.

Of course, this all is based on the idea that Star Trek is a functional alternate universe, rather than a random collection of loosely related pieces of fiction. The latter idea would allow for "costuming errors". The former idea does not, as universes don't have errors.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Ensign_Redshirt]

You'll regret asking.

I do.

I'll simply claim that he never was a Lieutenant, and that the single and twin TNG rank pins on his collar denoted CPO and SCPO instead. That is, they were of some different, distinct color that made them NCO pins rather than officer pins, and our TV sets fumbled the colors. (A single pin would have corresponded to the >>>. collar plate, while the two pins corresponded to the eventual >>>: plate seen on O'Brien's DS9 collar.)

Yes, but our TV sets are neither Canon nor part of the Trek universe in any other fashion. And if they are, why don't we just say that Tuvok wore "lieutenant" insignia all along and that Q manipulated our TV sets to make it look otherwise? Because Q finds it funny when fans of that series debate about that on the Internet more than 15 years later.

After all, here the preponderance of evidence is on the side of O'Brien being a NCO throughout his career, with just half a dozen early TNG episodes to suggest otherwise by collar pins, and one bit of highly ambiguous dialogue to potentially support the officer interpretation. On the matter of Tuvok's first-season rank, the evidence is more like fifty-fifty.

1) O'Brien didn't stop to wear his two full pins until the 6th season of TNG. So we're not talking about "just half a dozen early TNG episodes", but about nearly 50 episodes of TNG.

2) I didn't know that it's "highly ambiguous" when Riker adresses O'Brien as "lieutenant". You could make a point that he was explicitly adressed as "lieutenant" only once, while he was called "Chief" numerous times later on. But that would make it "rare" and not "ambiguous".

Of course, this all is based on the idea that Star Trek is a functional alternate universe, rather than a random collection of loosely related pieces of fiction. The latter idea would allow for "costuming errors". The former idea does not, as universes don't have errors.

Well, Star Trek isn't a real universe and as such it isn't consistent like a real universe. As a fictional universe it was made up by people and people are not infallible. I don't see a reason to pretend otherwise.

 

[Timo]

Yes, but our TV sets are neither Canon nor part of the Trek universe in any other fashion. And if they are, why don't we just say that Tuvok wore "lieutenant" insignia all along and that Q manipulated our TV sets to make it look otherwise?

The TV sets do factor in on our perception of the fictional universe in a more direct fashion than opening credits or paraphernalia books. Consider Torres' rank: the resolution of our sets, or of any viewing media we might use to view the episodes now or in the future, do not allow us to discern whether Torres wore two bright slashes, or two dark ones, or one dark and one bright, for her Maquis rank marker. We're thus left with a great freedom of interpretation - and we have reason to do our own interpreting, since the slashes in reality apparently fluctuated quite a bit between those alternatives. It would be different if we evoked the TV set clause to try and pretend that Torres wore a red uniform, as this would only apply if we had especially crappy TV sets.

It would be awkward to try and say that O'Brien wore chevrons when the episode has him wearing pips. But it's quite plausible to argue that these shiny little pips are of a color different from the one intended - a great many props have ambiguous colors and feature "color errors" in certain episodes, but can be ignored and interpreted as error-free because the TV resolution simply doesn't suffice for proving the errors.

O'Brien didn't stop to wear his two full pins until the 6th season of TNG. So we're not talking about "just half a dozen early TNG episodes", but about nearly 50 episodes of TNG.

Ah, point granted. O'Brien indeed made significantly more appearances in TNG than I ballparked...

I didn't know that it's "highly ambiguous" when Riker adresses O'Brien as "lieutenant". You could make a point that he was explicitly adressed as "lieutenant" only once, while he was called "Chief" numerous times later on. But that would make it "rare" and not "ambiguous".

Well, what I meant with "ambiguity" here is that it's far from clear whether Riker addresses Lieutenant Worf or Chief Petty Officer O'Brien in that piece of dialogue from "Where Silence Has Lease"...

I mean, the writer intent is clear (Riker speaks to the unnamed transporter operator who later is retroactively established as O'Brien). The acted outcome is not (Riker, without making eye contact, speaks about a tactical decision that affects Worf; O'Brien responds with "Aye, Sir", possibly in personal error.).

Well, Star Trek isn't a real universe and as such it isn't consistent like a real universe.

Now that's a policy decision. The issue can be argued from multiple viewpoints, and the trivial answer in one viewpoint is "somebody screwed up". I'm just not interested in that viewpoint, largely due to its triviality.

Timo Saloniemi