Skip to main content

star trek - Why is Harry Kim senior staff?


Harry Kim is an ensign, the most junior of post academy officers. Voyager is Harry's first posting after the academy (VOY: Non-sequitur). Kim is the primary operations officer even before half of Voyager's crew is killed, from Caretaker transcript:



KIM: Captain, I'm reading a coherent tetryon beam scanning us.
JANEWAY: Origin, Mister Kim.
KIM: I'm not sure. There's also a displacement wave moving toward us.
JANEWAY: On screen.

(The viewscreen shows a narrow band of energy heading towards them.)
JANEWAY: Analysis.
KIM: It's some kind of polarised magnetic variation.
CAVIT: We might be able to disperse it with a graviton particle field.
JANEWAY: Do it. Red alert. Move us away from it, Lieutenant.
STADI: New heading, four one mark one eight zero.
CAVIT: Initiating graviton field.
KIM: The graviton field had no effect.



Recall that, on the Enterprise, Data was the primary operations officer, and he was a Lieutenant Commander, the #3 man on the ship. This is the same rank that's held by Tuvok on Voyager, who has Worf's job.



This is all fine, but what I don't get is why Kim is considered Senior Staff while only being an Ensign, and all indications are that this is Kim's first duty posting.


This gets even more confusing in The Omega Directive, where Harry is present when Janeway decides to inform the "Senior Staff" about the Omega directive, but B'Elanna is not:


Senior Staff Briefing Omega Directive


Some major character officers who are higher ranking than Kim for most of the show (aside from B'Elanna's unusual absence in the Omega Directive briefing). Note that a Lieutenant is two ranks above Ensign and a Lieutenant JG is one rank above.



Those are just the ones that get screen time. There are even higher ranking officers that appear on certain crew manifests, such as "Commander Rick Berman" in "The Killing Game" (yes, I know that Rick Berman is the name of one of the producers of the show)


Voyager Crew Manifest


So, given Harry's relatively low rank, is there an in-universe reason why he's considered Senior staff / bridge crew from basically day one?




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.
Post a Comment
Read more

aliens - Interstellar Zoo story

I vaguely remember this story from my childhood: it was about an interstellar zoo that came to Earth with lots of bizarre and unusual species, and humans would file through and gape at all the crazy looking creatures from other planets. The twist came at the end when the perspective shifted to the other side of the bars and we discovered that the "creatures" were traveling through space on a kind of safari. They thought they were the visitors and we were the animals. Neither side knew that the other side thought they were the zoo creatures. Answer Got it. Zoo, by Edward D. Hoch. Published in 1958. Link to Publication History Link to PDF
Post a Comment
Read more

harry potter - What is the difference between Diffindo and Sectumsempra?

In the Harry Potter books, Diffindo is called the 'Severing Charm' and it’s most commonly used to cut ropes and the like. However, in the last book Hermione uses it on Ron but misses, creating a 'slash in his jeans' and his knee gets cut, causing him to 'roar in pain'. We've only seen Sectumsempra used once on screen when Harry directly uses it on Malfoy in the sixth book, but there it's mentioned that he is 'waving his wand wildly'. Wouldn't Diffindo, if used in such a fashion also cause a similar effect? Similarly, if it was able to cut Ron, it would also be able to, say, chop off an ear (George's)? In that case, how are these two spells different, except for Sectumsempra seemingly used exclusively to hurt humans? Answer While Diffindo and Sectumsempra both can be countered by other spells, Diffindo is far more easily countered. Reparo, a relatively common spell, can completely reverse its effect when used once. “He pulled the old cop...
Post a Comment
Read more

harry potter - How could Expelliarmus beat Avada Kedavra?

I want to be very careful about how I ask this question – I am not asking How did Voldemort die? [CLOSED] Below the text is the relevant passages from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows if anyone wants to review them (I'm sorry for the amount of text). How did Expelliarmus beat Avada Kedavra and kill Voldemort? I feel the reason Harry's Expelliarmus overpowered Voldemort's Avada Kedavra curse has to do with who was master of the Elder Wand and how the Elder Wand works. I've always had trouble understanding fully how the Elder Wand works, though. How much did the fact that Voldemort never truly won or mastered the Elder Wand factor into how Expelliarmus reacted to Avada Kedavra and caused Avada Kedavra to rebound and kill Voldemort? An answer based in book canon would be especially welcome, but any canon source really is fine. Harry heard the high voice shriek as he, too, yelled his best hope to the heavens, pointing Draco’s wand: ‘ Avada Kedavra !’ ‘ Expelliarmus !...
Post a Comment
Read more