With
the ink still wet on his Starfleet Academy diploma, Harry Kim assumes
his operations post on USS Voyager in 2371. But the disciplined
overachiever remains secretly nervous about his future.
Being lost
in the Delta Quadrant, however, is not nearly as unsettling to Kim as
being without the security of family and the structure of Starfleet’s
career path to confirm his progress and point the way. Kim begins a
friendship with Tom Paris, clearly an expert on life outside the system,
and learns to his own benchmarks.
After
three years of exemplary service in the Delta Quadrant, Kim realizes
that though technically an ensign he needn’t act like one- not after
all he’s seen and done. Kim’s campaign to expand his authority
begins when he out-logics Tuvok in a staff meeting and wins his point
about visiting an Demon class planet. By 2375 Kim sought and was
assigned duty as Voyager’s night-shift captain. In 2377 Kim convinces
Janeway he’s ready to lead the mission escorting a Kraylor vessel to
its home and refuses Tom Paris’ help by saying he no longer wants to
be the sidekick.
While Kim
comes into his own as an officer, his romances are consistently
hopeless. He falls in love with Marayna, whom he believes to be a
holodeck character; then Megan Delaney ( when sister Jenny Delaney is
the one who’s interested ); Seven of Nine; and then Tal, from a
xenophobia species. Perhaps this problem connecting with the opposite
sex stems from a belief that he will someday still be reunited with
fiancée he left behind, Libby.
Another
lesson Harry Kim never learns is to anticipate a Tom Paris practical
joke. One thing Harry has never given up on, is the possibility of
getting home.
