Owen Paris Admiral Owen Paris was a senior Starfleet official , the former captain of the starship , and the father of Tom Paris . ( ) His most significant contribution was in command of the Pathfinder Project and its follow - up , Operation Watson , which developed major advances in long - range communication to successfully reestablish contact with the lost Starfleet vessel . History . Owen Paris held several high ranking posts in Starfleet from captain to admiral , but also had a family : he was married and had children . ( ) Owen was an instructor at Starfleet Academy , having taught his son ' s course on Survival Strategies in the 2360s . Owen did not play favorites with his son as his student , giving Tom an overall " B - minus , " in the course . ( ) Owen often pressured Tom to excel in everything he did , frequently making his son feel inadequate . He continually talked about the Prime Directive to Paris and other Starfleet officers . To him , the Prime Directive was one of the leading principles in space exploration . ( ) As captain of the USS " Al - Batani " , Kathryn Janeway served under him on the Arias Expedition . Later , when Janeway was assigned as the captain of the starship " Voyager " , she read a file on Paris ' son , Thomas , and wanted him to come on " Voyager " s first mission as observer to help navigate the Badlands . She later brought up her past service with Owen Paris , when she went to meet Tom at the penal colony he was serving time at in New Zealand . ( ) Before venturing to meet with Tom Paris , she ran the idea past Admiral Patterson , who recognized the name as " Admiral Paris ' son . " ( ) According to Tom Paris , he never changed an opinion once the opinion was finalized . ( ) Pathfinder . In 2376 , Owen Paris was overseeing the Pathfinder Project at Starfleet ' s Communications Research Center , which was aimed at establishing communications with the starship " Voyager " stranded in the Delta Quadrant . He had an office where he did his work , with his Nicole . As the admiral overseeing the Pathfinder Project , Commander Peter Harkins reported directly to him , and he visited for inspections on progress routinely . During such one inspection in 2376 , Admiral Paris was being briefed on new plans underway , using the MIDAS array , by Commander Harkins when Lieutenant Reginald Barclay interrupted the presentation . He made a spectacle about a micro - wormhole they may be able to create , to achieve real - time communication with " Voyager " . Harkins shot down the idea , but Barclay later went around him directly to the admiral at his office , " scaring [ his ] secretary . " The admiral agreed to look over Barclay ' s findings , and sent him away . When Paris tried to contact Barclay to say his findings may have merit , the admiral was disappointed to find that Barclay had tried to go along with them without authorization . Before he could punish him , however , the communications signal went through and " Voyager " began to respond . Admiral Paris was able to reassure Captain Janeway that they were still working to bring the " Voyager " crew back home , and had Barclay send tactical and communication updates before the link ended . ( ) Several months later , in 2377 , after two months of data - streams to " Voyager " failing to send a complex hologram , Admiral Paris was called in regards to a breach of Pathfinder security . Along with Counselor Deanna Troi and Commander Harkins , they questioned a woman named Leosa about the loss of the Barclay hologram . Leosa claimed to be a teacher while dating Barclay but was , in fact , working for the Ferengi . Though Leosa claimed that she knew nothing about this , Admiral Paris theorized that the Ferengi had somehow found a way to profit from the hologram and that she secretly knew this . His theory later proved correct , when she revealed the ship , though not its plan . Admiral Paris then ordered Captain Peterson , of the , to a red giant star in sector 39542 grid 8 , proceeding at maximum warp to apprehend the Ferengi . ( ) Later that year , Admiral Paris was at Pathfinder labs for the testing of Operation Watson , which allowed for eleven minutes of daily contact with " Voyager " . Days later , Lieutenant Barclay confronted him about a holoprogram he ' d become aware of that depicted the " Voyager " crew in an unflattering light . The admiral immediately contacted Captain Janeway about it , and a legal battle soon ensued . He sat in at a subsequent Federation judicial arbitration between " Voyager " s EMH , " The Doctor , " and Ardon Broht of Broht & Forrester Publishers , over The Doctor ' s rights to own property . ( ) While Paris and several other admirals were at the Project Pathfinder labs , Barclay reported that their sensors detected a Borg transwarp conduit opening less than a light year from Earth . Fearing another Borg invasion attempt , he ordered all available ships to converge on the coordinates of the conduit . Commanding the fleet of eighteen ships , with nine more on the way , he ordered for them to use all necessary force to stop any Borg ships . A Borg sphere eventually emerged , but began to explode on its own and Paris ordered the fleet to hold their fire as the sphere exploded , with " Voyager " emerging triumphantly from the wreckage . Admiral Paris hailed " Voyager " immediately , to welcome them home . ( ) Appendices . Background information . Admiral Paris appeared wearing the rank insignia of a 3 - star or Vice Admiral in " Persistence of Vision " , then a 4 - star Admiral in " Pathfinder " , then 3 - star again in " Inside Man . " This could mean he was a Vice Admiral before " Voyager " left , and promoted while they were in the Delta Quadrant to full Admiral . The change in " Inside Man " was likely a costuming mistake , or he could have been demoted . But later in both " Author , Author " and " Endgame " , he wears the four star insignia again . In a deleted scene cut from the final draft of , Tom Paris complained that " " the only people who want to talk to me [ from the Alpha Quadrant ] are my father and a Ferengi Tongo dealer who claims I still owe him three hundred strips of latinum . " " In " Star Trek Beyond " , a character named Commodore is in command of Starbase Yorktown , with Simon Pegg confirming that her name is a reference to Tom Paris , suggesting that she is the alternate reality counterpart to Tom ' s grandmother , and hence Owen ' s mother . Apocrypha . co - creator Jeri Taylor ' s two novels , " Mosaic " and " Pathways " , explore Captain Janeway ' s early career , especially her time on the " Al - Batani " with Captain Owen Paris , during the Arias Expedition . In the novels , the two met in 2355 when she was still in Starfleet Academy , eventually handpicking her for his ship and the mission . Several novels expand on his family and ancestry as well . In " Serpents Among the Ruins " , his father , Michael Thomas Paris , ( an Academy classmate of Demora Sulu and " official " casualty of the Tomed Incident , though in truth he had been killed during a Special Ops mission in 2310 and , like " all " of the thousands of supposed victims from numerous bases and USS " Agamemnon " destroyed in the catastrophe , Starfleet covered up his death until the incident and falsified records to claim they had died there , in his case he had been aboard the " Agamemnon " ) was a character and Owen ' s mother , Victoria Santos , was referenced . The " " novel series features Owen Paris ' brother , Cole , who was a crewmate of Jean - Luc Picard during his command of that vessel and entered into a complex relationship with a non - corporeal member of the crew after he accidentally walked " into " her while in her natural state . The " Strange New Worlds IV " story " Uninvited Admirals " names Owen ' s wife ( and Tom ' s mother ) Cinda . In the novel " " , Owen and his wife ( there named Julia ) allowed Paris , Torres and their daughter Miral to live with them after they returned from the Delta Quadrant - as suggested in " Endgame " . In the novel " Gods of Night " Owen Paris died in a Borg attack on Starbase 234 in 2381 . The news of his death was relayed to his son , Tom Paris .