Tom Paris

**Thomas Eugene Paris** was a 24th century Human Starfleet officer who served for seven years as flight control officer of the Federation starship USS *Voyager*, under the command of Captain Kathryn Janeway.

## History

### Early years

Tom was a member of the Paris family, the latest in a long line of Paris' to serve Starfleet, from his Great-grandfather Admiral Daniel Paris, his Grandfather, "Iron Mike" Paris who was recorded lost during the Tomed Incident, and Great-aunt Admiral Patricia Paris, his uncle Cole Paris who served with Jean-Luc Picard on the *Stargazer*, to his father Admiral Owen Paris. Tom was born in Portola Valley, California on Earth in 2346  to Owen Paris  and Julia Paris

### Academy Years(2364-2368)

During his first year at the Academy, Paris fell in love for the first time, with a girl named Susie Crabtree. When she broke off the relationship, he broke out in hives, unable to get out of bed for a week, and almost failed Stellar Cartography. He spent much of that year in a daze, and, even years later, he thought of her from time to time, never really being able to completely forget her.

During his second semester at the Academy in the 2365, Paris chose Marseille, France as the site of his physical training. There, he frequented a bistro known as *Sandrine's*, where he once met a girl by the name of "Ricky".

Advanced Subspace Geometry was the only class at the Academy in which he actually paid attention. He did hone his natural aptitude for piloting skills on craft large and small, and he proved adept at holo-engineering. He once told Neelix that his father was the instructor of his course on Survival Strategies and that he gave Tom a mere "B-minus".

Paris managed to graduate from Starfleet Academy after a stormy four years, with a major in astrophysics

### Early career(2368-2368)

Tom showed great aptitude for piloting and looked to have a promising career in Starfleet. As his Academy training was coming to an end, Tom applied for a posting aboard the USS *Enterprise*. Tom was furious to learn that his father had decided to remove his name from consideration, as he believed that while Tom did have the skills it would show favouritism if an Admiral's son was posted to the Federation flagship straight out of the Academy. Then, during a training exercise in the Vega system near Caldik Prime, Tom was responsible for a navigational accident that cost the lives of three of his friends. Tom covered up his responsibility for the accident, and blamed it on one of the deceased, Brunolf Katajavuori.

Soon after, Tom was assigned to the USS *Exeter* and in time was promoted to lieutenant, junior grade. However, after a romantic (and partially telepathic) liaison with a Betazoid woman, he could no longer suppress his remorse over his cover up. Tom began seeing his friends in his dreams, and his guilt got the better of him. He confessed his responsibility and was cashiered out of Starfleet

### The Maquis(2369-2369)

Tom wandered about Earth for nearly a year without any real purpose or direction. While in the city of Paris, Tom was approached by a man named Chakotay, who needed Tom's services as a pilot for the group of renegade freedom fighters known as the Maquis. Given the opportunity to fly again, even for a technically illegal organization such as the Maquis, Tom accepted Chakotay's offer.

On Tom's first mission with the Maquis, the vessel he was piloting took heavy damage in battle with a Cardassian ship. Tom took a shuttle and attempted to contact a sympathetic colony on Selka for assistance for his crew, but he was intercepted by the USS *Bradbury*, apprehended, and was returned to Earth to stand trial.

While he was serving time at the Federation penal colony for his involvement with the Maquis, Paris received a visit from Captain Kathryn Janeway – who had served her first post out of the Academy under Owen, when he had captained the USS *Al-Batani* – gave him the opportunity to redeem himself, as well as be paroled, by participating in a mission. His assignment was to help track down the Maquis ship *Val Jean*, which had disappeared in the Badlands with Janeway's security officer Tuvok, who had been undercover. After some initial hesitation, Paris decided to take this opportunity and join Captain Janeway on *Voyager*. He was very cynical when asked to join. He couldn't care less about the crew of that ship, and only agreed to be brought on-board as a Starfleet observer after being assured that, when it was over, he would be cut loose and Janeway would give him a favorable report at his next review.

### The Delta Quadrant

*Voyager* found Chakotay and his ship, but only after being flung 70,000 light years from the Federation and into the heart of the Delta Quadrant by the Nacene known as the Caretaker.

After the Caretaker's death, Janeway was forced to destroy the Caretaker's technology in order to protect the Ocampan race from the opportunistic Kazon-Ogla. This act stranded Tom, *Voyager*, and both the Starfleet and Maquis crews in the Delta Quadrant. Janeway decided to combine the two crews into a single Starfleet crew for the voyage home with Chakotay as her first officer.

Janeway gave Paris a field commission to the rank of Lieutenant Junior Grade and the position of Conn officer on *Voyager* during that vessel's historic seven-year trek home through the Delta Quadrant.

In 2375, Tom Paris was given the mission to explore the Monean's ocean world to find the cause of why their ocean was losing containment. After finding the cause and returning to *Voyager*, Paris, Riga, and the rest of the away team were then decorated by the Monean Maritime Sovereignty and given the Monean Emblem of Maritime Distinction. However, Paris was then demoted to Ensign for over a year due to his actions with Riga in preventing the Moneans from destroying The Waters. He then spent thirty days in solitary confinement in *Voyager*'s brig.

During this time, he was wed to shipmate B'Elanna Torres, who gave birth to the couple's daughter, Miral Paris, just as *Voyager* returned home in late 2377.

### Home

Upon *Voyager*'s return to the Alpha Quadrant, Tom was promoted two steps in rank to Lieutenant Commander, previously having been a Lieutenant, junior grade (promotable to Lieutenant) while serving on *Voyager* (with a short demotion to an Ensign in 2375 for disobeying orders).

Tom journeyed with B'Elanna to the Klingon sanctuary of Boreth in order to help B'Elanna with a quest to find her mother, who had been lost in the wilds of Boreth's jungles.

### Project Delta Fleet

Tom was promoted to Full Commander and offered the position of First Officer aboard the USS Voyager-A.

## Personal interests

Tom Paris had a variety of interests, but many of them focused on 20th-century North American culture, specifically the latter half of that century's pop culture. However, his knowledge of general history was slightly more limited, to the point that he initially believed that the Soviet Union was still active in the late 1990s, whereas it had actually collapsed at the beginning of that decade. When *Voyager* landed in 20th-century Los Angeles on Earth, his knowledge about the existence of surveillance satellites at that time helped them remain undetected. Janeway took him on the subsequent away mission because of his knowledge of 20th-century Earth. When asked what they needed in order to pass as locals, he said, "*Nice clothes, fast cars, and lots of money.*" He also possessed considerable knowledge of the early Mars projects, from the first missions of the 1970s to the first colony.

Additionally, Paris was fond of playing practical jokes, particularly on Tuvok. For example, he once reprogrammed, in a variety of ways, a holographic Vulcan monastery that Tuvok used, such as dressing one of the central figures in sleepwear and changing the chants to Ferengi chants about profit. He even once reprogrammed all the systems Tuvok interacted with to say, "*Live long and prosper,*" whenever he used them. In the holographic village of Fair Haven, Paris transformed Harry Kim's date Maggie into a Holstein-Friesian cow when she was about to kiss him.

In addition to these interests, he liked dogs and once told Janeway that he had always had a dog.

### Holoprograms

Among his many interests, Paris had what The Doctor once called "a flair for holographic narratives"; he enjoyed creating and participating in a range of holoprograms during his time on *Voyager*. When they were first stranded in the Delta Quadrant, he created the holographic version of his favorite hangout, *Chez Sandrine*, for use on *Voyager*'s holodeck. Sandrine's bar was a small restaurant, with a bar and pool table, that Tom had often frequented while doing his physical training on the Starfleet base outside of Marseille. He regarded the simulation as a piece of home, right there in the Delta Quadrant. The *Sandrine* program was often accessed by the crew and was also the location at which Tom once ran a gambling operation that Chakotay broke up.

Paris was also the creator of the holoprogram *Captain Proton* and the protagonist of the holonovel *The Adventures of Captain Proton*. He often embarked on wild adventures on the holodeck with the *Captain Proton* program, and his sidekick on many of these adventures was Buster Kincaid, played by Harry Kim. Even though the storyline varied each time, the main theme of the *Captain Proton* novels was fighting the evil forces of Doctor Chaotica and Queen Arachnia. Paris even once had Seven participate in the adventures, but she did not show much enthusiasm for what she considered to be yet another frivolous activity among Humans. *Captain Proton* was once mistakenly taken for real by aliens who thought they were going to be attacked by Doctor Chaotica. Janeway assumed the character of Queen Arachnia and assisted Tom, Harry, and The Doctor in defeating Chaotica.

When he was not embarking on holo-adventures as the scourge of intergalactic evil in the *Captain Proton* programs, Tom also liked to devote his time to other kinds of stories. His interest in Irish culture led him to create the *Fair Haven* holoprogram – which was set in an early-20th-century Irish town. In the program, Paris played a joke on Harry and turned his holodate, Maggie, into a cow. When some of the villagers saw this, they, believing that Kim and Paris were evil spirits, captured them and tried to drive the spirits out of them. Due to damage to the holodeck, the characters had become self-aware and safety protocols were off-line. After Janeway explained the situation to one of the characters, Michael Sullivan, he managed to convince the villagers that the two were not possessed by spirits and the pair was released. After this incident, the *Fair Haven* program degraded and most of the original characters were lost.

Since Paris enjoyed writing creative stories and engaging in adventures on the holodeck, he was more than thrilled when he was granted permission to continue writing an ending for Tuvok's holoprogram, *Insurrection Alpha*, depicting a Maquis mutiny. Tuvok was not very happy when Tom took over the project, as Tom was disregarding all of his original organization and logical application by adhering to a more casual "make it up as I go along" format. He was suggesting that, in the novel, Paris and Janeway retake the ship while Janeway would decide to execute all the conspirators, an ending Tuvok believed to be a completely implausible plot development.

### Cars

om was a car aficionado, and, thus, one of his hobbies were automobiles with internal combustion engines. He created his own holoprogram, called *Grease Monkey*, in which he often spent hours tinkering with old cars while listening to "surf rock" music from a radio of that era. When, in 2371, *Voyager* discovered an ancient Earth automobile – a 1936 Ford truck floating in space – Tom was the first one to take an interest and share with the rest of the crew his knowledge about cars of the 20th century. When Harry Kim asked if the Ford they had found was one of the first hover cars, he replied that this car was just one step above the horse-drawn carriage.

In 2374, *Voyager* encountered Steth, an alien whose troubled ship was run by a coaxial warp drive. Tom suggested fixing the ship's propulsion system with something similar to a 20th-century car's carburetor. Tom also shared his *Grease Monkey* simulation with B'Elanna and even wanted to give her some driving lessons.

### Movies

Tom was also a 20th-century movie and pop culture buff. He was a big fan of old sci-fi movies and pulp sci-fi, such as *Orgy of the Walking Dead* and its sequel *Bride of the Corpse*. He liked watching television – which B'Elanna had once replicated and personally assembled for him – as well as 20th-century snacks and beverages (from that period better known as "junk food") such as hot dogs, popcorn, pizza, and beer.

## Personal Relationships

#### B'Elanna Torres

In the beginning, Tom's and B'Elanna's interactions were cordial in nature and they didn't pay much attention to each other; in fact, B'Elanna once thought Tom to be a "pig" when she discovered the kind of chauvinistic holodeck character he had programmed. (VOY: " The Cloud") Despite shaky beginnings, however – and even though aboard *Voyager* Tom officially represented Starfleet while B'Elanna was an ex-Maquis – in a way, they were kindred spirits: they were outlaws and misfits in their respective lives in the Alpha Quadrant and they both had rather difficult and wounding relationships with their parents. As a result, they had a hard time playing by the rules and often felt that they did not fit in. As time went by, they began warming up to each other and Tom gradually approached her and began seeing her in a romantic light.