Dive into the untold stories of Harry Kim, one of Star Trek: Voyager’s most memorable crew members. Here are 10 surprising facts about the character that even dedicated fans might have missed.
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Harry Kim, the galaxy's most famous forever ensign, more recently promoted, was the freshest
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of fresh out of the academy when Voyager set an accidental course to the Delta Quadrant
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via the Badlands and Quark's Bar. Of all the intrepid's crew, he was the keenest to get home, if not for Libby, then for his
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parents, who nearly had to make a lot of room in their living room. On the other side of the galaxy, death became second nature
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Confidence, if not the pips, would slowly follow suit in Operations Gold
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Failing a bicycle in the mess hall to pedal home, the ever-evolving ensign eventually learnt that it
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wasn't the destination that mattered, but the journey, and more importantly, the people on it
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A gifted and loyal Starfleet officer, except on the rare occasions he wasn't
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Harry was equally key to that journey's success. Far from his deathly reputation
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clarinet in hand, and in monochrome as Buster Kincaid on the holodeck
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Harry was forever the most alive. But with little room for advancement on a stranded ship
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Echoes of the Void his own concerto composition was also always just that now at ease dear watcher
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before you sprain something I'm Sean Ferry for Trek Culture and here are 10 things you didn't know
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about Harry Kim number 10 74656 auditions like Harry himself Garrett Wong's career was only just
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beginning when he landed the part that would strand him in the Delta Quadrant before Kim Wong had
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picked up the role of Raymond Han in an episode of the Margaret Cho-led sitcom All-American Girl
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He had also secured a few commercials. Given his relative inexperience, producers put Wong
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through the ringer for Star Trek Voyager, as the actor reported on the DVD extra Voyager time
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capsule Harry Kim. In fact, he had to audition six times. It was definitely an arduous process
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compared to some of the other cast members Wong noted. All in all, according to Wong
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it took over two months to decide on him for Kim. My parents were pretty ecstatic, he went on to add
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Wong himself was equally excited. I remember thinking at the time that this must have been
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a dream that I was going to wake up from soon, he stated in the 50-year mission the next 25 years
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The same dreams were dashed for apparent Kim runner-up, Eric Steinberg, as revealed by Wong
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on the Delta Flyers podcast. Some consolation, Steinberg was the Ankari captain in Equinox Part 2
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having already found out what was at the end of that Jefferies tube as Lieutenant Paul Porter
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in Star Trek First Contact. Number 9. EPS is not yet an STD. What Garrett Wong lacked in entries on
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his acting CV he largely made up for in knowledge of science and science fiction. I'm a huge sci-fi
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fan and someone who paid attention in physics class in high school, he noted in Star Trek Voyager
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as celebration. Whilst others tripped over the techno babble, Wong took Star Trek's complex
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techno jargon in his stride. As Wong also noted, his fellow actors would come to him for explanations
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about the EPS manifolds. Like actor, like character, Harry's first posting might well have been at ops
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but he was ultimately a scientist. Speaking in that same Star Trek Voyager celebration
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Gerry Taylor described how she, Rick Berman and Michael Piller leaned into that particular trait
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in the first season, pairing Harry up with B'Elanna to solve various scientific problems
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producers were testing the waters between blank canvas start fleet and hot-headed maquis leading
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wong to believe that after we did the pilot belana and kim were going to be in a relationship
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of course that liaison never happened leaving the way for paris a little later and with libby
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quickly forgotten on screen anyway last mention was the thaw harry's love life throughout the
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rest of voyages run turned more turbulent and often more life-threatening than a 0.42 phase
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variants. Number 8. The Many Deaths of Harry Kim. It's not for nothing that the French call it
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la petite mort. Over the years, Harry has died literally about as many times as he's died that
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little death. Freud would have had a field day with him on a shade long. In the disease, for
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example, a love sickness for Harry made itself physically manifest via a form of sexually
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transmitted infection, the varroes olanvora. As the episode story writer Kenneth Biller commented
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in Cinefantastique volume 31 number 11, I wanted to explore the notion that people will stay in
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relationships that they know are unhealthy for them because they feel an almost physical need
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or compulsion to be with that other person. Then again, Harry seemed to be the only one who needed
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to get permission to have sex with aliens. Death is also having to explain your intimate relations
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to the captain. She's not a Borg, she's not a hologram, and she's not dead, Tom Paris then
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noted as a form of congratulations to his friend in Drive. Unfortunately, she was Irina
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a Torellian terrorist seeking to blow up the finishing line of the Antarian Transstellar
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Rally and but for a last change of co very nearly Harry along with it at least the delaney sisters were somewhere out of the way as for actual death harry first was in emanations
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though he was promptly revived a little later harry and the rest of the crew of voyager all
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theoretically died in an explosion in the 29th century the future's end of future's end similar
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cause same effect over and over in relativity different cause singular explosion in timeless
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duplicate death in course oblivion then probably only counts if you're really counting of course
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there's one death missing on that list and it's a big one out into space in deadlock of all the
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many deaths it is also the one that still rankles for garrett wong number seven deadlock poets
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society on the delta flyers podcast hosts and best friends in real life garrett wong and robert
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Duncan McNeil, typically begin with a haiku and a limerick about that week's episode. For Deadlock
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one of Wong's haikus, largely the work of his partner Megan, and also inspired by McNeil's
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self-confessed dad joke on the two Ds in pad, was as follows. I died, and no one cared
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Sob, bub, bub, bub. Oh, Captain, my Captain, and if not quite carpe diem, then at least try to
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seize B'Elanna's hand and or the rungs on the ladder, one of the Ensign Kim's death in Deadlock
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was certainly sudden. Wong's perspective, rightly or wrongly, is that Janeway in particular seemed to
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move on awfully quickly after the announcement. It's not like they could hold a memorial service
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mid-crisis, but it is true that once the other Kim had made it across the threshold
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Harry floating in space was promptly forgotten about. Or was he? In an interview with Cinema
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Blend's Mick Jost in 2024, Wong gave his own intriguing pitch for what might have happened
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to Prime Kim after being blown into space. My imagined storyline was the Prime Harry is actually
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beamed aboard a floating Borg sphere that is actually kind of hanging out nearby. Borg Kim
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then ends up becoming the secret weapon of the Borg Queen to get Seven of Nine back. Even more
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on what might have happened to the other Kim later in this video. As for Prime Harry, or the original
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versus the copy, debate when it comes to deadlock, it's all a moot point beyond any helpful distinguishing
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terminology. When it gets to that level of, albeit in this case made up, quantum physics
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there is no coherent answer that will satisfy our macroscopic rationalities. In this case
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instead of the cat, the divergence of subspace fields had superimposed Harry both dead and alive
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For the moment, in canon, don't expect the wave function to collapse. Number six. What follows does not follow. Non-Seciter is not an episode we would have
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done in the first season, Jerry Taylor admitted in Cinefantastique volume 28, number four and five
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By season two, however, Taylor and fellow producers felt they could tantalise people a little bit with
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a glimpse of home. In that, Harry got the chance to go back to Earth, ish, for a while. Technically
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in that reality, Tom Paris had barely left Marseille. Non-secretor is also the indirect
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result of Garrett Wong's desire to see Harry kick butt. As Wong noted on the Voyager time capsule
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Harry Kim, he had paid a visit to Branham Braga's office at the start of the year to ask if the
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writers were planning on having Kim doing any action whatsoever. According to Wong, up until
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then, every other actor had a stunt double apart from him. During the same meeting with Braga
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Wong also wanted to know if Kim could have a little romance too. What he didn't expect was
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for all his queries to be realised at once. After Wong read the script for Non-Secondure
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he called Braga to thank him for following his suggestions, adding jokingly
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I thought just maybe you could have spread it out of the course of the season instead of giving me
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everything in one episode. Number 5. Jaywalking. Completed by Michael Piller at the end of September
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1993, the very first draft of the Star Trek Voyager series Bible gave the following. Ops
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Communication, Jay Osaka, SF, Young Human Male. A name change would have to wait until February 1994
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but that was the first glimpse of the character Harry Kim. In an even later version of the series
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bible exact date unknown harry kim is described in much more the same way that we would know him
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in the beginning an academically brilliant individual with loving if slightly overbearing
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parents thoroughly likable and professionally diligent but inexperienced with some growing up to do when i first came aboard voyager i was pretty green right harry then admitted down the
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road in demon a deep almost fluorescent green replied good buddy tom in the episode harry had
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found a new no Vulcan nonsense confidence that was more than earned In barely four years the still ensign had done more than most Starfleet officers He fought the Borg been transformed into an alien helped defeat the Hirogen and as we know even come back from the dead
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It was the third element on that list that helped convince writer-producers Joe Minoski and Brannan
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Braga that Kim was the one to lead the 100th and standout episode of Star Trek Voyager
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Timeless. Speaking in Cinefantastique Volume 31, Number 11, Minoski conceded that, a year ago brannon and i were as down on kim's character as any character kim just never did it
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for us if someone would have said to me the 100th episode next season is going to feature garrett and
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ensign kim i would have just laughed it was inconceivable the killing game changed their
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minds however the two-parter had come up short and without the possibility to add to the world
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war ii sequences writers were left with a missing few minutes and only one senior officer not already
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part of the holodeck scenarios ensign kim in the new scenes written harry was forced to work under
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the brutal and large thumb of the hirogen but he also proved rebellious against his predatory
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overlords it was a tough side to him that we had never seen before and we really liked monosky went
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on to note in cine fantastique it was this edgy version of kim from the killing game that became
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the direct inspiration for the out and out temporal lawbreaker kim in timeless harry had quite
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literally lost his squiggy clean image jay was walking number four cake in the console back to
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before the very beginning there is a grim irony to a set of notes provided by research company
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joan pearson associates on a draft script for caretaker from 1994 cited in star trek voyager
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a vision of the future page reference 1824 reads ensign kim new operations officer this is a very
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responsible job for an ensign even on a smaller vessel a higher rank will be indicated lieutenant
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unfortunately for harry the running though not completely funny gag was better instead the
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forever ensign was destined to spend the journey home playing second fiddle or in this case second
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clarinet the buster kincaid to captain proton back in the alpha quadrant we do know promotion was
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forthcoming for kim by 2384 at the latest on an elkars panel in the transporter room of the uss
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dauntless scene in Supernova part 1 but released in greater detail online by Star Trek prodigy
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motion graphic designer Dominique Rossier, Kim is listed as serving tactical officer of that ship
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and with one extra pip. After that, prime, non-alternate and canon Kim's career remains a
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mystery, that is except for an oblique reference in the 32nd century. Pause between 45 and 47 seconds
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of the Star Trek Starfleet Academy first look teaser trailer you'll see Admiral Harry S.L. Kim
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engraved on the wall beyond a group of assembled cadets. As Harry himself might put it Admiral is
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quite a few more boxes on his chair and cake in the console too. Number three mystery is his middle
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names. Mysterious middle initials are somewhat of a tradition in Star Trek. All the way back in
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where no man has gone before, Kirk's tombstone read James R, a mistake in retrospect on the part
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of the godlike Gary Mitchell, to be replaced by the much more famous James T. T was then officially
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Tiberius in the Star Trek the animated series episode Bem. The R went on to appear in Wesley
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R Crusher and Jack R Crusher, father moreover. Of course there's always William T for Thomas
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at first harry kim was just harry kim but move over turkey platter there were two letters to add
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in non-secretar when harry pulls up his own service record the screen reads harry sl kim
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there are caveats not the least of which is image quality and the finest distinction not unironic in
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l cars between capital l and i that's not to forget that this particular service record was
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from an alternate timeline created by an accident when Harry's shuttle intersected a temporal
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inversion fold of the space-time matrix. Nonetheless, SL has stuck, as we saw in the
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teaser trailer for Star Trek Starfleet Academy. The initials could also be seen on the transporter
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room panel of the USS Dauntless, as created by Dominic Rossier for Star Trek Prodigy. SL has
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never been indicated in dialogue, however, and no one, not even Garrett Wong, knows what either
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letter stands for. That hasn't stopped Wong from coming up with his own creative suggestions
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For example, during Harry Kim's Latinum Trek trivia evening at DragonCon 2017
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Wong reportedly and humorously offered up Sushi Lovin' as an option. We're back to Turkey Platter
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Number 2 Dex the Hall with Bows of Harry Out of the 12th door of the Star Trek Advent calendar last year poured a cornucopia of Kim The Lower Dex episode Fisher Quest marked Garrett Wong return to canon and to several all but one unprompted
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Harry's aboard the universe-hopping USS Anaximander. In an interview with Trek Movie at the time
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Wong revealed that the writers had devised several unique descriptors for each of the
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Harry's in Fisher Quest, such as Two Pip Kim, Tall Socks Kim, and Drive Uniform Kim
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a helpful anchor for the actor to separate his performances. Though not part of the line-up
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Wong also stated that Prime Kim, or Kim Kim, hadn't been promoted by that point, i.e. by 2382
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Speaking of promotions, in February 2024, Star Trek Picard third season showrunner Terry Metallis
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also revealed that the original draft of the finale had featured Captain Harry Kim of the Voyager B
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Kim was ultimately written out because, as Metallis pointed out, he didn't want to step
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on the toes of Star Trek Prodigy at the time. In the interview with Trek Movie, Wong didn't hide
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his disappointment. According to him, the conversation about Picard had gone all the way
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to his manager saying, you've been cast, initially for three episodes, then two, then one, then none
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Of course, Wong never did appear in Prodigy either. As for Kim at Frontier Day, it was perhaps
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better safe than assimilated, as they say, and for Admiral Shelby, his replacement. Not even that
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number one rhode island is not the smallest state you can see the joke if not necessarily the refit
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nova class coming a mile off confirmed as much by a comment left by larry nemecek in 2009 on
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doug drexler's former wordpress drex files it's straight from the writers they always enjoyed
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tweaking harry kim and so it's the finale you have to do a flash forward but harry finally gets seen
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with a command. Even so, of course, it's named for the smallest state in the Union. Get it
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Smallest by area, that is, not by population. The Rhode Island, and the alternate Captain Kim
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of it, featured relatively briefly in Endgame. In Star Trek Online, the vessel and its captain
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have a prominent role to play in several missions of the 2014 Delta Rising expansion
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all voiced by Garrett Wong. Captain Kim and Garrett Wong would also return to lead Star
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Trek Online's 2023 story update Incursion, fighting the Borg in new ship, the USS Inue
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It is the final mission of Delta Rising, Dust to Dust, which is the most interesting for the
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purposes of this video. You can probably see where this is going to. In it, and spoiler alert
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Captain Kim returns to Kobali Prime to find out the species whom we met in the Star Trek Voyager
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episode Ashes to Ashes had actually got their hands and technology on the out of the hole breach
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Kim from Deadlock to reanimate him as one of their own, called Caton. For what it's worth
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in-game, Captain Kim states that he is from the duplicate ship, thus suggesting that the other
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Harry Caton is the original. Moreover, and back full circle to a former love interest
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Lindsay Ballard, now Jet Leia of the Kobali, had known about the other Kim's resurrection
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for a long while. That is beyond weird, but apparently still part of the job
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Hi, I'm Duncan Relic, no relation, and I collect relics from before the burn
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Thanks to a temporal wormhole, I now have an unlimited supply of Trek culture t-shirts
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and I'm selling them to you! You could be wearing this stylish down and up t-shirt
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Or, how about this fish washing design? yellow on black. The colours I'd use in thumbnails, I tell you that for nothing
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I plan to take these designs and transfer them via quantum duplication onto hats, mugs, and
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posters. So look out for those. Back! Treat this unlimited supply as a limited time deal. Get your t-shirt quick! Who's your daddy
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and that's everything for our list today folks thank you so much for watching along thank you
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so much to jack who wrote the article this is based on you can check that out over on whatculture.com
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until i see you again please make sure you're looking after yourself please follow us on the
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various socials at trek culture or a trek culture yt on instagram you can of course make sure that
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you are subscribed here go on all the cool kids do and i think you're cool live long and prosper
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till i see you again lead with kindness be kind to yourself be kind to others and when you need
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a break take one you deserve it thanks very much everyone


