Commander Tuvok
tuvok.jpg

Name: Tuvok
Rank: Commander
Position: First Officer USS Trident
Age: 116

Starfleet History
2289: Enters Starfleet Academy
2293: Graduates Starfleet Academy
2293: Assigned to USS Excelsior as Science Officer
2298: Left Starfleet
2349: Rejoins Starfleet and assigned to USS Wyoming
????: Instructor at Starfleet Academy
2360's: Assigned to Jupiter Station
2371: Reassigned to USS Voyager as Security Chief
2378: Promoted to Commander and begins Teaching at Starfleet Academy
2380: Reassigned to USS Trident as First Officer

Personal History
Tuvok, son of T'Meni, was born on stardate 38774 (2264), on the Vulcanis Lunar colony. In 2273, shortly after the death of his pet sehlat Wari, the grief-stricken Tuvok fled into the desert of the Plains of Gol for four months, embarking on the ritual of tal'oth, in which he purged the emotions that came with attachment and pride. As a teenager, he rebelled against the Vulcan ideal of logic and reasoning when he fell in love with a Terrelian girl named Jara, the daughter of a Terrelian diplomat stationed on Vulcan. Tuvok experienced Shon-ha'lock – love at first sight – and was willing to violate every tenet of Vulcan philosophy simply to be near her; unfortunately, Jara did not return Tuvok's feelings, and Tuvok chose to leave her. He later spent several months in isolation studying with a Vulcan master, where he learned to subdue his emotions. He had to survive in the Vulcan desert for four months with a ritual blade as his only possession, as part of the tal'oth ritual. In 2289, Tuvok was preparing for a life of study, logic, and the Kolinahr discipline, when his parents, believing that his galaxy-view was too narrow, enrolled him in Starfleet Academy. Reluctant to disobey his parents' wishes, Tuvok pursued a Starfleet career.

He found the egocentric nature of Humans difficult to deal with but endured it because it was the wish of his parents to enter Starfleet and he felt obligated to fulfill their expectations. His experiences at the Academy would stay with him until his first assignment, after which he resigned his Starfleet commission. After Tuvok graduated from Starfleet Academy in 2293, he was assigned as a junior science officer to the USS Excelsior under the command of Captain Hikaru Sulu. He worked during the gamma shift, and shared common quarters on Deck 7 with Dimitri Valtane and two other officers on the same shift. Two months later, Tuvok was present during the Excelsior's attempt to rescue James T. Kirk and Leonard McCoy from the Klingon penal colony Rura Penthe. This was despite a direct order from Starfleet that no rescue attempt must be tried. Tuvok protested to Captain Sulu about his breach of orders, but to no avail. Decades later, however, an older and wiser Tuvok determined that he had not necessarily been right either. Tuvok was also among those who spoke out against Spock's proposed alliance between the Federation and the Klingon Empire. In 2298, after six years aboard the Excelsior, Tuvok resigned from Starfleet and returned home to continue his study of the kolinahr discipline.

Tuvok returned to Vulcan, where he taught archery science for several years at the Vulcan Institute for Defensive Arts. He then spent several years in seclusion by immersing himself in the kolinahr; this was interrupted six years later by the onset of pon farr. After his marriage to T'Pel in 2304, and the birth of their four children, Tuvok decided to return to Starfleet following a fifty-year absence. Raising his own children made Tuvok realize what his parents had gone through and that he had not always made the right decisions when he was young.

Tuvok re-entered Starfleet as an Ensign, and by the year 2349 he was serving aboard the USS Wyoming under Captain Karl Broadnax. Broadnax had accepted Tuvok on the recommendation of his first officer and Tuvok's old Excelsior crew-mate, Leonard James Akaar. Soon after Tuvok's return to the Wyoming, Captain Broadnax suddenly and unexpectedly died, and command of the Wyoming was given to Akaar. In October of 2349, Tuvok and Akaar were marooned on a barren, barely habitable rock known as Planetoid 437 for nearly two weeks. Akaar felt the honorable thing to do was to perform the w'lash'nogot, a Capellan suicide ritual, so that the dwindling supplies would be enough for Tuvok to survive. Tuvok refused to let his old friend and Captain die, and saved Akaar's life. Despite the Wyoming rescuing the pair two days later, Akaar saw the disruption of the ancient ceremony as a betrayal by his old friend, and quickly arranged for Tuvok's transfer.

Tuvok spent the next twenty years with various assignments, including several years teaching at Starfleet Academy. In 2360, Tuvok was part of a covert team sent behind the borders of the Romulan Star Empire by Admiral Uhura to gain intelligence on the Romulan plague known as the gnawing. Tuvok eventually served as an instructor for thousands of cadets during a sixteen year tenure at Starfleet Academy.

Tuvok first met Kathryn Janeway in 2356. Tuvok dressed Janeway down in front of three Starfleet admirals for failing to observe proper tactical procedures during her first command, although this encounter bruised Janeway's "Human ego". Nevertheless, Tuvok was right, and from 2365 onward, Janeway came to rely on Tuvok's "insightful and unfailingly logical advice." During the mid-2360s, Tuvok was temporarily assigned to Jupiter Station where he often wrote to Captain Janeway.

Lieutenant Tuvok was serving as Captain Kathryn Janeway's security officer when, in 2371, he was ordered to infiltrate the crew of the Maquis raider Val Jean commanded by a former Starfleet officer, Chakotay. At one point of time during his undercover mission, Tuvok was doing reconnaissance on a colony near the Badlands, where he met a Vedek named Teero Anaydis at the Bajoran temple there. Teero was in fact a fanatic Maquis tasked with counterintelligence who was aware of Tuvok's true identity but kept this to himself. Without retaining any conscious memory of it, Teero captured, restrained, and mentally manipulated Tuvok so he could trigger a Maquis resurgence program by conveying the word "Pagh t'em far, B'tanay" at a later point of time. Tuvok was still undercover on the Val Jean sometime later, when, while hiding from a Cardassian ship in the Badlands, the raider was hit by an energy wave which transported it over 70,000 light years to the other side of the galaxy, in the Delta Quadrant. While looking for the missing raider, Voyager itself was hit by the energy wave and transported to the Delta Quadrant, reuniting Tuvok with his ship and Captain – much to Chakotay's dismay who had to face the fact that Tuvok had been a Federation spy all along. When their situation required that the crews of both the Val Jean and Voyager merge for their long journey back home, he became Captain Janeway's security chief and second officer.

Tuvok proved Tom Paris innocent of murdering a Banean scientist whose wife Paris was caught with, despite the fact that the scientist's memories showed Paris committing the murder. Tuvok was able to prove that the Banean doctor, who was an agent of the Banean's enemies, had perpetrated the crime, thanks to his mind-meld with Paris showing that the murderer was actually shorter than Paris. While visiting the Sikarians, it was learned that they possessed the means to fold space and travel great distances in a short time. However, they could not give the technology to Voyager due to their equivalent of Starfleet's non-interference order, or prime directive. Defying the orders of Captain Janeway, Tuvok attempted to obtain the technology in a trade. However, it was found that the technology was incompatible with Voyager, and Tuvok was reprimanded by Janeway. Tuvok set a trap for the crewmember who was giving the Kazon Voyager technology. The guilty party turned out to be Seska, a Cardassian who had served on Chakotay's ship and had been altered through cosmetic surgery to look Bajoran. She escaped before Tuvok could arrest her. Later that year, Tuvok attempted a rescue of Harry Kim who had disappeared in a "Beowulf" holoprogram. An energy being had been trapped in the program and had turned Kim into pure energy. The same fate befell Tuvok, but both were released by the being after the crew freed it from the holodeck. An alien entity known as the Komar assaulted the shuttlecraft manned by Tuvok and Chakotay, leaving Tuvok injured and Chakotay apparently brain-dead. The alien had the ability to enter into the minds of others and control them. It seized control of Tuvok, who took over command of the ship and ordered it into the nebula. The crew was able to drive the lifeform from Tuvok's body and leave the nebula. He also tried to train the former Maquis crewmembers to Starfleet standards. The four former Maquis had a great disdain for Tuvok, and he was very strict with them. They found a new respect for each other after they banded together to save each other after a systems failure.

During contact with the Botha, Tuvok saw visions of his wife, T'Pel. He was arrested by Mokra Order soldiers while seeking tellerium, along with Torres, and was tortured for 'information' about the Alsaurian resistance movement, despite the fact that Voyager was in contact with third magistrate Augris. He was subsequently rescued by Janeway. When a crewman was found dead, and Lon Suder, a former Maquis was revealed as the murderer, Tuvok tried a mind meld on Suder in order to understand his motives. The meld had a reverse effect, and Tuvok exhibited violent tendencies inherited from Suder. After a period of rehabilitation, Tuvok was able to control these tendencies, and sought to help Suder. On stardate 49301.2, Tuvok represented Quinn, a Q who wished to die, as counsel in his request for asylum, since Vulcans practice euthanasia for the infirm and elderly. This was a role he would reprise to defend The Doctor's rights as a sentient being when it was discovered that he officially had no legal rights. While Janeway was making first contact with the Drayan, a shuttle piloted by Tuvok crashed on a Drayan moon. Tuvok found three frightened children who told Tuvok that the Drayans sent them to the moon to die, and asked him to help them hide. The next day Tuvok discovered that two of the children had vanished. In a nearby cave, he found their clothes, but not the children. When the Drayans landed on the planet, Tuvok tried to protect the last child, named Tressa. The Drayans explained that Tressa was 96 years old. The Drayan aging process is reversed, and Tressa wasn't brought there to be killed, but to die a natural death. Tuvok stayed with Tressa to comfort her in her final moments. Later that year, a transporter accident caused Tuvok to be combined with crewmate Neelix (and a plant) at a molecular level, forming a new individual, Tuvix. Tuvix possessed the memories of both men, and had a mixture of their personalities. It took The Doctor over a month to find a method to restore Tuvok and Neelix to their original state. When Janeway and Chakotay were infected by an alien disease, they were forced to be left behind on an alien planet, leaving Tuvok in command of an uneasy crew. At the insistence of the crew, who were uncomfortable with abandoning their captain and first officer, he sought a remedy from the Vidiian physician, Danara Pel, who had become romantically involved with The Doctor when Voyager treated her for a severe case of the phage. Tuvok helped the crew survive on a primitive planet where they were stranded after the Kazon captured Voyager.

In 2373, Tuvok had a mental collapse due to a suppressed memory. In order to cure himself he had to perform a mind meld with Janeway. Together, the two relived the time Tuvok spent aboard the USS Excelsior, commanded by Hikaru Sulu. They discovered that an alien virus had invaded his brain and had lain dormant for years. Tuvok was saved when The Doctor drove the virus out by bursts of radiation. When faced with the merger of a Starfleet and Maquis crew, Tuvok wrote a drill simulation called "Insurrection Alpha", in the event of a Maquis mutiny on Voyager. However, when he realized that the crews were getting along better than he expected, he deleted the program, fearing that it would spark off the very mutiny he wanted to prevent. During a routine maintenance of holodeck programs, B'Elanna Torres accidentally discovered this simulation, mistaking it for a holonovel. Many people on board the ship began using the program while playing out the various scenarios. When Tuvok was encouraged to finish it, he and Tom Paris discovered that Seska, a traitor who had escaped almost a year previously, had altered the program to kill anyone who accessed the narrative parameters file. Fortunately, they were able to stay alive with the assistance of Captain Janeway from outside the holodeck. In a final confrontation with Seska, Tuvok reconfigured a phaser rifle to overload before handing it over to her. By killing the holographic Seska, the program ended, and Paris and Tuvok were freed. Tuvok was part of an away team that returned to Earth in 1996. Voyager was trying to stop a temporal explosion that would obliterate Earth's solar system in the 29th century, caused by Henry Starling, who came upon a 29th-century starship that was thrown back in time. Tuvok and Paris would contact Rain Robinson, an astronomer who picked up Voyager's signal and worked for Starling. They saved her when Starling ordered her killed. They told her that they were spies. He also rescued Chakotay and Torres who were taken hostage by a paramilitary group. Tuvok and the crew were able to stop Starling and return the timeline. Tuvok attempted to rescue Kes who had her mind and body taken over by Tieran, an ancient warlord who used her to retake control of his planet. Although the attempt failed, he was able to contact her with a mind meld and tell her to continue to fight. Tuvok led another rescue attempt that was successful. Kes was rescued with the use of a synaptic stimulator that removed Tieran's neural pattern. In an alien encounter, he and Chakotay met the Sakari who believed Voyager would harm them. Their ancestors were driven underground by attacks from another alien race, who Tuvok and Chakotay discovered were the Borg. Later that year, he was able to persuade a lonely alien who appeared to him in the holodeck to let Voyager leave a nebula it was caught in. She wanted him to stay with her, but he convinced her to request a transfer so she could go home and be around others again. He, along with Neelix, helped the Nezu fend off an attack by their enemies, and exposed a Nezu traitor. The incident also brought him and Neelix closer together.

In 2374, Tuvok was promoted to the rank of lieutenant commander by Captain Janeway. Also in 2374, during a temporary alliance with the Borg, Tuvok accompanied Janeway aboard the Borg ship to help develop a weapon against Species 8472. The Borg tried to install temporary neuro-transceivers on them, but they insisted they be assigned a Borg representative to communicate with verbally instead. It was this incident that brought Seven of Nine aboard Voyager. Shortly after, Tuvok tried to help Kes stabilize her telepathic abilities with a mind meld. He was unable to help and Kes transformed into energy and left the ship. Tuvok subsequently lit a candle in memory of his lost student. Tuvok would also rescue Chakotay from the Vori who had brainwashed him into serving in their army and participating in a war. Despite appearing as one of the enemy who Chakotay had been conditioned to hate, he was able to get through to his commander, reminding Chakotay that he was a scientist, not a soldier. When Seven's nanoprobes reactivated and she tried to return to Borg space, Tuvok worked with Janeway to try to bring her back. After tracking her, Tuvok beamed over to her shuttle, but was overpowered by her. He accompanied her to a planet that contained the wreckage of the Raven, her parents' ship. There he found the Borg machine that had activated her nanoprobes and he disabled them, ending the crisis. He defended and proved Torres innocent of projecting violent thought on a planet of telepaths, simultaneously uncovering a 'black market' of violent thought. Tuvok and Seven of Nine were captured by the Hirogen. They were going to be skinned alive and their bones used as trophies. Voyager was able to beam them to safely after causing a black hole to destroy the Hirogen ships. He also found proof that Kovin, an Entharan trader, had not assaulted Seven in order to harvest her nanoprobes like Seven believed. A burst from Kovin's disrupter that was fired accidentally caused the nanoprobes to regenerate, and triggered a suppressed memory in Seven of assimilation. During the Hirogen takeover of Voyager, when they used the crew as part of a holodeck hunting game, Tuvok played a resistance fighter during a Nazi scenario. He was concerned that Seven was a Nazi spy and told Janeway that if so, they should kill her.

Tuvok later developed multiphasic shielding, which went into Voyager's multi-spatial probe and was later adapted for use in designing the Delta Flyer. He crash-landed on a planet beset by an ion storm in the Delta Flyer along with Ensign Samantha Wildman and Paris. They were rescued just as their oxygen ran out, but in the process, Tuvok was able to console Wildman about her fears for her daughter, Naomi. His own young daughter had now been without him for over four years, and yet he was confident that she would be safe with his remaining family. On another away mission they again crashed on a planet were they met Noss, who helped them survive the hostile planet. Noss became infatuated with Tuvok, who could not return the affection. By 2376, Tuvok had received seventeen commendations for valor. That year, while returning from a diplomatic mission, he was attacked by an invisible being, later found out to be a member of the Ba'Neth species. He suffered neuroleptic shock which caused brain damage. As he recovered from the shock, his brain functions were very simple and he showed great emotion. Neelix nursed him back to health and cared for him until The Doctor was able to reverse the effects of the shock. Tuvok accompanied Captain Janeway and Seven of Nine as they investigated lifesigns on a planet in the middle of a nuclear winter. There, they inadvertently awakened a Vaadwaur battalion in stasis, not knowing if they were hostile or not. After the rest of the battalion was awakened, Tuvok came with a plan to escape the planet in cooperation with the Vaadwaur. Unfortunately, the Vaadwaur turned on them, attempting to take Voyager. After making a temporary alliance with the Turei, Tuvok and Gedrin were able to give the Turei access to a satellite in orbit. Thanks to this Tuvok and the crew of Voyager were able to escape both the Turei and the Vaadwaur. Tuvok and Seven were captured by an alien named Penk. He secured players for a violent fight game named Tsunkatse. Seven at first refused to participate, but was forced to, because Tuvok was wounded and Penk refused to give him medical treatment unless she did so. They were eventually rescued by Voyager. He helped track down a gang of grifters who were posing as Janeway and him in order to steal goods. He confronted an elder Kes when she returned to try to destroy Voyager, blaming Janeway for her lost youth; his past self also had occasional 'flashes' to the future due to tachyon instability caused by Kes's future self traveling back in time, which allowed the past Janeway to realize what was happening. When Torres and Kim were stranded on an L-class planet, Tuvok stayed awake for over two straight weeks during Voyager's search for them. Tom Paris took pleasure in waking Tuvok up when he started snoring in the captain's chair.

The last year of Voyager's trip home brought many adventures to Tuvok. Tuvok, Janeway, and Torres allowed themselves to be assimilated by the Borg, carrying a pathogen to help the Borg drones of Unimatrix Zero resist the Borg Queen. The assimilation was supposed to have been only of the body; The Doctor had administered an inoculation to the three of them to prevent their minds from being assimilated, and thus keep them from becoming drones. However, Tuvok's inoculation wore off prematurely, and though he kept trying to retain his individuality by recalling his family and past memories, he eventually succumbed to the Borg's influence and his mind was fully assimilated. Thus he became an actual drone, designated Three of Twelve. However, the mission still succeeded and the drone was taken back to Voyager with Janeway and Torres. The implants were removed and the drone once again became Tuvok. It took him some time to fully recover from the experience. Tuvok attempted to salvage a cortical node to replace Seven's node that was malfunctioning. He represented The Doctor in obtaining the right to a holonovel that The Doctor had written, called Photons Be Free. The Doctor had forwarded a text of the novel to Starfleet when communications became possible between them and Voyager, but he was subsequently forbidden from making changes. Although the trial did not result in The Doctor gaining full legal rights as a sentient being, he was accorded the status of 'artist', due in no small part to Tuvok pointing out that The Doctor had created an original work, something that a purely artificial being could not do. In 2377, Tuvok had received a message from his son Sek over a datastream aboard Voyager regarding his studies of music. Unbeknownst to either of them, Bajoran radical Teero Anaydis had intercepted the communication and hid a subliminal message set to Vulcan brainwaves. It forced Tuvok to recall Teero's mental conditioning, which he became victim of six years ago while still serving undercover as one of Chakotay's Maquis crew, and which was aimed at triggering a Maquis resurrection should it be necessary. Tuvok began attacking the Maquis crewmembers and gave them subconscious instructions from Teero through a mind-meld. The Maquis eventually took control of Voyager and nearly stranded its Starfleet crew on a planet in the Delta Quadrant. However, Tuvok was able to regain mental control and use another mind-meld to remove Teero's influence from the Maquis crew. Tuvok gave Paris tips on being a father when Torres became pregnant. During the capture of the crew by the Quarrens who used them as laborers and had wiped out their memories of Voyager, Tuvok began to have flashbacks of his previous existence. Tuvok served the workforce as an expert in thermionic conversion, but was replaced by Chakotay after he was taken by Quarren guards. He had to be given additional treatments of mind control. Tuvok was then part of a rescue operation when Neelix, Lts. Paris and Carey were taken as hostages by the planet's leader Verin. After Carey was killed by Verin, Tuvok and The Doctor, posing as natives, were able to infiltrate, stun Verin and his guards, and rescue Neelix and Paris.

In 2377, Tuvok was diagnosed with a degenerative neurological disease that would eventually eat away at his self-control. The cure was a relatively simple one, but required a mind meld from a compatible Vulcan, usually a blood relative. Fortunately for Tuvok, Captain Janeway managed to ride Voyager through a Borg transwarp hub all of the way back to the Alpha Quadrant, where Tuvok was soon cured after a brief mind-meld with his son, Sek. Upon his return to the Alpha Quadrant and reunion with T'Pel, Tuvok accepted a position as an instructor at Starfleet Academy and a promotion to Commander. He was briefly reunited with his Voyager shipmates when a Borg virus infected Earth, and the Voyager crew was suspected of carrying it to the Federation. In late 2379, Commander Tuvok was sent undercover to Romulus, to recall the legendary Ambassador Spock from his quest for re-unification back to the Federation to confer with the new Federation President Nanietta Bacco. Tuvok was on Romulus when the Reman renegade Shinzon mounted his coup d'état and assassinated Praetor Hiren and the Imperial Senate. In the chaos and upheavals that followed, Tuvok was captured and imprisoned for several weeks by one of the factions. He was later rescued by Spock, and the two of them were retrieved from Remus with the arrival of the USS Aventine. Not wanting Tuvok to "contaminate" anymore cadets Admiral Jellico reassigned Tuvok from the Academy. He was ultimately selected to be Admiral Shelby's First Officer over Admiral Jellico's objections.

Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License