Star Trek: 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Tom Paris

2. They've Already Had Paris

It's always difficult to step out of anyone's shadow when you're in STAR-fleet. It's especially difficult when your dad's light is bouncing around the top brass. From the beginning, Admiral Owen Paris loomed large over Star Trek: Voyager, and most importantly, over son Tom.

Owen had been instructor at the Academy and commanded a young Kathryn Janeway on the Al-Batani. At first, for Tom, it seemed like everyone had a connection with his father but him. Feelings changed over the years, however. The Admiral headed up the project to get his son home. "Tell him, tell him I miss him. And I'm proud of him," were Owen's words over the distance in Pathfinder.

The Parises in Starfleet go a lot farther back than the father, too. In 2016, Simon Pegg, co-writer of Star Trek: Beyond, confirmed that Commodore Paris was a "nod to Tom Paris […] probably his grandmother". Beta canon has also extended the Paris family tree. For example, the 'Lost Era' novel Serpents Among the Ruins introduced Owen's own father, Commander Michael 'Iron Mike' Paris, Academy friend of Demora Sulu, and victim of the Tomed Incident… officially speaking.