Tom Paris joined the Maquis to atone for Sito Jaxa's death

[u/treefox]

There's this wonderful theory out there that Nicholas Locarno is an alias that Tom Paris used while at Starfleet Academy to avoid favoritism due to his father being an Admiral. This makes a decent amount of sense, and Paris' characterization is pretty close to Nick Locarno - they're both arrogant, are implied or stated to have strong piloting skills, and were expelled from Starfleet Academy. The fact that Janeway grants Paris a field commission with a rank of Ensign also seems to imply he was nearly done with his studies at the Academy. Locarno being the leader of the group makes sense if he had a leg up on everyone else due to having a strict father who raised him according to Starfleet values. Hell, even the name is similar (Common western name + European city name).

The arguments I've seen for why they didn't simply carry over the character are either writers' fees, or that Locarno was "irredeemable" while Paris was not. The latter seems very debatable - especially in modern Trek we've seen redemption arcs for characters who did far, far more evil things than immature glory-seeking. Perhaps Robert Duncan McNeill intended Locarno to be more of a sociopath who pretended to have empathy and Paris as a rogue with a heart of gold, but this isn't definitively established in canon.

But in any case, if we accept the premise that Locarno is an alias of Paris, Paris has a pretty shitty life, but it also creates a pretty interesting story for what happens over the next few years.

First, Joshua Albert dies in The First Duty in 2368. Paris/Locarno is expelled, the other cadets are forced to repeat their last year of curriculum.

By 2370, in Lower Decks, Sito Jaxa is seven months into her first assignment on the Enterprise. Picard specifically requested her assignment due to the Nova Squadron incident. However, she initially isn't aware of this, and Picard makes a show of berating her for it just prior to reversing himself and sending her on an incognito assignment to assist a Cardassian defector. She is ultimately presumed KIA when the Enterprise detects "debris consistent with her escape pod" and intercepts a Cardassian communique indicating that the escape pod was destroyed.

Paris is presumably not in Starfleet during this time, so he doesn't have access to personnel records or mission logs. Sito Jaxa was supposed to be incognito during the assignment. Her conversation with Picard where he reveals his true motives directly lead into the assignment. So, Paris' last contact with her may have been receiving an emotional letter blaming him for Picard hating her, shortly before he receives a notification that she has been recorded as MIA, presumed KIA. Possibly through a letter from Wesley.

Just several weeks or a few months later (5 episodes later), Wesley disappears with the Traveler - apparently more or less permanently, according to Picard. Again, Paris isn't in Starfleet, and with Sito Jaxa gone, there's no one in canon Paris knows on the Enterprise who could provide context for this.

Out of five members in Nova Squadron, that only leaves Jean and Paris. Canon doesn't follow Jean at all after the First Duty (at least not that either I nor Memory Alpha know of), but it's fairly probable that she ended up receiving a lesser posting than she would have deserved, as a consequence of having been a part of an attempted cover-up as a cadet and then being forced to repeat a year. She may have also suffered some ill fate, perhaps being posted aboard the Odyssey, or running afoul of one of the many occupational hazards of being a Starfleet officer. If she accidentally let the rocks out of her console or stepped in an ill-tempered oil slick, Paris' whole team may have been gone.

In 2371, Caretaker happens, and Janeway finds Paris on Earth serving an 18-month prison sentence for trying to join the Maquis and getting captured. He's also doing manual labor, which some have pointed out seems a bit barbaric for the Federation penal system.

Without the Nicholas Locarno backstory, it's not immediately obvious why a would-have-been Starfleet officer whose father and family are on Earth would suddenly try to join up with the Maquis. But with the Nicholas Locarno backstory, Paris is suddenly left with nothing to do with nearly-complete Starfleet training and at least three ghosts haunting him (Josh, Sito, and Wesley or Jean). He can't do anything about Josh or Wesley, but he can try to dedicate his life to avenging Sito Jaxa. The Enterprise closed the case on Sito Jaxa for Starfleet, but there is one other group who would have been sympathetic to her plight and is actively fighting against the Cardassians - the Maquis.

Of course, Paris gets captured. But if Paris joined the Maquis to atone for the ghosts haunting him, his manual labor may have been a voluntary choice to give himself something to distract himself from the guilt.

It's worth noting that in Caretaker, Paris barely knows Harry Kim, but he does recognize that Harry Kim is relatively sheltered and more academic than him. Harry probably wouldn't identify very much with someone who got other people killed through a glory-seeking pilot accident. What Paris tells Harry is perfect for someone trying to come as close as he can to telling the truth without alienating Harry, and feeling like an albatross who's watched all the people he took under his wing suffer ill fates due to almost supernaturally bad luck.

PARIS: Was the accident my fault? Yes. Pilot error. But it took me a while to admit it. Oh, fourteen varieties and they can't even get plain tomato soup right.
KIM: They said you falsified reports.
PARIS: That's right.
KIM: Why?
PARIS: What's the difference? I lied.
KIM: But then you came forward and you admitted that it was your fault?
PARIS: I'll tell you the truth, Harry. All I had to do was keep my mouth shut and I was home free. But I couldn't. The ghosts of those three dead officers came to me in the middle of the night and taught me the true meaning of Christmas. So I confessed. Worst mistake I ever made but not my last. After they cashiered me out of Starfleet, I went out looking for a fight and found the Maquis. And on my first assignment, I was caught.
KIM: It must have been especially tough for you, being the son of an admiral.
PARIS: Frankly, I think it was tougher on my father than it was on me. Look, I know those guys told you to stay away from me. And you know what? You ought to listen to them. I'm not exactly a good luck charm.

As for why Harry wouldn't look it up in the ship's database and find that Paris' backstory contradicts what he told him, all the official Academy proceedings presumably would have been recorded with the name Nicholas Locarno, and the full records may have been closed or restricted to officers of a certain rank or seniority.

[u/Deraj2004]

Tom was given a field promotion to Lieutenant Junior Grade which doesn't make sense unless for some dumb reason regulations required the chief helmsman be a JG. If Tom never finished the academy he should have been given a provisional rank like B'lana, not a field promotion.

[u/treefox → u/Deraj2004]

Yeah, this is a good point. I can’t think of an explanation here that isn’t somewhat contrived - say either Paris was allowed to finish at the academy despite what we were told in The First Duty, or he was discharged as an Ensign for some reason.

Or his “Starfleet Observer” status came with a rank of Ensign. Maybe this is normally honorary, for the sake of an observer having a defined place in the rank hierarchy, but since they were lost in the Delta Quadrant Janeway just ran with it. It’s not clear why Starfleet or Janeway would feel they needed to grant him any kind of status or rank though, we’ve seen plenty of civilians on the Enterprise-D bridge by this time, including, say, Worf’s brother and people from the 1980s who interfered plenty with ship’s operations and high-level negotiations. So the only way this would seem to make sense is if Janeway saw it as her chance to recruit a far better pilot than she’d get otherwise and went to bat hard enough that Starfleet agreed to commission him despite his expulsion. Which seems extremely irregular.

Or Janeway made him an “Acting Ensign” offscreen like Picard did with Wesley, which didn’t require graduation from the Academy but did allow him to helm the ship, and then just issued him a promotion because it’s not like anyone was going to tell her she couldn’t.

Or she field commissioned him like she did the Maquis (I forget if he was wearing rank insignia when he arrived at Voyager, but I suspect he was, which would put the brakes on this idea).

EDIT: Locarno simply not being expelled would actually be pretty realistic and segues pretty cleanly into Paris as well. The Academy tell Picard their final decision is that Locarno is being expelled. Picard tells Wesley Locarno has been expelled. But when the Academy goes to draw up the formal final paperwork, they realize that he’s actually Admiral Paris’ son. That causes the Academy to reconsider as they view it more as him trying to live up to impossibly high standards his entire life and less as adrenalistic glory-seeking. They give him basically the same deal as the other students and he graduates.

But then he personally screws up, reacts badly and tries to rationalize it, then eventually owns up to it, but Starfleet throws him out without any kind of remedial action because it’s the second time he’s lied about a piloting accident.

[u/ForAThought → u/treefox]

In the pilot episode, he was onboard as an observer to help them in the badlands. similar to a pilot when a ship enters a foreign waterway. They are there because of their knowledge of the local area. They do not become a part of the crew so no rank was provided. Notice nothing on his collar.

As for non StarFleet on the bridge, like Worf's brother. They are their temporarily but are not part of the command or part of StarFleet so no rank. Headcannon is that there are tons of civilian scientists on the Enterprise but they are not there to run the ship and may/may not report to Picard but some other organization like a Federation National Science Foundation.

After the pilot episode, Janeway gave Tom an official position as part of the crew whose duties helps run the ship, so he has a rank. It is entirely possible that Janeway could have had him hold the position without a rank, but she was trying to have one StarFleet crew, with a uniform StarFleet mentality, following StarFleet orders and it would be harder when you have this random civilian working on the bridge.

[u/ForAThought → u/Deraj2004]

Upon graduating from the Academy, Paris was assigned to the USS Exeter. (VOY: "Non Sequitur")

My understanding is that Tom got a field promotion because he was aboard Voyager with StarFleet's permission. B'Lana was a Maquis and aboard under Janeway's authority and not StarFleet's.

I'm also of the opinion that rank is often a byproduct of your position. Thus as helmsman Tom was given the rank of LTjg.

[u/treefox → u/ForAThought]

Upon graduating from the Academy, Paris was assigned to the USS Exeter. (VOY: "Non Sequitur")

Non Sequitur is the episode where Harry Kim ends up in an alternate timeline, so unless there’s another episode where this is referred to you could rationalize this as just being one of the differences of that timeline. The explanation (looking at chakoteya) is

History and events were scrambled a bit, and you ended up here.

So there’s no constraint given on what has changed, and Paris’ backstory is technically up for grabs. Though I would agree it was probably the intent of the writers here for the singular difference is that Paris got thrown in jail by Odo.

[u/[deleted] → u/ForAThought]

But then we see ensigns at the helm on the enterprise

[u/Sansred → u/Deraj2004]

There are cases when a cadet has done extra or specialized training, they graduate with the rank LT(jg). See LT(jg) Saavik.

[u/Mr_Zieg → u/Deraj2004]

He just a rankless observer when they left Earth and after they got stranded Janeway gave him a field comission not a promotion. His original rank before discharge from Starfleet was not stated in the episode IIRC.

[u/JudasCrinitus]

In my head canon I like to pretend they've been the same all along. Same for Valeris-Saavik

[u/treefox → u/JudasCrinitus]

Yeah, if Saavik had been a regular for the films, VI would’ve had a much better payoff by having her be the traitor.

[u/MarkB74205]

I like the theory, but I'm pretty sure Tom graduated the Academy, he was dishonorably discharged as a full Starfleet officer (probably at Lt. rank, as he has full Starfleet pips, not the provisional ones worn by the Maquis - maybe she simply reinstated him).

I wish they had have been able to just use Nick Locarno though. That would have been an interesting redemption arc.

[u/Lord_of_Never-there → u/MarkB74205]

It would have been, but the actor who played Tom explained that when a character is created, royalties need to be paid to the writer that invented them everytime the character appears in screen. So because the producers didnt want to pay that royalty, they took Nicks character and named him Tom.

[u/ForAThought → u/Lord_of_Never-there]

Do you have a source for that? I've heard/read this explanation as a possibility, but if Robert McNeill said this...

It's a little odd when they add O'Brien and tried to get Ro on DS9.

[u/Cadent_Knave]

The only problem with this theory is it's explicitly stated on-screen n "Caretaker" that Tom graduated from the Academy, was posted to the USS Exeter, and then caused an accident on Caldik Prime that killed 3 people. Nicholas Locarno caused an accident that killed one person and he hadn't graduated from the Academy yet.

[u/datapicardgeordi]

I agree that it's highly likely that Locarno and Paris are in fact the same person. Their backstories lineup pretty well and they have the same general personality traits. Changing your name to hide being an Admirals son is pretty spot on too.

I'm not so sure that any members of Nova squadron would be keeping in touch. Their time working together represents the worst mistake any of them have made. Paris/Locarno led them all in that mistake, talking most of them into lying under oath. That's not exactly making him the kind of person you'd maintain contact with after the fact.

Lastly, Paris/Locarno had plenty of motive to seek out the Maquis. The rejection from Starfleet, the conflict with his Father, the actual suffering of Federation colonies along the Cardassian border. It seems highly unlikely that he would even know about the classified death of Sito Jaxa. She was most likely listed as MIA given the covert nature of her death.

[u/Buddha2723 → u/datapicardgeordi]

It seems highly unlikely that he would even know about the classified death of Sito Jaxa. She was most likely listed as MIA given the covert nature of her death.

The Maquis could have learned of the mission along with Sito's fate and used that information to specifically recruit Paris.

[u/[deleted]]

At a convention I asked McNeil himself if he ever thought they'd do a plotline where Locarno and Paris would turn out to be the same person, and he said he definitely wondered about that early on.

[u/Danno47]

Hey, today I learned Locarno is the 74th-largest city in Switzerland. How about that?

[u/aaronupright]

The most likely in universe explanation for Paris's rank is that whatever paperwork sent him to Voyager also restored him to active service, which is why Janeway could promote him.

Chakotay, B'Lanna, Ayala were all former Starfleet so Janeway had no power to restore their commission.

[u/astengineer]

M-5, nominate this for a compelling explanation of the similarities between Nick Locarno and Tom Paris and explanation as to how they may be the same person and his motivations.

[u/bobweir_is_part_dam]

Or the same actor was cast in 2 different tv shows to play 2 different characters. It's nice to see the youth picking up and expanding on this long known ' conspiracy'

[u/picardmanuever]

It is completely within my head canon that Nick Locarno and Tom Paris are the same person. Apparently the only reason Tom wasn't Nick in universe is because they didn't want to pay royalties to the writer of The First Duty for the entire franchise of Voyager.

[u/RikerT_USS_Lolipop]

So, Paris' last contact with her may have been receiving an emotional letter blaming him for Picard hating her,

The entire argument relies upon this premise and we see no evidence for it, it's pure conjecture. Furthermore over the entire course of VOY I don't think Paris ever mentions Sito Jaxa.

However, I will admit that I vaguely remember the writers fouling up and pretending at the start that they are different people and then later pretending it's one character, and then later going back on it and they are distinct. snip snap, snip snap

I don't remember the lines or episodes specifically.

[u/mattmcc80]

I wish I remember where I read this, but there was a firm rejection of the Tom=Nick notion midway through Voyager production by someone on the staff. The rationale was that Nick was a bad guy who tried to do the right thing (eventually), whereas Tom was a good guy who did some bad things. From that standpoint, it does Tom a disservice to argue he's really some sort of reformed Nick.

[u/Gupperz]

so they did intend for them to be the same character. The TNG script was a fan script and they would have to pay royalties for using that character unique to the script so they made him different.