Because he was an experimental ensign.
Starfleet had deliberately trained him wrong, as a joke.
this post was submitted on 10 Mar 2026
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Ships need ensigns to run, at least one. He was the One.
Janeway actually did try to promote him, but he overslept and missed the promotion ceremony.
Pips can't be replicated and Voyager only had a limited supply of spares. Janeway set aside the only spare pip for the bridge crew for Tuvok's eventual promotion.
The promotion pip was continuously traded for coffee rations
Garrett Wang repeatedly turned down Rick Berman's sexual advances
He didn't realise that he could just ask. And being a good boy he didn't want to appear pushy.
He didn't commit enough war crimes (lacks leadership mindset)
Tom told Janeway it'd be funny if the EMH out ranked him while giving her a fresh pot of coffee.
Quark went ahead and filed that complaint about his anti-Ferengi remarks just before Voyager went MIA. Janeway takes bigotry very seriously.
Funny cos I had a theory that Janeway was actually a bit MAGA and thought he was Mexican.
She can tolerate anything except bigots and Mexicans.
Simply not enough pips on board the ship.
She likes to save those replicator rations for important things. Like coffee.
Sometimes you have an employee that is so good at their job you never want to replace them
Because of legal complications of being from a duplicate voyager post "Deadlock" he couldn't be promoted further than ensign.
No one under him is qualified for bridge crew. Every single person not named in the credits on Voyager is completely incompetent. Promote Kim and you have to promote crewman Bushnell who thinks Warp drive opens a portal to hell everytime, smells awful and calls all women "females".
He must have learned warp theory from lt. broccoli
If you promote him then he’s just going to take the title and leave for more money.
They needed to keep at least ONE ensign around, and all the others got promoted or died.
DEI was banned so only white dudes, and people who banged the captain, got promoted.
Putting Tuvok's promotion in a whole new light
Shortly after he was hired , he said he had always looked up to Captain Picard. That never sat right with her.
At the bar celebrating his new commission aboard Voyager he met an ensign named Mariner.
There was one time before they even got into the Delta quadrant that Kim took the last pot of coffee and didn't make more.
He had more romantic chemistry with Seven than Janeway was willing to tolerate.
"You fucked my pet Borg you little shit"
No virgin lieutenants allowed in Starfleet
He secretly works for Starfleet's Internal Affairs and uses his position to spy on Janeway et al.
Its the Star Trek we need.
More likely he's one of those temporal cops. He brainwashed Janeway to downplay the causality problems from the final season because he couldn't let her say what really happened.
Because he didn't go Transwarp, turn into a space salamander and have squigglings with the Captain?
Janeway simply forgot to.
Oh wait, you said wrong answers…
He was bad at his job and did nothing to deserve an extra pip.
/s because my conscious can’t handle stating this otherwise.
The unions in Star Fleet are actually controlled by the Dominion, and as such they are ineffectual by design. Harry doesn’t know this, of course
Hey, OP said "wrong answers"
We all know it’s actually the Tal Shiar
Is that Peter Theil's drag name?
His first name isn't really Harry, it's Hitler. Once Starfleet learned the truth, it realized it could never promote him for fear the secret would come out.
He wasn't very good at licking.
Janeway hates Asian people because there was always one during her cadet years at the Academy who kept scoring slightly better than her during exams.