I was just watching ST:GEN and noticd Tim Russ played one of the Enterprise-Bs bridge Crew.
I was thinking, Tuvok was a member of Starfleet Security, capable of going undercover (as we know he did with the Maqui). He's had two Starfleet careers, the earlier of which he was reticent to mention, even to one of his closest friends, Captain Janeway.
If we look at the other appearances of Tim Russ in Trek, he's played
Devor and
T'Kar, both characters who participated in brief criminal conspiracies, both whose fates are assumed, but never explicitly layed out.
Devor is assumed killed, but it didn't happen on-screen, all we ever got was a scream, something a talented agent (even a Vulcan) could easily replicate. T'Kar was arrested by Major Kira and Odo on DS9, but as we can safely assume DS9 doesn't imprison all their criminals, we can safely assume he was transported to Bajor for trial and imprisonment (something a discrete word from "Starfleet Security" could easily prevent as well, even if it happened on Bajor, not DS9).
Both of these events happened years apart, and years before Tuvok was inserted into the Maqui.
Now, here's where it get's interesting. If we assume all of Tim Russ' appearances on Trek are the same person (Tuvok), then we must make him a member of Section 31. Starfleet Security, so far as we know, did not run covert insertion and undercover ops during the 23rd century, and yet, Tim Russ' appearance on the Enterprise-B had him with human (non-pointy) ears.
So here's how I picture it: Tuvok, a young and up & coming Starfleet Officer, with high scores and a reputation for resourcefulness, is approached by Section 31 sometime during his first career in the 23rd century (it may well have been his actions on the Excelsior which brought him to their attention).
He is tested, found worthy, and sometime prior to the launch of the Enterprise-B, is put into play (this is when the "Tuvok" persona, his real identity, is temporarily put on the back burner, "officially resigned"), undercover, as either a human or a Betazed (thus the ear surgery), he is given a new persona undercover as a human officer aboard the Enterprise-B during Kirks visit, perhaps as an observer, as Section 31 knows full well how often "communication malfunctions" occur when Kirk gets a wacky idea in his head.
After the events of ST:GEN, he is "transferred" (before the Medical Staff arrives on Tuesday and begin initial physicals) and for some 60 years, works exclusively for Section 31.
During this time, either Section 31 gives him time off enough on Vulcan to marry and have children, or, they set up a false family as a cover for future operations.
Sometime in the later half of the 24th century, his duties yet again put him back into the thick of things, with an attempt to steal toxic waste from the Warp Core of the Enterprise-D, and another undercover op as a Klingon mercenary hired by a desperate Trill. After which, he is again "retired" from Section 31, and allowed to return to Starfleet. Then, the Maqui situation flairs, and he is reactivated and put undercover (in a joint operation with Starfleet Security) again on Chakotays ship. Only this time, Tuvok, and Section 31, pull the short straw, and Tuvok ends up in the Delta Quadrant.
tl;dr = All appearances of Tim Ross in Trek can be explained to be Tuvok undercover if we assume he's a member of Section 31.
Comments
This was just a sort of mental exercise to see if it could be done, if we could (hypothetically) add depth to the Tuvok character.
I'm just asking if it's a reasonable hypothesis for an in-Trek explanation.
in science fiction anything is possible, but at the same this this is not an episode of 24. where the good guy is the bad guy, until proven to be a good guy, until the last episode where he becomes the main badguy. there is a little too much of 'trying to cram it all in to one explanation'. interesting but not likely.
is your explanation within the realms of possibility. i guess. i doubt devor made it off the ship alive because picard could not think of a way to do it, so i doubt anyone else could have, but who knows. again in all of science fiction its possible, but its a little too far fetched to carry much weight.
I was thinking about "Inter Arma Silent Legas" when Sloan is "vaporized" on Romulus (but really just Transported away at the last second). I wouldn't put it past Section 31 to have a cloaked ship right off the Enterprise-Ds bow during the whole thing (a ship Picard would neither know about nor have any communication with).
why would section 31 help them? section 31 deal with threats to the federation. swiftly. if those people were a threat, they would not have been around for any length of time.
also why put him under cover by just changing his ears and personality? everyone can still see he looks like tuvok, (as this is the point of the thread because of his looks). why not just keep him as a vulcan. the lack of emotion would make him a better undercover agent and its just easer to play yourself rather than act like something you are not.
im also sure they monitored his entire time away from starfleet. i dont think he just fell off the grid when he was retired. didn't he become a teacher or something?
This is how Section 31 works, after all, remember, they had a double agent in the Romulan Star Empire, but they used Bashir to frame a Romulan Senator, clearing the way to elevate their Double Agent into a more powerful position.
They use a bioweapon on an ally (Odo) to infect an enemy (the Founders), they never come at you directly.
Also, as to using Tuvok with little to no surgery, well.. The galaxy is a big place. Even Starfleet, singular organization as it is, has millions of members spread across tens of thousands of ships, stations, and planet-side bases, using the same operative bears little statistical risk of discovery so long as the operations are few and far between. 5 years from The Excelsior to the Enterprise-B seems a safe span, as does 3 years between an operation on the Enterprise-D (where only Picard ever saw him) and an operation on DS9.
I don't think Starfleet monitored his time "retired" and even if they did, do we really think it beyond Section 31 to place a double, or falsify the reports?
That you're a Vulcan man.
You have just gone without, for seven years about.
Paris please find a way, to load a hypospray.
I will give you the sign, just aim for his behind.
Synapses blazing, hormones are raging, it's also VEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRYYYY
Illogical.
i know im just saying i wish they had made him a vulcan just by pure chance, then they could have added that into tuvok's backstory later when someone put 2 and 2 together.
does kind of sound like section 31.
If you want my personal opinion, I think it was Paris who was the 31 Agent on board. No matter how much influence Janeway thinks she had, there is no way she could of successfully freed a traitor from an Earth Penal Colony just so he could pilot the ship through the badlands. Paris' Father is a Starfleet Admiral so Paris would of been usful for 31 if they needed information. Paris was the one who got kicked out of the Marqui for getting caught by Starfleet Security and giving them information... how could you not assume that was his mission all along?
All in all, I dont think Tuvok is an Agent... it wouldnt be Logical for him to do so
People always want to involve Section 31 in everything. If you look at your RP communities, they're literally crawling with active Section 31 operatives, former Section 31 operatives, and characters sworn to its destruction. It cheapens Section 31. Turns it into a joke. It was interesting when it was new. This covert organization that interrogated and then tried to recruit Bashir (which would've been a good way to keep their existence secret) that is as old as the Federation itself. There's been speculation that Section 31 was behind the Ba'ku debacle, what with the holoship, the secrecy, relying entirely on outsiders for their military needs (where was Daugherty's ship?). I liked that. I could see how that could be true, but there was no proof.
Then it turns out Archer finds out about it before the Federation even exists, that one of his officers worked for it, and (according to the ENT novels) one of his officers would fake his death to join them. It gets exceedingly hard to believe Section 31 is competent enough to keep its existence a secret for one year, let alone two hundred.
And if nothing else, Section 31 has human origins. Although (fortunately) we've not seen that many of their operatives, the ones we have seen were all human, even in the twenty-fourth century. I doubt non-humans are very well represented within their group. In part as many Federation worlds have their own, clandestine or otherwise, intelligence agencies. Vulcan has V'Shar. The Andorians (according to soft canon) have Am Tal.
While I think Tuvok probably would elect to work with Section 31 when presented with stakes high enough - he is Vulcan afterall - I would still avoid linking them for no good reason. A connection to Section 31 at this point is not an automated improvement to the character or to the origanization, from a story telling perspective.
If we went by the reasoning that the characters played by the same actor means they are all the same character, then by that reasoning we might reason that Gul Dukat is actually a member of the Romulan Tal Shiar. Or that Spock's father is actually a Klingon in disguise. And let's not even start on all the characters Vaughn Armstrong has played...
Trek is full of actors who have played multiple characters over the course of its history, and not always the same character. Sometimes it's a case of Hey, It's That Guy!, and sometimes the prosthetetics are so heavy that the actor is virtually unrecognizable (unless you are familiar with the voice). So to say that Tuvok was a Section 31 agent based on the actor's many appearances as a character *other* than the one he's famous for is, in my honest opinion, pretty thin...