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But promotions should be earned.
True, but then we have to account for Prime Kim dying and being replaced by Phase-shift Kim. Per Starfleet protocol, that crewman has to start from the ground up. That process runs roughly 4 years just to make it from cadet to ensign.
Are "Phase-shifted crewman" even considered in Starfleet protocol? It's not a "Mirror, Mirror" parallel universe, it's just a light time variance. They should still be considered starfleet graduates, if it's a light phase/time-shift and not a parallel universe... I think?
Jokes aside, I would view this more as a Thomas Riker situation - Voyager was split in two in that moment. Both Kims were the same Kim before the divergence field, so both Kims have the same record before then.
In truth, probably part of Kim being stuck at one rank was probably because of a lack of transfers from Voyager, for obvious reasons - it's practically raining promotions on the Cerritos for instance, and transfer seems relatively frequent in Lower Decks.
The fact he never got promoted suggests otherwise.
But he came back and was still Ensign?
You said they should still be considered Starfleet if they're time-shifted. I'm saying protocol accounts for it and once you're time shifted you get frozen in rank. Forever!
I'm just messing with you. I think he never got promoted as a message between the lines to the actor, who at that point was merely saved from show death by appearing in a good looking Asians list or something weird like that. They never promoted Kim as a reflection on Wang's standing with the production team.
I mean, by the next
episodeday everybody seems to have forgotten that he's from another timeline so there's that.
