B'Elanna Torres
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B'Elanna Torres is a character in the fictional Star Trek universe played by Roxann Dawson. She appeared in the science fiction television series Star Trek: Voyager as chief engineer of Voyager.
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Childhood
B'Elanna had a troubled childhood. Her human father and Klingon mother often fought, and her father ultimately left the household when B'Elanna was six years old. He returned to Earth, leaving B'Elanna to be raised by her mother.
A mixture of Klingon and human genes, B'Elanna was prone to aggressive outbursts. For example, she once attacked schoolmate Daniel Byrd after he repeatedly taunted her, calling her "Miss Turtlehead" (because of her cranial ridges). B'Elanna retained this aggressive behaviour throughout her life, but with help of several mentors that she learned to eventually control it.
The Academy and Maquis
After B'Elanna dropped out of Starfleet Academy, she became a member of the Maquis renegade group, where she developed a profound hatred of the Cardassians. B'Elanna became associated with Maquis captain Chakotay, and was serving as chief engineer on his ship when they were brought to the Delta Quadrant by the Caretaker.
During her time with the Maquis, B'Elanna reprogrammed a Cardassian missile known as "Dreadnought." The missile, built with artificial intelligence, was originally targetted at Maquis installations. B'Elanna reprogrammed it on a course for a Cardassian installation, but Dreadnought was swept into the Delta Quadrant by the Caretaker.
Voyager
B'Elanna was integrated into the Voyager crew along with the rest of the Maquis from Chakotay's ship. She was placed in the engineering department, which had no clear department head because the original chief engineer was killed during the trip to the Delta Quadrant. As a result, B'Elanna often came into conflict with one of the department's most senior officers, Lieutenant Carey. Captain Janeway eventually promoted B'Elanna to chief engineer over Carey, choosing her at the recommendation of Chakotay and after the Janeway and B'Elanna shared a crisis with a black hole. ("Parallax")
Shortly after becoming chief engineer, however, B'Elanna betrayed the captain's trust when Voyager encountered a race known as the Sikarians. The Sikarians have advanced transporter technology that could send Voyager home or at least drastically shorten their 70-year journey, but Sikarian law prohibits them from obtaining it legitimately. B'Elanna was involved with a small group of officers that obtained the technology on the Sikarian black market, and perpetrated a failed attempt to integrate it into Voyager's systems.
B'Elanna, along with Tom Paris was kidnapped by the Vidiians. A Vidiian scientist extracted the Klingon DNA from B'Elanna, splicing her into two separate people: one human, one Klingon--because he believes that Klingon DNA could lead to a cure for the Phage affecting his people. The human B'Elanna was fraught with human weaknesses, such as fear and timidity, while the Klingon B'Elanna was defiant. When they escape from the Vidiians and return to Voyager, the Klingon B'Elanna suffers a fatal phaser wound and dies, but the Doctor uses her DNA to restore human B'Elanna to her half-human, half-Klingon state.
In 2373, B'Elanna was the target of telepathic dreams from a member of the Enarans. The dreams were in fact memories of a great massacre that took place on the Enaran homeworld, and were the elder Enaran's method of making sure that the memory of this massacre lives on, even if it was in the mind of an alien.
Later that year, Vulcan engineer Vorik accidentally triggered B'Elanna's mating instincts when he initiated a telepathic bond with her while he was experiencing the pon farr. B'Elanna and Tom Paris were trapped on a planet together during an away mission, and B'Elanna attempted to get Paris to mate with her, but he resists. Eventually, Vorik and B'Elanna (on behalf of Paris) engaged in ritual battle and purged the blood fever.
Love and honour
B'Elanna confessed her love of Tom Paris to him when they were trapped in environmental suits, floating in space with almost no hope of rescue ("Day of Honor (VOY)"). Although Voyager did rescue them, she realized that her courage in admitting her love brought her one step closer to true honor. Their relationship first flurourished on-screen during "Scientific Method (VOY)". However, the couple did not get married until 2376. B'Elanna and Tom had their honeymoon aboard the Delta Flyer.
The relationship was not an easy one. B'Elanna and Tom often got into heated disagreements, particularly over Klingon culture as well as Tom's questionable choice of holodeck entertainment. For example, when B'Elanna conceived in mid-2377, she learned from The Doctor that the child would have Klingon cranial ridges as well as other Klingon traits. B'Elanna, remembering events from her own childhood, advocated that the Doctor should perform gene therapy to reduce the overt traits, and even went so far as to reprogram him to do so. Her husband and Captain Janeway both disagreed, and managed to prevent the Doctor from performing the genetic modifications.
B'Elanna's unborn child was later deemed the Klingon savior by a cult of Klingons that had journeyed deep into the Delta Quadrant on a generational voyage in search of a messiah to bring peace to the empire. The Klingons eventually settled on an uninhabited world, but during their time on Voyager, they reawakened B'Elanna's interest in her Klingon heritage.
Prior to that incident, B'Elanna's position on her Klingon heritage had been mixed. She once engaged in a dangerous ritual and journeyed to Gre'Thor, Klingon Hell because her dishonor has condemned her mother to that afterlife rather than the more desirable Sto-vo-kor. B'Elanna saved both her mother and herself by agreeing to live with discipline and honour befitting a Klingon.
B'Elanna's child was born in early 2378, during Voyager's trip through a Borg transwarp conduit back toward the Alpha Quadrant. In an alternate timeline where Voyager made it home through a different means, the child is named Miral Paris after B'Elanna's mother, and is a Starfleet ensign.
External links
- Template:Memoryalpha article
- StarTrek.com Bio (http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/series/VOY/character/1112388.html)fr:B'Elanna Torres (Star Trek)