B'ELANNA TORRES

'B'Elanna Torres', played by Roxann Dawson, is a character in ''. She is the Chief Engineer of the USS ''Voyager''.
Torres is the only major Star Trek character with a Hispanic background.

Contents

Overview

Starfleet Academy and Maquis

USS ''Voyager''

Birthdate

External links

Overview

Born in 2349 on the Federation colony Kessik IV, Torres had a troubled childhood. Her human father and Klingon mother often fought, and her father ultimately left the household when she was six years old. He returned to Earth, leaving her to be raised by her mother.
A mixture of Klingon and human progeny, Torres was prone to aggressive outbursts. She once attacked schoolmate Daniel Byrd after he repeatedly taunted her, calling her "Miss Turtlehead" (because of her cranial ridges). Torres retained this aggressive behavior throughout her life, but she eventually learned to control it.

Starfleet Academy and Maquis

After Torres dropped out of Starfleet Academy in 2368 at age 19, she became a member of the Maquis renegade group, where she developed a profound hatred of the Cardassians. Torres became associated with Maquis captain Chakotay, and was serving as chief engineer on his ship, the ''Val Jean'', when they were brought to the Delta Quadrant by the Caretaker.
During her time with the Maquis, Torres reprogrammed a Cardassian missile known as "Dreadnought". The missile, built with artificial intelligence, was originally targeted at Maquis installations. Torres reprogrammed it on a course for a Cardassian installation, but "Dreadnought" was swept into the Delta Quadrant by the Caretaker.

USS ''Voyager''

In 2371, B'Elanna Torres joins the ''Voyager'' crew with the rest of the Maquis from the ''Val Jean'', as Captain Kathryn Janeway offers them the opportunity. She is placed in the engineering department, which has no clear department head because the original chief engineer was killed during the trip to the Delta Quadrant. As a result, Torres often comes into conflict with one of the department's most senior officers, Lieutenant Carey. Captain Janeway eventually promotes Torres to chief engineer over Carey, choosing her based on Chakotay's recommendation.
Shortly after becoming chief engineer, however, Torres disobeys the captain's orders when ''Voyager'' encounters a race known as the Sikarians. The Sikarians have advanced transporter technology that could drastically shorten their 70-year journey, but ''Sikarian'' law prohibits them from obtaining it legitimately. Torres becomes involved with a small group of officers that obtain the technology on the Sikarian black market, and perpetrate a failed attempt to integrate it into ''Voyager's systems.
Torres, along with Tom Paris, is later kidnapped by the Vidiians. A Vidiian scientist extracts the Klingon DNA from Torres, splicing her into two separate people: one human, one Klingon. He believes the Klingon DNA has a specific biochemical property which could lead to a cure for the Phage, a disease affecting his people. The human Torres is fraught with fear and timidity, while the Klingon Torres is overly aggressive. When they escape from the Vidiians and return to ''Voyager'', the Klingon Torres suffers a fatal phaser wound and dies, but the Doctor uses her DNA to restore the human Torres to her original half-human, half-Klingon state.
In 2373, Torres is the target of telepathically-inspired dreams from a member of a race called the Enarans. The dreams are actually memories of a great massacre that took place on the ''Enaran'' homeworld, and are the elder Enaran's method of making sure that the memory of this massacre lives on, even if in the mind of an alien.
Later that year, Vulcan engineer Vorik accidentally triggers Torres's mating instincts when he initiates a telepathic bond with her while he is experiencing the pon farr. Torres and Tom Paris are trapped on a planet together during an away mission, and Torres attempts to get Paris to mate with her, but he resists. Eventually, Vorik and Torres engage in ritual battle and purged the blood fever.
Torres later begins a relationship with Paris after a complicated and stormy courtship. During an incident in 2374, Torres confesses her love for Tom Paris to him, when they are left floating in space in environmental suits, with almost no hope of rescue ("Day of Honor"). Although ''Voyager'' is soon able to rescue them, Torres realizes that her courage in admitting her love has brought her one step closer to discovering what she considers true honor. Their relationship first flourishes on-screen during "Scientific Method". They marry in 2377, and have their honeymoon aboard the ''Delta Flyer''.
When Torres and Paris conceive their child in mid-2377, she learns from The Doctor that the child will have distinct Klingon cranial ridges as well as other Klingon traits. Torres, remembering painful events from her own childhood, urges the Doctor to perform gene therapy to reduce this phenotype, and even goes so far as to reprogram him to do so. Her husband and Captain Janeway both disagree, and manage to prevent the Doctor from performing the genetic modifications.
Although only a quarter Klingon, Torres's unborn child is later deemed the Klingon savior by a cult of Klingons that have journeyed deep into the Delta Quadrant on a generational voyage in search of a messiah to bring peace to the empire. The Klingons eventually settle on an uninhabited world, but during their time on ''Voyager'', they re-awaken Torres's interest in her Klingon heritage.
Torres' and Paris' daughter, Miral Paris, is born in 2378, during ''Voyager's trip through a Borg transwarp conduit back toward the Alpha Quadrant. In an alternate timeline where ''Voyager'' makes it home through different means, Miral is shown as an adult serving in Starfleet, with the rank of ensign.

Birthdate

There are many references in Star Trek Voyager episodes that lead to the conclusion that B'Elanna was born in 2349. Torres stated in 'Extreme Risk' that she was nineteen when she quit Starfleet Academy and we know by 2376 it was ten years since she entered the Academy and ten years since she last spoke with her mother. 'Equinox, Part II', 'Barge of the Dead'. Torres quit the Academy in her second year at age nineteen in 2368, and back tracking nineteen years makes her birth year 2349.
The ''Official Star Trek Voyager Companion'' gives further evidence to Torres' age. This is a passage taken from the book: "B'ELANNA TORRES is a half Klingon, half Human in her 'twenties' who is frantically working at the consoles of the barely spaceworthy craft..."

External links

★ StarTrek.com Bio