Site hosted by Angelfire.com: Build your free website today!

Neelix

VOY_Neelix5.JPG

 

Played By: Ethan Phillips
Species: Talaxian
Assignment: (2371-2378) U.S.S. Voyager: Chef, diplomatic adviser, "morale officer"
Current status: Left Voyager in 2378 to live among other Talaxians on Delta Quadrant asteroid
Full name: Neelix
Place of birth: Rinax, a moon of Talax, in Delta Quadrant
Marital status: Single as of last contact in 2378, but living with fellow Talaxian Dexa and her son Brax
 

Profile by Capt. Kathryn Janeway

Neelix is a jovial male Talaxian, a major species of this far side of the Delta Quadrant, whose wit and instincts have enabled him to survive as a scavenger and merchant. Now he aids our cause admirably after coming aboard with his Ocampa mate, Kes, from her home system. Although he takes good-natured abuse at times for it, he has been invaluable in preparing fresh meals from the flora and fauna of this region in order to ration food replicator power. In fact, for the human "37's," he even researched and came up with 20th-Century comfort foods for all — with none of his usual custom twists added. In addition, his past dealings and travels have yielded invaluable information for our command decisions and strategy. He has begun taking a more active role in senior staff affairs and even held off the Kazon-Ogla when Commander Chakotay and I were absent.

Neelix's chores as self-appointed "chief morale officer" have run the gamut from personal counseling, such as helping Lt. Ayala deal with separation from his children, to a daily inter-ship video program for the crew, "A Briefing with Neelix," begun ca. SD 49483. The latter led to his single-handedly tracking down the Paris ruse to flush out Crewman Jonas as our Kazon informant, risking his life but emerging intact after killing Jonas in a raw plasma stream in Main Engineering after a brawl there.

Neelix has already confronted his past devils coming aboard, admitting that he avoided military service before the 2366 conquest of his home planet Talax. The Haakonian Order forced surrender after it irradiated his family and the rest of the population of the Talax moon Rinax with the Metreon Cascade weapon. The weapon's inventor, Dr. Ma'Bor Jetrel, tracked us down and led us to Rinax in order to use our transporters to attempt to regenerate the remains of Neelix's people. The experience opened up severe old wounds in Neelix, but when Jetrel died of his own metreon radiation poisoning, Neelix granted the guilt-ridden scientist forgiveness. It was a difficult but huge step for our Talaxian crewmate.

Our first encounter with the Vidiians involved the theft of Neelix's lungs, and it took the Doctor's holographic substitutes to keep him alive. Fortunately, the mercy I showed our Vidiian prisoners prompted them to use their superior medical technology to transplant one of Kes' lungs into Neelix, and adapt his immunogenicity so his physiology wouldn't reject it.

Neelix is completely in love with Kes, whom he calls by the endearment "sweeting" and was ready to father a child when her premature elogium seemed to loom. His jealous nature of Kes was an ugly monster until he finally settled with its main target, Tom Paris, after the two helped birth a sentient reptilloid infant in an abrasive atmosphere.

His long-running feud with the less-than-patient Doctor was not helped by Kes' early elogium, which found him pondering the responsibilities of parenthood and deciding to embrace it, only to be nixed by Kes herself and other events. Later, he assisted with the birth of Ensign Wildman's baby.