Tal Celes Tal Celes was a Bajoran female who served as a Starfleet crewman during the late - 24th century . Career . Starfleet Academy . During her time at Starfleet Academy , Celes had great difficulty with her enlistee training courses and had to work three times as hard as her classmates in order to keep up . She frequently had to spend all night " cramming " to pass . She believed the only reason she graduated from training was due to sympathy over her homeworld ' s conflict , and the desire of Starfleet to have Bajorans in the service . ( ) Life on " Voyager " . Celes served aboard the Federation starship when it became stranded in the Delta Quadrant in 2371 . By 2376 , Celes was a grade three sensor analyst assigned to " Voyager " s astrometrics department under Seven of Nine , the department ' s head . Celes especially had difficulty with sensor data analysis . As a sensor analyst , her work had to be constantly double - checked much to Seven of Nine ' s immense irritation . Often , Celes had to call upon her closest friend on " Voyager " , crewman William " Billy " Telfer , to help her with the analyses . ( ) In 2376 , " Voyager " was boarded by an electromagnetic lifeform which caused ship - wide power outages and system malfunctions . The lifeform ' s home , a Class J nebula , had destabilized and dissipated due to " Voyager " mining it for deuterium . Shortly after the lifeforms arrival , Celes was about to run a diagnostic on a circuit panel when Seven of Nine stopped her . Seven was looking for a fault which she thought Celes had caused , which had cut power to Astometrics , and began to run her own diagnostic . She was surprised when Celes told her she had not even started yet , thus the fault could not have been hers . Later , with the ship ' s lights out , Celes wandered the corridor s of the ship alone for a number of hours , looking for other crewmembers . Terribly frightened , she believed the ship had been taken over by hostile alien s , such as Hirogen or Borg . She eventually ran into Ensign Harry Kim , who was also looking for other crewmembers , and attacked him on seeing his shadow , believing him to be an alien intruder . She struck Kim in the stomach with the equipment case she was carrying . Kim managed to calm her down and took her with him to a temporary command post that had been set up in main engineering . ( ) Later that year , Seven of Nine conducted an efficiency analysis of the ship ' s operations . Her results , presented to the senior staff in a briefing , indicated that Celes , Telfer and a third crewman , Mortimer Harren , were not performing at acceptable levels , and were reducing the efficiency of the ship ' s operation . Captain Janeway decided to take the three on a simple survey mission on the " Delta Flyer " , hoping to inspire them to better performance and since the only time they got off the ship was during general shore leave . The mission was to conduct a simple field analysis of a Class T cluster . Janeway assigned Celes the task of analyzing the sensor data . During the mission , Celes was quite nervous and obsequious , especially toward Captain Janeway . She noted with depression Janeway ' s constant checking of her work , which to her was further proof of her inadequacy . When the " Delta Flyer " became severely damaged via an unknown force impacting it , shearing off part of the outer hull , Celes suggested that the piece be beamed aboard to try to determine the cause of the impact by scanning it for a quantum signature . Janeway approved of the idea and , though it did not offer any conclusive evidence , she applauded Celes for her unconventional thinking , trying to boost her confidence . But this failed , as Celes insecurity was fueled by a very real competence issue , which she was well aware of . She responded by telling Janeway that she did not belong on " Voyager " ; she " just lived there " . Harren at one point , who treated others with thinly - veiled contempt , referred to her as " intellectually deficient . " However , despite all her difficulties Celes proved herself not lacking in bravery later on in the mission when Janeway ordered her , Telfer and Harren to abandon the " Flyer " when a swarm of aliens thought to be dark matter lifeform s advanced on the " Flyer " . She firmly refused to do so , stating that , misfits though she and the others were , they were the crew and " " a crew does not abandon its captain . " " ( ) In 2377 , Celes and the rest of the crew were brainwashed by a species known as the . The Quarren altered the memory engram s of the entire crew , replacing their memories with false ones of voluntarily coming to work for the Quarren . They then put the crew to work as industrial workers on their homeworld , Quarra . Celes and the crew spent approximately three weeks in Quarra ' s largest city , where she worked at the primary fusion reactor with Ensign Mulchaey and he didn ' t recognize Neelix . The entire crew was eventually rescued and their memories restored . ( ) Memorable quotes . " " You see ? Then maybe I was right . Maybe the reason we can ' t find anyone is because they ' ve all been assimilated . " " < br > " " Slow down . There was an environmental failure on the bridge . That ' s why it ' s been evacuated . I don ' t know what happened in Sickbay , or on decks three and four , but I ' m sure there ' s a perfectly reasonable explanation . Ah ha . No one ' s been assimilated . " " < br > " " You are correct , unfortunately . Tal Celes , sensor analyst grade three . Her work must be constantly double checked . She should be removed from Astrometrics and reassigned elsewhere . Perhaps to Engineering . " " < br > " " Forget it . I ' ve got my own problems to fix , remember ? " " < br > " " The analytical aspects of the subspace infrared algorithm are fourfold . " " < br > " " Unfortunately , I have a threefold brain . " " < br > " " You don ' t have to doubt yourself all the time . " " < br > " " Yes I do , and you should too . You ' re right to always be looking over my shoulder . " " < br > " " We all make mistakes , even me . " " < br > " " Every day ? Every time you report for duty ? On " Voyager " it doesn ' t matter because nothing I do is that critical . Seven doesn ' t trust me with anything important . The crew is protected from my mistakes by the people around me , but out here I could get us killed . " " < br > " " I don ' t deserve to be on your ship , Captain . And I ' m not really a part of " Voyager " . I just live there . " " < br > " " We might not have contributed much on " Voyager " , but what we do here matters . We ' re the crew here , and the crew does not abandon its Captain . " " < br > Appendices . Background information . Tal Celes was portrayed by actress Zoe McLellan . Part of McLellan ' s makeup consisted of a molded foam rubber crinkled nose bridge with defined , flesh - like ridges . Two such appliances were later sold off in the It ' s A Wrap ! sale and auction for US $ 41 . 01 and US $ 60 . 99 , respectively . Celes was referred to as Crewman Celes , implying " Celes " was her family name , and only Billy Telfer called her Tal , implying " Tal " is her personal name , therefore her name would be Celes Tal according to traditional Bajoran naming . In , it was noted that some Bajorans changed the order of their names for the benefit of relations with Human s .