B'Elanna Torres

B'Elanna Torres was a Klingon-Human hybrid who lived during the mid-24th century. Torres was a former Starfleet Academy dropout-turned-Maquis, who, after being stranded in the Delta Quadrant in 2371, served for seven years as the chief engineer aboard the Federation starship under Captain Kathryn Janeway. She would later serve as chief engineer on the , under the command of Admiral Janeway. ( thru ; )
== Early life ==
B'Elanna was born in 2346 on the Federation colony Kessik IV to John Torres, a Human father and Miral, a Klingon mother. Her mother called her "Lanna". ()
She spent much of her early life on Kessik IV, but because relations between the Klingon Empire and the Federation were not "too cordial" at that time, B'Elanna and her mother were the only Klingons on the planet. Although none of the other colonists voiced any negative opinions of B'Elanna, she felt that she and her mother were perceived differently; a feeling that made her uneasy and which she found hard to shake. ()
B'Elanna's alienation and the roots of her insecurities had their foundations at an early age in her life where she was teased for her appearance as a result of her Klingon heritage. When she attended grammar school she was tormented by a boy named Daniel Byrd, who would point at her cranial ridges and tease her about being half-Klingon, calling her "Miss Turtlehead". This insult angered Torres so much until one day during recess she attacked Byrd while he was on the gyro-swing. Torres disengaged the centrifugal governor, which caused Byrd to spin so fast that he almost flew apart. Torres then yanked Byrd off the swing and "started pounding his little face" until their teacher, Miss , separated them. ()
The alienation continued when her own father began distancing himself from them. At one time, when B'Elanna was on a camping trip with her father, her uncle Carl, and her cousins Elizabeth, Dean, and Michael, she overheard her father complaining about her, likening her moody and angry behavior to that of her mother, Miral, and that he had a hard time living with two Klingons. ()
John Torres finally left the Federation colony and traveled back to Earth in 2351, when B'Elanna was five years old, never to return to his family again. For months after, B'Elanna cried herself to sleep every night, wondering what had made her father leave and if it was her fault. However, she never talked about her feelings of guilt and shame to anyone and eventually decided for herself that her father had left because she looked and acted Klingon. These kinds of setbacks resulted in B'Elanna developing a thin skin, often punching her way through life. She often blamed her Klingon temper having gotten her in trouble all the time. She even attempted to change her appearance to look more Human; an insecurity that remained with her for most of her life, culminating in her trying to genetically alter all of her unborn child's Klingon features when she was pregnant with her daughter in 2377. ()
After her father left, B'Elanna and her mother lived on Qo'noS, the Klingon homeworld, for some time. Eventually her mother pulled B'Elanna out of the Federation school she was attending and took her to a Klingon monastery in order to teach her honor and discipline. ()
One time Miral took her to visit the Sea of Gatan, where she almost drowned. After her mother resuscitated her, she told B'Elanna about the Klingon beliefs of the afterlife, Sto-vo-kor, and Gre'thor. ()
B'Elanna did not speak to her father again after he had left them in 2354, until he initiated contact with her in 2377, after she had been stranded for nearly seven years in the Delta Quadrant. John tried to make amends and even though it was not easy for B'Elanna she tried to reestablish a relationship with her father. ()
One of Torres' favorite foods as a child was banana pancakes with maple syrup, which her grandmother would make for her. That beloved meal always put a smile on B'Elanna's face. () Her other favorite foods included potato salad with paprika and fried chicken. ()
== Starfleet Academy ==
Beginning in 2366, Torres attended Starfleet Academy, where she participated on the Academy decathlon team. She later admitted that after quitting "The track and field coach was furious with me" ()
She also had to dodge several punches in the lab, which Chakotay later joked about, saying, "Only you, B'Elanna, could start a brawl in Astrotheory 101." ()
Interstellar history was, according to Torres, "the one subject I almost failed at the Academy." ()
Also among her Academy training was EV suit simulations. She thought "they felt peaceful, like floating in the womb," but years later, in actual practice, she said she felt "a little sick to [her] stomach." ()
During her time at the Academy, B'Elanna dated Maxwell Burke; however, their relationship did not last long. ()
Ultimately, B'Elanna had a hard time fitting in, often getting into trouble with instructors and faculty. Within two years at the Academy, she was suspended once and had four disciplinary hearings against her. Even though quite a brilliant student and promising engineer, she eventually dropped out of the Academy in 2368, at the age of nineteen. ()
One of Torres' teachers at the Academy was Commander Zakarian, who taught Survival Strategies (); another was Professor . Torres and Chapman argued constantly; she even later admitted that "I was always questioning his, his methods, his assumptions, and he was always slapping me down like some upstart kid." She was later surprised to learn that Chapman thought she was one of the most promising students he had ever taught and was disappointed when she dropped out. He had placed a note in her permanent record saying he would support her if she ever reapplied. ()
== In the Maquis ==
After leaving the Academy, an angry young Torres eventually joined the Maquis in 2370, after former Starfleet officer Chakotay saved her life. From then on, she formed a close friendship with Chakotay, and she became one of his most trusted friends. At that point in her life, the Maquis became the closest thing to family she had ever had. Fighting Cardassians gave her the outlet she needed in dealing with her violent emotions. ()
To help deal with her explosive and often violent temper, Chakotay taught her many Native American and spiritual techniques to help calm her emotions; he even trained her to speak to her "animal guide". To his surprise, she was the only person he'd ever known who had tried to kill her animal guide. ()
Torres also formed a close friendship with Seska, a Bajoran crew member in Chakotay's Maquis cell. She considered Seska to be her best friend, long before finding out that Seska was really a Cardassian agent. ()
The first time Torres took a leadership role in the Maquis, she led her people into a cave that she thought was a Cardassian military installation, but she mistook unstable mineral deposits for weapons signatures. There was a rockslide and she and her team were stuck there for three days. They finally dug themselves out with their bare hands before being rescued. ()
In late 2370, the Cardassians deployed a sophisticated automated missile called the "ATR-4107" to destroy a Maquis munitions base. However, the missile failed to detonate and Torres, who nicknamed it Dreadnought, managed to board the weapon, spending nearly a month to completely reprogram the computer to work for the Maquis and changing its vocal subroutines so that the computer sounded like her. Without authorization from Chakotay, she sent Dreadnought to attack the Cardassian fuel station on Aschelan V, but an evasive attack route took it through the Badlands, where it inexplicably disappeared. Two years later, Torres eventually found out that, like Voyager, the missile had been brought to the Delta Quadrant by the entity. ()
In 2371, when their ship, the Val Jean, was being chased into the Badlands by Gul Evek's flagship, the Vetar, it was mysteriously transported to the Delta Quadrant by the Caretaker. After the crew was subjected to a painful examination, the crews of Voyager and the Maquis vessel were returned to their ships, with the exception of Torres and Starfleet ensign Harry Kim. Those two were sent by the Caretaker to an Ocampan settlement beneath the surface of a planet, where they were told that they were dying and needed medical care. Torres refused to cooperate and attempted to escape. Both Torres and Kim were rescued by the crews of Voyager and the Maquis. The Val Jean was later destroyed, and its crew, including Torres, joined the Federation starship . ()
== USS Voyager ==
=== The first year (2371) ===
Since the two crews were stranded together in the Delta Quadrant, they were forced to work together as a single crew. Torres was initially assigned the provisional rank of lieutenant junior grade. Torres had difficulty getting along with the temporary chief engineer, Joe Carey, to the point of breaking his nose over plasma conduits. She was recommended as a replacement chief engineer by Chakotay, as the original chief engineer was killed by the damage caused by the Caretaker's displacement wave. However, Kathryn Janeway was ambivalent about his suggestion. After Voyager became trapped in a quantum singularity, Torres proved her skills to Janeway and earned her respect. Janeway then made her chief engineer over Carey. ()
Torres' quarters were on Deck 9, Section 12. ()
While exploring a nebula, Torres discovered that it was actually a living creature and that by entering the cloud-like being, Voyager had wounded it. Torres modified a nucleogenic beam and was able to heal the wounded creature. ()
While visiting the Sikarians, she learned that they possessed the ability to fold space and travel great distances. This would have greatly reduced the length of Voyagers journey, but the aliens refused to share their technology because of their prime directive. She wanted to steal the technology or make an illegal trade for it, but Janeway ordered her not to do so. She ignored Janeway's order and arranged a meeting with one of the aliens. She was shocked when Tuvok assisted her, but the technology was not compatible with Voyager. ()
Later that same year, Torres was captured by Vidiians, who experimented on her. A Vidiian named Sulan, who had learned that Klingon DNA was resistant to the Phage, separated Torres' Klingon and Human DNA, creating two separate individuals, one of each species. Initially both were unaware of each other, the Klingon Torres being tested by Sulan while the Human Torres was in the labor camp with Paris, but they eventually became aware of each other when each attempted to escape at the same time. Although initially hostile towards each other as they resented the other's raw aggression and frailty respectively, the two pooled together to infiltrate the main control room and shut down the force field protecting the facility. The Klingon Torres gave her life to save the Human Torres and, once aboard Voyager, The Doctor was able to recombine both elements of Torres' DNA, as the procedure to separate them had compromised the Human Torres' ability to process key proteins. ()
=== The second year (2372) ===
The following year she was imprisoned by the Mokra Order while trying to secure tellerium. She was subsequently rescued by Janeway. Torres was also kidnapped by automated personnel units created by an extinct race to fight their wars. The units wanted Torres to help create new units because they had been unable to stabilize their power units. Torres was able to create a prototype from which they could create more units, but she learned that their former creators had called off the war and the units refused to stop fighting, killing their creators in the process. As different units arrived from the other side of the war, a battle ensued. The new prototype that Torres had created would have allowed the Pralor robots to win the war against the Cravic robots. Torres destroyed the prototype and was beamed aboard Voyager while the units continued their civil war. ()
Later, Voyager encountered the Cardassian automated missile called Dreadnought that Torres had reprogrammed while she was still in the Maquis. They found that it had been brought into the Delta Quadrant by the Caretaker and was headed towards the inhabited planet Rakosa V, which it thought to be Aschelan V, the site of a Cardassian fuel depot. Torres was able to beam aboard it and, with some difficulty, destroy the missile by firing her phaser at its antimatter containment casing. ()
At first she refused to let The Doctor harvest some of her brain tissue to find a cure for the Phage when Danara Pel, a Vidiian scientist for whom The Doctor developed romantic feelings, was beamed aboard Voyager. Klingon DNA was resistant to the Phage and The Doctor believed this was the only way to help Pel. She later consented and it helped The Doctor retard the Phage in Pel. ()
Torres and Kim had their consciousnesses captured in a hibernation status control by an evil entity known as The Clown. She was released to inform Janeway that if they tried to disable the program, the Clown would kill the Kohl captives and Kim. ()
During a physical encounter with the Kazon she accidentally projected The Doctor into outer space. ()
While stranded on a hostile planet when the Kazon took over Voyager, she helped rescue Neelix and Kes from a primitive tribe on the planet. ()
=== The third year (2373) ===
While Voyager was transporting a group of Enarans, Torres began having dreams of genocide against members of their race known as "the Regressives". In her dreams, Torres was reliving the experiences of an Enaran named Jora Mirell. The real Mirell was transmitting her memories to Torres. After Mirell died, Torres confronted the Enarans who denied any knowledge of the event; they left, but not before Torres was able to transfer the memories to another Enaran. ()
In another encounter, Torres and Paris were attacked by unknown aliens. She was able to recover and get Paris back to Voyager for medical care. ()
Later that year, Torres was affected by the pon farr when Vorik, a Vulcan crewmate, tried to mate with her. This spurred her Klingon mating instincts which caused many problems. This also led to the first obvious hints of a relationship with Tom Paris. While under the influence of the pon farr, Torres and Paris shared a passionate kiss and intimate revelations about their feelings toward each other. But after fighting with Vorik in the ritual challenge which purged her of the fever, she only vaguely acknowledged what happened. ()
Torres reprogrammed The Doctor's perfect holo-family into a more realistic example of family life, which caused him distress but ultimately gave him a better understanding of family life and its problems. She helped end the crew's imprisonment by the Nyrians when the crew was imprisoned on a bio-sphere ship. Torres reconfigured The Doctor's optical sensors so that he could detect passages that led to different biospheres. This enabled them to access a translocation system that allowed the crew to escape. ()
She also took part in a holoprogram about a mutiny on Voyager that Tuvok had programmed as a training exercise for his security detail. The program turned deadly after being tampered with by Seska when she had been on the ship two years earlier. ()
=== The fourth year (2374) ===
Torres had difficulty controlling her anger. She verbally attacked Seven of Nine, finding it hard to believe she had no "sense of guilt" for her past as a Borg. While trying to modify the warp core, it became critical and had to be dumped. Paris and Torres left in a shuttle to retrieve it. Upon finding it, they discovered a Caatati trying to salvage it and, after a brief fight, the shuttle was destroyed with the two left in space in their spacesuits. As their air dwindled, Torres was forced to confront her true feelings and told Paris she loved him, just as Voyager, which retrieved the core from the Caatati, arrived to rescue them. ()
She accompanied The Doctor on an away mission to save another sentient hologram stranded on a disabled ship. Torres discovered that the hologram had killed the organics on the ship and had gone mad. She was able to deactivate him before he killed her. ()
Torres was used as a pawn in an illegal trade of violent thoughts on the planet Mari. She was imprisoned for transferring violent thought to the citizens, but Tuvok proved her innocence. During the Hirogen takeover of Voyager, when they used the crew in various hunting scenarios, she was a pregnant resistance fighter carrying the baby of one of the German officers who had taken advantage of her. ()
An alien switched bodies with Paris and claimed his life aboard Voyager. For a time, he even fooled Torres. ()
After examining a substance that she had discovered on a toxic planet, Torres found that the substance was sentient and could duplicate lifeforms. She was one of the crew who allowed her DNA to be duplicated by the aliens so that they could experience consciousness. ()
=== The fifth and sixth years (2375-2376) ===
Torres battled an alien space craft with a bio-neural interface in order to save Paris. attempted to kill Torres by sealing a hatch in the shuttle and shutting off life support systems. Paris saved her. She fought the Vaadwaur, who, after reviving from stasis, tried to capture Voyager. Torres crashed on a planet where, in exchange for parts to repair the shuttle, she told Kelis, a poet, stories he later used to amuse the head of his planet. ()
In 2375, Voyager, using a Hirogen communication system, made contact with Starfleet. Torres became extremely depressed when she learned that most of her Maquis friends had been killed by the Dominion. She began taking unnecessary risks, such as using the holodeck with its safety protocols turned off. Along with Paris and Kim, she launched a new shuttle called the in which they encountered the Malon species. During a battle with them, she devised a way to contain a gas leak and save the crew and the shuttle. This made Torres feel needed again, and her depression subsided. ()
=== The last year and the return home (2377-2378)===
Icheb became infatuated with Torres after he thought she was giving him signals that she was interested in him. Before that, Seven recommended Torres to help him study for the warp mechanics section in the Starfleet Academy entrance exam. ()
Torres was in an accident and when in a coma she found herself in Klingon Hell, Gre'thor. There she met her mother, Miral, who told her that Torres' rejection of Klingon ways had doomed them both. When Torres woke up, she asked to be put into a coma again so she could save her mother. The Doctor did as she asked. Her mother is saved not by Torres dying for her or by performing Klingon rituals, but rather by Torres living a good life and being true to herself. ()
She wed Paris after an interstellar starship race that Irina, one of the participants, tried to sabotage and thereby destroy the peace in the area. She had joined Paris in the race because she wished to share his interests. A bomb was planted on their ship, but they were able to eject it in time. They married after the race. ()
She again confronted her Klingon side when she became pregnant. She was afraid to have a baby because she thought that the baby would suffer as she had during her childhood. She found out that the child had a deformed spine that The Doctor could correct genetically in the womb. When she saw a projection of the child and discovered it had Klingon ridges, she questioned whether she wanted the child. She asked The Doctor to make further genetic changes so that the child would not have Klingon features. She falsely altered a diagnostic test that convinced The Doctor that the changes were necessary.
Paris found out about the false report and stopped The Doctor from performing the procedure. He discovered that she blamed herself for her father having left her because she was Klingon. Paris convinced her that he would never do that and wanted a child just like her. She believed him and accepted the pregnancy. ()
Voyager encountered a Klingon generational ship. They were on a quest to find the savior of the Klingon race, the kuvah'magh. The captain of the Klingon ship, Kohlar, believed her child to be the kuvah'magh. They initiated the self-destruct sequence, which in turn caused a warp core breach, and Janeway transported their entire crew on board to save them. Kohlar wanted Torres to help him convince his crew that her child really was their savior. When she was insulted by a Klingon warrior, Tom Paris accepted a challenge from the warrior to defend her honor. The warrior collapsed in the battle and The Doctor discovered the Nehret, a fatal disease, caused the collapse. Because the Nehret was only contagious to Klingons, she and the baby became infected. Because of this, Kohlar's group no longer believed the child could be their savior and they tried to take over Voyager but failed. The Doctor discovered a cure to the Nehret using the baby's immune system. The Klingons finally came to believe that the baby was their savior and Janeway dropped them off on an uninhabited M-class planet. Torres and Paris considered the name Kuvah'Magh for their baby. ()
After holograms used by the Hirogen became self-aware, they rebelled and killed many Hirogen. The holograms were led by Iden, who believed that all organics should be destroyed. After their holoprograms became unstable during a battle with the Hirogen and Voyager, Torres, an expert on holo-emitters, was kidnapped. At first believing that they only wanted to be left alone, Torres helped enhance their technology. Once she realized that Iden was bent on destroying organics, she stopped him with the aid of The Doctor and the Cardassian hologram Kejal, their engineer. Torres asked Janeway to let the other holograms go and Janeway agreed. ()
Torres built a polaron modulator that helped Voyager escape a void in space that trapped ships. ()
During the final battle with the Borg which led to Voyagers return home, Torres gave birth to her daughter Miral. ()
== Later career ==
By 2384, B'Elanna Torres had accepted a pardon by Starfleet and was given a commission with the rank of full lieutenant. She was serving aboard the as a Chief Engineer. She was one of three Chief Engineers assigned to this ship. Her name was listed with other crew members on an information panel in the ship's transporter room. ()
== Alien race encounters ==
In 2375, Torres was attacked by a cytoplasmic lifeform that attached itself to her and used her organs to stay alive. The Doctor saved her using a hologram of a Cardassian doctor named Crell Moset. Torres refused to allow Moset to operate on her because he was Cardassian (albeit a holographic one). Moset was in fact a war criminal who had experimented on Bajoran prisoners. When Torres' condition became critical, Captain Janeway decided to let Moset operate on her, despite Torres' wishes. ()
The previous year she had allowed her DNA to be duplicated by a biomimetic lifeform on a Demon class planet. In 2375, her counterpart married the Paris duplicate and, as Chief Engineer on the duplicate Voyager, managed to make an enhanced warp drive that would get the ship home in two years. Soon after, she died, along with the rest of the duplicate crew, from subspace radiation. ()
Torres encountered the Malon again when she was part of an away team that entered a Malon vessel to shut it down before it exploded and contaminated space with theta radiation. She discovered that the rupture was made by a Malon named Dremk who wished to show the danger of transporting theta radiation. When he refused to let her seal the ruptured tanks, he attacked her, and she killed him to save herself and Voyager. ()
Toward the end of that year, B'Elanna met up with an old flame from Starfleet Academy, Maxwell Burke, who was stranded in the Delta Quadrant on the . The two ships came in conflict when it was discovered that the Equinox was killing sentient nucleogenic lifeforms for an energy source. The Equinox was finally destroyed, and Burke was killed by the creatures. ()
=== The Borg ===
During Voyagers first contact with the Borg, she helped to engineer nanoprobes that were used as weapons against Species 8472, who had become a threat not only to Voyager, but to the Borg as well. When Seven, on board Voyager, attempted to assimilate the vessel after the Species 8472 threat had been eliminated, Torres created a power surge through Seven that disabled her. This severed Seven's link to the Collective. ()
She took part in the attempt to steal a Borg transwarp coil that would shorten Voyagers journey home. When Seven had been lured back to the collective in the heist, Torres manned the weapons systems allowing the to rescue Seven. ()
During the last year of Voyagers trip home, Torres helped to deal another blow to the Borg. She, along with Janeway and Tuvok, allowed themselves to be assimilated by the Borg. But the assimilation was only of her body. She utilized an inoculation administered by The Doctor before the mission that kept her mind from being assimilated, and thus kept her from becoming a Borg drone. She implanted a pathogen into the collective which slowly brought various Borg drones out of the collective consciousness. This led to a Borg civil war. ()
== Personal relationships ==
=== Family ===
B'Elanna was an only child of mixed heritage. Her father John Torres was Human, and her mother Miral was a Klingon, which has caused many trials and tribulations in her life.
Her grandmother on her mother's side, L'Naan, died when she was young, so she was taught to say the prayer of remembrance for her, and her great-grandmother (mother of L'Naan) Krelik. ()
On her father's side, her Human grandmother, who had liked Miral, could always put a smile on B'Elanna's face, even when she was very depressed, by cooking banana pancakes. ()
Also on her father's side was her father's brother, her Uncle Carl. On a few occasions when she was young, her Uncle Carl took her and her father, and his children (her three cousins: Elizabeth, Dean, and Michael) to go camping and fishing. It was twelve days after the last of these camping trips that her father left her and her mother. ()
==== Miral ====
Miral and B'Elanna had a large fight in early 2366, and this was the last time she spoke with her mother until a decade later.
In 2376, while trapped in the Delta Quadrant, on the ten-year anniversary of their not speaking, B'Elanna was in a shuttle accident, putting her into a coma. While in the coma, she was sent to the Barge of the Dead, where she found out that her mother had died in the Alpha Quadrant and was being sent to Gre'thor. After discovering this, her crewmates were able to resuscitate her. She read several ancient Klingon texts, including the Eleventh Tome of Klavek from the paq'batlh, and concluded that she had to go back, as it was her fault her mother was being sent to the Klingon hell, for her not following Klingon traditions as her mother was supposed to teach her to do.
After working hard to persuade Captain Janeway to allow her to, and telling Tom that she would, she returned to the Barge by simulating her death. She asked to perform the transference ritual, so that her mother would go to Sto-vo-kor, for the honored dead, and B'Elanna would go to Gre'thor for her. When she found out that once in Gre'thor, even her crewmates couldn't bring her back from death, and despite the fact that her mother forbade it, she decided to do so.
Once in Gre'thor, which was a representation of Voyager, she argued with her former crew as well as her mother, demanding to know what they want from her. After begging and pleading, they finally made her understand that they didn't want anything from her – just her. She would be sent back to Voyager as "it wasn't her time." Her mother said goodbye, and that she'd see her again, whether it be in Sto-vo-kor, or when she came home, in the Alpha Quadrant. ()
==== John Torres ====
When B'Elanna was young, she was very close to her father. She said she "worshipped him", and their family was very close, if fragile, for a time. But after a couple years, B'Elanna's mother's Klingon attitude was wearing him down. When he began to be unable to take it, he scheduled a camping trip with his brother, and brought B'Elanna along.
On the camping trip, he confessed that it was getting harder and harder to live with Miral, and that his mother never thought he had what it took to love a Klingon woman, "and now he [had] two." When B'Elanna overheard this in her tent, she got angry, and later yelled at him for saying such things about her mother. But what she also said, which would haunt her for more than twenty years, was "If you can't handle it anymore, why don't you just leave!" Twelve days later, that was exactly what he did, abandoning his family. For years, she believed she had planted the seed in his mind to divorce, and blamed herself, when in actuality it was a combination of multiple factors. ()
Years later in 2378, when Starfleet Command was able to establish consistent contact with Voyager using the MIDAS array, John sent a message to B'Elanna asking to speak with her. Although they would only have three minutes, he wanted to re-establish their relationship. During their brief conversation, they were able to catch up on her new family, and she was able to tell her father about her marriage to Tom and the fact that she was pregnant. ()
=== Relationships on board Voyager ===
==== Chakotay ====
Chakotay was always a true mentor to Torres and was perhaps the only person on the ship who truly understood her nature. ()
In 2370, Chakotay saved B'Elanna's life, and she later joined the Maquis in its early stages. Chakotay soon realized B'Elanna's exceptional engineering abilities and the two became close friends. He even once tried to help her find her animal guide to help her deal with her emotional difficulties, but was shocked when she became the only person he knew ever to try to kill it. ()
When Chakotay's Maquis crew became stranded in the Delta Quadrant, Chakotay backed Torres for the position of chief engineer, knowing her abilities would make her perfect for the position. ()
Although she never acted on her feelings, she was initially attracted to Chakotay. When the Botha came aboard Voyager and affected everybody's senses, she hallucinated about him, although B'Elanna was more 'attracted' to Chakotay as a mentor figure and the hallucination just combined that desire with her Human desire for affection and love. ()
In 2374, Chakotay was forced to tell his Maquis crew, including Torres, that the Maquis had been wiped out by the Dominion. A year later, he would find out Torres had been suffering from a deep depression because of the loss and made Torres finally face her demons, helping her cope with her inner conflicts and emotions. ()
In 2377, Chakotay jokingly asked Torres if she had checked the warp core for cracks, as he noticed she had a certain "glow" about her, after finding out about her pregnancy. Later, Chakotay helped to bring Torres and her husband, Tom Paris, back together after they argued vociferously over their unborn daughter's Klingon heritage. ()
==== Kathryn Janeway ====
At first, she and Janeway did not see eye to eye. Torres thought Janeway was too stiff and set in her ways, while Janeway believed Torres to be a loose cannon. In the beginning, Torres felt like Janeway had set her up to fail and had no intention of making her chief engineer. ()
But later, Torres realized she couldn't have been more wrong. Deep down Janeway reminded Torres of her mother; she was as dedicated to Starfleet principles as her mother was to Klingon traditions. Janeway even, in a dream, employed B'Elanna's mother's pet name for her, "Lanna", suggesting she subconsciously regarded Janeway as a maternal figure. Despite their differences, Torres always remained loyal to Janeway. Eventually they would earn each other's respect and trust. ()
==== The Doctor ====
Although their doctor/patient relationship could be difficult at times, such as when The Doctor attempted to remove a cytoplasmic lifeform from B'Elanna using knowledge acquired from the hologram of Crell Moset, a Cardassian doctor who had committed various war crimes, The Doctor and B'Elanna went on to develop a surprising friendship and working relationship, such as when the two brainstormed possible solutions to help reactivate Automated Unit 3947 when he was recovered and his power was running out. B'Elanna also helped The Doctor gain a better understanding of his new mobile emitter after he acquired it, clearly expressing her fascination with the new technology. Although B'Elanna's feelings were hurt when The Doctor dismissed her musical opinions while preparing to give a concert for the Qomar, she later convinced him not to reprogram himself to reach the high notes achievable by the Qomar's new hologram because he would be sacrificing his identity for others if he tried to reprogram himself in that manner. Their relationship became so close that, when B'Elanna learned that she was pregnant, she asked The Doctor to be the child's godfather, to the point that, even when faced with the possibility that she could give birth to the child on Earth in Starfleet Medical, she made it clear that she wanted The Doctor to be the supervising physician rather than some stranger. (, )
====Seven of Nine ====
Although their initial confrontation didn't end well, and the two often agitated each other over the four years they were together on Voyager, they did respect each other's technical skills and had high standards and respect for each other when it mattered most. ()
Early in Seven's brushes with the rules on Voyager, Torres shared some lessons on teamwork and procedure with Seven that Captain Janeway had imparted on her years earlier. ()
Despite their prickly working relationship, Torres occasionally found Seven's perspective valuable on personal as well as technical matters, such as discussing the crew's Antarian Trans-stellar Rally "race fever" and shared interests with Tom Paris. ()
When Seven was dying because her cortical node was malfunctioning, to get away from The Doctor, she hid in main engineering. When Torres found her, she related that she also hid from The Doctor in engineering, hating to be cooped up in sickbay. The Doctor then came in and found her, and said "I should've known she'd be the one to harbor a fugitive." Torres responded with "We 'difficult' patients need to stick together." The two also discussed the concept of the afterlife, Seven stating the Borg had no such concept but that the memories of deactivated drones remained within the collective consciousness. She expressed that having been severed from this, nothing of her accomplishments would remain if she were to die. Torres replied that she was more memorable than she was giving herself credit for and that she had made an impact on every one of Voyagers crew. ()
==== Harry Kim ====
B'Elanna developed a special friendship with Harry Kim. She referred to him as "Starfleet" upon their first meeting and had continued to do so off and on over the seven-year journey. ()
The two would often work together on projects and often socialized together when off duty. ()
B'Elanna was also keen to give Kim a letter from his parents and waited somewhat anxiously for the letter to be extracted from an alien transmission array. She comforted Harry when he thought he would not be receiving one. When a letter for Harry did arrive, she took personal charge of delivering it to him. ()
=== Romance ===
==== Maxwell Burke ====
While at Starfleet Academy she dated Maxwell Burke, who referred to her affectionately as "BLT" and loaned her a blue sweater that she never returned. B'Elanna used to call him petaQ occasionally and their relationship broke off with Maxwell's intention to leave Starfleet being the last B'Elanna heard of him. ()
==== Tom Paris ====
Torres had her first romantic flirtation with Tom Paris in 2373 during an away mission on a shuttlecraft. Paris asked her out on a date in the holodeck once he found out that she was not interested in the advances of Ensign Freddy Bristow. B'Elanna, aware of Tom's reputation as a ladies' man, turned him down flat. ()
When Ensign Vorik, struck with the pon farr, asked Torres to become his mate, she turned him down. Vorik took her face in his hands and unintentionally initiated a telepathic mating bond, giving her the "blood fever", inducing something similar to the pon farr in her. On the subsequent away mission and overcome by the intense urges accompanying the pon farr, she wanted to have sex with Paris, but he resisted her because he realized that she was not in control of her actions. He only became willing to follow through on his own attraction to her after Tuvok rescued them and informed him that unless he had sex with B'Elanna, she would die from the symptoms of the blood fever. When Vorik arrived and challenged Tom, B'Elanna took over and fought Vorik to end the pon farr. Later on the ship, Paris told her that he had seen her scary Klingon side but was still interested and wouldn't mind seeing it again. Her last words as she left the turbolift were that he should be careful what he wishes for. ()
She admitted her love for Paris when they both faced death during the incident with the Caatati. ()
Torres and Paris often changed shifts so they could be close to each other. Their relationship was passionate, but they were not sure if their relationship would have a future. When it was discovered that a race known as the Srivani were performing experiments on the crew, Torres thought that their feelings for each other might have been caused by the experiments. Despite this, she responded playfully to Paris's suggestion that they should perhaps just call off the relationship and did not resist when Paris kissed her and stated that he was curious to see how the aliens' experiment turned out. ()
In 2377, Torres married Tom Paris. She initially thought he proposed because the was about to blow up, but he replied that he was "still alive and still asking." Soon thereafter, they had their first child, Miral, as they arrived in the Alpha Quadrant in 2378. ()
==== Kelis ====
While never physical, Torres and Kelis developed a strong, near-romantic relationship while Torres was stranded on his planet for two weeks after an away mission went wrong. Their relationship was somewhat unequal: Kelis, a poet, was from a pre-industrial civilization (similar to Earth's ancient Greece) and believed Torries to be an Eternal, a demigod of some sort - and he had also restrained her in the wreckage of the Delta Flyer to prevent her from escaping because she was his muse, inspiring him to write s. The two began to trust each other out of necessity and helped each other: Torres helping Kelis with his stories, and Kelis procured things for Torres so she should try to fix the Flyer and contact Voyager. Their closeness made an actress in Kelis' troupe jealous because she thought Kelis' relationship with Torres was threatening her romance with him. Torres was very moved by Kelis' regard for her as his inspiration, and their parting words were filled with emotion. ()
== Alternate B'Elanna Torres'==
=== Holograms ===
B'Elanna Torres was holographically duplicated on a number of occasions.
*Recreations of crew members from Voyager and the Jupiter Station Holoprogramming Center were seen by The Doctor during a holographic malfunction in 2371. This simulation, or daydream, included B'Elanna. ()
*The entire crew of Voyager was recreated by Tuvok for his Insurrection Alpha program. ()
*The Kyrian Museum of Heritage in the 31st century used the program The Voyager Encounter to detail their encounter with the , as an aid to a history lesson. ()
*Lt. Barclay's recreated most of the crew of USS Voyager at the Communications Research Center on Earth for the Pathfinder Project in 2376. The Maquis crew members, including B'Elanna, were not wearing Starfleet uniforms. ()
*In 2378, Seven recreated the crew of Voyager to perfect her social skills, including B'Elanna. ()
*The Doctor's holonovel Photons Be Free was set aboard the and crewed by characters based on the crew of USS Voyager, albeit the names were change to protect the innocent. The character of Torrey was based on B'Elanna. ()
*The Doctor was forced to impersonate members of Voyagers crew during a crisis in 2378. One was B'Elanna. ()
=== Alternate realities and timelines ===
In an alternate timeline created when Kes traveled back in time from 2376 to 2371, Torres was killed by an energy beam from the warp core. ()
In an alternate reality experienced by Kes, Torres was killed alongside Captain Janeway during the first confrontation between Voyager and the Krenim in 2374 when the console they were standing beside exploded. Tom Paris noted that he felt like dying after losing B'Elanna before Kes helped him move on. ()
In 2374, after suffering devastating attacks from the Krenim, she stayed on board Voyager as part of a skeleton crew. ()
In 2375, Torres was killed when Voyager crash-landed on an class L planet in an attempt to get home via slipstream. Events in this timeline were changed, however, when Harry Kim, Chakotay, and The Doctor stopped the slipstream mid-flight. ()
When an anomaly shattered Voyager into different time frames, a version of Torres who had just arrived on Voyager discovered from a Chakotay seven years in her future that she would become part of the Voyager crew, something she found "pretty hard to believe." ()
In an alternate 25th century timeline, after Voyagers return to the Alpha Quadrant in 2394, Torres became Federation Liaison to the Klingon Empire and was responsible for arranging Admiral Janeway's meeting with Korath. ()
== Chronology ==
;2349 : B'Elanna Torres is born on Kessik IV to John Torres (Human) and Miral (Klingon).
;2354 : B'Elanna's father leaves.
;2366 : Enrolls at Starfleet Academy.
; : Has a short relationship with Maxwell Burke.
;2368 : At age 19, drops out of Starfleet Academy.
;2370 : Joins the Maquis shortly after their founding, after Chakotay saves her life.
; : Forms a close friendship with Seska.
; : Reprograms the Dreadnought to attack a Cardassian site.
;2371 : Presumed dead when the Val Jean is lost in the Badlands; actually joins the crew of the in the Delta Quadrant with the provisional Starfleet rank of lieutenant junior grade. ()
; : Kidnapped and split into two separate beings by the Vidiians. Later rescued. ()
;2372 : Taken prisoner by the Mokra but later rescued. ()
; : Kidnapped and forced to engineer a 'prototype' for a race of robots, later rescued.()
; : Has recurring nightmares about her time in the Vidiian Prison.
; : Destroys the Cardassian missile Dreadnought. ()
;2373 : Given a lifetime of memories by an Enaran woman. ()
; : Suffers Vulcan pon farr after being attacked by Vorik. ()
; : Enters Borg space with her crew. ()
;2374 : Word of Voyagers survival reaches the Alpha Quadrant.
; : B'Elanna receives news that the Maquis has been wiped out by the Dominion and secretly begins to run high risk holodeck programs with safety protocols off.
;2375 : Enters a deep depression and suffers internal injuries from high-risk holoprograms, later treated with help from Chakotay. ()
; :Attacked by an alien suffering severe injuries, but later saved by The Doctor with help from a holographic Cardassian war criminal Crell Moset. ()
; : Leads an away team to a Malon freighter to prevent theta radiation contamination. ()
; : Meets Maxwell Burke after Voyager encounters another Federation Starship, USS Equinox, lost in the Delta Quadrant. ()
;2376 : After a near death experience, journeys to Klingon Hell to save her mother's eternal soul. ()
; : Crash lands the on a primitive planet and becomes the inspiration for a young poet's stories. Later rescued. ()
; : Assimilated by the Borg during a mission to deploy a virus into the central plexus of a Borg cube to help free drones in Unimatrix Zero, later rescued. ()
;2377 : Marries Tom Paris. ()
; : Helps Chakotay commandeer Voyager as part of Teero Anaydis' mind control plot. ()
; : Becomes pregnant with Tom Paris' child. ()
; : Memory is erased and identity reassigned by rogue , later rescued. ()
;2378 : Returns to Earth with Voyager. En route gives birth to her daughter, Miral. ()
;2384 : Serves as one of three chief engineers aboard the . ()
== Appendices ==
=== Appearances ===
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=== Background information ===
B'Elanna Torres was played by Roxann Dawson throughout the entire run of . A young B'Elanna was played by Jessica Gaona in .
The notion of a hybrid among Star Trek: Voyagers principal characters was thought up in July 1993, before the series even had a name. The term "half-breed" was included in a short list of characters for the series handwritten by Jeri Taylor and dated 30 July 1993, a document which was one of multiple summaries of many developmental meetings Taylor was having with fellow Executive Producers and series co-creators Rick Berman and Michael Piller. The initial character concept of a "half-breed" was developed into an outline of the character in a later compilation of Taylor's notes, dated . In that document, the outline was part of a section called "The Crew" and not only regarded the character as a hybrid but also as one of three "misfits", or rebels, who joined the Starfleet crew. The outline stated, "Conn Officer – an alien female (or male), […] the 'moderate' of the group [of 'misfits'] on a sliding scale of recalcitrance. Originally thought of as the same species as the First Officer, a conflictual relationship because the misfit has disappointed the F.O. (There was also mention of their having a telepathic ability between themselves.) Latest thinking is of a half-breed, possibly Bajoran/Cardassian." The character's racial identity was later altered, as Taylor reported in one of her summaries of the meetings, this compilation of notes dated 6 August 1993. The document reckoned, "The Conn officer might be a Human/Klingon combination." (A Vision of the Future - Star Trek: Voyager, pp. 175, 176 & 182)
The character of B'Elanna Torres was created as an "outsider" character, representing the struggle for self-acceptance in Human nature. The summary of notes from 6 August 1993 continued, "She would be a metaphor for those who are trying to suppress or ignore some aspect of themselves (anger, hatred, lack of control, etc.) that actually can't be ignored. She wants to eschew her Klingon nature, finding it primitive, violent, savage, unattractive." Jeri Taylor later recalled, "We wanted to make her a person somewhat at war with herself. Representing those of us… and there are probably many of us… who have some aspect of our personalities that we really, really wish we could shed. You know, 'If only I didn't do 'X,' I'd be a terrific person." The executive producers envisioned Torres undergoing a character arc in the series which would entail her, in Taylor's words, "learning to accept herself as a whole person, and to learn to live with what she is and accept what she is and find worth in all the parts of her, rather than wanting to shun an important part of herself." (A Vision of the Future - Star Trek: Voyager, pp. 168, 182 & 184)
The same compilation of notes, from 6 August 1993, additionally suggested a relationship between this character and The Doctor. "When we're on our mission," wrote Jeri Taylor, "the Conn officer decides to play around with the programming and 'tailors' his personality... maybe injecting some quirks and oddities... maybe changing it from time to time (to fit her moods)." (A Vision of the Future - Star Trek: Voyager, p. 182)
B'Elanna's nickname of "BLT" was said to have derived from her initials; however, it is unclear if B'Elanna has a middle name, or if this just reflects the L sound in the second syllable of the first name "B'Elanna".
Torres has the distinction of being the first female chief engineer as a series regular. The first female chief engineer shown on-screen was MacDougal of the in the episode .
Regarding Torres' birthdate, she says in that she was nineteen when she quit Starfleet Academy and, by 2376, it was ten years since she entered the Academy and ten years since she last spoke with her mother. () Torres quit the Academy in her second year, at age nineteen in 2368, which puts her birth year at 2349. The script of gave further indication as to Torres' age, referring to her as "a half-Klingon, half-Human woman in her twenties." A press release issued by Paramount on the launch of the series stated, "B'Elanna is a beautiful 25 year old woman who is half Human, half Klingon." This information would then place B'Elanna's birthdate at 2346, but this was not stated in the series itself. 
At the Voyager wrap party, held in 2001, Roxann Dawson described Torres' character journey on the show, stating, "She was an unruly teenager who grew into a woman, over the course of seven years." 
Early character photos of Torres showed her wearing the Starfleet provisional enlisted/noncom rank insignia. When she was promoted to chief engineer, she initially wore the provisional rank of lieutenant. This costume gaffe was corrected as of , and thereafter, Torres wore the rank of provisional lieutenant junior grade.
The bathing suit worn by Torres in the third season episode was later sold off on the It's A Wrap! sale and auction on eBay. 
In a log from the "Star Trek Logs" Instagram account released after the premiere of the episode , Janeway established that Torres was the project lead in designing the and also suggested the name. 
=== Apocrypha ===
In the Voyager relaunch book series, Torres traveled to Boreth and found her mother Miral alive. Miral then died and Torres decided to stay on Boreth and immerse herself in Klingon tradition.
In A Singular Destiny set in 2381, Torres and Miral Paris' names were appended to a casualty list sent to Starfleet, listing confirmed dead in Sector 22093 as a result of the Borg attacks in the Alpha Quadrant.
In Full Circle and Unworthy, B'Elanna and and her daughter Miral were revealed to be alive, after their "deaths" were faked to throw off the pursuing Warriors of Gre'thor. B'Elanna and Miral then reunite with Voyagers first officer, Lieutenant Commander Tom Paris.
In Unworthy, B'Elanna recreates the slipstream drive from memory and reunites with Voyager in the Delta Quadrant under Project Full Circle. She is then given the rank of Fleet Chief Engineer and returns to active duty. She is revealed to be pregnant in The Eternal Tide, and gives birth to her and Tom's son, Michael Owen Paris, in A Pocket Full of Lies.
In the alternate future in the Deep Space Nine Millennium book trilogy, Torres, along with Voyager and her crew, returned to the Alpha Quadrant at an unspecified time. As in the "real" timeline, she married Tom Paris. Sometime after returning to the Alpha Quadrant, Torres and Paris were both assigned to the USS Enterprise-F under Captain William T. Riker. However, Torres was killed along with the rest of the Enterprises crew when she was lost with all hands during the destruction of Earth.
The epithet "turtle head" is also found in non-canon novels such as A Flag Full of Stars, used by xenophobic Humans on Earth against Klingons to make fun of their forehead ridges.
Her mirror universe appeared in the novel The Mirror-Scaled Serpent as the Supervisor of Ardana in 2371. She was previously the Intendant of Cestus III.
According to The Autobiography of Kathryn Janeway, Tom and B'Elanna had a second child named Eugene Owen Paris.
=== External links ===
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