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FAMILY AND LIFE BEFORE VOYAGER

Torres attributes her aggressive personality and frequent bad temper to her Klingon heritage. She spent her childhood with her parents at the Federation colony on Kessik IV [#14 Faces]. Her father John Torres (a human) left her when she was six [#97 Extreme Risk] and her mother (a Klingon called Miral) left her when Torres was five years old. However, [#158 Lineage] directly contradicts this, showing that her father abandoned her when she was aged 12, specifically 12 days after a camping trip he organised for himself, his brother, B'Elanna and her three cousins. He moved to Earth while Torres and her mother went to live on Qo'noS (pronounced Kronos), the Klingon homeworld [#7 Eye of the Needle]. As a result, Torres never felt close to either of her parents, although this is partly contradicted by her words to Tom Paris about herself and her father, in [#158 Lineage]: "We were inseparable. He spoiled me and I worshipped him. But the older I got, we just grew apart." Indeed, she rejected the Klingon customs and code of behaviour her mother cherished (see below re [#71 Day Of Honor]). In the episode [#123 Barge of the Dead], Torres resolves her anti-Klingon feelings and reconciles with her mother: she does this by playing out in her subconscious an attempt to take her mother's place in the Klingon equivalent of hell. The name of Torres' mother (Miral) is not stated on screen until [#158 Lineage]. Paris' and Torres' daughter was to be named Miral.

B'Elanna Torres, aged 12. [#158 Lineage]

Torres' mother, Miral. [Barge of the Dead]	Torres' father, John Torres. [#158 Lineage]	Torres' uncle Carl. [#158 Lineage]
Torres' cousin Elizabeth. [#158 Lineage]	Torres' cousin Dean. [#158 Lineage]	Torres' cousin Michael. [#158 Lineage]

When she was a baby Torres had an operation to straighten a curvature in her spine, which is an inherited defect common among Klingon females; her mother had the same defect [#158 Lineage]

[#42 and #43 Basics]

Torres dropped out of Starfleet Academy in her second year, aged nineteen [#97 Extreme Risk], because she had difficulty accepting Starfleet discipline [#1 and #2 Caretaker], [#3 Parallax]. While at Starfleet Academy she was the fastest runner in the Academy's decathlon team; her running skill enabled her to act as a successful decoy to distract hostile Hanonians, depicted in the episode [#43 Basics, Part Two]. Although Torres herself felt she was not Starfleet material, one of her instructors, Professor Chapman, was so impressed by her original thinking that he put on her file a recommendation that she be accepted back if she ever sought re-admission to Starfleet Academy; Torres learned this from Janeway [#3 Parallax].

[#1 and #2 Caretaker] [#1 and #2 Caretaker]

Torres joined the Maquis after Maquis officer Chakotay saved her life [#93 One], and she served as a senior officer under his command. The first time Torres led a Maquis away team she led her people into a cave she thought was a Cardassian military installation because she had mistaken unstable mineral deposits for weapons signatures. There was then a rockslide that trapped them in the cave for three days. [#119 Warhead] She became a close friend of Seska, unaware that Seska was a Cardassian agent surgically altered to look like a Bajoran so that she could infiltrate the Maquis. She, along with Chakotay and the rest of the crew on their ship, was swept into the Delta Quadrant in 2371 by a displacement wave caused by the Caretaker.

[#1 and #2 Caretaker] [#1 and #2 Caretaker]

[#1 and #2 Caretaker]

The first Voyager crewmember she met (apart from Tuvok who was a Federation under-cover agent) was Harry Kim.

[#1 and #2 Caretaker]

2 pictures above: Kim calmed her violent outburst, caused by anger at being apparently confined, in the Ocampa treatment room - she and Kim were being treated for a virus which was the after-effect of the Caretaker's experiments on them.

[#1 and #2 Caretaker]

Torres protested when she realised that Janeway was about to destroy the Caretaker's Array. She demands, "Who is she, to be making these decisions for all of us?" Chakotay rests a restraining hand on her shoulder and replies: "She's the captain." Torres can only watch as she sees their only chance of getting back to the Alpha Quadrant destroyed. tricobalt device hits the Caretaker's Array and it explodes (opens in a new window) (330Kb. Approx. download for 56K modem 62 seconds) [#1 and #2 Caretaker]

[#1 and #2 Caretaker]

tricobalt device hits the Caretaker's Array and it explodes (opens in a new window) (330Kb. Approx. download for 56K modem 62 seconds) [#1 and #2 Caretaker]

[#1 and #2 Caretaker]

[#23 Parturition] Chakotay and Torres wear the collar badge of Maquis rank with their Starfleet uniforms

Torres and Chakotay have retained a bond after they joined Voyager's crew.  ' He helped her come to terms with the news of the massacre of their Maquis colleagues, her "family", in the Alpha Quadrant [#97 Extreme Risk].

[#97 Extreme Risk]. Chakotay persuades Torres to accompany him to the holodeck. Once there he orders the computer to run holodeck program 'Torres Zeta One'. Torres realises which program it is and struggles as Chakotay drags her onto the holodeck. A massacre is occurring. Both know what it is - it is the slaughter of the Maquis, including friends Le Paz, Myer, Nelson and Sareen. Chakotay: "You created a holodeck program to watch all our Maquis friends get slaughtered. What I want to know is, why?" Torres: "I thought we came down here to talk about safety protocols. This has nothing to do with that." Chakotay: "I'm not so sure. The logs show you ran this program for only 47 seconds, the day after you got the news about the massacre, then you shut it down and started running the most dangerous programs you could find with the safeties off. Why?" Torres: "This is ridiculous. I'm leaving." Chakotay: "Computer, seal the doors." Torres: "You can't do this!" Chakotay: "The hell I can't! You're not going anywhere until you tell me what's going on. B'Elanna, why are you intentionally trying to hurt yourself?" Torres: "I don't know." Chakotay: "Are you trying to commit suicide?" Torres: "No." Chakotay: "Then why?" Torres: "Because...because if I sprain my ankle at least I feel something." Chakotay: "What do you mean?" Torres: "I'm not trying to kill myself. I'm trying to see if I'm still alive!" Chakotay: "I don't understand." Torres: "When you look at those corpses, how do you feel?" Chakotay: "Sad, angry, maybe a little guilty that I wasn't there to die with them." Torres: "Not me, I don't feel anything at all." Chakotay: "B'Elanna, the Maquis were like our adopted family. I can understand you trying to block out that kind of pain." Torres: "You don't understand. It's not just the pain. I don't feel anything, not about my dead friends, not about Tom, you, my job." Chakotay: "Maybe if you're afraid that if you let yourself start to feel something you might not be able to stop. You can't just shut off your emotions, B'Elanna. Sooner or later you're going to have to let yourself grieve." Torres: "Why? Just so I can go through it all over again?" Chakotay: "What are you talking about?" Torres: "When I was six my father walked out on me. When I was nineteen I got kicked out of Starfleet. A few years later I got separated from the Maquis. And just when I start to feel safe, you tell me that all of our old friends have been slaughtered. The way I figure it, I've lost the only family I ever had." Chakotay: "B'Elanna, you have a new family now, here on Voyager. You're not going to lose us. You're stuck with us." Torres: "You can't promise me that." Chakotay: "No, I suppose I can't. Losing people's inevitable, and sometimes it happens sooner than we expect, but I can promise you that the people on this ship aren't about to let you stop living your life or break your neck. You're going to have to find another way to deal with this." Torres: "I don't know how." Chakotay: "Then we'll figure it out, together."