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FAMILY
| Neelix is a Talaxian, a humanoid species native to the Delta Quadrant whose homeworld is Talax. He had at least one brother and at least one sister, and he spent his childhood with them and his parents on Rinax, a moon of Talax [#15 Jetrel].
On Rinax the summers were the hottest in the sector, and temperatures reached 50° Celsius and 90% humidity [#54 Macrocosm]. They had no holodecks on Rinax but their house had "a great big forest" right behind it and he and his sisters would go exploring it every day [#99 Once Upon A Time]. Neelix and his favourite sister, Alixia, spent much time together such as exploring the Caves of Touth and the Dunes of Talmouth, visiting the equatorial dust shrouds and hunting arctic spiders [#61 Rise]. In 2373, Neelix named a mag-lev carriage "Alixia" [Rise]. |
 Alixia, seen in Neelix's vision quest [#60 Mortal Coil] |
 Replica of the Guiding Tree, which Neelix keeps in his quarters [Mortal Coil]
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Neelix's entire family, including Alixia, were wiped out when Rinax was totally devasted by the Haakonian Order. That event, with 300,000 casualties, brought to an end a decade-long war between the Talaxians and the Haakonians. Neelix survived the massacre because he was on Talax, fleeing military service because he felt the war was unjust.
All Neelix has left are a faded holo-picture and the memories in his heart [#109 and #110 Dark Frontier], although he also possesses Alixia's necklace which she made during an expedition to the Dunes of Talmouth [Mortal Coil]. Neelix includes the latter in his medicine bundle when entering a vision quest under Chakotay's guidance [Mortal Coil]. Neelix takes great comfort in his spiritual beliefs: Talaxians believe that the afterlife comprises the Great Forest, in which is the Guiding Tree to guide those who first enter, and around the Guiding Tree a person newly-dead will meet his family and ancestors; but his Neelix's beliefs are rocked in [Mortal Coil]. The weapon used against Rinax was called the Metreon Cascade and was designed by the Haakonian scientist Dr Ma'Bor Jetrel. Neelix met Jetrel on Voyager and confronted him about his invention but Neelix eventually made peace with the Haakonian as Jetrel lay dying [#15 Jetrel]; at that time Neelix also dealt with his guilt about evading military service in the war. |
| It is probably because Neelix has no family and experienced such a terrible loss that he asks to join Voyager for, unlike the rest of the crew, Neelix is getting further away from home the nearer to the Alpha Quadrant the ship travels. He might also have been looking to better his (and Kes') lot, for in [#141 Live Fast and Prosper] what he says to Dala is very plausible: "I changed, when Captain Janeway made me part of her crew. .... At first I was just exploiting an opportunity to get a warm bed, food, protection. I kept waiting to find out what the Captain wanted in return. ...she expected a great deal from me. Honesty, loyalty, hard work. ... But I discovered those were commodities I had in abundance. And it was er, much more profitable to share them than be self-serving and cynical all the time. I'm happier than I've ever been." |  Neelix talks to Dala [Live Fast and Prosper] |
 Neelix starts turning into a Mylean, malodorous Mylean sweat glands and all [#75 Scientific Method] |
Neelix's great-grandfather was a Mylean. The Mylean race occupies a region of space near Talax. Because one-eighth of Neelix's genetic material is Mylean, he starts turning into one when hostile alien scientists occupy Voyager and stimulate his DNA. (It is just one of the many macabre experiments conducted on the crew by the alien scientists.) [#75 Scientific Method] However, after the aliens are driven off Voyager, the Doctor is later able to restore him to his normal self. |
LIFE BEFORE VOYAGER & JOINING VOYAGER
| Neelix was employed for two years on an orbital tether team on Talax where he worked with scale models.
His experience proves useful in the events portrayed in [#61 Rise] where he supervises the repair and later the piloting of a mag-lev carriage with the aim of using it to ascend an orbital tether, and thereby bring himself Tuvok and a group of Nezu to an altitude where they can contact Voyager and be beamed aboard. |
 [#61 Rise] |
Neelix served for two years as an engineer's assistant aboard a Traballian freighter [#31 Threshold]. He also worked in a mining colony [#58 Blood Fever], which experience led to his being assigned to the away mission to obtain gallicite from a planet whose underground caves turned out to be the refuge of the Sakari race [#58 Blood Fever].
Neelix says he was a trader for six years (he says this to Naomi Wildman in [#99 Once Upon A Time]). It is not known whether the various particular jobs noted here occurred in that time.
He owns a little freighter called Baxial:
"There's nothing like having your own ship. I remember when I first laid eyes on my little freighter Baxial. ... Actually, I thought she was the ugliest thing I ever saw! But she grew on me. Eventually I, I couldn't imagine being without her."
[#125 Alice]: Neelix tells Paris about when he first saw Baxial
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Drawing of Baxial Source TOSTFF
Baxial remains in Voyager's shuttlebay but was used in [The Chute] to transport an away team to and from an Akritirian prison and rescue Kim and Paris who were imprisoned there. Judging by maneuvers to evade two Akritirian patrol ships and their weapons fire, Baxial is fast and maneuverable.
Baxial has a stuffed Talaxian fur fly on board for luck. Neelix presented it to Torres in [#100 Timeless] as a good luck charm for the next day's inaugural flight using the quantum slipstream drive which Voyager had adapted from Arturis' ship in [#94 Hope and Fear]. Neelix tells Torres that if a Talaxian fur fly stows away on your ship you will have good luck.
More on Baxial at LIFEFORMS: Baxial, Neelix's Ship (can also be reached via TALAXIAN INDEX on the Bridge). |
 Baxial evades Akritirian patrol ships and their weapons fire. [The Chute]
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| Neelix and fellow-Talaxian Wixiban (known as Wix) had a run-in with Ubean authorities. Although Neelix escaped, Wixiban served a brutal prison term. These events were referred to when Neelix and Wixiban fell in with each other again at the Nekrit Supply Depot. Neelix's debt to Wixiban led him to make the foolish decision to cover up Wixiban's murder of their trading contact [#55 Fair Trade], but when Paris and Chakotay were arrested for the murder Neelix persuaded Wixiban to confess all to the Depot's manager who allowed them to set a trap for the real killers [Fair Trade]. |  Wixiban with Neelix [Fair Trade] |
 Laxeth [#36 Investigations] |
Neelix also knows a fellow-Talaxian called Laxeth. When Neelix hears from Laxeth after a period of time, on stardate 49485.2, shown in [Investigations], he calls him "you old dilithium scrubber". Laxeth tells Neelix he is now legitimate - communications master of a Talaxian convoy - which indicates that Laxeth's past dealings have been illicit ones, and we can surmise that Neelix's involvement with him were probably rather shady. |
| The viewer can surmise that Neelix's friendship with Wixiban and Laxeth occurred during the period up to his joining Voyager when he was a trader working for himself, often doing dodgy deals and living by his wits.
The impression is, however, that Neelix abided by high ethical standards because, although he knows the dictum "all trades are final" he is shocked when he himself is ripped off or conned e.g. by Abadon who sold him 'valuable' items for a few plasma couplings - Neelix says, "According to Abadon, they're lost treasures of the Delta Quadrant. If you ask me they're worthless trinkets." (However, Seven spots that one of them is actually extremely valuable - a mistake by Abadon.) This is despite Neelix having "furtive eyes" which, according to Abadon, characterise a fellow-trader: Abadon: "Neelix, is it? You wouldn't be a fellow-trader, would you?"
Neelix is also concerned that he has lost his edge when he realises the scam pulled on him by con artists called Dala and Mobar [Live Fast and Prosper]. Dala and Mobar pose as clerics, give him and Paris a faulty heating coil in exchange for food for "starving orphans", pump Neelix for information about Voyager and download the Delta Flyer's database. This enables them shortly afterwards to masquerade as Federation officers and thereby con various aliens into buying goods from the "Federation" or even "Federation" membership. The way that Neelix restores his and Paris' confidence is by successfully playing the three cups trick on the Doctor. |
 Abadon and Neelix meet
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Neelix's knowledge of a vast area of the Delta Quadrant proves useful to Voyager in many ways. For example, he warns Voyager's senior staff about the Numiri [#8 Ex Post Facto] and the hostile Swarm [#46 The Swarm], knows where supplies can be obtained, keeps "the nefarious Kazon at bay" in [#21 Initiations] while Janeway and Chakotay are absent, and has a contact among the Kazon-Pommar on Sobras called Jal Tersa [#30 Alliances] ("Jal" is a warrior title, "Tersa" is his name). His geographical knowledge ends at the Nekrit Supply Depot for he does not know the Nekrit Expanse or the area of space beyond it; his fear was that as a result he would be put off Voyager leads him to enter into a trading venture with Wixiban because his payment would be a map of the Nekrit Expanse and a substance called pergium for Engineering [Fair Trade].
Either during his time on Rinax, Talax or as a lone trader, or all of these periods, Neelix acquired his cooking skills. His wanderings around the Delta Quadrant would have provided him with opportunities to sample a variety of alien delicacies. Many of these he cooks in the galley on Voyager - text and over 40 pictures here. He breeds orchids which he adds to salads with Baldoxic vinegar [#25 Tattoo].
At some point before joining Voyager, Neelix met and fell in love with Kes, an Ocampa.
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Voyager encountered Neelix when he was investigating a large debris field. Janeway introduces herself to Neelix and his reply
Tuvok first meets Neelix as Neelix experiences a transporter beam for the first time and is brought aboard Voyager where Tuvok meets him in the transporter room. Neelix finds the transporter "astonishing!" The two are as different from each other as they possibly can be! and Neelix's (understandable but humourous) error about Tuvok's name is only the start of their misunderstanding.
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With the unwitting help of a Voyager away team led by Janeway, Neelix obtained her release from the Kazon-Ogla by holding a knife to the throat of their First Maje Jabin [#1 and #2 Caretaker]. When Voyager first encountered Neelix he offered to be their guide in return for water - the region it seems is short of water for when Neelix comes aboard Voyager he hoards a supply and wallows in a well-filled bath, telling Tuvok: "No one round here wastes water in this manner," says Neelix. "Good sand scrub, that's the best we can hope for."
 "No one round here wastes water in this manner." [#1 and #2 Caretaker] |
 Neelix guides the away mission to the Kazon-Ogla camp on the surface of the Ocampa homeworld [#1 and #2 Caretaker] |
 Kes, an ill-treated prisoner of the Kazon-Ogla [#1 and #2 Caretaker] |
 Neelix obtains Kes' release by threatening Jabin [#1 and #2 Caretaker] |
 [#6 The Cloud] |
During his travels, the viewer can assume that Neelix was 'smart' (the British English for this is 'clever'). He tells Kes that he is "smart enough to go around nebulas". When Kes says that Voyager's crew are natural-born explorers, he replies, "These people are natural-born idiots, if you ask me. They don't appreciate what they have here, this ship is the match of any vessel within a hundred lightyears and what do they do with it? 'Well, er, let's see if we can't find some space anomaly today that might rip it apart!'"
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Neelix's personal possessions include a faded holo-image of his favourite sister, Alixia; he talks to the image sometimes if he is troubled [Fair Trade] [#109 and #110 Dark Frontier]. He has a copy of 'The Selected Works of Jirex' and reads a parable from it every night before going to sleep [#92 Demon]. Jirex is the greatest writer in the Talaxian canon. He has an unknown quantity of valuable food and drink items e.g. Talaxian moon-ripened champagne which he opened to share a toast to "the adventure!" with Kes in [#70 The Gift] (they last sipped it when three years previously), and a bottle of ?item to be checked which he saves to open for a special occasion which he finds on meeting Dexa [#169 Homestead].
Layout diagram of Neelix's quarters, the set on Stage 9
