|
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.
DATABASE UPDATE, SD 50460:
Entry by K. Janeway
I have grown concerned in recent weeks about our morale officer's
morale, and now I understand why. Despite Neelix's cheerful and upbeat
demeanor, even he has a down side, and now I understand that some of it stems
from his pessimistic self-view as worthless to this crew now that we
have exceeded the region of his scouting knowledge. Aside from my
regular assurances, I note in this record that I acknowledge Neelix's
past "very" basic combat training on Rinax, per his description, and
intend to merge him more usefully into entry-level defense training,
including the monthly tactical exercises.
This is not to register any displeasure with his natural diplomatic
skills, his ongoing "Briefing with Neelix" comcasts, and even the
cooking. Indeed his quick-thinking as a faux Nagus during our Ferengi
encounter helped save the mission, even if I personally can do without his
people's custom of delivering a history of each meal while it is served,
a practice his mother perfected. I still wonder if his greatest diplomatic
challenge, though, is his constant attempts to "buddy up" to our most
unbuddylike officer, Tuvok. Even his Talax Resort holoprogram, with
modifications by Paris, Kim, Torres, et al, has proved to be a
morale-boosting hit.
All this is to help explain why, shortly after my initial entry here, I
made the decision to try to regain both he and Tuvok's lives as separate
entities after a freak transporter merging of the two, despite the
"death" of the resulting sentient lifeform dubbed Tuvix.
On yet another personal note: I note with concern the break-up of he
and Kes' continued relationship, and I wish them both the best in
whatever path they take.
|
