(originally posted to RedshirtsAlwaysDie.com)

Neelix started out quite the questionable character on Star Trek: Voyager.

When we first meet Neelix, he’s tending to his debris field where he seemingly would be selling off junked starship parts that he procured via numerous, possibly underhanded ways, and selling them off for profit in order to survive in the Delta Quadrant. The one commodity he seemingly could not obtain was something that Federation ships were able to synthesize in an instant: water. Upon realizing this, he decided to take advantage of the Voyager crew’s generosity and innocence to free his girlfriend from enslavement at the hands of the Kazon.

Neelix proved himself to be quite the conniving individual, always seemingly having friends of questionable morals in the right places throughout his region of the Delta Quadrant. The one being whose existence he held above all else was Kes, his 3-year-old Ocampan girlfriend. Since the Ocampans live abbreviated lives, with the eldest Ocampans typically living only eight or nine years, by comparison, that puts Kes to be about the equivalent of being in her mid-20s to early 30s, alternatively, it was always my understanding with all of Neelix’s life experiences, that he was fairly significantly older than Kes…not only in physical age but also in cognitive age as well, which kind of makes him a bit of a creeper. However, just as I wrote previously here, I always viewed Voyager as the story of the redemption of Nick Locarno/Tom Paris & I think the same can easily be said about Neelix as well!