The History of B'Elanna Torres
B'Elanna Torres grew up in a colony on Kessick IV. Her father left the family when she five years old. Her parents had been in an agitated relationship for some time before he went away, Throughout her childhood B'Elanna had been shunned and ignored by her peers and classmates and the problem didn't improve after her father left. B'Elanna's mother, Miral Torres, tried constantly to mold her daughter into the Klingon warrior she thought B'Elanna should be. B'Elanna wanted nothing to do with any of it. When she was ten, Miral took B'Elanna to Qo'noS. She wanted her daughter to learn of their true heritage. B'Elanna found the planet to be endlessly noisy and dreaded her mother's proposed trips to the shrine of Kahless and the battlefield of Mithrak. She thought that the people around her were incessantly loud and rude.
Later in her life the humans on Kessick IV slowly began to accept her. B'Elanna became close friends with a boy named James Chesney and they started going out together. He became a confidant who encouraged her in many things, including her dawning dream to attend Starfleet Academy. When she was accepted to the famous school and the two went their separate ways they continued to write to each other for a long time afterwards.
B'Elanna's dream of attending Starfleet Academy was fulfilled but she soon discovered that life there was nothing like what she had expected. She had a good deal of trouble adjusting to living there and learning to submit to the rigid discipline demanded of her. She challenged her superiors and questioned the rules and regulations. As her anger grew, B'Elanna began to wonder more and more why she'd ever wanted to go to Starfleet Academy. More emotional turmoil was brought on her when her father began to contact her from Mexico. He sent messages asking her to forgive him for leaving and begging her to contact him. B'Elanna never could bring herself to answer him. Eventually she left Starfleet Academy during her second year, leaving in the night without telling anyone, and going far away from Earth.
B'Elanna took odd jobs, using her incomplete Academy training to support herself. She hired out on various private ships and freighters as an engineer. She eventually was commissioned by a Bolian to help ferry cargo. In the process the ship was captured by Cardassians and then recaptured by a Maquis ship under the command of Chakotay. B'Elanna met a Bajoran woman named Seska, another Maquis, and soon joined the paramilitary force. She became friends with Seska and met Thomas Paris who later joined the crew. She disliked him from the start and occasionally attempted to play jokes on him.
B'Elanna Torres and the crew of the Maquis ship Liberty went into the Badlands and discovered a small cluster of planetoids. They decided to make it into a secret Maquis base and stayed nearby, waiting for Chakotay to return from a recruiting mission so that they could show him their find. Soon after he came back a powerful Cardassian vessel found them and two forces engaged in battle. The much smaller Liberty was forced to flee into the Badlands where the Cardassian ship was destroyed. The Liberty was scanned by a tetryon beam and moments later was hit by a massive displacement wave which swept them into the Delta Quadrant.
-By Merope Kenshire
Information courtesy of:
Pathways, by Jeri Taylor
Star Trek: Voyager, Faces
Star Trek: Voyager, Barge of the Daed 
