"The Curious Affair of B'Elanna Torres' Age"

"THE CURIOUS AFFAIR OF B'ELANNA TORRES' AGE"

Over the years there have been many complaints about the inconsistency regarding characters and stories in TREK series, ”Star Trek: Voyager” (1995-2001). I will not deny that the series has been guilty of the occasional inconsistency. To be frank, all of the five TREK series and many of its movies are guilty of the same. However, I was shocked and surprised to learn that some of the websites that provide information on the entire franchise turned out to be just as inconsistent.

While perusing the Wikipedia website, I was surprised to discover a major discrepancy featuring one of the major characters on ”Voyager”, namely that of the Chief Engineer, B’Elanna Torres. According to this site, B’Elanna was born in 2349, the same year as Operations Chief, Harry Kim. It also included that B’Elanna had joined Starfleet Academy in 2366, right after her last meeting with her mother, Miral Torres. Two years later in 2368, B’Elanna allegedly resigned from Starfleet Academy and not long afterwards, joined Chakotay’s cell in the Maquis. There is another source that confirms this – namely Jeri Taylor’s Voyager novel, ”Pathways”. Personally, I had major problems with this summation.

One, I find it hard to believe that B’Elanna had joined the Maquis sometime between 2368 (the year that Chakotay had resigned from Starfleet and joined the Maquis) and 2369. If this is true, then she would have first met Tom Paris, in the Maquis. But the television series had never hinted that B’Elanna and Tom knew each other before Voyager was hurled into the Delta Quadrant in early 2371. The early Season 2 episode, ”Non-Sequitur” made it clear that Tom had served his full sentence in a Federation prison – eighteen months in an alternate timeline that Harry Kim found himself in. According to the episode and the stardate, Tom had been released from prison in September 2371. Which means that Tom had been captured and imprisoned by the Federation in March 2370. And the Season 2 episode, Dreadnought”, made it clear that Voyager’s encounter with Cardassian missile occurred nearly on the second anniversary of B’Elanna’s first encounter with the missile – not long after she had joined Chakotay’s cell. According to the stardate, ”Dreadnought” occurred in the summer of 2372, which means that B’Elanna had joined Chakotay’s cell sometime during the late spring of 2370.

Also, it is not possible that B’Elanna had joined Starfleet Academy in 2366, after seeing her mother for the last time. According to the late Season 5 episode, ”The Equinox”, B’Elanna had not seen her old Academy boyfriend, Maxwell Burke, in ten years. ”The Equinox” was probably set in late 2375, which means that she and Burke had last seen each other in 2365. This also leads me to believe that B’Elanna had already been in Starfleet Academy by 2366. I am also convinced that it is possible that B’Elanna had last met with her mother after resigning from Starfleet Academy and not before joining it. Although there is no episode that claimed that B’Elanna had last spoken to her mother after leaving Starfleet, the Season 6 episode, ”Barge of the Dead” certainly did not make it clear that she had joined Starfleet Academy after her last meeting with Miral – despite what Wikipedia and Jeri Taylor have claimed.

There is one last reason why I find it difficult to accept that B’Elanna was born in 2349. It happens to be the same birth year as her close friend, Harry Kim. If the two friends had been born in the same year, this meant that both had entered Starfleet around the same time. And both would have immediately been placed on the Engineering track. Their chances of meeting for the first time at the Academy would have been pretty good. Yet, the premiere episode, ”Caretaker” makes it pretty clear that B’Elanna and Harry met for the first time, while in the Ocampan settlement.

It is the series itself that makes it easy for me to refute the claim that B’Elanna Torres had joined the Maquis in 2368 or that she had been born in 2349. In regard to the first claim, the stardates provided in episodes like ”Non-Sequitur” and ”Dreadnought” seemed to contradict Wikipedia or Jeri Taylor that B’Elanna had joined the Maquis in 2368. And episodes like ”Caretaker”, ”The Equinox” and ”Barge of the Dead” gives enough evidence to refute the claim that B’Elanna had been born in 2349.

About an hour ago, I had examined the Wikipedia. Changes had been made. It no longer claimed that B’Elanna had been born in 2349. Instead, it claimed that she had been born in 2346. I do not know if this is true, but it seems a lot more plausible than its earlier claim. But I would not be surprised if these changes were removed by the site’s webmaster. No matter. I know what I believe.