10 Star Trek Characters You Didn't Realise Died Horrible Deaths

As one of the most annoyingly cheerful and silly characters in all of Trek, it can be easy to forget that Neelix actually had a very dark past; one that he very rarely spoke about in Voyager.

Neelix grew up on Rinax, the lush and beautiful moon of the Talaxian home world. Unfortunately, one day war broke out between the Talaxians and the Haakonians. We learned in the episode Jetrel that the Haakonians managed to destroy the climate of Rinax with a "metreon cascade," killing over 300,000 of the moon's residents. Neelix's entire family was killed and the Talaxian solar system surrendered to the invaders.

Neelix was forced to leave his home and take whatever jobs he could to survive, all while trying to move past the trauma he experienced. He worked as a miner, an engineering assistant, and (by the time Voyager came across him) a scavenger/trader.

Neelix was happy to come aboard the ship as a chef, of course both because that saved Kes and guaranteed him a steady supply of food and water, but also probably because he needed friends he could trust after losing everyone he cared about. Eventually Neelix finally found a new Talaxian family in the episode Homestead and stayed there with them in the Delta Quadrant.