Does Neelix Secretly Food Poison Voyager's Crew?
Neelix's Gruesome Galley - An Experiment In Food Safety
Neelix food poisons Voyager’s crew on a regular basis. Shocked? There, I said it, and the evidence, however circumstantial, points to just that sort of outlandish scenario. Bear with me, because after I’m done you’ll see the light, or at least the dimly lit one found casting dread shadow in the frightful food caravan acting as Neelix’s galley kitchen.
Junk Man & Tour Guide Turned Cook
Captain Janeway brought on Neelix - member of the Talaxian race - early on in her Starship Voyager’s voyage through the mysterious Delta Quadrant. After pursuing the Maquis ship commanded by Chakotay (Robert Beltran) - eventually to become her first officer, Janeway realized her new slice of galactic neighborhood pie needed local cultivation, expertise and advice.
So it was recognized and agreed several locals should be taken aboard the Intrepid Class Starship. Neelix and his sympathetic gal pal Kes (Jennifer Lien), an Occampan, took up residence on Voyager, trying to neatly integrate into its mostly human crew.
At the outset, Neelix acted more as tour guide and junk dealer along with navigation consultant for his Captain. Soon, however, considering their limited resources - that fueled food replicators, which if used liberally, nullify any good reason for a humanoid cook - Neelix set up his kitchen to brew his own strange edible concoctions.
Big mistake.
Physician - Heal Thyself Of Your Medical Skullduggery
Consider: If Neelix isn’t acting an incompetent boob as a food prepper man, what if he’s simply not acting on his own?
Who treats these many food borne illnesses? And if Voyager boasts such advanced precautions, why does it keep happening? Voyager’s EMH - Emergency Medical Hologram - is always on call. He’s always functional. Wait a subspace second…
Ah, methinks we’ve got a clue.
But does it mean Doc’s moral algorithms are out of whack? It could be a much more clinical motivation, even trying to expand his knowledge base.
Of course, for always attending physician, our terminally anal retentive holographic Doc, perhaps it’s merely an excuse to experiment on an unsuspecting crew. Imagine: Doc goes to the Talaxian Food Terminator pitching a shady proposal, “Mr. Neelix, your already devalued culinary reputation can’t be harmed by additional, random food poisoning cases, will it now? Forget to cook something fully, so I can see how many of these alien dishes negatively impact our crew’s mostly human digestive systems. My medical database improves, a few tummys get gassy. No big deal.”
Too crazy? Hey, we all know much stranger things happen all the time, especially to Starfleet Starships representing the legendary United Federation of Planets.
The cases of intolerable indigestion, weird skin bumps and rashes, losing one’s lunch - literally - and yes, out and out torturous food poisoning attributed to Neelix’s blunderland of food preparation shocks us as way past infamous, even, a case can be made, criminal. Star Trek: Voyager prides itself on being the starship which needs to find its way home to a sheltering Earth. Indeed, they all need to desperately find their way home basically to finally eat and digest a fully edible, decent meal.