Personality traits aren't strictly a matter of genetics. Anyway, it's been a while, but I presume I extrapolated my version of Annika from how she was portrayed in "Unimatrix Zero." The person she was in there had led a sheltered and cozy life; I don't see where the "grim and tragic" comes in, unless it's from having that fantasy stripped away.
I'm sure he was hit hard, but he's also the type who'd likely bounce back from it fairly easily. The story suffered somewhat from being so compressed; I had to skip over a lot of time in between segments of the book, and that's when Harry would've done his grieving.
No idea what you mean by that.
My portrayal of Kes was based on the show's own portrayal of the potential she had within her. My goal was to develop the plot and character threads that the show hinted at but left unfulfilled or abandoned outright. Voyager only allowed Kes to ascend to her full potential in order to write her out of the show; I wanted to explore what she could have become if she had stayed.
If the same two parents procreated at a different time and under different circumstances, there's no way the exact same gametes would combine, so whatever child they had would not have been Miral, at least not the same one. And this timeline's B'Elanna would never have reconciled with her mother Miral and thus wouldn't have wanted to use that name for her daughter.
I considered that, but ultimately it made sense to me to bring Kes and Neelix back together, in a context where the relationship was more earned and was the choice of a more mature, experienced Kes, rather than an adolescent falling for the first guy who showed her any kindness in the outside world.
