His first real memories were not of the mines, but rather of begging and living in the streets of Jamel Province's only sizable city, Corinthan. Ferris could remember banding together with other orphans, working odd jobs for food and stealing when he had to. He also remembered the abuse the people of Corinthan suffered under the hands of the Cardassian troops. It was here that he learned to hate anyone that wasn't Bajoran, and even some of his own people he had a strong dislike for.
Eventually he fell in with the Bajoran Resistance. At the age of ten Ferris was hardly recognizable as a child. He never smiled, and the harshness of his life played easily across his features. He was tall and thin, and more than willing to do whatever it took to hurt Cardassians. His fellow resistance fighters in the Vorma Tel Resistance Cell feared for the young boy's sanity, but they weren’t above focusing Ferris' anger into "constructive" pursuits. They took him in off the streets and taught him to fight. Voss showed an early interest in the old impulse fighters the Cell used, and proved in time to be quite an adaptable pilot.
Over time Voss grew to accept the Vorma Tel group as his family, the only real family he had ever known up to that point. Not that it ever really showed though...Voss was never one for expressing emotions, and even though his loathing for Cardassians was clear in his words, it rarely showed on his face...but neither did any other emotion.
It took eleven years for the Cardassians to finally be driven from Bajor. Eleven years of fighting and anger had left Voss, now in his early 20's, with no other emotional output but hatred. The Bajor he knew was gone now, but the idyllic paradise he had struggled so hard for did not rise up to take its appointed place. By 2369 Voss found himself with no war to fight, and ill prepared for the new Bajor he had given eleven years of his life for. He was uneducated, with no formal training in any discipline, and with no heritage to call his own. Voss struggled with his own emotional turmoil as well... while Bajor had been successful in its fight against the Cardassians, it felt like a very hollow victory to Voss. There had been no deciding action against their enemy, no massive victory that inflicted painful wounds. The Cardassians had simply left. For Voss, there was no closure in this, and it left him feeling cheated.
To add insult to injury, the Bajor Voss was left with was in ruins. Its Provisional Government was constantly fighting among themselves, and to make matters worse they invited more aliens into their space, this time in the form of the Federation. Ferris was livid at this turn of events, and more than willing to continue the fight against what he saw as a new set of oppressors. However he was alone in his opinion...his Cell mates were tired of war, and tired of killing. They would be willing to wait and see what the UFP would do before casting them in the same light as the Cardassians.
This attitude seemed to defuse Voss somewhat. He found himself alone again, his "family" unwilling to take up the fight any longer. They went their separate ways and settled down in mundane lives as farmers or shopkeepers. Some even joined the reformed Bajoran Militia. Voss considered his options and found none of them to his liking...He refused to be a part of a Militia that was controlled by the Provisional Government, and he was far too restless to settle down in any single place. Voss began to wander from town to town, doing odd jobs wherever he could find them. His life had come full circle from when he was an abandoned child on the streets of Corinthan.
It was only a little over a year later when Voss first heard about the group calling itself the Maquis. By 2370 Voss has wandered across the face of Bajor and right off the surface to Deep Space Nine. He had taken up a living as a dockworker for the Bajoran merchants on the station, moving goods and merchandize between the shops and the docking ports. His attitude had not improved much in the previous year, and once he heard the Maquis were fighting against Cardassians he resolved to join them. While the conflict between the Maquis and Cardassia was seen by many as an internal Federation problem Voss was willing to put aside his distrust of Humans if it meant giving his anger a focused outlet. Voss worked his contacts and old Resistance friends as best he could, and eventually found his way off Deep Space Nine and into the company of the Maquis.
For a year afterward Voss Ferris had found a place he belonged. His skills as a pilot earned him a position on board a Maquis combat craft, and he willingly took part in numerous operations against the Cardassians in the name of the disposed colonists within the Demilitarized Zone. The Federation slapped a warrant on Voss' head, with the blessing of Bajor's Provisional Government, and the one time resistance fighter was now a fugitive. He and his Maquis Cell remained several steps ahead of Starfleet, and the warrants meant little to any of them.
Staying ahead of the Cardassians however was a tougher trick to pull off. In 2371 the vessel that Voss was assigned to was attacked and tracked by a Galor-Class cruiser. A cat and mouse chase through the plasma storms of the Badlands eventually led to the vessel being swept across half the galaxy to the far reaches of the Delta Quadrant. As history would record, these events led to the destruction of the Maquis ship and the crew being stranded in the Delta Quadrant onboard the Federation Starship USS Voyager.
Voss had no clue what was in store for him. At the time, it was all he could do to remain functional...the idea of being trapped on a Starfleet vessel, being made to live by Starfleet's rules and work for them, all the while knowing he was nothing more than a prisoner and a second class being on that ship...it was almost too much to bare. The situation reminded him too much of the forced labor methods of the Cardassians, even if on the surface it seemed nicer and cleaner.
On the inside, Voss was a seething mass of conflicting emotions. Again, he had been robbed of his enemy. Again, he had been forced to accept an unsatisfying outcome. Voss began to focus his hatred on the Starfleet officers he was forced to live with, and on the ship's Captain whose fault it was that they were stranded out there. Voss carried that hatred within himself and nurtured it carefully, for it was really all he had left of his old life. He was assigned duty in Voyager's shuttlebay, and set about keeping his head down and biding his time.
As the years stretched by and Voyager encountered hostile alien after hostile alien, Voss continued to fly under the radar, as did many of his fellow Maquis members. There were days where they plotted to kill all the Feds on the ship and settle on a nice safe planet, and then there were other days where they just prayed that they would live to see dinner that night. Voss did his job and stayed out of trouble, and before long he began to realize that the Starfleet officers on the lower decks were also keeping their heads down and praying to live through the day. Conflict after conflict came across their path, and as they survived each encounter the two polar opposite crews began to mesh as one.
Voss too underwent something of a change. He found himself with no target for his anger, and no outlet for it. As he grew older onboard this odd starship, he came to the realization that he couldn't continue on forever hating what was different from himself. The power of the emotions were eating him up, burning him out. He had been in constant conflict since the day he was born, and it was wearing him down.
In time, slowly, Voss began to make friends among the Starfleet officers and to adopt the Starfleet work ethic. He put his energies into believing what those around him believed, the standards that the Federation lived by and that Starfleet operated by. He did his job, he took pride in that work, and he began to make an active effort to contribute to his new community...he became one of the crew at last.
In 2378 The USS Voyager returned to the Alpha Quadrant amid a flurry of celebrations and accolades. The crew was hailed as heroes and as extraordinary explorers. Speeches were made and promotions issues. Those members of the Maquis on board were granted full pardons for their crimes and offered real commissions within Starfleet... after all, it was the least that the Federation could do. It would look just plain bad to arrest the former Maquis members as they walked off the ship. The media storm that would follow such an act would have been intense. Instead, it was better to cut their losses and offer the Maquis officers all the help they needed to be productive members of society again. They had spent seven years onboard a Starfleet ship, and such training was invaluable.
Voss accepted Starfleet's offer of formal training and entered into a specialized program designed specifically for the former Maquis crew of the Voyager. Seven years of actual service on Voyager counted as more than enough training for any Starfleet position, and so the Academy prepared a scaled down program of officer training and ethics. Voss willingly took the classes and soaked up all he could learn. His time on the Voyager was a healing time, one that allowed him to deal with his inner turmoil and find something real to believe in again, namely himself and Starfleet.
Upon his graduation from Starfleet Academy, Voss was assigned piloting duties aboard the USS Galaxy, as a member of her Starfighter Group. Voss is understandably nervous about the prospect of having to fit into a new crew and a new ship. His past still haunts him, and he has had to endure more than a few comments while at the Academy concerning his time with the Maquis.
As an officer, Voss does what he has learned to do best... flying sub-craft and starships. Off duty the Bajoran is as difficult to get to know as he is on duty. The Starfleet Academy counselor assigned to Voss came close to diagnosing him as sociopath, but she realized instead that he just never developed the usual communicative methods most humanoids have with one another. Social niceties have never been a part of Voss' mental makeup, though he appears to be learning slowly.
While on Voyager Voss turned his need for a cause into a need to accept Starfleet and it's ways. But this has still left him with a void. Recently he has turned towards his people's natural spiritual instincts and has begun researching the religion of the Prophets. Voss has never been a religious man, and he is uncertain where this newfound interest will take him.
