what happened to chakotay after voyager

Early life and family

A young Chakotay with his father Kolopak

Chakotay was born in 2329 on a Federation colony near the Cardassian Demilitarized Zone that his native tribe had moved to several generations earlier. Here, he was raised by his father , Kolopak , who considered him a "contrary" from the beginning because he had come out of his mother "upside down", as his father once remarked. ( VOY : " Tattoo ", " Endgame ")

Chakotay also had a sister and a cousin who lived in Ohio . ( VOY : " Author, Author ", " Message in a Bottle ") During an incident in 2373 that took Voyager to Earth in 1996 , Chakotay considered "looking up" a few of his ancestors, noting that he knew of one ancestor at that time who worked as a school teacher in Arizona . ( VOY : " Future's End ")

One of Chakotay's early ancestors was Ce Acatl , a man who was fathered by a white conqueror when they first took over Chakotay's tribe's native lands on Earth. ( VOY : " Basics, Part I ")

Being of Native American descent, Chakotay's tribe – mainly because of the intrusion of more technological societies – left Earth to find their own home on another planet near the Cardassian border . From an early age, his father tried to impart his values on Chakotay in many ways, such as taking him on hikes to nearby forested worlds of their ancestors. In 2344 , he took Chakotay on a quest through the Central American rainforest , looking for their fellow descendants of the ancient Rubber Tree People that had never left the forest.

As a young man, Chakotay was rather resistant to his family's way of life and in a technologically advanced world often felt out of place among the members of his tribe who asserted a strong connection to their ancestral lands and spirits and lived a simple life . Chakotay dismissed his tribe that he believed lived in the past of fantasy and myth. He did not want to be part of that and instead wanted to be like all the other tribes that had embraced the 24th century . When his father would take him on expeditions to discover his roots and connection to the "sky spirits", Chakotay remained a reluctant participant, even ridiculing the sky spirits once by suggesting they had "taken a wrong turn" somewhere. ( VOY : " Tattoo ")

Chakotay also refused to hunt deer with his father. ( VOY : " Waking Moments ")

Kolopak tried to teach Chakotay that without Spirits to guide him, he would lose his way. But Chakotay did not want to listen as he did not place much value in spirituality. He remained resistant, instead choosing to embrace technological advancement, believing that he was the master of his own life. One of Chakotay's childhood heroes was astronaut John Kelly . ( VOY : " One Small Step ")

While initially somewhat disappointed in his son's lack of interest in the culture and traditions of their tribe, Kolopak remained patient with Chakotay and, due to his son's curiosity, allowed him to read about other societies as he was growing up. He did so because he strongly believed that ignorance is one's greatest enemy. ( VOY : " Tattoo ", " Waking Moments ")

However, by the time Chakotay was fifteen years old, he had already set his sights on Starfleet and greatly surprised his father when he told him that he was going to leave the tribe to attend Starfleet Academy . His father disapproved of his son's decision but was unable to convince him otherwise. ( VOY : " Tattoo ")

Chakotay performs the Pakra

Chakotay and his father were not on good terms when Kolopak was killed while defending his colony against Cardassians. When the news reached Chakotay, he was unsure about how to reconcile their differences and heal their old wounds. To honor his father's memory and to continue the fight in his name, Chakotay resigned from Starfleet and joined the Maquis. It was then that he took the mark, the tattoo , on his forehead in order to honor the memory of his father and to signify his Native American heritage. ( VOY : " Tattoo ")

In the years following his resignation from Starfleet, he not only joined the Maquis to fight the Cardassians but he also finally began placing great faith in his spiritual background by taking pride in the stories and accomplishments of his people. He often embarked on vision quests to help guide his life and to commune with his father's spirit. He also used a medicine wheel to heal himself both spiritually and physically. ( VOY : " The Cloud ", " Basics, Part I ", " Cathexis ")

The Pakra was the name of the solitary ritual by which Chakotay commemorated the anniversary of Kolopak's death. On stardate 49005.3, Captain Janeway granted him the use of a shuttlecraft so he could perform the ritual in private. ( VOY : " Initiations ")

When Chakotay was young, he looked after his grandfather , who suffered from hallucinations caused by an inherited defective gene . This gene was suppressed in Chakotay before birth, although it was activated for a brief period in 2375 by aliens who attempted to make contact with the crew of Voyager . ( VOY : " The Fight ")

Starfleet Academy

At the age of fifteen, Chakotay entered Starfleet Academy, sponsored by Captain Sulu . Chakotay misled the officer into believing that he had Kolopak's permission to join. ( VOY : " Tattoo ")

Chakotay possessed great piloting skills and during his first year he trained as a pilot in North America . He then went to Venus for a couple of months to learn how to handle atmospheric storms and later dodged asteroids for a semester in the Sol system asteroid belt . ( VOY : " Future's End, Part II ")

He also became a proficient boxer at the light heavyweight level, with a record of twenty-three wins and one loss. The loss was to a Nausicaan boxer with "a mean right hook ." B'Elanna Torres once jested " legend has it that 'The Tattooed Terror' has put more men in sickbay than the Ankaran flu . " ( VOY : " Tsunkatse ") His personal trainer was Academy groundsman Boothby . ( VOY : " The Fight ")*

Starfleet officer

Chakotay graduated from Starfleet Academy in 2348 . ( VOY : " Endgame ", " Tattoo ", " Parallax ")

On his first starship posting , he served during the planned first contact with the Tarkannans . After spending a lot of time pushing his captain to let him be on the diplomatic team , he began studying everything about them. When he finally came face to face with their delegation, he very proudly made the traditional gesture for "hello", not realizing that males and females have different styles of movement when making such symbolic gestures. He later found out that he had actually propositioned the ambassador . He remembered this encounter and mentioned it to Captain Janeway when in 2372 they made first contact with the Drayans , noting that it almost got his sent back to the Academy for remedial training . ( VOY : " Innocence ")

On another assignment, he visited a tomb excavation on Ktaria VII on one of his earliest away missions . There, unaware of local custom, he – wanting to take a memento – stole a small stone from the burial. He was later informed that each stone represented a prayer and that he had desecrated the burial site. ( VOY : " Emanations ")

On another occasion, he beamed down to a planet and the pattern buffer malfunctioned, misreading his Starfleet uniform . When he rematerialized, all he had was his combadge . ( VOY : " In the Flesh ")

Once, while serving in Starfleet, he learned to communicate with a " Terrelian seapod "; something normally thought very difficult to communicate with. ( VOY : " Equinox, Part II ")

Chakotay aboard his Maquis raider Val Jean in 2371

After his father was killed in 2368 while defending their colony, Chakotay resisted the Cardassian takeover of his planet – as per the terms of the border treaty between Cardassia and the Federation. He refused to stand by and watch his people be displaced once again, as had happened on Earth hundreds of years ago. ( VOY : " Tattoo ") As such, he was one of the Maquis who were in the fight for principle, not mercenary gain or violent outlet. ( VOY : " Caretaker ", " Repression ")

On March 3 , 2368 he resigned from his position as an instructor in Starfleet's Advanced Tactical Training by submitting his resignation to Admiral Nimembeh . He was recruited in the Maquis by his old friend Sveta . ( VOY : " In the Flesh ", " Hunters ")

After joining the Maquis, he became one of its leaders and his cell one of the most successful in resisting the Cardassians and Federation. His vessel, the Val Jean , was his primary mode of space transportation. ( VOY : " Caretaker ") Like captains of other ships, he would have conversation with his. ( VOY : " The Haunting of Deck Twelve ") Aside from his Val Jean crew, including Seska , B'Elanna Torres , Ayala , and many others ; Chakotay had other Maquis friends, including Li-Paz , Sahreen , Meyer and Nelson . ( VOY : " Extreme Risk ")

Among their various missions as Maquis, included an instance when Chakotay, Torres, and Seska successfully disabled the computer core on a Cardassian frigate , orbiting Bajor . This was accomplished when Seska modified an antiproton beam to penetrate the frigate's shields and hull from an extremely close range. ( VOY : " Maneuvers ")

Around 2370 , Chakotay encountered two Starfleet runabouts near Teluridian IV . Although outnumbered, the Val Jean was able to escape using the Maquis trick whereby they blew out the dorsal phase emitters and cut main power, making it look as if the ship was in serious trouble. ( VOY : " Ex Post Facto ")

While trying to escape from a Cardassian warship commanded by Gul Evek in the Badlands , Chakotay and his crew, including Tuvok – Captain Janeway 's security chief working undercover as a Maquis – were transported to the Delta Quadrant by the Caretaker's array . In an attempt to locate the disappeared Maquis ship, USS Voyager followed them into the Badlands, becoming trapped 70,000 light years away in the Delta Quadrant shortly after. ( VOY : " Caretaker ")

USS Voyager

After having made contact with Voyager and accepting the realization of being alone in an uncharted part of the galaxy , Chakotay agreed to cooperate with Janeway when both of their crews were abducted and subjected to medical testing by the Caretaker . The crewmembers were eventually found, and the Caretaker's Array destroyed so it would not fall into the hands of the ruthless Kazon .

In order to protect Voyager while it destroyed the Array, Chakotay crashed his ship into a Kazon carrier vessel .

Following the destruction of his ship in the Delta Quadrant, Chakotay and his crew joined Voyager 's crew as one Starfleet crew in order to find a way home. He was granted the provisional rank of Commander and became Voyager 's second in command . As first officer, he was in charge of all ship personnel and of protecting the captain, both roles which he threw himself into. A man of great moral conviction and courage, Chakotay embraced Starfleet principles once again and served Captain Janeway as first officer, forging a meaningful friendship with her; despite moments of strong disagreement, he was loyal to Janeway and the ship and helped keep the peace and establish cooperation and a positive rapport between the Maquis and the Starfleet crew. As the one responsible for the personnel, and as a friendly and approachable person, he was familiar with the crew and understood how they were feeling, more so than the captain. ( VOY : " Caretaker ", " The Cloud ", " The 37's ", " Day of Honor ", " Course: Oblivion ", " Shattered ")

The first year (2371)

Chakotay shows Crewman Dalby how it's done "the Maquis way"

On appointment to First Officer, Chakotay was unsure if Janeway was using him as a "token" Maquis officer and confronts her about it while also advocating for his fellow Maquis members. However, his devotion to Voyager was strong, even though he never lost his sense of being Maquis: he even threatened to throw his Maquis crewmates Seska and Jarvin into the brig when they said they would support him in a mutiny against Janeway. When Tuvok wished to train a group of Maquis in order to bring them up to Starfleet standards, Chakotay forcefully persuaded them, after they initially resisted and wanted to do things "the Maquis way". ( VOY : " Parallax ", " Learning Curve ", " Life Line ", " Repression ")

Chakotay was thrown into command of Voyager early on in his time as part of the crew when Janeway and Tom Paris become stuck a day in the past on a planet's surface. Chakotay had to command the ship and lead an away mission to find Janeway and Paris. In this command position, over the first few years Chakotay has a number of clashes with Tuvok, who had been spying on him in the Maquis and who would naturally have been Janeway's first officer under more usual circumstances. The two came to respect each other over the course of the years they serve together, however. ( VOY : " Time and Again ", " Twisted ", " Night ")

Despite his attempts to stay as neutral and objective as possible when it came to the merged crew, he sometimes felt the need to stand up for some of his former Maquis members, knowing that if he didn't stand up for them, no one else would. He, for example, recommended a hot-tempered B'Elanna Torres as chief engineer and was willing, against all odds, to give Seska the benefit of the doubt when she was accused of secretly collaborating with the enemy . ( VOY : " Learning Curve ", " Parallax ", " State of Flux ") His recommendation of and advocacy for Torres was a vital moment for Voyager , not only helping to integrate the two crews, but also providing the ship with a truly brilliant engineer. While Janeway needed convincing, she quickly recognised the wisdom in Chakotay's work, telling him within their first two months in the Delta Quadrant, " A good choice for Chief Engineer, if I do say so myself ". ( VOY : " Parallax ", " Fury ")

Chakotay confronts Seska

He also had his share of personal disappointments after joining Voyager : he found out that Tuvok was a Federation spy and actually Captain Janeway's security chief sent to infiltrate his crew, Seska, his lover, was revealed to be a Cardassian spy who, now in the Delta Quadrant, had also begun to secretly collaborate with and transfer Federation technology to the Kazon, and he had to deal with Tom Paris , a person he not only disliked, but whom he actually considered to be nothing but a mercenary willing to sell out to the highest bidder. The betrayal of Seska was particularly hard on him, not only because he had an intimate relationship with her, but also because he had personally vouched for her. Her betrayal of his trust angered and humiliated Chakotay. When he confronted her, she told him that she did it for him and the crew because their captain was a fool and incapable of getting them home. Shortly after, Seska escaped from the ship and joined Maje Culluh of the Kazon Nistrim . ( VOY : " Caretaker ", " State of Flux ")

Chakotay's interests in anthropology and paleontology , and his respect for other cultures, is evident on a number of occasions during the voyage. They are revealed early on in the first year after an away mission uncovered that mineral deposits on an asteroid were part of decomposing remains in a burial site. Chakotay gathers a lot of information simply by observing closely, not wanting to show disrespect by even using passive tricorders scans. ( VOY : " Emanations ")

Chakotay quickly and naturally fell into the role of informal spiritual guide and counsel to a number of the crew, including Janeway, who he guides on a vision quest to find her animal guide during their first months together. ( VOY : " The Cloud ") In keeping with his character, this is understated role, something he is approached about or offers at appropriate times. ( VOY : " The Cloud ", " Mortal Coil ")

His tactical and piloting skills were also required from early on on Voyager . In one instance, with the usual helmsman unavailable, Chakotay used Maquis tactics to disable attacking ships. He stated, " out here in the Delta quadrant, every old trick is new again " and indicated he had many tricks to use. He also devised a way of detecting a hidden ship using Voyager 's phasers. ( VOY : " Ex Post Facto ", " Phage ")

During their first year in the Delta Quadrant, Voyager met a number of hostile species, including the Vidiians , who harvest organs from other species to perpetuate their own. The Vidiians were considered, along with the Borg and Species 8472 , the prime examples of species hostile to Voyager in the Delta Quadrant. ( VOY : " Good Shepherd ") During an ambush of Voyager within its first two months in the quadrant, Chakotay's Starfleet advanced tactical training combined with his Maquis ingenuity and tenacity saved the ship from being overwhelmed by the Vidiians, who had managed to attach a number of grapplers to Voyager 's hull. Janeway absent from the bridge, Chakotay took charge and instructed Kim to reverse the hull's polarity in an effort to shake the grapplers off. Rerouting the deflector to discharge antigraviton pulses along the hull and engaging the inertial dampers started a controlled pitch of the ship and snapped a grappler off. Chakotay then ordered helm to reverse thrusters at full power, to resist the Vidiians deploying a tractor beam , despite objections from the crew that doing so could tear the hull apart. A section of the hull came away with a grappler, but the ship was free and angled for an attack. Chakotay ordered a full spread of photon torpedoes to be fired at the Vidiian ship, neutralising the threat. ( VOY : " Fury ")

Another enemy Voyager faced in the first year were the Komar . Chakotay's shuttlecraft was attacked by them during an away mission . After the attack, Chakotay was apparently rendered brain dead , forcing The Doctor to use artificial means to keep his body alive. In reality, however, his neural energy had been extracted, turning him into a disembodied spirit, while Tuvok – who had been in the shuttlecraft with him – was possessed by the Komar in an attempt to lure the crew into a nebula and steal their neural energy. Although Chakotay soon learned how to control others in order to prevent the crew being led into the trap, his actions were initially taken as being the actions of a hostile entity trying to sabotage the ship. However, Chakotay's presence was confirmed when he ejected the warp core after having occupied B'Elanna Torres' body: she lacked the authority to eject the core by herself, but, as first officer, Chakotay possessed the required command codes . With his presence confirmed, he subsequently used a medicine wheel , which that Torres had placed in sickbay next to his body, to provide the crew with a map out of the nebula. The Doctor later developed a treatment that returned his mind to his body. ( VOY : " State of Flux ", " Cathexis ")

Another time, Chakotay, Kim and Tuvok were held hostage by a photonic lifeform because one of the lifeform's fellows was contained on Voyager for scientific tests. The crew are released when the lifeform is. ( VOY : " Heroes and Demons ")

Chakotay, undercover as a Vidiian

The first officer's bravery is demonstrated when, disguied as a Vidiian, one of Voyager 's most feared enemies, he infiltrates a Vidiian labor camp and medical facility to rescue Torres and Paris. ( VOY : " Faces ")

The second year (2372)

Early on in the second year, Voyager visited a planet where Humans lived. The inhabitants invited any of Voyager 's crew to stay with them. Both Janeway and Chakotay were saddened by the prospect that members of the crew might stay behind and concerned about how hard it might become to run a starship with a diminished crew. Chakotay reassured Janeway, however, saying, " No matter what happens, we'll make it. Remember that ". It turned out that not one crew member decided to stay on the planet. ( VOY : " The 37's ")

While honoring one of his tribal rituals , remembering the anniversary of his father's death, Chakotay's shuttlecraft was attacked by a young Kazon of the Ogla sect seeking to earn his Ogla name through killing. Chakotay outmaneuvered the Kazon and destroyed his ship before beaming the child to his own. The young Kazon, called Kar , was angry at Chakotay because being taken captive and either not being victorious or dying in battle were a disgrace. Chakotay's shuttlecraft was captured by Kar's sect's main ship and the Kazon-Ogla First Maje said Chakotay could go free if he killed Kar. Throughout his time with Kar, Chakotay had insisted that he wasn't interested in a fight or in killing people and he refused to kill Kar, instead taking the First Maje hostage and escaping with Kar's help. Chakotay continued to refuse to kill, ignoring Kar's information about how to destroy the Kazon ship, and Kar eventually realised that Chakotay wasn't his enemy. When the pair were eventually caught, Chakotay had devised a plan to enable Kar to return to his sect with honor: he told Kar to kill him, and he would then be beamed to sickbay on Voyager where he would be resuscitated. In the moment, however, Kar, unwilling to kill Chakotay, killed the First Maje and regained his place in his sect. ( VOY : " Initiations ")

When The Doctor 's program was damaged while he was in a holo simulation in the holodeck and he was experiencing delusions that were telling him he was really a Human trapped in a simulation on Jupiter Station , he was in danger of destroying his program by terminating the simulation. Chakotay was projected via a hologram into the simulation and tried to explain to The Doctor what was happening. Trying to convince him to terminate the simulation, his delusions asked him what he would rather be: a Human with a real life and family or a hologram trapped in a sickbay on a ship lost in deep space. Chakotay informed him that what he was made of didn't change who he was to the rest of the crew: he was their friend and no less real than anyone else. He manged to delay The Doctor long enough for the crew to work out how to free him from the simulation without terminating his program. ( VOY : " Projections ")

Chakotay's interest in anthropology became useful again when, during the second year, Voyager was attacked by a spaceborne alien of similar dimension to the ship. The alien saw Voyager as a mating rival. While Janeway is preparing to attack the alien in return in an attempt to escape, Chakotay, having observed how smaller members of the species behave in deference to the larger, recommends Voyager mimics them to appear less threatening. Chakotay's plan is successful. ( VOY : " Elogium ")

Chakotay had a frustrating period in command when Voyager was being distorted by an unknown force that didn't respond to any of their attempts to reverse it. Janeway had been incapacitated by the force, leaving Chakotay in command. During these events, Chakotay vehemently opposed a challenge to his command from Tuvok but, when they thought they were possibly going to die, Chakotay tells Tuvok that, while he does find him to be arrogant at times, he can't deny that he's an excellent officer. Tuvok, in return, admits that he has had difficulty accepting Janeway's decision to promote Chakotay to first officer over him and apologizes for anything he did to make him uncomfortable. The force warping Voyager turned out to be a lifeform trying to communicate with them and the ship returned to normal once it had moved on. ( VOY : " Twisted ")

Chakotay meeting with a Sky Spirit

While stranded on a planet during an away mission , Chakotay came in contact with an alien race that spoke the language of his ancestors. The aliens explained that they had visited his ancestors over 45,000 years ago, gave them a genetic bonding and were known to the tribe as the Sky Spirits . When they eventually returned to Earth on their last trip, finding no trace of the tribe, they believed they had been wiped out by other Humans.

When Chakotay met and spoke with the Sky Spirits, he was finally able to feel the kind of connection to his heritage that was always missing when he was younger. He wished that he could see his father's face now in this moment of epiphany. He explained to the aliens that Kolopak had died fighting for his colony, honoring the land just as he always said he would and just as his ancestors had done. During this encounter, Chakotay finally came to truly understand his father, telling him in spirit that he could finally hear the sky spirits. ( VOY : " Tattoo ")

Chakotay and Janeway's relationship was tested when Chakotay left Voyager without permission to pursue Seska and the Kazon on his own in a shuttlecraft. With Seska's help, the Kazon had successfully raided Voyager and stolen transporter technology – technology that was unique to their part of the quadrant and with which they could dramatically change the balance of power in their favor. Janeway had decided Voyager would retrieve the techonology; however, while all the crew had been beaten by Seska, Chakotay took it personally, Seska having deceived him a number of times in the past, which ended up humiliated him because he had defended her. Chakotay's daring mission to destroy the stolen technology – using Maquis tactics he had learned from Seska – was successful, but left him stranded with the Kazon and put Voyager in danger when they rescued him (he had asked that they abandon him, a suggestion that was seriously considered by Janeway; she decided against it following an intervention from Torres, who said it would badly effect the crew if they left him). Chakotay was put on report , Janeway asking him, " How do you expect me to keep order when the first officer decides to run off like some cowboy because he believes it's a good idea? ". Chakotay also received shocking news from Seska following his encounter with her: she said Chakotay was going to be a father because she had extracted some of his DNA and impregnated herself with it. (It turns out Chakotay wasn't the child's father, something he only learned months later – which, when discovered, was a surprise to Seska.) ( VOY : " Maneuvers ", " Basics, Part II ")

Janeway and Chakotay working on building a boat on New Earth

The same year, Chakotay and Janeway were infected with an incurable virus which necessitated them being left behind on a planet whose environment somehow halted the progression of the disease. They named the planet New Earth and, while Janeway was not willing to give up on a cure, Chakotay came to terms with their predicament and worked on making the planet a better home. He even built Janeway a bath tub . During their time together, they drew closer and Janeway asked him to drop the formalities and call her Kathryn. The first signs of affection between the two also began to manifest as outside of a command structure a romantic relationship seemed less inappropriate, but both were still hesitant to act on their feelings. After an antidote was found for the disease and they returned to the ship, they decided to leave everything that had happened on the planet between them behind and maintain a professional relationship which eventually developed into a deep friendship between the two. The one thing that remained of this time was his continued use of her first name, an intimacy never granted to anyone else on board Voyager . ( VOY : " Resolutions ")

The third year (2373)

Chakotay while stranded on Hanon IV with the rest of Voyager 's crew

After Voyager traveled back in time to 20th century Los Angeles on Earth to stop Henry Starling from stealing the timeship Aeon , Chakotay had a conversation with Torres about what they would be doing with their lives if they were stuck in the 20th century. Chakotay said that he could see himself pursuing archaeology full-time, teaching at the university or working in Central America , making important discoveries and maybe even winning the Nobel Prize . The crew were successful in stopping Starling from taking the timeship into the future on a poorly calculated journey that could have triggered a temporal explosion. They were then returned to the future they had come from, in their previous location in the Delta Quadrant, by a Federation officer piloting the Aeon from a now saved – and oblivious to the narrowly missed disaster – 29th century. ( VOY : " Future's End ", " Future's End, Part II ")

Later that year, he was injured during an away mission and trapped on a world where the inhabitants were engrossed in conflict. While recovering from his injuries, among one of the people who rescued him was a Human named Riley Frazier who, as it soon turned out, was a former Borg drone severed from the Collective , as had all the inhabitants on the planet . She explained that five years ago, their Borg cube was damaged by an electrokinetic storm and their link to the Collective severed. They moved to the planet but unfortunately, as soon as people began to assert their identities, conflicts erupted, and people turned against each other. Some, like Riley and her companions, were not interested in fighting but wanted to work cooperatively. They asked Chakotay to help them by activating the neuro-electric field generator in the Borg cube so that they could reconnect the entire population. Riley explained that the link would provide them with the unique ability to cooperate and problem-solve so they would be rid of conflict and instead could finally create a safe and productive community. Chakotay passionately advocated for Riley, but Janeway found it unconscionable to reactivate the cube. Pretending to have respected Janeway's decision, Riley and her friends – who had previously linked with Chakotay to heal his severe injuries – used the residual effects of the link to telepathically connect with him again and force him to reactivate their link. After Chakotay reactivated the cube, he was let go and the cube – as promised – was destroyed by the New Cooperative. Chakotay was somewhat disappointed with what they had done, stating that even though they held their part of the bargain, they did not hesitate to impose their collective will on him when it served their purposes. He wondered how long their ideals would last in the face of that kind of power . ( VOY : " Unity ")

The same year, Chakotay became involved in the Distant Origin Theory controversy among the Voth , a Saurian species that believed they were native to the Delta Quadrant. Forra Gegen , a leading Voth scientist and (like Chakotay) paleontologist, believed that the Voth were descended from a species in a different part of the galaxy : Earth. The official interpretation on the planet was that the Voth were the first beings to evolve into intelligent beings in the galaxy. After finding the bones of a Voyager crewmember, he believed that he had evidence of his theory. He discovered Voyager , and, using a cloaked device, boarded the ship, abducting Chakotay. The Doctor determined that the Voth had evolved from the dinosaurs on Earth. When the evidence was presented to the Voth council, Chakotay stood with Gegen to support his evidence and spoke persuasively. The council rejected the evidence and threatened to imprison Chakotay and the rest of the Voyager crew, unless Gegen publicly disavowed his theory, something Gegen felt he had no choice but to do. Before leaving, however, Chakotay gave Gegen a small hand-held globe of planet Earth in the hope that one day the Voth would see it as their place of origin. As they parted, Chakotay spoke Gegen's moto to him, " Eyes open ", which Gegen returned. ( VOY : " Distant Origin ")

Chakotay's holodeck image became a central figure in a Tuvok-written holoprogram about a Maquis-led mutiny. In that holonovel – which was originally written for training purposes in case of a mutiny – Chakotay was depicted as a traitor instigating a mutiny against Captain Janeway and the rest of the Starfleet crew in order to get them back home unhindered by Federation rules and principles. While amusing at first, the holonovel quickly turned dangerous when it was discovered that the program had been accessed by Seska before she left the ship and programmed to trap and kill whoever submitted changes to it. ( VOY : " Worst Case Scenario ")

That year also proved to be one of the most challenging chapters for Voyager and its crew as they finally entered the much-dreaded Borg space . When they discovered that the Borg were at war with a powerful species known as Species 8472 , Janeway decided to enter into an alliance with the Borg for safe passage through their space in exchange for helping them beat Species 8472. Chakotay was strongly against entering into such an unholy alliance, in part because of his experiences of being controlled by a collective using Borg techonolgy, but Janeway was convinced that it was the only option available to them. When the Borg betrayed Janeway, just as Chakotay had predicted, and she was injured, Chakotay took command and broke off the alliance. When Janeway recovered, she was disappointed that Chakotay did not trust her. This incident marked one of the many clashes between Chakotay and Janeway over command decisions. Chakotay was instrumental in defeating the Borg after they try to double-cross Voyager , linking with the drone Seven of Nine via a neural transceiver attached to his neck, communicating with the Human part of the drone before Torres send a power surge to overwhelm the drone. Chakotay was injured in the process. He was extremely skeptical of Janeway's decision to try to integrate Seven of Nine into the Voyager crew. ( VOY : " Scorpion ", " Scorpion, Part II ")

The fourth year (2374)

In 2374 , Chakotay had various encounters with a number of different races. After a shuttle accident, he was brainwashed by the Vori , who had him join their war against the Kradin . They used simulated scenarios of innocent Vori being killed and tortured. Despite the peace he had found and peaceful ways he had learned over the recent years while on Voyager , he became so embittered by the Vori propaganda that he turned into a killing machine. He was rescued by Tuvok and convinced of the brainwashing before he could complete his first real incursion against the Kradin. ( VOY : " Nemesis ")

Chakotay loses his hair and starts rapidly aging

He and the crew were used in medical experiments by the Srivani . When Neelix was almost killed in an accident and brought back to life, Neelix questioned his beliefs in the afterlife and the meaning of life itself. Chakotay, being a spiritual man himself, urged Neelix to not draw any negative conclusions from his experience but instead see them as a time for growth into a potentially stronger faith. ( VOY : " Scientific Method ", " Mortal Coil ")

Chakotay saved Voyager from the Dream Aliens : they had caused the crew to remain in a dream state while they were attempting to destroy the ship. Chakotay used lucid dreaming in order to remain in control during his dream and thus interacted with the aliens. He managed to wake himself and, with The Doctor's help, stay awake while he worked out how to help the crew. He eventually found that the aliens were using a large transmitter on their home world to boost their dream control to the entire crew. He told The Doctor to aim a torpedo at the cavern and, upon reentering the dream controlled by the aliens, tells the alien leader to end the dream or face destruction, freeing the crew from alien control. ( VOY : " Waking Moments ")

Chakotay and his fellow Maquis received bad news this year when Starfleet managed to get messages to Voyager . In a letter from Sveta, the person who had recruited him into the Maquis, Chakotay heard that the Maquis have been defeated and many of his Maquis friends had been killed. Chakotay relayed this to the other Maquis on board. ( VOY : " Hunters ")

The Hirogen hijacked Voyager during this year and turned the holodecks into a hunting arena, forcing the crew to battle against them in different holo simulations. The crew, with neural interfaces implanted in their necks, believed themselves to be the characters they were playing in these deadly games. In one such simulation, in which the Hirogen took on the role of Nazis during World War II , Chakotay was Captain Miller of the United States Army . Thankfully, efforts to liberate the crew, initiated by The Doctor and Harry Kim, were successful. ( VOY : " The Killing Game ", " The Killing Game, Part II ")

Chakotay and an alien from an isolationist species fell in love during the course of this year. The problem was, however, that due to their biology Kellin 's race, the Ramuran , were forgotten within hours of absence from members of other species. Chakotay didn't remember Kellin upon her return to Voyager , where she sought aslyum from her people, who would try to capture her and return her to Ramura . She had returned to Voyager because she loved Chakotay, specifically because he was kind. Initially unsure of Kellin, having forgotten her after her previous departure, they quickly fell in love again. Unfortunately, a Ramuran tracer boarded Voyager and wiped Kellin's memory of life outside of Ramura, including Chakotay. Chakotay tried to convince her they were in love but failed and sadly said goodbye. Before he forgot, he wrote down his memories of his time with Kellin. ( VOY : " Unforgettable ")

Chakotay demonstrated his extensive piloting ability when he landed Voyager on a Demon class planetoid, successfully navigating the starship through its savage atmosphere . Later, on an away mission to look for missing crewmates Paris and Kim, when tricorders weren't able to help he used scouting skills he had learned from his tribe. While on the planet, Chakotay and the crew allowed themselves to be duplicated by a biomimetic lifeform known as Silver Blood . ( VOY : " Demon ")

The fifth year (2375)

Chakotay effectively captained Voyager for months as it journeyed through an area of space seemingly devoid of life and even planetary objects and stars. During this time, Janeway had confined herself to quarters and was suffering from depression brought on because she felt guilty for stranding her crew far from home. Chakotay tries to convince her to resume her duties fully, but she refuses. Later, as Janeway tried to assuage her guilt by ordering the crew to abandon her at one end of a spatial vortex she will destroy once they have pass safely through, Chakotay leads the crew in refusing her orders, forcing Janeway to reconsider and stay with the crew. He informs the captain that he "wouldn't be a fine first officer if I hadn't" . Moments prior to the crew's confrontation with the cpatain, Chakotay asked for Tuvok's support in refusing her, which may have been a turning point in their relationship. ( VOY : " Night ")

The news received the previous year, about the defeat of the Maquis and the deaths of their Maquis friends effected the Maquis onboard Voyager in different ways. Months after hearing the news, B'Elanna Torres, who had initially reacted with anger, had become depressed and numb to all feelings in her life and began taking extreme risks in an effort to feel alive: turning the safety protocols off in the holodeck, she would fight Cardassians or go orbital skydiving . When it became apparent that she was unwell, Chakotay tried to help her. Using rather forceful methods – perhaps because he himself was disturbed by one of Torres' holoprograms , which depicted the deaths of their Maquis friends – he made Torres confront her thoughts and actions, reminding her that, while she had lost much of her Maquis family, the crew on Voyager were her family, too, that they would be with her, and that she needed to find other ways to deal with her depression. ( VOY : " Hunters ", " Extreme Risk ")

Chakotay and the infamous kiss with a member of Species 8472

Chakotay encountered Species 8472 again, when Voyager discovered an Earth-like recreation on a space station . It turned out to be a training facility for a possible invasion of Earth by Species 8472. They had assumed various identities of Starfleet officers. While on reconnaissance Away missions to the station he became romantically involved with one of the aliens who had assumed the identity of a Starfleet commander named Valerie Archer . Their mutual respect and trust were important factors in persuading their superiors to come to a diplomatic agreement to avoid conflict. ( VOY : " In the Flesh ")

In 2375 , Voyager was able to apparently perfect their own version of the Quantum slipstream drive to get them home. However, a potential glitch in the drive meant Chakotay and Harry Kim had to use the Delta Flyer to map the slipstream in advance of Voyager , monitoring potential instabilities in the slipstream matrix as it formed and relaying corrections back to the larger ship. The night before the voyage, Janeway invited Chakotay to dinner in her quarters , their last night in the Delta Quadrant. When asked, Chakotay expressed doubts about the plan to use the drive, stating that the risks were so high Starfleet engineers would not allow it. Janeway said she was willing to take the risk and asked if Chakotay was with her. " Always ", he replied. Chakotay piloted the Flyer while Paris was at Voyager 's helm . The drive destablised shortly into the voyage and did not return the ship to the Alpha Quadrantc, although it did knock ten years off the journey. ( VOY : " Timeless ")

It was this at point, more than a year since Seven of Nine had been severed from the Borg Collective and joined the crew of Voyager , who were now at risk of losing her to an illness, that Chakotay expressed to Janeway that she had proved him wrong regarding her decision to integrate Seven into the crew. ( VOY : " Infinite Regress ")

Chakotay, while affected by the telepathic pitcher plant

Chakotay's hopes and fears were revealed when Voyager came into contact with a " Telepathic pitcher plant " during this year. The enormous space-dwelling organism inticed the ship into its digestive tract by making the crew believe it was a wormhole home where they would receive their desires. Chakotay imagined he'd received a full pardon for his actions as Maquis and a professorship of Anthropology at Starfleet Academy. ( VOY : " Bliss ")

Chakotay devised the plan for stealing the Borg transwarp coil from a Borg sphere described by Janeway as " Fort Knox ". The heist was successful, except that during the away mission Seven of Nine chose to return to the Collective. Despite his previous steps to acceptance of Seven of Nine, Chakotay was ready to wonder if she had betrayed Voyager . ( VOY : " Dark Frontier ")

Chakotay being treated after running Chakotay Training Program 15-Beta

When Voyager became trapped in chaotic space , alien inhabitants of that region communicated with Chakotay by reactivating a medically suppressed, defective gene of his responsible for an inherited cognitive disorder called sensory tremens that could cause realistic auditory and visual hallucinations – which the aliens spoke through, appearing to Chakotay in the faces of his friends, family and a boxing opponent. Chakotay – whose grandfather , Chakotay believed, had become insane because of the gene – was frightened of becoming like his ancestor and resisted the aliens' efforts. Fighting against his fears, he learned from the aliens how to guide the ship out of chaotic space before the ship was destroyed by the anomaly . ( VOY : " The Fight ")

While bringing up the rear of an away team escaping a depressurising deck on a Malon export vessel contaminated with theta radiation , Chakotay was knocked unconscious by flying debris and had to be beamed out of the vacuum to Voyager . ( VOY : " Juggernaut ")

One of the more serious conflicts between him and Captain Janeway occurred in late 2375 with the discovery of the USS Equinox that was commanded by Starfleet Captain Rudolph Ransom . Ransom and his crew had been using nucleogenic lifeforms as fuel for their special warp drive ; an act that appalled Janeway unimaginably, especially because it was a dishonor to Starfleet, leading her to set upon a relentless hunt until the Equinox and its crew were brought to justice. In her fury, she not only compromised the safety of the ship on numerous occasions, despite Chakotay's advice, but also wanted to subject one of Ransom's captured crew members to torture to retrieve information out of him. Chakotay was successful at preventing the worst from happening and warned her that he would not tolerate her crossing that line again. Janeway, angered and determined, relieved Chakotay of duty, so she could pursue Ransom unhindered. When she finally came to her senses, she realized how she had crossed the line herself and that Chakotay would certainly have had good reason to have stage a mutiny against her. Chakotay said he had thought of doing such, but that that would have been crossing the line. ( VOY : " Equinox ")

The sixth year (2376)

Towards the start of this year, Seven of Nine learned she was responsible for the condition of three members of her former Borg unimatrix whose minds were still linked despite having escaped the Collective. As they lie unconscious in sickbay , she battles with guilt and their fate: to separate them into individuals who will die within a month or return them to the Borg where they will live longer but as part of the Collective. Chakotay tried to comfort Seven, asks her to think about her experience and to consider the difference between existing and living. Seven's decision is that " Existence is insufficient ". ( VOY : " Survival Instinct ")

Voyager was caught in a conflict begun by the Vaadwaur , a confrontational and treacherous species that was revived after over eight-hundred years in stasis . They had been revived by a crew member with good intentions and, as they were unknown to Voyager and seemed in need, Janeway made an alliance with them. Chakotay felt uncertain about the Vaadwaur's intentions and was wary of awakening them, recalling an old Greek myth about a dragon killed in battle whose teeth fell to the ground only to spring up as full-grown warriors to continue the fight. He used this allegory to demonstrate how Voyager might inadvertently be re-instigating a bloody war that had long stopped. ( VOY : " Dragon's Teeth ")

In the same year, Voyager encountered an ancient spaceship from one of Humanity's first manned missions to Mars floating in a gravimetric distortion . Chakotay instantly recognized the phenomenon, recalling how the Ares IV was lost to it in the early 21st century . He was intrigued by their discovery and more than enthused to be leading the mission to enter the distortion to retrieve the command module . Tom Paris was impressed that Chakotay knew more about the Ares IV than he did. Chakotay remarked that the Mars missions paved the way for the exploration of space and that Lieutenant John Kelly , who piloted the Ares , was one of his favorite childhood heroes. During the away mission, Chakotay also got to engage in another of his interests, paleontology, discovering things contained within the anomaly. Chakotay's obsession with recovering the command module, however, put the lives of the away team at risk. Despite being ordered to immediately leave the distortion because it was becoming too dangerous to stay inside, Chakotay insisted the team haul the module with them, inhibiting their escape and causing them to become trapped. Chakotay was injured when they were trying to leave the anomaly and had to remain on the Delta Flyer while the task of retrieving a component from the command module to fix the Flyer fell on Seven of Nine, who did not share Chakotay's or anyone else's enthusiasm for such sentimental attachments to history. Chakotay expressed his envy when he realized that he could not beam on board the Ares and insisted Seven download the data Kelly had recorded. While Seven was angry with Chakotay for endangering their lives, his and the rest of the crew's enthusiasm for discovery and remembering history affected her and she began to appreciate learning about, remembering and being inspired by history. ( VOY : " One Small Step ")

In the same year, when Seven overloaded her Human brain trying to download too much information at once from the ship's logs and became delusional about possible conspiracies aboard the ship, Chakotay and Janeway almost came into conflict when she told them two competing conspiracy theories and they became suspicious of each other. When they discovered what had happened, they realised they had come too far together not to trust each other. ( VOY : " The Voyager Conspiracy ")

When Voyager weathered a neutronic storm the crew filled their time in one of Paris' holo programs . Janeway begins to fall in love with one of the characters but is uncomfortable and embarrased by that. Chakotay, whilst teasing her a little, also encourages Janeway to enjoy the relationship, saying that it's nice to see her having a little fun, sharing that it's something he did with holo programs himself. Janeway took his advice (and that of The Doctor, who advised similarly) and countinued to cultivate a relationship with the holo character. A number of weeks later, when there was a dangerous problem with Paris' program, Janeway wanted to avoid turning off the energy supply to the program, if possible, so the program wouldn't be lost. She said that, while the characters weren't real, the crew's (including her own) feelings for them were. ( VOY : " Fair Haven ")

Chakotay's love of anthropology brought vital information to Voyager when it was caught in the gravimetric gradient of a planet on which time passes more quickly than in the rest of space. Chakotay launches a probe that records images every ten milliseconds, enabling the crew to see civilisations develop on the planet and track seismic activity caused by the presence of Voyager . He says the information provided by the probe could be the greatest anthropological find of his career. With Seven of Nine, he was also the first the find and translate a message from the planet's inhabitants. When a difficulty transporting The Doctor back to the ship from the planet's surface meant The Doctor was trapped on the planet for years (by the time frame of the planet) and hard to locate, Chakotay, knowing The Doctor's love of opera and concert music, suggests narrowing sensor scans to the arts district. The Doctor is immediately found. ( VOY : " Blink of an Eye ")

The ship's crew suffered traumatic memories of participating in the massacre of innocent civilians on a nearby planet, believing they had been responsible the atrocity. Chakotay and an away team who first surveyed the planet suffered the most from the memories. At one point Neelix, suffering from these memories and believing himself to be in a firefight, holed himself up in the mess hall and Chakotay had to talk him out of it. The crew discovered the memories were being transmitted by a synaptic transmitter in a structure on the planet that sent neurogenic pulses that caused memories of the massacre to be implanted in anyone who came near. It was a memorial to the victims of the massacre and a reminder to never let such a massacre happen again. Most traumatised, Chakotay and other members of the original away team wanted to dismantle the monument so that others wouldn't have to experience the trauma they had. The memories could not be removed and would always stay with them. Janeway overrulled them, saying that the monument must stand as a testimony to the lives lost. The crew repaiered the structure so that it functioned properly and left a warning buoy orbiting the planet to inform other ships of what to expect. ( VOY : " Memorial ")

During shore leave on Norcadia Prime , Chakotay and other members of the crew were able to enjoy watching martial combat competitions. Jokingly, he said he was observing it for anthropological research but, being a boxer, he was quite a fan of the local martial art tsunkatse , discussing fighters' statistics with his crewmates. While watching a match, Seven of Nine entered the combat arena, having been kidnapped, along with Tuvok, and forced to fight. Janeway being away from the ship herself, visiting a planet in the neighboring system, Chakotay lead Voyager in finding the ship on which Seven and Tuvok were held and attacked it, despite the ship being stronger than Voyager – in Torres' words, it was " way out of our weight class ". As they attacked the ship, Penk , the leader of the kidnappers, commended Chakotay on his fighting spirit. With the help of Janeway returning in the Delta Flyer , they mamaged to extract Seven and Tuvok from Penk's ship. ( VOY : " Tsunkatse ")

Returning from an away mission in the Delta Flyer , Chakotay is captured by a Borg cube along with Paris, Kim and Neelix. Held in an assimilation chamber , Chakotay manages to keep his team calm, despite their fears of impending assimilation and organizes them to try to find a way to escape. Their efforts are foiled but thankfully they are later rescued by Voyager . ( VOY : " Collective ")

Like others of his former Maquis fellows, Chakotay's sense of being Maquis was never lost, even after six years on Voyager . When Starfleet managed to get a message to Voyager and Admiral Hayes inquires specifically about the status of the Maquis onboard the ship, Janeway is unsettled by it, saying she has forgotten the former antagonism between Starfleet and Maquis. Chakotay confesses that he hasn't. ( VOY : " Life Line ")

Towards the end of this year, in response to a request for help against the Borg, Janeway made a plan to inflitrate a Borg vessel and introduce a nanovirus into the Collective. She told Chakotay that, despite having forged ahead in the past without Chakotay's support, she wouldn't follow this through unless Chakotay supported it. Chakotay was unconvinced that Janeway would listen to him even if he didn't support the plan. This time, however, he did support her, seeing it as a potential way to finally defeat the Borg. However, when Janeway planned on infiltrating a Borg vessel alone, Chakotay, believing it too risky, insisted Janeway agree to take Tuvok and Torres with her. Janeway resisted and Chakotay pushed back. Janeway said she thought she had his unconditional support this time; he replied, " This is the best I can do " and indicated he would take measures to stop her from going alone, if he had to. Janeway agreed to take Tuvok and Torres with her, who were invaluable. As they approached the Borg vessel and Janeway went to join the away team, perhaps realising the seriousness of this mission she reached out a hand to Chakotay, who held it as they both stood and Janeway gave command of the bridge to him. When the away team, in the Delta Flyer , was approaching the Borg vessel to board it, Chakotay attacked the Borg, drawing fire to Voyager and weakening the Borg's shields so the away team could teleport inside.

While Voyager waited at a distance for the away team to complete their mission, Chakotay experienced a little of what it must have been like for Janeway with him as her first officer. With Janeway and Tuvok away, Lieutenant Paris was technically Chakotay's first officer, and he approached Chakotay to offer his opinion, as was first officer's duty. Chakotay wasn't immediately interested in listening to Paris who, worried about the away team – especially because his partner, Torres, was part of it – said Voyager should return to the Borg cube immediately to rescue them. Chakotay said they would wait until the away team's mission was complete. Paris, like Chakotay to Janeway, was insistent but overruled by Chakotay, who told him that, for the mission to work, he needed the support of his "first officer", Paris. Paris agreed.

At the right moment, initiating the next stage of the plan, Chakotay commanded Voyager back to the Borg vessel and rescued the away team with the help of an allied ship – and the support of his "first officer". ( VOY : " Unimatrix Zero ", " Unimatrix Zero, Part II ")

The final year (2377-78)

Chakotay's body in a state of temporal flux in 2377

Chakotay's identity as Maquis was still present in his seventh year after being taken from the struggle in the Demilitarized Zone . When members of Voyager 's crew who were Maquis were being attacked one by one, Chakotay became defensive of them and suspicious of the Starfleet part of the crew. In words that caught both Janeway and himself off guard, he referred to the Starfleet part of the crew as " your [i.e., Janeway's] crew ", correcting himself when called up on it. He organised the Maquis to work in pairs and to carry sidearms . It transpired that the attacks were being carried out by Tuvok, who, during his time undercover in the Maquis, had had supressed memory commands implanted into him, and now activated, by Bajoran fanatic Teero Anaydis . During the attacks Tuvok mind melded with the Maquis and implanted in them the command to mutiny . Under this mind control , Chakotay and the other Maquis whom Tuvok had attacked successfully hijacked Voyager until Tuvok, awakened by Janeway, performed another meld with Chakotay to free him from Anaydis' influence. ( VOY : " Repression ")

When The Doctor betrayed Voyager and joined a group of holograms intent on liberating other holograms from organic species and setting up their own homeworld , Janeway believed his program must have been tampered with by the holograms. Chakotay, perhaps because of his experiences joining the Maquis, suggested another possibility: that The Doctor " may have done what he did because he genuinely believes in their cause " and that maybe he had started thinking of the other holograms as his family. As it turned out, Chakotay's perception was correct, but Janeway was unwilling to believe it or that the holograms should be regarded as people. Later, Chakotay piloted the Delta Flyer through the atmosphere of a Class Y planet , with Paris and Tuvok in tactical support, and attacked the holograms' ship, saving Torres, The Doctor and five Hirogen from them. When back on Voyager , Janeway is lenient with The Doctor, feeling partly responsible for his development into someone who could make mistakes, and counts his time with the holograms as an "away mission". ( VOY : " Flesh and Blood ")

Twice around this time in the journey, Chakotay approached Janeway with Tuvok to express the same concerns they had about possible actions the captain might take. Once, they approached her when she wanted to make an alliance with the Hirogen to find the holograms The Doctor has joined – Tuvok was concerned about the security risk; Chakotay questioned the level of responsibility they had towards this potentially dangerous mission. A few months later, they approached Janeway when she wanted to make an alliance with other ships who were trapped with them in an area of space devoid of stars, planets, or any other source of energy. They both wondered whether Voyager 's tactics should rather be like that of the ships that have survived in the void for years: to take supplies from other ships. Janeway overruled them both both times: the first time because she felt partly responsbile for the holograms because she had been the one to give the technology to the Hirogen; the second time because of her committment to Startfleet principles. ( VOY : " Flesh and Blood ", " The Void ")

Chakotay's trustworthiness and respectability – and the vital nature as a unifying presence on the ship – was shown later that year when he restored Voyager to its proper timeline after it was hit by a chronokinetic surge from a spatial rift that shattered the ship into 37 different timeframes separated by temporal barriers . Some of the timeframes were from before Voyager was in the Delta Quadrant, some up to 17 years into Voyager 's future. In order to fix the timeline, Chakotay had to convince members of the crew – most importantly, Janeway, who was from the time they were still enemies – of their predicament and to work together. The task was made harder by the presence of Seska in one of the timeframes, who was working against him yet again. When Janeway realised she might be able to stop Voyager from ever getting trapped in the Delta Quadrant, Chakotay convinced her not to change the timeline, for the sake of all the positive things that had happened to Voyager 's crew over the past six years – for example, the liberation of Seven of Nine. When he had finished convincing her, Janeway asked him if, in their shared future, he always lectured her like that, to which Chakotay replied that she needn't worry, she would always have the last word. Chakotay made such an impact on Janeway that, as the parted, she asked if their closeness had ever become romantic. Chakotay said that there were some barriers that they never crossed. When the timeline was restored, Chakotay diverted all of Voyager 's power to its deflector system and setting it to a specific frequency, thus using the deflector array as a lightning rod for the energy surge from the spatial rift, burning it out, but avoiding the timeframe shattering. Due to the Temporal Prime Directive , Chakotay, the only one who knows what's happened, couldn't tell anyone about it and Janeway and the crew have to trust him, which they readily do. ( VOY : " Shattered ")

B'Elanna Torres became pregnant this year, which made Chakotay happy. When Torres was annoyed that people were offering parental advice all the time, Chakotay was there for her, offering some normality, which she appreciated. Chakotay suggested himself as the child's godfather, an offer Torres declined, choosing The Doctor instead, in part because she believed Chakotay didn't really know about raising children. ( VOY : " Lineage ")

Chakotay disguised as Amal Kotay so he can infiltrate the workforce

While on an away mission with Kim and Neelix, the rest of the crew were kidnapped and made to work on a planet with a labor shortage. The crew were brainwashed so that they could not remember their past and believed they had lives on the planet. Chakotay and Neelix carried out reconnaissance on the planet, Chakotay assuming the false identity of Amal Kotay and working in the factory where many of the crew were. Together, they managed to liberate Torres, but Chakotay, injured by guards, became trapped on the planet, a fugitive. He then tried to convince Janeway of who she really was, but she turned him over to the authorities. Chakotay appeared saddened when he learned that Janeway was falling in love with someone who lived on the planet. Once caught by the authorities he was brainwashed and order Voyager to return to the planet, where it was ambushed. Thankfully, the skeleton crew were able to escape and Chakotay had done just enough to help his brainwashed crew mates begin to question their situation on the planet, find each other and expose those who are performing the brainwashing. ( VOY : " Workforce ", " Workforce, Part II ")

Chakotay, with Kim, look for Friendship 1 at its final destination

After Starfleet worked out a way to communicate with Voyager on a regular basis, they gave the crew their first official mission in seven years: to find Friendship 1 , a deep space probe launched by the United Earth Space Probe Agency in 2067 with the purpose of finding other species. The last known location of the probe was close to Voyager 's route and, after tracing it to a seemingly uninhabited planet, Chakotay lead an away team to retrieve the probe. It turned out the planet was inhabited – by people who had suffered a devastating disaster after using the technology they learned from Friendship 1 , and they blamed Humans for it. The inhabitants attacked the away team and Paris, Neelix and Joe Carey were taken hostage and Carey was murdered. Chakotay and Kim had to retreat from the planet. Later, Chakotay returned with an away team to rescue the remaining hostages. Dispite now not being compelled to help the planet's inhabitants (because the hostages had been rescued), Voyager reversed the worsed effects of the disaster before resuming its course. ( VOY : " Friendship One ")

On the way to a scientific conference on Ledos , Chakotay and Seven of Nine became stranded under an energy barrier on the planet's surface after their shuttle crashed into it. The barrier protected a primative people, the Ventu , from the other inhabitants of the planet but needed lowering in order for Chakotay and Seven escape. Chakotay was fascinated by the Ventu from an anthropological perspective but he and Seven kept their distance because of the Prime Directive . However, Vendu found Chakotay as he rested under a tree, his leg injured during the crash. While with them, he received their hospitality and medicine and learned some of their language. He became concerned about the influence his presence was having on them, however, after members of the tribe started imitating him and incorporating scavenged parts of the shuttle into their dress. Finding themselves with no other choice, Seven and Chakotay asked the Ventu to help them move a large part of the crashed shuttle so it could be positioned correctly and adapted to lower the barrier. They managed to get in contact with Voyager and returned to the ship where they talked about what they thought would now be best for the Ventu: Chakotay advocated for restoring the barrier to allow the people to carry on living undisturbed by those outside; Seven, while concerned that a culture might be lost, suggested that maybe the outside influence could help a resourceful and intelligent people develop positively. Chakotay questioned how she might know what it best for the people. Janeway agreed with Chakotay, and the barrier was raised. ( VOY : " Natural Law ")

Chakotay was the first to realise things weren't right after Janeway returned from a trip with The Doctor. She was acting unusually and being secretive and Chakotay suspected someone might be impersonating her. He invented a story about her past, mentioning it to her, and when Janeway acted as if it was something that had happened, he knew it wasn't really her. He tried to contact security but was overpowered, sedated and hidden in the morgue . It transpired that The Doctor was the one impersonating Janeway, who had been kidnapped by two Overlookers when she was travelling back to Voyager in the Delta Flyer with The Doctor. The Doctor kept this secret from the crew for fear for the captain's life and was attempting to outwit the crew and take Voyager 's warp core to the Overlookers in exchange for Janeway. Thankfully, Tuvok and Paris were able to attack the ship Janeway was hostage on and bring her back to Voyager . ( VOY : " Renaissance Man ")

During the visit to Ledos a few months previously, Chakotay and Seven became closer. Seven had been attracted to Chakotay for some time but had never told him. Prior to the trip to Ledos, Chakotay had expressed interest in Seven, but very gently, inviting her to a social event hosted in the mess hall . Their closeness increased over the last few months they were in the Delta Quadrant, and they became romantically involved with each other. Seven of Nine tried to end the relationship, however, when she learned that Chakotay's growing love for her could cause him pain should she be injured or killed – a pain she didn't want to inflict on him. Chakotay argued with her, reassuring her that the only thing that was certain in the relationship was the love they felt in the present, not a potential future event. ( VOY : " Human Error ", " Natural Law ", " Endgame ")

The return home

It was during this time that Admiral Janeway arrived on the ship and helped Voyager return to the Alpha Quadrant . Unsurprisingly, Chakotay got on well with the Admiral, joking together as they worked. Admiral Janeway had come from what was to become an alternative future. For her, Voyager had taken a further 16 years to get home, experiencing tragedy along the way, and she had traveled back in time to help Voyager get home quicker. Admiral Janeway wanted to avoid the tragedies, but her plan was risky, involving traveling through a nebula with high Borg activity. Chakotay trusted the Janeways could be successful, though, telling Seven, " Our chances would be good with one Kathryn Janeway on the bridge, but with two, I'd bet on this ship any day ". At one point, the crew felt deceived by Admiral Janeway, who hadn't told them they would be using a Borg transwarp hub to get home (they believed they'd be using a wormhole ). Captain Janeway said they should destroy the hub because it would stop the Borg traveling and assimilating people so easily, saving lives, and Voyager would continue on its route through the Delta Quadrant. The whole crew, including Chakotay, were behind her, recognising the family they had on the ship and the value of the journey. Thankfully for them, the two Janeways devised another plan, involving Admiral Janeway sacrificing herself to blow up the Borg in the hub, allowing Voyager to use traverse the transwarp conduits home, destroying the conduits along the way. ( VOY : " Endgame ")

Chakotay is interrogated by Seska

Chakotay became one of the central figures in the conflict with the Kazon. One of the first encounters took place during the time he was performing the Pakra, a ritual to honor his father's death. A young Kazon, Kar , who was being initiated as a warrior, attacked him while he was alone in the shuttlecraft performing the ceremony. Chakotay destroyed his ship, and both were captured by the Kazon and condemned to die. After escaping their death sentence, Kar killed the maje and was proclaimed a warrior, thanks in part to Chakotay's help. However, Chakotay was warned that next time he met the Kazon, they would not be as lenient and kill him. His next meeting with the Kazon also was a reunion with Seska , who had defected to the Kazon-Nistrim , led by Maje Culluh . They had stolen a module that enabled them to penetrate Voyager 's shields. Chakotay was able to board the Kazon ship and destroy the module; however, he was captured and tortured by the Kazon. He was rescued by Voyager , but shortly thereafter, Seska told him that she had extracted his DNA and impregnated herself with it. ( VOY : " Initiations ", " Maneuvers ")

During a constant series of attacks on Voyager by the Kazon, Chakotay suggested to Captain Janeway that Voyager form alliances with some of the Kazon factions and others in the quadrant . This failed when the Trabe , the Kazon's enemies, under the guise of cooperation with Voyager and the Kazon, attempted to assassinate the Kazon leaders at a conference and otherwise didn't show much interest for diplomacy and building coalitions. ( VOY : " Alliances ")

Shortly after that, Chakotay received a message from Seska that she had given birth to his child, and that Culluh planned to kill her and take the child. Conflicted as to whether he should accept this child into his heart and life given that it was conceived against his will and through deception, he sought the wisdom of his father through a vision quest. In his vision, his father appeared to him saying that the child knows nothing of deception, that it is innocent and that Chakotay must accept him just as centuries ago his ancestors accepted the children of the white conquerors who had forced themselves upon their women; one of whom was a direct ancestor of theirs. Chakotay recognized the wisdom in his father's words and decided to go find his son. Although Seska was not trustworthy, Janeway agreed to try and help him. It turned out to be a trap, however, and Voyager ended up being captured, and the crew stranded on a barren planet with nothing to survive on while the Kazon took the ship and left. Chakotay's knowledge of nature and his Maquis training helped the crew survive. He rescued Kes from the primitive tribe that inhabited the planet. He also helped the crew to elude an enormous eel-like creature that lived inside a cave that they sought shelter in by sealing off the opening as they exited. He also won the friendship of the tribe when he saved one of them from a lava flow. The crew was eventually rescued by Tom Paris, The Doctor and Lon Suder and returned to Voyager to resume their course home. ( VOY : " Alliances ", " Basics, Part I ", " Basics, Part II ")

Conflict with the Borg

In 2373 , he encountered a group of former Borg drones , who, due to an accident in space, were released from the Collective and attempted to regain their original identities. Chakotay was seriously injured on this away mission. The group, headed by a Human called Riley Frazier , still maintained the ability to link. They used their link to help heal Chakotay. Frazier told him that there was another group of former drones with whom they were in conflict. She wanted Voyager to help her activate a neural transmitter on the disabled Borg ship so they could link with the dissenting group to establish cooperation and peace in their colony. Janeway refused, so the group used its former link with Chakotay to activate the transmitter. ( VOY : " Unity ")

This neural link proved beneficial when later that year, Voyager formed an alliance with the Borg. In exchange for right of passage through Borg space, the crew of Voyager agreed to help them fight Species 8472, who were destroying the Borg. Chakotay was against the alliance and he and Janeway had a fundamental disagreement over how to approach the Borg. Chakotay believed her decision to be foolish at best. He did not trust the Borg and believed Janeway made a fatal mistake of entering into any kinds of agreements with them and expecting to come out alive. On numerous occasions he opposed her, believing she was not only underestimating the enemy but that she was also selfish for wanting to arm the Borg with such a powerful weapon. Janeway was disappointed at Chakotay's perceived lack of trust in her, but he remained adamant, stating that safe passage through Borg space was not worth the devastation that would be unleashed on them after the Borg were equipped with such a powerful weapon. After Species 8472 was defeated, the Borg, as predicted by Chakotay, broke the agreement and attempted to assimilate the crew. Chakotay used his neural link ability to sever Seven of Nine, the Borg drone in charge, from the Collective, thus allowing Voyager to escape assimilation by the Borg. ( VOY : " Unity ", " Scorpion, Part II ")

In 2375 , Chakotay and Janeway devised a plan to steal a transwarp core from a Borg ship. When Seven was captured, Janeway lead an away team to rescue her. Chakotay, in command of Voyager , attacked the Borg conduit, destroying it. ( VOY : " Dark Frontier ")

He was also once captured by a Borg ship piloted by child Borg drones that were separated from the collective when the elder Borgs died due to a mysterious illness. With the aid of Seven, he was rescued. ( VOY : " Collective ")

USS Protostar

Holo-recording of Chakotay in command of the Protostar

Sometime after he and Voyager returned home to Earth, Chakotay officially rejoined Starfleet. He was promoted to captain and given command of a prototype starship, the USS Protostar . ( PRO : " Kobayashi ") Before departing on a return mission to the Delta Quadrant , Chakotay was reunited with Janeway, now a vice admiral , during the traditional christening of the Protostar . As Janeway refused to explore the Delta Quadrant again, Chakotay had an advisory hologram made in her likeness integrated to the ship's systems. ( PRO : " Asylum ")

During its mission, the Protostar entered a temporal anomaly , ending up on Solum decades in the future, where they encountered the Vau N'Akat , a species that blamed the Federation for a civil war which devasted their homeworld fifty years after the Federation made first contact with them. Chakotay attempted to send a distress call , but the damaged ship was then stormed by Drednoks and Chakotay was captured alongside his first officer Adreek-Hu on the bridge. The two officers eventually escaped but were unable to disarm a weapon called the living construct that was placed inside the Protostar nor board the ship to escape. As a last resort, Chakotay remotely sent the crewless ship back through the anomaly to prevent the Vau N'Akat from using the weaponized Protostar in their plot to destroy Starfleet before it makes first contact with Solum. ( PRO : " Preludes ")

By 2383 , the Protostar was stranded on Tars Lamora , with Chakotay and his crew trapped in the future following the collapse of the anomaly over Solum. ( PRO : " Lost and Found ") Without news from the Protostar , Janeway mounted a rescue mission and chased after any clues regarding her friend's fate with the USS Dauntless . The Protostar was recovered by a ragtag crew of six young aliens , with both Vau N'Akat operatives and Janeway's Dauntless chasing them. ( PRO : " A Moral Star, Part 2 ") Having discovered the living construct onboard and its nefarious purpose, Chakotay's successors avoided contact with the Federation to prevent infection. Eventually, Janeway learned of Chakotay's predicament from her holographic counterpart while on the Protostar . ( PRO : " Mindwalk ") The plot of the Vau N'Akat was ultimately thwarted when Hologram Janeway sacrificed herself and the ship to destroy the living construct. In the process, she intentionally created a new temporal anomaly and a message from Chakotay was thus able to pass through from 2436 , confirming that he and half his crew were still alive in an alternate future. ( PRO : " Supernova, Part 2 ")

Alternate timelines

During the " Year of Hell " conflict with the Krenim , Chakotay advised Janeway of the option of the crew abandoning Voyager and traveling through Krenim space in smaller groups. Janeway dismissed the idea and Chakotay was somewhat relieved. Later, Chakotay was captured by Annorax , the commander of the Krenim ship, along with Tom Paris . At first, he helped Annorax, who promised to return Voyager intact to its original timeline if Chakotay gave him enough detail about Voyager 's time in Krenim space, so that Annorax could have the right calculations to use in his time weapon. But after Annorax destroyed a species to try to restore the timeline, Chakotay was convinced to help Paris sabotage the ship by transmitting its location to Voyager and taking its weapons offline. This allowed Janeway to crash Voyager into the Krenim time ship and through its destruction restore the timeline. ( VOY : " Year of Hell ", " Year of Hell, Part II ")

In 2375 , Voyager was able to apparently perfect their own version of the Quantum slipstream drive to return home, but a potential glitch in the drive prompted Chakotay and Harry Kim to use the Delta Flyer to map the slipstream in advance of Voyager to monitor potential instabilities in the slipstream matrix as it formed. Due to Kim's miscalculation, Chakotay and Kim were the only two people to make it back to Earth while Voyager crash-landed on a Class L ice planet in the Beta Quadrant , killing all aboard. Fifteen years later, Chakotay had formed a relationship with Tessa Omond , who accompanied him and Harry when they stole the Flyer and certain Borg components from Starfleet before setting out to find Voyager , salvaging The Doctor's program and Seven's corpse with the goal of sending modified slipstream calculations back to before Voyager was destroyed so that the ship could make it home. According to Kim, because of their actions, stealing from Starfleet, and their plans to break the Temporal Prime Directive , Omond, Kim and Chakotay were the most wanted criminals in the galaxy. Despite being pursued by Captain Geordi La Forge and his ship, who damaged the Flyer causing it to suffer a warp core breach , Chakotay was able to buy enough time for Harry to send modified calculations back to Voyager that would disperse the slipstream entirely, stopping the flight before it could reach Earth but cutting ten years off their journey home. As they prepared for the completion of their plan, which would erase the previous 15 years of history – including Omond and his relationship – Chakotay had momentary second thoughts because he loved Omond. Omond reminded him, however, that his heart had always be on Voyager and hoped that perhaps they might still meet in the unwritten future should their plan succeed. ( VOY : " Timeless ")

Personal interests

Chakotay's quarters

Chakotay didn't use the holodeck often but enjoyed reading instead. When he did use the holodeck, he enjoyed developing relationships with characters in programs. He also enjoyed boxing in the holodeck, which he said helped him relax. ( VOY : " One Small Step ", " Fair Haven ", " The Fight ")

He occasionally took the time to embrace his artistic side, such as creations using colored sand while trapped on "New Earth" and carvings of Native American symbols. ( VOY : " Resolutions ", " State of Flux ")

Spirituality

When younger, Chakotay had little interest in the traditions of his tribe or in spirituality. However, he connected with the spirituality and traditions of his culture as an adult out of respect to his father, who was killed by the Cardassians while defending the planet his tribe lived on, a connection that grew because of his experiences on Voyager far from home. (On one away mission, he actually met the sky spirits his ancestors prayer to.) ( VOY : " Tattoo ") He carried out rituals, like pakra (to commemorate the anniversary of his father's death ) and vision quests , praying and using his medicine bundle . ( VOY : " Initiations ") He would seek guidance from his animal guide and used a medicine wheel for physical and spiritual healing. ( VOY : " The Cloud ", " Cathexis ") He would pray for others and also acted as a spiritual guide and counsel to others. ( VOY : " Initiations ", " The Cloud ", " Mortal Coil ", " Barge of the Dead ") He was noncommittal on the existence of an afterlife, stating that he accepted there were " things that can't be scanned with a tricorder ". ( VOY : " Barge of the Dead ") He recognised that vision quests, while spiritual practices, were underlain by science. ( VOY : " Sacred Ground ") He said that to understand what one experienced in a quest or similar ritual was a process that involved careful consideration of what the elements of the quest were symbolising. ( VOY : " The Cloud ", " Mortal Coil ", " Barge of the Dead ")

Chakotay was a vegetarian ; one of his favorite meals was mushroom soup . ( VOY : " State of Flux ") Some foods he hated were carrots and fried food (because it upset his stomach), and he refused to eat pudding because he thought it was slimy. ( VOY : " Unforgettable ") Neelix was aware of his dietary choices. During a trade mission to the Nar Shaddan in 2377 , he did not press the delicacy of falah nectar on Chakotay because the beverage was made from a meat byproduct, even though it would have been a diplomatic gesture; Neelix convinced Harry Kim to try it instead. ( VOY : " Workforce ")

Chakotay preferred to avoid alcoholic beverages when possible, saying he preferred to "stay in control". ( VOY : " In the Flesh "). One of his favored beverages was Antarian cider that he kept a secret stash of hidden in the cargo bay 2 . ( VOY : " Shattered ")

If Seven of Nine's holographic recreation of him was true to life in this regard, Chakotay was an inexperienced cook with poor cooking skills, calling himself more of a " replicator man ". ( VOY : " Human Error ")

Anthropology and paleontology

One of the many reasons he joined Starfleet was to pursue his interests in anthropology and paleontology . He was fascinated by 20th century Earth during Voyager 's visit to its 1996 from 2373 , and said that if they were trapped there, he might become an anthropologist. Once, he considered becoming a paleontologist as well. ( VOY : " Future's End, Part II ", " One Small Step ")

While serving in Starfleet, he visited a tomb excavation on Ktaria VII . ( VOY : " Emanations ")

In 2373 , while examining the Distant Origin Theory , Chakotay suggested that the Voth might have evolved on an isolated continent on Earth and that natural disasters could have buried the evidence under water or rocks. ( VOY : " Distant Origin ")

The depths of Chakotay's thrill for anthropology was perhaps revealed in 2375 when the telepathic pitcher plant tricked the Voyager 's crew into its digestive tract by making them believe they were entering a wormhole home. As part of the deception, it made them believe they were going to get what they most wanted when they returned. Chakotay imagined he'd received a full pardon for his actions as Maquis – and a professorship of Anthropology at Starfleet Academy. ( VOY : " Bliss ")

Chakotay was interested in the early history of space exploration, John Kelly being one of his childhood heroes. So when Voyager got the chance to actually find his ship in 2376 , he was more than eager to salvage the craft when he'd found it intact. Too eager in fact – he injured himself, damaged the Flyer and endangered his crew in his attempts to claim the craft before leaving the graviton ellipse it was caught in. Seven of Nine had to beam aboard the Ares IV , to retrieve a component to fix the Flyer , and Chakotay tried desperately to get her to realize how special it was. As a result, Seven played several of Kelly's logs that were left active when she beamed aboard. He was able to use his skills and knowledge of paleontology to explore various other items caught in the anomaly, saying he could happily stay inside it for a longtime discovering things about the universe's history. ( VOY : " One Small Step ")

Later that year, he was very interested in a planet they discovered that moved at an accelerated rate compared to normal space-time. Despite Voyager being trapped in the planet's orbit and in danger, he still had a deployed probe take images as the civilizations developing below, saying it could be the greatest anthropological find of his career. At one point he commented that every second they missed they could be missing "whole civilizations", to which Torres replied " So? We'll catch the next one. " ( VOY : " Blink of an Eye ")

In 2378 , Seven and Chakotay were trapped together again, this time on a world inhabited by the primitive " Ventu ", who Chakotay was fascinated with. His interest in anthropology helped him to understand their culture, and he even learned many of the phrases in their sign language. ( VOY : " Natural Law ")

He told renowned Voth molecular paleontologist Forra Gegen he was a scientist too and spoke of years studying science alongside navigation and starships to Kar . ( VOY : " Distant Origin ", " Initiations ")

Chakotay's boxing gloves

Since his time at Starfleet Academy, Chakotay was a fan of boxing. While there, the legendary Boothby helped him train. On Voyager he occasionally ran a program on the holodeck where he would box a Terrellian with Boothby's assistance. He also said that boxing helped him relax.

In fact, in 2375 while running this program an alien species that lived in chaotic space tried contacting him and used images of the boxing simulation in their communication. ( VOY : " The Fight ")

He was also a fan of professional sumo wrestling , once getting into an argument about the 77th Emperor's Cup . ( VOY : " Latent Image ")

In 2376 , while on shore leave on Norcadia Prime he came across a martial art called Tsunkatse on. He was quite a fan, discussing various fighters' statistics with other members of the crew, and made sure he was able to watch several of the matches live. Although The Doctor didn't approve of Tsunkatse (or boxing, for that matter), Chakotay insisted it was an excellent way to test a warrior's skills and instinct. ( VOY : " The Fight ", " Tsunkatse ")

Personal relationships

Chakotay got along with most of the people he worked with and had many personal relationships among the crews of both the Val Jean and Voyager . On his Maquis ship, people were very informal, so he got to know his crew on a very personal level. He got the respect of the Voyager crew when Janeway put her trust in him by making him first officer and when he decided to re-embrace Starfleet principles. He forged a deep and meaningful friendship with his Captain, but never hesitated to speak up when he believed that she might be making an unwise move. He was also often the liaison between the crew and the captain, as people trusted him. In the beginning, Chakotay felt that some of his former Maquis crew members might be unfairly judged, so he always had a soft spot for them and did his best to stand up for their interests, especially when he felt that no one else was.

While he was not the kind of person to hold a grudge, he also knew when to be tough and enforce the rules. On one occasion, when two of his former Maquis friends, Jarvin and Seska, suggested that they would support him if he wanted to mutiny against Captain Janeway, Chakotay told them point blank that if he ever heard them talk like that again, he would personally throw them in the brig . He also occasionally turned to rather unconventional non-Starfleet methods to discipline his former Maquis crew members who had a little more difficulty or were unwilling to adjust to Starfleet standards: on one occasion, when Kenneth Dalby disrespected Tuvok's orders and just walked out on him after he was specifically ordered to participate in special training, Chakotay decided to teach him a lesson "the Maquis way": he walked into the mess hall and knocking Dalby out of his chair, saying that this was the way the Maquis handled situations like this and that he could continue to do it "the Maquis way" until everyone got it. Dalby and other troublemakers got the point and became more cooperative. Situations like this were rare, however, and through his journey aboard Voyager Chakotay was able to remain on good terms with almost everybody. ( VOY : " Parallax ", " Learning Curve ")

Kathryn Janeway

Chakotay and Janeway share an intimate moment they fear might be inappropriate

From early on in their time on Voyager Chakotay and Kathryn Janeway forged and maintained a relationship based on deep respect and admiration for the other. In fact, Janeway once remarked that while just a few years ago she did not even know his name, now she could not imagine a day without him. Chakotay would reassure Janeway when needed and he recognised Janeway as an excellent captain who could face the biggest of challenges. The mutual respect they had for each other was never lost even when they disagreed quite vehemently over command decisions, although their trust for each other was shaken a few times and had to be rebuilt. ( VOY : " The 37's ", " Scorpion ", " Scorpion, Part II ", " The Omega Directive ", " Equinox ", " Endgame ")

They got off on a shaky start when they were first trapped in the Delta Quadrant and Chakotay had reservations about destroying the Caretaker's array that was going to leave Voyager and his own Maquis stranded in an unknown part of the galaxy . For the sake of cooperation and survival of both of their crews he submitted to Janeway's authority. ( VOY : " Caretaker ")

They also shared a certain chemistry that eventually became evident to both of them while they were trapped on a planet in Vidiian space they called " New Earth ." The two were infected with a virus that trapped them on the planet, and while Janeway tried to find a cure – as Voyager had continued on its mission – Chakotay preferred to make the planet their home. The two formed a familiarity during their isolation and Janeway invited Chakotay to call her by her first name, Kathryn. After a long day repairing damages caused by a plasma storm , Janeway complained about an ache in her shoulders. Chakotay offered to give her a massage , which she enjoyed until she realized it probably wasn't appropriate for them to become this intimate. She couldn't sleep that night, and when she attempted to "define parameters" about their relationship, Chakotay reassured his allegiance to her whatever their form their relationship would take. In this intimate moment, Chakotay said that he had been a discontented and angry person before he met Janeway. Through a story, he called her " brave and beautiful and very wise " and said he would do " whatever he could to make her burden lighter ", putting her needs first. By doing this, he said, he had found peace. After their conversation they held hands across the table. After a cure for their illness was found and they were finally rescued, they silently agreed that certain things were better left behind on the planet, and resumed their respectful and cordial relationship, although their chemistry was still present in the background from time to time. As Chakotay put it at one point, there were " some barriers [they] never cross[ed] ". Chakotay continued to call her by her first name, a unique intimacy that no one else on the crew was ever invited to do. ( VOY : " Resolutions ", " Shattered ")

While accepting and respecting Janeway as his captain, Chakotay never hesitated to speak up and assert himself when he felt that the situation required it or when Janeway was making questionable command decisions. Months into Voyager 's journey and after constant attacks by the Kazon, Chakotay urged Janeway to reconsider her position with regard to the Kazon and think more like the Maquis. He felt that Starfleet regulations were too rigid for them to survive their journey through that part of space. He suggested they seek alliances with other sects of the Kazon. Hesitant at first Janeway agreed to reconsider her position. ( VOY : " Caretaker ", " Alliances ") He also did not agree with her decision to bring a Borg drone she had disconnected from the Collective along on their journey through the Delta Quadrant, believing it nearly impossible that Seven of Nine could ever be anything but an automaton. ( VOY : " Infinite Regress ")

On another occasion he refused to let her go off alone on a dangerous mission to destroy the Omega molecule after it had been detected by long range sensors . He said to her, " You're asking me to abandon my captain and closest friend without even telling me why ". Janeway asked that he trust her, but Chakotay remained adamant, telling her that the mission would succeed if they worked together, not if she just went off on a suicide mission by herself. He emphasized that they were a team and as such she could count on them for support, even if Starfleet orders said otherwise. ( VOY : " The Omega Directive ") In 2375 , he staged yet another intervention when Janeway once again insisted on taking matters into her own hand and going off on a one-way mission to save her crew: they had entered a vast region of space with no stars or systems, and their only way out of the void was through a spatial vortex . The Malon used the vortex to dump their poisonous antimatter waste into the void, which in turn poisoned the species indigenous to that void. Reasoning with the Malon failed and Janeway soon realized that the vortex had to be destroyed so the Malon could not return to it; however, this time she was not willing to sacrifice her crew once again to save another species, like she had done with the Ocampa and the Caretaker's array. Therefore, she decided to stay behind after Voyager passed through the vortex, so she could destroy it. Chakotay did not want to allow her to make such a sacrifice and, working with the crew, he made sure they all refused to carry out her orders. She was outwardly upset at this rank insubordination, but it was evident that she was actually touched by their action. ( VOY : " Night ")

A similar incident happened towards the end of Voyager 's sixth year in the Delta Quadrant, when Janeway, in response to a request for help against the Borg, planned a solo mission to a Borg vessel to introduce a nanovirus into the Collective. Prior to Janeway revealing she'd be going on her own, Chakotay had given his support to her. However, believing this element of the plan to be too risky, Chakotay insisted Janeway take Tuvok and Torres with her. When Janeway said she thought she had his unconditional support this time, Chakotay replied, " This is the best I can do " and indicated he would take measures to stop her from going alone, if he had to. Janeway agreed to to take Tuvok and Torres on the mission.

As they approached the Borg vessel and Janeway went to join the away team, perhaps realising the seriousness of this mission, she reached out a hand to Chakotay, who held it as they both stood and Janeway gave command of the bridge over to him. ( VOY : " Unimatrix Zero ")

Janeway and Chakotay

One of the most serious conflicts between them occurred during the encounter with the USS Equinox in 2376 : the Equinox , which was commanded by Starfleet Captain Rudolph Ransom , had been using sentient nucleogenic lifeforms as fuel for his ship. When Janeway found out about Ransom's actions which violated every Starfleet directive and code of moral conduct, she was disgusted and furious. When the Equinox tried to escape, Janeway, who felt betrayed and enraged about Ransom's atrocious actions, began a relentless hunt, even going so far as to compromise the safety of the ship and its crew to get to Ransom. Chakotay confronted her about the issue, accusing her of having tried to satisfy a personal vendetta at the cost of the ship. Janeway remained relentless, however, and told him that she wasn't going to stand by and let Ransom torture and murder innocent lifeforms just so he could get home a little sooner. Chakotay tried to get through to her but to no avail. When she resorted to torture of one of Ransom's crewmembers in exchange for information, he warned her that he wouldn't let her cross that line again. Upon hearing this, Janeway, blinded by her desire to bring Ransom to justice, relieved him of duty.

After Ransom had a change of heart and surrendered to Voyager , Janeway returned to her senses. In a silent moment, she told Chakotay that he may have had good reason to stage a little mutiny of his own. Chakotay admitted that the thought had occurred to him, but that it would have been "crossing the line." This struck a chord with the captain who realized how close her recent actions had come to being no better than that of the Equinox and Captain Ransom. ( VOY : " Equinox, Part II ")

Chakotay desperately trying to revive Janeway after their shuttle crashes

Even though Chakotay considered Janeway to be one of his closest friends, he also found her to be sometimes an unreasonable person who did not know when to step back. During another incident three years earlier involving the Borg and Janeway's decision to strike a deal with them in exchange for safe passage through their space, Chakotay told her point blank that what she was proposing was foolish and too great a risk. Using the parable of the scorpion , he tried to explain to her that the mission she was planning to embark on was doomed to fail as the Borg were not the kind one could strike equitable deals with. He also believed Janeway's decision to be selfish as she was willing to supply the Borg with means to assimilate yet another species just so she and her crew could get home faster. When Janeway asked him to trust her he remained steadfast with his belief, accusing her of being blinded by her desire to go back home no matter the cost. After a lot of arguing that was not going anywhere, however, both realized that in order for the mission to be successful, they had to set their differences in opinion aside and work together. Chakotay's objections ended up inspiring a backup plan between the two, in case the Borg turned on them; this ended up saving the crew. ( VOY : " Scorpion ", " Scorpion, Part II ")

According to Captain Janeway's mimetic duplicate , Chakotay was a " friend who wasn't afraid to let me know when I am wrong ." Their working relationship was perhaps summed up informally by Janeway from an alternative future who, visiting the grave of Chakotay in her timeline, said, " Any final words of advice for your old captain? Wait, don't tell me. I'm being impulsive. I haven't considered all the consequences. It's too risky. Thanks for the input, but I've got to do what I think is right ". From Chakotay's perspective, he came to recognised that it was his duty to advise Janeway but that she would always make the final decision. ( VOY : " Course: Oblivion ", " Shattered ", " Endgame ")

Chakotay's relationship with Kathryn Janeway wasn't always controversial. Early during their voyage home, he shared with her some of his spiritual rituals, such as how to embark on a vision quest and talk to her " animal guide ". He also showed and shared with her his private medicine bundle . They often had weekly dinners together and once went on a moonlight sail on Lake George . He was also the first person she confided the end of her relationship with her former fiancé Mark Johnson to, who in 2374 revealed in a letter that after believing her lost, he moved on and married another woman. They remained great friends throughout and she even lent Chakotay a copy of Dante's Inferno given to her by Mark, which she'd never lent to anyone. They were supportive of each other and Chakotay was happy to see her have some fun when she in 2376 had developed an interest in one of the characters of the Fair Haven program created by Tom Paris, encouraging her he enjoy it when she was embarrassed about having feelings towards a hologram. ( VOY : " Fair Haven ") When a Janeway from a passed timeline, evidently struck by him, asked him about the closeness of their relationship in the future, he simply replied that there were some barriers they never crossed. ( VOY : " The Cloud ", " Coda ", " Hunters ", " Shattered ")

Her love for Chakotay was one of the reasons Admiral Janeway risked time traveling back to Voyager and sacrificed herself to help the ship get home quicker. She desperately wanted to avoid Seven of Nine's death, which happened during that Janeway's 23-year journey home, and the trauma it caused to Chakotay, who was married to Seven by that point. ( VOY : " Endgame ")

B'Elanna Torres

Chakotay tries to get Torres to tell him why she's been "trying to hurt herself"

B'Elanna Torres was Chakotay's engineer, and unofficial first officer aboard the Val Jean , and the two shared a close friendship as well as working relationship for years. Despite their occasional differences, Chakotay was the one she trusted the most and probably also the only who truly understood her nature and inner struggle; she often returned to him for guidance.

With a fiery temper mostly from her Klingon side, Torres was the first to speak up that it wasn't Captain Janeway's right to destroy the Caretaker's array and thus get them all stranded in the Delta Quadrant. Speaking as her commanding officer, however, Chakotay made it clear who the captain was. From then on, Chakotay asked his entire crew to respect Janeway as their leader and embrace the Starfleet way. Initially, the most hesitant and resistant person to do this was Torres. ( VOY : " Caretaker ")

Voyager 's violent hurtle into the Delta Quadrant cost them the lives of many of their crew members, leaving key positions open that needed to be filled urgently. One of those positions was that of chief engineer which Chakotay championed for Torres to get, even though Joe Carey was next in line. Chakotay, knowing that Torres was the better engineer, insisted that Janeway consider her for the position. Although Janeway thought it was a long shot, as she saw Torres as brash and incapable of exhibiting the kind of professionalism required from a command officer, he continued standing up for her, insisting that if she only gave her a chance, Torres wouldn't disappoint her. He also told Torres that she would have to start treating people better if she wanted to get ahead on the ship and make it. Even though Torres put up a fight, she was thankful that Chakotay still believed in her; after proving herself to Janeway, she got the job. ( VOY : " Parallax ")

Torres didn't instantly become a model Starfleet officer though, and it took her some time and a few lessons to turn her life around and fully embrace the Starfleet crew. ( VOY : " Prime Factors ") Whenever she needed someone to turn to when she was going through a rough patch in her life over, she'd go to Chakotay. They often relied on each other when they needed their emotional compass checked and when they needed to put things into perspective, but Chakotay was never hesitant to tell her like it is when she behaved stubbornly or out of line. He also never played favorites with her due to the past they shared, even though it was sometimes difficult for him to separate the strong friendship they had shared over the years from his standpoint as the first officer. ( VOY : " Twisted ", " Maneuvers ", " Barge of the Dead ")

In Torres vision: " I'm the Chakotay you want me to be "

As friends, they did spend time together engaging in various activities; the two occasionally played hoverball together on the holodeck , though he wasn't very good. On one occasion, she was beating him 19 to 7, but he claimed he was just lulling her into a false sense of security. Chakotay had also helped her find her animal guide and he prayed with her when they both believed they were going to die. Even though they had always shared a friendship and never crossed the line into romance, Torres felt a hidden attraction toward Chakotay. This was revealed when the Botha manipulated the crew and induced disturbing hallucinations in them and Torres was carried away by a passionate hallucination involving Chakotay. She never acted on her feelings for him, however, and was able to move on. ( VOY : " The Cloud ", " Twisted ", " Persistence of Vision ", " Maneuvers ")

When Chakotay once left Voyager – without authorization – in order to pursue Seska, it was Torres who pleaded with a rather upset Captain Janeway to try to understand Chakotay's struggle and the humiliation he faced after Seska's betrayal, asking her not to lose faith in him as her first officer. Janeway remarked that Chakotay was quite lucky to have someone care about him as much as Torres did.

Around 2374 , Chakotay received word from one of his Maquis friends back home that the insurrection was over, and that the Maquis had all been wiped out by the Cardassians and their ally from the Gamma Quadrant . The news both saddened and angered Torres, who realized that everything she had known and fought for back home was gone. Through the course of the year, she regularly went to the holodeck and played the most dangerous programs she could find with the safety protocols offline. This eventually impaired her ability to work, and although Janeway confined her to her quarters and took away her holodeck privileges, Chakotay took the time to find out what was really bothering her. He even took her down to the holodeck, leading her to believe they'd play a simple program – and instead, he forced her into a program where she was re-enacting the massacre of the Maquis. He forced her to face her inner demons and come to terms with the fact that they both wished they could have been there to help their friends fight the good fight, but that because they hadn't been there, it didn't mean that they did not deserve to live and move on with their own lives. ( VOY : " Hunters ", " Extreme Risk ")

When in 2377 Torres found out she was pregnant, he came up to her and jokingly asked, " Have you checked the warp core for radiation leaks today? … You have a certain glow about you. " She immediately knew someone had told him. Chakotay would have liked to be the child's godfather, and even suggested several names – such as Taya, the feminine form of Chakotay – but recognised, perhaps more than others, that parental advice and suggestions from others could become irritating to the parents and knew when to step back, which Torres appreciated in him. In the end, Torres decided not to choose Chakotay to be the godfather, in part because she believed he didn't really know about raising children. ( VOY : " Lineage ")

The mimetic duplicate of Chakotay walked Torres down the aisle and gave her away to Tom Paris during their wedding aboard the duplicate Voyager in 2375 . ( VOY : " Course: Oblivion ")

Chakotay knew Tom Paris from a time when Paris had joined the Maquis after his disgraceful discharge from Starfleet. He didn't like Paris because unlike himself who had joined the Maquis on moral grounds, he saw in Paris nothing more than a mercenary, willing to fight for anyone willing to pay his bar bills. Needless to say, he was not too happy to see him on Captain Janeway's bridge after they were stranded in the Delta Quadrant.

They eventually came face to face, after the Caretaker had released them to their ships, and Chakotay was forced to cooperate with Janeway. Although Chakotay was particularly angry at Paris, possibly added to by the fact he'd just found out that Tuvok was a spy, Janeway asked Chakotay to grant Paris the same respect he expected her to show his crew. The two were able to come to terms enough to go down to the planet together, and when Chakotay broke his leg trying to escape, Paris went back to save him. When Chakotay told him to leave, Paris snarked that if he saved Chakotay's life, it would belong to him. The two eventually made it out safely, and Chakotay joked to the captain when they returned that his life belonged to Paris and volunteered to be his "personal bodyguard," against possible hostility from the former Maquis crew. ( VOY : " Caretaker ")

In 2372 , Paris pretended to harbor animosity towards an unknowing Chakotay in order to expose a traitor on board Voyager . During this time, he regularly showed up late to his duty shift, set up a gambling operation which Chakotay broke up and he eventually pushed Chakotay to the floor of the bridge when called on his unacceptable behavior. He also loudly expressed his negative opinion on Chakotay's role as first officer in Voyager 's mess hall to many crewmembers. The two later set aside their differences when Chakotay finally found out about Paris' true intentions, and in an interview with Neelix, Paris particularly apologized for giving Chakotay such a hard time as part of his role. From that point onward, they buried their hatchet for the last time and finally got over their past animosities and hard feelings for one another. ( VOY : " Meld ", " Lifesigns ", " Investigations ") Chakotay, for his part, frequently addressed Paris by his first name, suggesting a certain level of affection, and by their seventh year together appreciated Paris', saying " we love having him around ". ( VOY : " Shattered ")

Chakotay asking Tuvok for advice in 2375

Chakotay and Tuvok served together on the Val Jean , where Tuvok was posing as an undercover agent for Starfleet in order to infiltrate Chakotay's cell. After they had been stranded in the Delta Quadrant by the Caretaker's array, Tuvok's real identity was soon revealed. This angered Chakotay who felt fooled and betrayed by Tuvok. However, as the nature of their situation required, they maintained a cordial relationship when they were forced to cooperate and work together aboard Voyager . ( VOY : " Caretaker ")

When Captain Janeway picked Chakotay as her first officer over Tuvok, Tuvok was disappointed but respected her decision. Tensions between the two still occasionally arose, especially when Tuvok kept reciting Starfleet protocols and procedures to Chakotay who sometimes had his own way of doing things. When B'Elanna Torres had punched Lieutenant Carey in the nose, and this accident landed him (Carey) in sickbay, Tuvok insisted on having her put in the brig, pointing out that striking a fellow officer was considered a court martial offense. Chakotay, understanding Torres' ways and that she could succeed if given a chance, asked Tuvok to drop the matter as he would discipline her in another manner. ( VOY : " Parallax ")

They also occasionally disagreed over command decisions such as the time when Voyager encountered an inversion field which had twisted and distorted the ship's hull . Tuvok suggested accessing the navigational array and from there engaging thrusters . Chakotay, however, decided to follow Torres' suggestion. This lead Tuvok to second-guess Chakotay's decision, which in turn irritated Chakotay who reminded him that he was in command. When it turned out that Tuvok's suggestion would indeed have been the wiser choice, Chakotay admitted that while he sometimes found Tuvok arrogant and irritating, he nonetheless believed him to be "one hell of an officer". Tuvok responded that while he in fact hadn't always been particularly partial to his methods either, he had always respected Captain Janeway's decisions, even though her decision to make Chakotay first officer put him in a position he was unaccustomed to. Tuvok apologized if that had ever caused him to make things more difficult for Chakotay, an apology Chakotay graciously accepted. ( VOY : " Twisted ")

Throughout their journey back home, their relationship gradually softened, and both came to greatly appreciate and respect the other. On one occasion, when a former Maquis crew member directly disobeyed Tuvok's orders, Chakotay even went so far as to personally set him straight, making sure he understood whose orders he needed to respect on the ship and that disobedience of those the Maquis did not personally approve of would have its consequences. ( VOY : " Learning Curve ")

When Voyager was traversing what they dubbed " the Void " in 2375 , Janeway fell into a deep, guilt-based depression over the ship being trapped in the Delta Quadrant due to her decisions. Worried, Chakotay relied on Tuvok's knowledge of her past and her psyche to predict that she would likely resort to self-sacrifice to protect the crew. When asked by Chakotay, Tuvok pledged his support in preventing any such outcome. ( VOY : " Night ")

Chakotay and Seska share a moment

Seska and Chakotay were not only together in the Maquis, but they were also romantically involved sometime in the past, although they had eventually decided not to pursue their relationship any further. A certain attraction between them still existed, however, and when Chakotay once reminded Seska of their decision to not be together anymore, she laughed it off, joking that stranded in the Delta Quadrant, he didn't have all that many options.

Despite being hesitant to pursue a romantic relationship with her, Chakotay nonetheless remained very protective of Seska and when she was accused of sabotage and collaboration with the Kazon, he was the only one on her side until, much to his disappointment, evidence proved that she was indeed betraying them. She not only had collaborated with the Kazon, but it turned out that she was in fact a Cardassian spy who had her physique surgically altered to look Bajoran in order to infiltrate Chakotay's Maquis cell. She insisted, however, that she had only one agenda with Chakotay which wasn't all that secret.

Shortly after she was exposed and before her departure from Voyager , she expressed her deep disappointment in Chakotay who had decided to take on "mighty Starfleet principles", which she believed to be responsible for their perilous situation. She wondered how she could ever have loved him. ( VOY : " State of Flux ")

After this betrayal by Seska, Chakotay felt a great sense of shame and disappointment, because she had not only taken advantage of his trust and care for her, but also because after everything he had done for her, she publicly humiliated him by turning out to have been a Cardassian spy who now had, once again, turned her back on him by defecting to the enemy.

After Seska fled Voyager , she joined Maje Culluh of the Kazon-Nistrim, constantly plotting new ways to capture Voyager . In one instance, she lured Chakotay into a trap in which he was caught and tortured by Culluh and his men unsuccessfully for information about Voyager . She used that opportunity to artificially inseminate herself and eventually gave birth to a baby boy she claimed to be Chakotay's son.

Unable to abandon his child, Chakotay – as soon as he found out – pursued her. It turned out to be a trap once again, and Chakotay's pursuit led to the capture of Voyager by the Nistrim and to the crew being marooned on a desolate planet.

The Doctor, who had stayed aboard Voyager when the Nistrim took over, examined the child and much to Seska's surprise revealed that the baby was half Kazon and thus not Chakotay's son.

A rescue attempt led by Tom Paris lead to the Nistrim being forced to abandon Voyager . it was during Paris' rescue attempt when Seska received a high dose of electric charge at one of the consoles and shortly after died with her baby in arm. Culluh took the baby with him when leaving Voyager , leaving her remains behind – which Chakotay later found when retaking the ship. ( VOY : " Maneuvers ", " Basics, Part II ")

In 2371 , Seska had found Tuvok's Insurrection Alpha holonovel training program depicting a Maquis mutiny and reprogrammed it with the goal of trapping Tuvok and anyone with him inside the program the next time he tried editing the narrative parameters file , and with the safety protocols turned off. The novel portrayed a holo Chakotay programmed to be strongly enamored by Seska, and the two were enthusiastically living out their old wild Maquis ways. ( VOY : " Worst Case Scenario ")

Chakotay and Kellin's brief love affair

Kellin , a Ramuran , who came from a closed society , fell in love with Chakotay on one of her missions to retrieve and bring back someone who had decided to leave their society. The Ramuran's biology was such that those whom they met couldn't hold their memories of contact with the Ramurans for more than a few hours. Similarly, Ramurans who escaped also had their memories of the new species they encountered wiped out. Kellin explained that she had visited Voyager previously and that she and Chakotay had fallen in love. Chakotay was taken aback by the things Kellin said and it took him a while to fall in love with her again.

Shortly after Kellin's return, the Ramurans pursued her and an agent beamed aboard to take her back; he hit her with a neurolytic emitter and wiped out her knowledge of Chakotay. Chakotay tried hard to get her to remember him and what they felt for each other, but with Kellin's memory of Chakotay and their feelings for one another wiped out, Kellin just wanted to return to her world and was not interested in pursuing a romance with Chakotay. As she left, Chakotay – knowing that he would soon forget about her and that all electronic records would be wiped clean as well by the Ramurans, began handwriting down his memories of her visit, so they wouldn't be forgotten. ( VOY : " Unforgettable ")

Valerie Archer

Chakotay and Archer meet in Species 8472's recreation of the Quantum Café

Valerie Archer and Chakotay (calling himself Jason Hayek ) met while Chakotay was on a reconnaissance away mission investigating a recreation of Starfleet Command and Starfleet Academy constructed on a space station in the Delta Quadrant. At first unbeknownst to Chakotay, Archer was one of Species 8472 , genetically modified to look Human. Chakotay's initial interactions with Archer, while flirtatious, were solely for the purposes of finding out information, while Archer's were for the purpose of practicing acting like a Human (Species 8472 were running the recreation as a training facility to prepare trainees to infiltrate Starfleet on reconnaissance missions). When they met a second time, for a date suggested by Archer, both were using the interaction for espionage (Archer had been informed by her superior that Chakotay might be a Human and had been charged with investigating him). However, by the end of the date, when Archer initiated a kiss (ostensibly as part of her training to learn more about the Human species), Chakotay, initially resistant, kissed Archer passionately. The kiss was a ploy by Archer to get a genetic sample from Chakotay to test what species he was. Having informed her superior that his suspicions were correct, Chakotay was caught before he managed to leave the space station. During interrogation and a procedure to extract more of Chakotay's DNA to improve Species 8472's genetically engineered disguises, Chakotay managed to further engage Archer on an intellectual and empathetic level. While their relationship had initially been based on suspicion and utility, a genuine romantic and respectful connection developed between the two during their times together. Their evident mutual respect and trust was persuasive to their superiors during the subsequent diplomatic engagement between Voyager and Species 8472 to try to avoid conflict. When the two sides had reached an agreement, Chakotay and Archer met again and expressed their appreciation for each other, indicating how they would have liked to be able to spend more time with each other. Archer said it was a shame their two species were so different, otherwise she would have asked him for a second date. Chakotay said Archer had made a "terrific human" and that he would like Archer to give him a tour of her relm (i.e., fluidic space ) in the future; Archer replied that she would like that. Before they parted, Archer initiated another kiss, which they both enjoyed. ( VOY : " In the Flesh ")

Seven of Nine

Seven of Nine and Chakotay got off to a rough start; he initially saw in her a mere drone that was not to be trusted. He made it clear to Captain Janeway that he did not think it was a good idea to take her along on their journey, stating that trying to bring her back to Humanity might be impossible as her Borg part might always cause complications and haunt her. He also disliked Seven's adversarial and insubordinate attitude toward Captain Janeway in particular and ship regulations in general and he once voiced his concern of allowing her to be the sole person in charge of Voyager when it was passing through a dangerous Mutara class nebula . ( VOY : " Scorpion ", " Prey ", " One ")

As their journey progressed and as the crew began slowly warming up to her, Chakotay also began seeing in Seven a valuable crew member. His impression of her changed and he no longer believed that she could not make it as Human. He told Captain Janeway once that when she first came aboard, he did not think that she would last a day, much less a year. He was glad that Janeway had proven him wrong in that regard. ( VOY : " Infinite Regress ")

On one occasion he encouraged her to take on three former child drones from her former collective by having their neural implants removed so they could live as individuals. ( VOY : " Survival Instinct ") When in 2376 she asked to be relieved as the children's guardian – mainly because she couldn't get them to obey her rather rigid schedule that allotted specific times for "fun" – Chakotay denied her request, stating that she treated the children as if they were still on a Borg cube, making them do the same things at the same times and not allowing them to express their individuality. He encouraged her to grant them some leeway and spontaneity so they could develop as individuals. ( VOY : " Ashes to Ashes ")

Seven breaks up with Chakotay

In 2378 , while trying to explore different aspects of her Humanity such as social activities and intimate relations, Seven began playing with the possibility of a romantic relationship with Chakotay. She simulated a few dates with her new love interest on the holodeck. ( VOY : " Human Error ")

When Seven's cortical node shut down during the simulations she was running, mainly because of a certain level of emotional stimulation she had experienced, she decided to terminate her experimentation with dating and the strong emotions that followed it. It turned out that the shutting down of her cortical node was a fail-safe mechanism to deactivate drones who started to regain their emotions. Even though The Doctor offered to help her to function normally again through several operations, Seven refused, stating that all those holographic fantasies were an inefficient use of her time. She was also quite embarrassed that The Doctor had found out about her fantasies with Chakotay but knew that he would keep that information confidential. ( VOY : " Human Error ")

Chakotay and Seven kiss.

Chakotay doesn't want to let Seven go just yet

However, The Doctor did not give up and several months later was able to devise a safe method of removing her implants in one surgical procedure. This gave Seven the freedom to experience emotions without the feared repercussions and she finally began pursuing a relationship with Chakotay. On one date, she prepared a picnic in cargo bay 2 for them, complete with wine , which the Chakotay described as "perfection." Later, they had a private dinner in Chakotay's quarters. Seven transported in, saying she didn't think it would be seen as appropriate carrying flowers to the first officer's quarters. To avoid the uncomfortable anticipation of the first kiss, Seven figured it would be best if she got it over with and kissed him. When Chakotay asked about the second kiss, she replied she'd have to check her research – but the two continued passionately, until being called to the bridge moments later. ( VOY : " Endgame ")

In an alternate timeline , Admiral Janeway revealed to her that Chakotay and Seven got married in that timeline, and that she died while he remained heartbroken. Upon hearing this, Seven tried to break off the relationship with Chakotay in order to save both of them from a lot of heartache, but Chakotay refused to let her end it based on what he believed to be mere speculation and they decided to continue their romance despite what they had heard. ( VOY : " Endgame ")

Alternate Chakotays

Biomimetic duplicate.

In 2374 , the Voyager , while dangerously low on deuterium as fuel, landed on a Demon Class planet rich in deuterium sources. The planet was filled with silver fluid with mimetic properties. The Silver Blood sampled the crew's DNA and created duplicates with identical memories and personalities but with the ability to survive on the planet. The silver blood would not let Voyager leave unless it could duplicate the rest of Voyager 's crew to populate the planet. Captain Janeway, understanding that this was their only way out, allowed the "silver blood" to duplicate the crew. In 2375 , this duplicate ship – unaware that it was a facsimile of the original Voyager crew – began suddenly dying one by one due to warp drive radiation. Upon finding out their true identities, "Chakotay" argued with "Janeway", who wanted to carry on towards Earth, that they should return to their real home, the Demon class planet, or the entire crew would die. "Janeway" refused but was convinced when "Chakotay" died from the raditaion. In her impromptu eulogy informing the crew of his death, "Janeway" called "Chakotay" a " friend who wasn't afraid to let me know when I am wrong ". Unfortunately, everyone died before the ship could reach home. ( VOY : " Demon ", " Course: Oblivion ")

The Bajoran "Katanay", from Photons Be Free

Chakotay was holographically duplicated on a number of occasions:

• Recreations of crew members from Voyager and the Jupiter Station Holoprogramming Center were seen by The Doctor during a holographic malfunction in 2371 . This simulation, or daydream, included Chakotay. ( VOY : " Projections ")
• The entire crew of Voyager was recreated by Tuvok from his Insurrection Alpha program, including Chakotay, who was depicted as the leader of the Maquis mutiny. ( VOY : " Worst Case Scenario ")
• The Kyrian Museum of Heritage in the 31st century used the program The Voyager Encounter to detail their encounter with the warship Voyager as an aid to a history lesson. In that recreation, Chakotay (whose name in the simulation was pronounced differently) was depicted as a cold-blooded killer working for an equally cold-blooded captain, who had ordered the genocide of millions of people. His tattoo was shown to be a lot bigger, covering half his face. ( VOY : " Living Witness ")
• In 2374 , The Doctor recreated the crew of Voyager , including Chakotay, in order to help Seven of Nine improve her social skills. ( VOY : " One ")

Chakotay as an unscrupulous killer as imagined by the Kyrians

• Lt. Barclay 's recreated most of the crew of USS Voyager at the Communications Research Center on Earth for the Pathfinder Project in 2376 . The Maquis crew members, including Chakotay, were not wearing Starfleet uniforms . ( VOY : " Pathfinder ")
• In 2378 , Seven recreated the crew of Voyager to perfect her social skills, including Chakotay, who is her romantic interest and encouraged her to explore her humanity through music and their relationship. He is sad when Seven ends their relationship, pleading with her to reconsider. This Chakotay can't cook, calling himself a more of a " replicator man ". ( VOY : " Human Error ")
• The Doctor's holonovel Photons Be Free was set aboard the USS Vortex and crewed by characters based on the crew of USS Voyager , albeit the names were changed to protect the innocent. The character of Katanay was based on Chakotay. ( VOY : " Author, Author ")
• The Doctor was forced to impersonate members of Voyager 's crew during a crisis in 2378 . One was Chakotay. ( VOY : " Renaissance Man ")

Alternate realities and timelines

Chakotay in 2390 of an alternate timeline

In another timeline, Chakotay and Harry Kim flew the Delta Flyer to Earth after Voyager was destroyed due to a mistake of Kim's. Fifteen years later, as fugitives, they found Voyager and "fixed" history. ( VOY : " Timeless ")

Another separate timeline was created when Captain Braxton, from the 29th century , placed a temporal disruptor aboard Voyager , creating several temporal distortions. At one point while Chakotay was giving a damage report to Captain Janeway, he passed through a temporal distortion, and appeared to echo – both his voice, and his appearance. ( VOY : " Relativity ")

Chakotay's grave

In an alternate timeline , Chakotay married Seven of Nine, who later died on an away mission. He himself died in 2394 , the same year as Voyager 's return. According to Admiral Janeway, shortly after Voyager 's return Chakotay died from grief over Seven's death. He had a grave marker at a cemetery on Earth. ( VOY : " Endgame ")

In another alternate timeline experienced by Kes, Chakotay was captain of the USS Voyager after Captain Janeway and B'Elanna Torres were killed by a chroniton torpedo in a Krenim attack in 2374. ( VOY : " Before and After ")

• 2329 : Year of Birth
• 2344 : Enters Starfleet Academy
• 2348 : Graduates from Starfleet Academy
• Resigns from Starfleet
• Joins the Maquis
• 2368 – 2371 : Member of the Maquis
• 2371 – 2378 : First officer of the USS Voyager
• Promoted to Captain
• Given command of the USS Protostar
• Late 25th century : Imprisoned on Solum

Memorable quotes

" I have no intention of being your token Maquis officer! "

" We talk to animals. "

"You were working for her, Seska was working for them, was anyone on that ship working for me?"

" Trapped on a barren planet and you're stuck with the only Indian in the universe who can't start a fire by rubbing two sticks together! "

" Is there something on your mind? " " Yes, but you're not going to like it. " " That's never stopped you before. "

" I guess you never assimilated any Indian scouts. "

" Maybe you can just flip some Borg switch and shut down your emotions, but I can't! "

Appearances

• " Caretaker "
• " Parallax "
• " Time and Again "
• " The Cloud "
• " Eye of the Needle "
• " Ex Post Facto "
• " Emanations "
• " Prime Factors "
• " State of Flux "
• " Heroes and Demons "
• " Cathexis "
• " Learning Curve "
• " The 37's "
• " Initiations "
• " Projections "
• " Elogium "
• " Non Sequitur "
• " Twisted "
• " Parturition "
• " Persistence of Vision "
• " Cold Fire "
• " Maneuvers "
• " Resistance "
• " Prototype "
• " Alliances "
• " Threshold "
• " Dreadnought "
• " Death Wish "
• " Lifesigns "
• " Investigations "
• " Deadlock "
• " Innocence "
• " The Thaw "
• " Resolutions "
• " Basics, Part I "
• " Basics, Part II "
• " Flashback "
• " The Chute "
• " The Swarm "
• " False Profits "
• " Remember "
• " Sacred Ground "
• " Future's End "
• " Future's End, Part II "
• " Warlord "
• " The Q and the Grey "
• " Macrocosm "
• " Fair Trade "
• " Alter Ego "
• " Blood Fever "
• " Darkling "
• " Favorite Son "
• " Before and After "
• " Real Life "
• " Distant Origin "
• " Displaced "
• " Worst Case Scenario "
• " Scorpion "
• " Scorpion, Part II "
• " The Gift "
• " Day of Honor "
• " Nemesis "
• " Revulsion "
• " The Raven "
• " Scientific Method "
• " Year of Hell "
• " Year of Hell, Part II "
• " Random Thoughts "
• " Concerning Flight "
• " Mortal Coil "
• " Waking Moments "
• " Message in a Bottle "
• " Hunters "
• " Retrospect "
• " The Killing Game "
• " The Killing Game, Part II "
• " Vis à Vis "
• " The Omega Directive "
• " Unforgettable "
• " Living Witness " ( hologram )
• " Hope and Fear "
• " Extreme Risk "
• " In the Flesh "
• " Once Upon a Time "
• " Timeless "
• " Infinite Regress "
• " Nothing Human "
• " Thirty Days "
• " Counterpoint "
• " Latent Image "
• " Bride of Chaotica! "
• " Gravity "
• " Dark Frontier "
• " The Disease "
• " Course: Oblivion "
• " The Fight "
• " Think Tank "
• " Juggernaut "
• " Someone to Watch Over Me "
• " Relativity "
• " Warhead "
• " Equinox "
• " Equinox, Part II "
• " Survival Instinct "
• " Barge of the Dead "
• " Tinker Tenor Doctor Spy "
• " Riddles "
• " Dragon's Teeth "
• " One Small Step "
• " The Voyager Conspiracy "
• " Pathfinder "
• " Fair Haven "
• " Blink of an Eye "
• " Virtuoso "
• " Memorial "
• " Tsunkatse "
• " Collective "
• " Spirit Folk "
• " Ashes to Ashes "
• " Child's Play "
• " Good Shepherd "
• " Live Fast and Prosper "
• " Life Line "
• " The Haunting of Deck Twelve "
• " Unimatrix Zero "
• " Unimatrix Zero, Part II "
• " Imperfection "
• " Repression "
• " Critical Care "
• " Inside Man "
• " Body and Soul "
• " Flesh and Blood "
• " Nightingale "
• " Shattered "
• " Lineage "
• " Repentance "
• " Prophecy "
• " The Void "
• " Workforce "
• " Workforce, Part II "
• " Human Error "
• " Author, Author "
• " Friendship One "
• " Natural Law "
• " Homestead "
• " Renaissance Man "
• " Endgame "
• " Kobayashi " (holographic recording)
• " First Con-tact " (holographic recording)
• " Asylum " (holographic recording)
• " Preludes "
• " Mindwalk " (holographic recording)
• " Supernova, Part 2 " (voice recording)

Background information

Chakotay was played by Robert Beltran during the course of Star Trek: Voyager .

In " Tattoo ", a younger Chakotay was played by Douglas Spain . In " Cathexis ", he was briefly "portrayed" by Kate Mulgrew , Roxann Biggs-Dawson , Ethan Phillips , Garrett Wang , and Brian Markinson while possessing the bodies of their respective characters.

Chakotay was the first person to be seen in Star Trek: Voyager 's series premiere, " Caretaker ". In fact, the Native American character that became Chakotay was one of the first characters devised for Star Trek: Voyager . It was inspired by the positive influence that the character of Uhura has had on African Americans. Commented Executive Producer Jeri Taylor , " It seemed to us [meaning herself, Rick Berman and Michael Piller ] that Native Americans needed that same kind of role model and that same kind of boost… the future looks good, you have purpose, you have worth, you have value, you will be leaders, you will be powerful. That was one character choice we had early on. " ( A Vision of the Future - Star Trek: Voyager , p. 174)

The as-yet-unnamed Native American was briefly mentioned in a set of handwritten notes that Taylor dated 30 July 1993 , and the character was outlined on 3 August 1993 , by which point his occupation as first officer for the new series (the similarly not-yet-named Star Trek: Voyager ) had been decided upon. The outline read, " A Human native American male, 'Queegquog' person who has renounced Earth and lives as an expatriate on another planet. A mystical, mysterious man with whom the Captain has some prior connection, not explained. " ( A Vision of the Future - Star Trek: Voyager , pp. 175 & 176) On or by 17 August 1993 , the producers decided that, due to the character's allegiance to the captain, he would not be a likely candidate for wanting, in conflict with her, to settle for being stranded from Earth in the unexplored space that served as the series' setting. It was also decided that it would be "his people," rather than himself, who had renounced Earth and were living as expatriates on another planet. " This man has made another choice – to re-enter the world of Starfleet, " explained notes dated 17 August, which also replaced the word "mystical" with "complex". ( A Vision of the Future - Star Trek: Voyager , pp. 188-189)

To find out more about the character's Native American background, the producers enlisted the assistance of Jamake Highwater . ( A Vision of the Future - Star Trek: Voyager , p. 199) Around 21 September 1993 , he forwarded the producers seven pages of research suggestions concerning Chakotay's background, though one point that remained undecided was the character's tribal ancestry. ( A Vision of the Future - Star Trek: Voyager , p. 206) The fact that this had not been identified was noted in the first draft of the series writers' bible, which also named the character "Chakatoy". ( A Vision of the Future - Star Trek: Voyager , p. 208) Ultimately his introduction in the premiere's script simply described him as "an intense Native American man in his late thirties" with "a tattooed face."

The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode " Preemptive Strike ", which was written and aired well into Voyager 's production phase, the lieutenant commander to whom Ro Laren refers as her instructor at Advanced Tactical Training in 2369 /2370, and who joined the Maquis , was intended as a reference to Chakotay. As was the Native American connection made in that epsiode, and previously in " Journey's End " (and " The Maquis, Part II "). ( Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion  (2nd ed., p. 298)}

Indeed, these original intentions about Chakotay were included in Ro Laren's biography at StarTrek.com but were ultimately nixed onscreen through contradictory information revealed in the Voyager fifth season episode " In the Flesh ". Here, Chakotay stated that he resigned his commission on March 3 , 2368 , whereas according to his StarTrek.com biography, he resigned his commission in 2370.

Chakotay's rank insignia

Although Chakotay was invariably referred to as "commander" during the run of the series, his character wore what was indicated in reference materials to be the provisional officer rank insignia of a lieutenant commander (two solid stripes, one hollow stripe), a rank shared with his predecessor, Lt. Cmdr. Cavit . ( Star Trek Encyclopedia  (3rd ed., p. 211)) While remaining true to production intentions from "Preemptive Strike", this was apparently a costuming error that continued throughout the course of all seven seasons.

Episode credit

While it has been shown to be generally accepted in Star Trek to refer to officers by the higher ranking component of their actual rank, as indicated with both Tom Paris and B'Elanna Torres being credited as "lieutenant", while in actuality being lieutenants junior grade , the same practice was not likely the case for Chakotay, who was otherwise identified as "Commander Chakotay" in the opening credits of virtually every episode from the first three seasons.

On Chakotay's choice to wear the provisional rank insignia (having resigned) versus being given standard commission like Tom Paris (who was discharged), Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 1, Issue 19 , p. 109, suggested that " while Chakotay would be entitled to a full commission, he chose to wear the same rank insignia as the rest of the Maquis, to show where his loyalties lay. "

Cmdr. Chakotay (lower left)

Aside from being initially addressed as "Commander Chakotay" in " Caretaker ", even before joining the crew of Voyager , at least two other instances formally referred to him as a full "commander". The first instance appeared on the crew manifest shown in " The Killing Game ", while the second was referenced in " In the Flesh ", where his name, rank, serial number, position, and assignment were collectively revealed by Boothby .

Character Bible description

The First Officer is a complex – some would say difficult – man. His background is unique: he spans two cultures, one foot in each, belonging to both and yet to neither. In the twenty-second century, a group of Indian traditionalists became dissatisfied with the "homogenization" of Humans that was occurring on Earth. Strongly motivated to preserve their cultural identity, they relocated to a remote planet near what has now become known as the Demilitarized Zone. Chakotay is a member of that Indian nation, but was always what his people call a "contrary;" he had a mind of his own, an individualistic rather than communal way of thinking. Though proud of his heritage and his traditions, he was not satisfied to ignore the galaxy around him – a galaxy teeming with diverse life-forms and amazing technology. He broke from his people, educated himself in the ways of the twenty-fourth century, and attended Starfleet Academy. But he was "contrary" at the Academy, also, and found he had difficulty adhering to the rigid codes and rules. He was commissioned and posted to the Merrimac just after the end of the Cardassian wars. When he learned that his people were becoming victims of attack by Cardassians, he left Starfleet to defend them, joining the then-infant group, Maquis. Chakotay never gave up his practice of traditional rituals, and he preserves them aboard Voyager . In his quarters is an Indian altar and other traditional ritual items. One wall contains a version of traditional mural art. He visits the Holodeck where he has a "habak" program for the celebration of his people's ceremonial cycle. As an adolescent, Chakotay pursued a vision quest, and in doing so obtained a "spirit guide" – a timber wolf – which appears to him now in dreams and visions, and often guides him in his decision-making process. He has a reverence for all living things, and when he eats he offers thanks to the earth for providing food; he will not eat meat; he takes no drugs or alcohol. As a leader he is steady, fearless, and capable of inspiring absolute devotion. Though he comes onto Voyager more by necessity than choice, he quickly wins the respect of even the most die-hard Starfleet veterans. He strikes an immediate and powerful bond with Janeway, and an unusual one with Kim, who through Chakotay's example begins to question his own homogenization and the loss of his traditional values.

In the novel Pathways it is stated that the Starfleet captain who sponsored Chakotay in applying to Starfleet Academy was Hiromi Sulu, the grandson of Hikaru Sulu , while in the short story "Seduced" from the anthology Tales from the Captain's Table , it is stated that it was Demora Sulu. That Chakotay referred to this captain as a "he" is explained as a deliberate deception on Chakotay's part as he did not believe that his father would have the same respect for a woman as he would for a man.

Chakotay graduated from the Academy in 2351. By 2353, he served aboard the SS Vico as an aide to Captain Roger Hackney and held the rank of lieutenant . It was aboard the Vico that Chakotay had his first encounter with a Cardassian warship that had violated the Federation border. In 2362, Chakotay transferred to the USS Gage where he stayed aboard for four years of conflict with the Cardassians. Following the end of the Federation-Cardassian War , Chakotay was granted an extended leave to his homeworld. By 2368, Chakotay was promoted to lieutenant commander and serving aboard the USS Gettysburg , under the command of Captain Madolyn Gordon.

Pathways also asserts that Chakotay's homeworld is called Trebus, but the relaunch novels assert that he and his family were native to Dorvan V which – as established in Star Trek Monthly Issues 4 and 10 (pages 55 and 14, respectively) – the producers of Voyager initially intended to be Chakotay's homeworld, even though that contradicts with Chakotay's year of birth of 2329 and the fact that Dorvan V became a colony in 2350 .

Pathways references Chakotay originally having a room to himself at the Academy, before being roomed with a Bolian named Chert, and being put on report by a dorm officer for not having his bed made with a mitered corner. These details were also included in an article on Starfleet Academy in Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 1, Issue 2 , p. 104.

In the short story "Isabo's Shirt" from the Voyager anthology book Distant Shores , Chakotay would begin serving on the USS Heritage . where he and a female officer named Grant who was the first officer would begin a romantic relationship, one which Grant noted in Chakotay's Starfleet file. In 2375, the Voyager crew held a "roast" of Chakotay for his birthday and parts of his Starfleet record were read aloud, including Grant's note about their relationship.

In the Voyager relaunch book series , Chakotay returned to Starfleet. His activities as a Maquis were pardoned, and his provisional rank was made official. Through the efforts of the former Captain Janeway, now a vice admiral , he himself was promoted to captain and given command of Voyager where Tom Paris served as his first officer. Chakotay and Seven subsequently ended their romantic liaison. The series also showed his younger sister, Sekaya, who had become a spiritual leader of their tribe.

In the Voyager novel Full Circle , Chakotay and Janeway finally admitted their feelings for each other and began a romantic relationship in 2379 ; they agreed to meet again in Venice after Voyager 's return from the Yaris nebula the following year. When Chakotay traveled to Venice to meet Janeway, however, he was greeted by her former fiancé Mark Johnson who revealed the news of her death. Distraught, Chakotay made a questionable and out of character command decision on his next mission. This and other questionable command decisions resulted in Chakotay requiring a psychological evaluation and eventually resigning from Starfleet altogether. In the Voyager novel Unworthy Chakotay finally returned to Starfleet and was once again given command of Voyager . In The Eternal Tide , Chakotay resumes his relationship with Janeway when she is brought back to life by Q's son and Kes .

In an alternate timeline illustrated in the Star Trek: Myriad Universes novel Places of Exile , Voyager was forced to remain in the Delta Quadrant due to serious damage to the ship and Chakotay became a statesman in the Vostigye Union, which had become Voyager 's new home. In this timeline, he and Janeway were romantically involved and had a daughter named Shannon Sekaya Janeway.

External links

• Chakotay at StarTrek.com
• Chakotay at Wikipedia
• Chakotay at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
• Chakotay at the Star Trek Online Wiki
• 1 Rachel Garrett
• 3 USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-G)

Star Trek's Chakotay Voyager & Prodigy History Explained

C aptain Chakotay (Robert Beltran) has had a fascinating life inside and outside Starfleet as depicted in Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Prodigy . Chakotay grew up in a Federation colony positioned on the Cardassian Demilitarized Zone that was populated by those of Native American descent. While it's never been confirmed on-screen, Chakotay's home was intended by writer Jeri Taylor to be Dorvan V, the Native American colony from the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Journey's End". When the Cardassians attempted to take over his home, Chakotay's father was killed resisting them, and this tragic death had an understandably seismic impact on Chakotay.

The Cardassians' takeover of his colony was agreed upon by the treaty between the Federation and the Cardassian Union, forcing Chakotay to reconsider his position in Starfleet. Like many officers who opposed the Federation's appeasement of the Cardassians, Chakotay joined the Maquis and fought back against the takeover of his colony, eventually becoming a leader within the organization. It was Chakotay's time in the Maquis that brought him into contact with Star Trek: Voyager 's Tuvok (Tim Russ) , who was undercover aboard Chakotay's ship the Val Jean when it went missing in the Badlands. It was the disappearance of the Val Jean that brought Chakotay into the orbit of the USS Voyager, and Captain Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew).

RELATED: Every Voyager Character's Star Trek Return (& How)

Chakotay's Star Trek: Voyager History Explained

Seeking out the Val Jean, Voyager came into contact with the same array that transported the Maquis ship 70,000 light years away to the Delta Quadrant. Stranded far from home by the Caretaker, and more importantly, far from the Cardassian border disputes, the Maquis members and Voyager's Starfleet officers were forced to work together. In an attempt to better integrate the Maquis, Janeway made Chakotay her second-in-command, and the two formed a mutual respect for each other almost immediately. Chakotay helped Janeway smooth out tensions between the Maquis and Starfleet crews, particularly when it came to the volatile half-Klingon B'elanna Torres (Roxann Dawson) who often clashed with Janeway in Voyager 's early days.

Chakotay was instrumental in averting a Maquis mutiny, as he knew internal strife within the ship would impede their chances of survival. This was a view that wasn't shared by his former lover, Seska (Martha Hackett), who caused considerable strife for the Voyager crew in their first years in the Delta Quadrant, eventually betraying them for the Kazon. Chakotay's experiences in the Maquis often informed his perception of the situations that Voyager faced during their seven years in the Delta Quadrant, such as when he deduced that Voyager's holographic Doctor (Robert Picardo) had been radicalized by a group of mistreated holograms in the episode "Flesh and Blood".

Many of Chakotay's Star Trek: Voyager episodes centered around his attempts to connect with his Native American heritage while being stranded in the Delta Quadrant. His spirituality was both a great comfort to himself and others, notably Neelix (Ethan Phillips) during the existential crisis brought about by his surprise resurrection. In the episode "Tattoo", Chakotay met the sky spirits that his people prayed to, who were actually an ancient alien race. It was this revelation that underlined Chakotay's own belief that spirituality had a scientific grounding.

RELATED: Star Trek Voyager's Chakotay Native American Controversy Explained

Chaoktay's Relationship With Janeway Explained

Chakotay and Janeway's working relationship was regularly tested, and not just by the actions of the former's fellow Maquis. The Maquis cast a shadow over Janeway and Chakotay's relationship right up until their final year in the Delta Quadrant, when a brainwashed Tuvok began attacking former Maquis, creating paranoia and tension aboard Voyager. These attacks were part of a larger scheme to use Tuvok's Vulcan mind-meld abilities to influence the Maquis crew into finally carrying out a mutiny against Janeway.

Chakotay had previously considered relieving Janeway of duty when she became obsessed with bringing the captain of the similarly stricken USS Equinox to justice, going too far in the process. However, his trust in her to finally realize she'd lost her way prevented him from ordering a mutiny. Janeway and Chakotay also clashed over the former's ill-judged alliance with the Borg, because Chakotay had experienced what it was like to be part of the Collective, and correctly predicted that the Borg would betray them.

In the early days of Star Trek: Voyager , there was romantic tension between Janeway and Chakotay . This potential romance was never pursued due to Kate Mulgrew's belief that Star Trek 's first female Captain having a romantic relationship with her First Officer would undermine the character. However, the two officers were extremely close, and would regularly dine together throughout their voyage across the Delta Quadrant. In Voyager 's season 5 premiere, "Night", Janeway became so depressed and despondent during their exploration of a barren region of space, that Chakotay stepped in to captain the vessel, and refused to allow Janeway to sacrifice herself to hasten their journey home.

This determination not to leave anyone behind is what's driving Vice Admiral Janeway's quest to rescue Chakotay in Star Trek: Prodigy . The USS Protostar was designed to undo some of the damage that Voyager unwittingly did in the Delta Quadrant, and Chakotay had a command hologram created in Janeway's image to accompany him. It's a touching reminder of how much Chakotay trusts Janeway's counsel, and the real Janeway's determined quest to save him reveals that her loyalty to her Voyager crew hasn't faltered in the years since their return to the Alpha Quadrant.

RELATED: Star Trek's 4 Quadrants & Galaxy Explained

Chakotay's Relationship With Seven Of Nine Explained

As with Janeway's Borg alliance, Chakotay was skeptical about her decision to make Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) part of the Voyager crew. However, Chakotay later observed to Janeway that she had made the right call in putting her faith in Seven's transition from Borg drone to a valued member of the crew. Chakotay even attempted to aid Seven's transformation when he suggested she look after three young former Borg, encouraging her to let the youngsters embrace their own individuality.

As part of Seven's attempts to learn more about Human emotions and social interactions, she used the holodeck to explore the possibility of a romantic relationship with Chakotay. However, Seven's Borg implants prevented her from being able to experience strong emotions like love, putting an end to her experiments. Chakotay was unaware of these simulations and of Seven's attraction to him. However, when the Doctor was able to remove the implant, Seven made the decision to attempt a romantic relationship with him and the two went on a couple of dates. In an alternate future, Seven and Chakotay even got married, but her untimely death broke Chakotay's heart.

This revelation was enough to convince Seven to end the relationship, but Chakotay convinced her to give it a try as they couldn't base their romance on a future that hadn't happened. The pair were still together when Voyager finally returned home to the Alpha Quadrant in 2378. However, the relationship had clearly ended by the time of Star Trek: Picard season 1, as Seven embarked on a new romance with Commander Raffi Musiker (Michelle Hurd) after the two bonded while investigating a Romulan conspiracy against Starfleet.

RELATED: It's Good Chakotay's Actor Turned Down A Star Trek Picard Return

Chakotay In Star Trek: Prodigy Explained

Officially reassigned to Starfleet after his field commission on Voyager, the newly promoted Captain Chakotay was given command of the USS Protostar. The prototype starship was powered by a proto-drive which enabled the Protostar to reach speeds never before achieved by a Starfleet vessel. On their first mission back to the Delta Quadrant, Chakotay and his crew encountered a temporal anomaly that transported them decades into the future, in orbit around the planet Solum. The Protostar was hijacked by the Vau N'Akat, a species that held Starfleet and the Federation responsible for a devastating civil war.

The Protostar was armed with a weapon, the Living Construct, that would immediately turn Starfleet's ships against each other. Wresting back control of the Protostar, Chakotay sent it back through the anomaly, where it crash-landed on Tars Lamora, to be discovered by Dal R'El (Brett Gray) and his young friends, attracting the attention of Vice Admiral Janeway. Chakotay and his crew are still stranded in the future after sending back the Protostar, and Janeway has made it her mission to save him. With an unorthodox crew, and the directions to the anomaly that will reunite her with Chakotay, Star Trek: Prodigy season 2 will bring Janeway and Chakotay's Star Trek story full circle.

'Star Trek Prodigy' Shows the Voyager Crew Couldn’t Escape a Tragic Fate

Nothing good ever comes from being in Starfleet, apparently.

Editor's note: The following contains spoilers for Star Trek: Prodigy Season 1 Episodes 11-15

The second half of Star Trek: Prodigy develops a new subplot on the show -- Vice Admiral Kathryn Janeway’s ( Kate Mulgrew ) search for Captain Chakotay ( Robert Beltran ). While Hologram Janeway mentors the crew of the Protostar, the youthful protagonists are unaware that their mission to join Starfleet is hindering the real Janeway’s hunt for her friend. If we were imagining the crew of the USS Voyager living in the lap of luxury after their exploits in the Delta Quadrant, Star Trek: Prodigy is here to tell us that they are certainly not. And this tracks with how most Star Trek protagonists’ lives have panned out for the worse. After the series finales of our favorite shows, these heroes did not get the happily-ever-afters they fought and sacrificed for. Instead, they end up facing more personal loss, bureaucracy, and disillusionment. All this while, the majority of the Voyager crew’s bleak futures had not been explored. Now that Star Trek: Prodigy is setting the record straight, we almost wish they hadn’t.

In Star Trek: Voyager , Captain Janeway’s ship, as well as Chakotay’s Maquis vessel, the Val Jean, were dragged into the Delta Quadrant by the Caretaker array and the crew ended up trapped, thousands of lightyears from Earth. It took Voyager seven years and many losses to return home. On Star Trek: Prodigy , Captain Chakotay is on a mission to the Delta Quadrant — yes, he goes back to the Delta Quadrant — but this time it’s a planned mission, and he’s aboard the Protostar which will bring him back home much faster than when Voyager was stuck there. Except, as we know, the Protostar was found by Dal ( Brett Gray ) and the others. So, what happened to Chakotay? That’s what Janeway is trying to find out. In plain terms, Chakotay is lost in the Delta Quadrant. Again.

RELATED: Jameela Jamil Talks 'Star Trek: Prodigy,' Her Love for Worf and 'The Next Generation'

In Episode 11, “Asylum,” Vice Admiral Janeway remarks that the only way Starfleet could convince her to go back to the Delta Quadrant was as a hologram. And yet, in pursuit of her friend, she leaves her apprehension behind and seems to be willing to return to the Quadrant again. She hasn’t had to enter it yet, but for how much longer? We shouldn’t find it all that surprising that the future of these Star Trek protagonists is bleak. Granted, both Chakotay and Janeway got promotions, and their friendship has stood the test of time, but it seems particularly tragic that Chakotay would be brave enough to return to the Delta Quadrant again, only to be lost there, not once but twice in his lifetime. We don’t know for sure what’s happened to him yet, but we know he’s light years away from home and help.

Unhappy Endings Are Becoming a Pattern in Star Trek

This follows a pattern in the franchise — many of the protagonists from the previous series have met tragic ends or faced worse in their later years. Captain James T. Kirk ( William Shatner ) spent the end of his life stuck in a timeless Nexus before being rescued by Captain Jean-Luc Picard ( Patrick Stewart ), only to then be unceremoniously killed, dying with Picard beside him instead of being surrounded by his friends. Kirk’s friend Spock ( Leonard Nimoy ) lived an impactful life, but he died in a whole other timeline! On Star Trek: Picard , we discover that Picard, a stalwart of Starfleet, left his beloved institution completely disillusioned. Picard was a sad and lonely man till he found purpose again. His colleagues and friends William Riker ( Jonathan Frakes ) and Deanna Troi ( Marina Sirtis ) somehow fared worse. After a long courtship and an on-again-off-again romance, the pair married and had a son. But he died of a preventable disease, all because of the Federation’s ban on synthetic lifeforms. They deserved so much more happiness.

Also on Picard , Seven of Nine ( Jeri Ryan ), another member of Voyager’s crew, revealed her life after the credits rolled on Star Trek: Voyager . A freed Borg, Seven’s fear while she was journeying with Voyager was that she wouldn’t be accepted on Earth. Unlike the crew of Voyager who put their initial fears and concerns about Seven’s presence aside to accept her into their "collective," Earth and Starfleet weren’t quite as understanding. Seven’s application to join Starfleet was rejected, and even Janeway threatening to leave didn’t change their minds. And it appears that Seven’s relationship with Chakotay crashed and burned just as fast. So, she went on to be a lone wolf Fenris Ranger. At least Seven’s alive and in a happy relationship with Raffi Musiker ( Michelle Hurd ). The other two recurring Borg crew members in Star Trek are both dead. Hugh ( Jonathan Del Arco ) was downed by a knife, and Icheb ( Casey King ), who Seven considered her son, was tortured so badly that he asked Seven to kill him. There are times even we wish Seven had remained Borg — life may have been easier for her to deal with.

Janeway's Tough Choices Carry Over into 'Star Trek: Prodigy'

Janeway having to threaten Starfleet is uncharacteristic. She was a stickler for the Prime Directive and Starfleet protocols (to the best of her abilities), but being 75 years from headquarters meant Janeway had carte blanche over how to run her own ship. Being back in the Alpha Quadrant has its downsides. As we see on Star Trek: Prodigy , Vice Admiral Janeway is answerable to her superiors. One of those superiors happens to be Admiral Edward Jellico ( Ronny Cox ), who questions Janeway’s ability to remain rational in her mission to protect the Protostar and rescue Chakotay. Even in the 24th century, powerful women’s emotional standing is brought into question by obnoxious men. Let’s not forget, Janeway also has to put up with the Dauntless’ insufferable Doctor Noum ( Jason Alexander ). And we thought the Emergency Medical Hologram was a pain.

Speaking of the Dauntless, the starship’s choice of name seems like more than a coincidence. Back in Season 4 of Star Trek: Voyager, Janeway and her crew encountered another ship called the Dauntless, or so they thought. In “Hope and Fear,” Voyager met an alien named Arturis ( Ray Wise ), who was extremely helpful in decoding a message from Starfleet. Except, Arturis was actually conning Voyager — he was one of the last of his species, which was decimated by the Borg. He blamed Voyager for his people’s demise because Voyager drove away the Borg’s nemesis, Species 8472. Arturis disguised a starship to look like the USS Dauntless in the hopes that the Voyager crew would move to the new ship, and he’d send them straight to the Borg. He failed, but what’s worse is that Janeway and her crew got away while Arturis was left to become assimilated by the Borg. He would not have been in that situation if Voyager hadn’t sided with the Borg, but they were trying to protect a quadrant from something even worse. But could Voyager have gone back to save him?

Since this was a Star Trek episode, Janeway’s choices weren’t debated much in later scenes, but it was a difficult decision for Janeway to make nonetheless. So why has she taken command of a ship that could remind her of such a harrowing time? Even the interiors of the new Dauntless are reminiscent of the fake one that Arturis created. Is Janeway secretly punishing herself for what happened to Arturis and his people?

Star Trek has a habit of making life difficult for their protagonists, and now we know that the crew of Voyager haven’t been able to escape that fate either. Perhaps the rest of the crew are in a happier place. Has anyone checked if Harry Kim was promoted from ensign?

Whatever Happened To The Cast Of Star Trek: Voyager?

The third "Star Trek" series to air in the 1990s, "Star Trek: Voyager" was also the flagship series for the all-new Paramount television network UPN. Making its debut in January of 1995, the series saw Captain Kathryn Janeway command the state-of-the-art starship Voyager on a mission to pursue a group of Maquis rebels. However, when a phenomenon envelops them both and hurls them to the distant Delta Quadrant, Starfleet officers and Maquis terrorists become one crew on a perilous journey home.

Despite a few cast shake-ups, "Voyager" ran for seven seasons and featured a consistently stellar ensemble. The series helped launch the careers of several of its lesser-known actors, while others can count the series as the highest point in their filmography. Some walked away from Hollywood after it concluded, while a few have since made big comebacks, returning to the roles that made them famous.

Since it ended in 2001, "Voyager" has aged like fine wine, earning new fans thanks to the magic of streaming where new generations can discover it anew. Whether seeing it for the first time — or even if you're watching it for the umpteenth — you may be wondering where the cast is now. Well, recalibrate the bio-neural gel packs and prep the Delta Flyer for launch because we're here to fill you in on what's happened to the cast of "Star Trek: Voyager."

Kate Mulgrew as Captain Kathryn Janeway

It's no secret that Kate Mulgrew wasn't the first choice to play Captain Janeway in "Star Trek: Voyager." Academy Award-nominee Geneviève Bujold was famously cast first  but filmed only a few scenes before quitting the show during the production of the series pilot, leading to Mulgrew being brought in. Today it is difficult to imagine anyone else in the role, though it's hardly Mulgrew's only iconic TV series.

Following the show's conclusion in 2001, Mulgrew took a few years off from acting, returning with a small role in the 2005 film "Perception" with Piper Perabo. After a guest appearance on "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit," Mulgrew snagged a recurring role on "The Black Donnellys" in 2007 alongside Jonathan Tucker and Olivia Wilde and another in the short-lived NBC medical drama "Mercy" in 2009. Her return to a main cast, however, came in the Adult Swim series "NTSF:SD:SUV::," where she played an eye patch-wearing leader of an anti-terrorism task force alongside future "Star Trek" star Rebecca Romijn .

Of course, Mulgrew found a major career resurgence in 2013, starring in one of Netflix's earliest forays into original programming, "Orange is the New Black." In the series she stars as Red, an inmate at a women's prison, a role that would earn her an Emmy nomination. Mulgrew returned to "Star Trek" in 2021, voicing both Kathryn Janeway and a holographic version of the character in the Nickelodeon-produced CGI-animated series  "Star Trek: Prodigy."

Robert Beltran as Commander Chakotay

Sitting in the chair next to Captain Janeway for seven seasons was Robert Beltran as Commander Chakotay, a former Maquis first officer. Though Beltran counts his heritage as Latino, Chakotay was actually the first Native American series regular in the franchise but was sadly under-used, a fact that the actor has  commented on . Following "Star Trek: Voyager," Beltran's work on the small screen was mostly limited to guest appearances, popping up in episodes of "CSI: Miami" and "Medium" in the 2000s while filling roles in movies like "Taking Chances," "Fire Serpent," and "Manticore." 

Beltran's first recurring part on TV after "Voyager" was in the series "Big Love," starring Bill Paxton and Jeanne Tripplehorn. In the series, he played Jerry Flute — another Native American — who has plans to construct a casino on a reservation. However, over the next decade, Beltran seemed to move away from acting, with a sparse handful of minor roles. He revealed on Twitter that he turned down a chance to play Chakotay one more time in the revival series "Star Trek: Picard," as he was unhappy with the part they'd written for him. 

Nevertheless, Beltran did come back to join Kate Mulgrew for the animated children's series "Star Trek: Prodigy." Voicing Chakotay in his triumphant return to the franchise, the series sees the character lost in space and his former captain on a mission to find him.

Tim Russ as Lt. Tuvok

Actor Tim Russ had already made a few guest appearances in "Star Trek: The Next Generation," "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" and even the film "Star Trek Generations" before joining the main cast of "Star Trek: Voyager" in 1995. Russ became a fan-favorite as Vulcan Lt. Tuvok, who was later promoted to Lt. Commander. However, after seven seasons playing the stoic, emotionless Tuvok, Russ kept busy with a variety of different roles, mostly guest-starring in popular TV hits.

This includes guest spots in everything from "ER" and "Law & Order: Criminal Intent" to episodes of "Hannah Montana" and "Without a Trace." He even appeared on the big screen with a small role in "Live Free or Die Hard" in 2007, but it didn't keep him away from TV, as he also had a multi-episode appearance on the hit soap "General Hospital." That same year, Russ joined the main cast of the Christina Applegate comedy "Samantha Who?" and later began working in video games, providing voice work for "Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus" and "The Last of Us Part 2." 

Since then, the actor has kept busy with countless roles in such as "Criminal Minds," "NCIS: New Orleans," "Supergirl," and "The Good Doctor." More recently, Russ turned up in an episode of Seth MacFarlane's "Star Trek" homage "The Orville,"  and in 2023 voiced Lucius Fox in the animated film "Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham."

Roxann Dawson as B'Elanna Torres

On "Star Trek: Voyager," the role of chief engineer was filled by Roxann Dawson who played half-Klingon/half-human B'Elanna Torres. Starting out as a Maquis rebel, she eventually becomes one of the most important members of the crew, as well as a wife and mother. Following her run on the series, Dawson had just a handful of on-screen roles, which included single episodes of "The Closer" and "Without a Trace." That's because, like her franchise cohort  Jonathan Frakes , Dawson moved behind the camera to become a director full-time.

Getting her start overseeing episodes of "Voyager" first, Dawson moved on to helm entries of "Star Trek" spin-off "Enterprise" before broadening to other shows across television. Since 2005, Dawson has directed episodes of some of the biggest hits on TV including "Lost" and "The O.C." in 2006, eight episodes of "Cold Case," a trio of "Heroes" episodes, and more. 

We could go on and on rattling off the hit shows she's sat behind the camera for but among her most notable might be the David Simon HBO series "Treme" in 2011, "Hell on Wheels" with future starship captain Anson Mount, and modern masterpieces like "Bates Motel," "The Americans," and "This is Us." Her most recent work saw her return to sci-fi, helming two episodes of the Apple TV+ series "Foundation."

Garrett Wang as Ensign Harry Kim

Despite never seeing a rise in rank and perpetually remaining a low-level ensign, Harry Kim — played by Garrett Wang – often played a crucial role in defeating many of the enemies the crew would face in the Delta Quadrant. When "Star Trek: Voyager" left the airwaves, though, Wang bounced around, with his biggest role arguably coming in the 2005 Steven Spielberg-produced miniseries "Into the West." He has continued embracing his role as Ensign Kim by appearing at many fan conventions, where he found an entirely new calling. 

Beginning in 2010, Kim embarked on a career as an event moderator, serving as the Master of Ceremonies at that year's FedCon (a science fiction convention held in Germany). Later, he was the Trek Track Director at the celebrated Dragon Con event, held annually in Atlanta, Georgia. Over the course of his new career, Wang has held moderating duties and hosted panels and events at major pop culture conventions in Montreal, Edmonton, Phoenix, and Denver. According to Wang, his biggest role as a moderator came at the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo in 2012, where he interviewed the legendary Stan Lee .

In 2020, Wang joined forces with co-star Robert Duncan McNeill to launch "The Delta Flyers," a podcast that discusses classic episodes of "Star Trek: Voyager."

Robert Duncan McNeill as Lt. Tom Paris

Robert Duncan McNeill guest-starred in an episode of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" as a hotshot pilot who broke the rules and wound up booted from Starfleet. So when producers developed a similar character, they brought in McNeill to play him, resulting in brash, cavalier helm officer Tom Paris. In 2002, after "Star Trek: Voyager" ended, McNeill starred in an episode of  "The Outer Limits" revival  and a few more small roles. However, like Dawson, McNeill left acting not long after the series ended to become a director and producer, starting with four episodes of "Star Trek: Enterprise."

Into the 2000s, McNiell helmed episodes of "Dawson's Creek" and "One Tree Hill" before becoming an executive producer on the action-comedy series "Chuck" starring Zachary Levi. Ultimately he'd direct 21 episodes of that series across its five seasons. From there, McNeill went on to sit behind the camera for installments of "The Mentalist," "Blue Bloods," and "Suits." 

Since the 2010s, McNeill has served as an executive producer on further shows that included "The Gifted," the Disney+ reboot of "Turner & Hooch," and the SyFy series "Resident Alien." In addition to hosting "The Delta Flyers" podcast with co-star Garrett Wang, McNeill came back to "Star Trek" in 2022 when he voiced the character of Tom Paris in a cameo on the animated comedy "Star Trek: Lower Decks."

Ethan Phillips as Neelix

Another actor to appear on "Star Trek" before taking a leading role on "Voyager," Ethan Phillips played the quirky alien chef Neelix for all seven seasons of the show's run. A well-established veteran, his TV roles prior had included dramas like "NYPD Blue" and family hits like "Doogie Howser, M.D." Unfortunately, his role on "Voyager" never translated to big-time success after, though he hardly struggled for work. That's because he went back to his former career as a character actor.

In the ensuing years, Phillips could be seen all over the dial and beyond, with parts in "Touched by an Angel" and "8 Simple Rules" among many others, even popping up in a guest-starring role in an episode of "Star Trek: Enterprise" in 2002. Later he did a three-episode run on "Boston Legal," another Beantown-based legal drama from David E. Kelley, this one starring "Star Trek" legend William Shatner and "Deep Space Nine" alum René Auberjonois. Some of the biggest shows he's found work on during the 2010s meanwhile include "Better Call Saul" and a recurring role in the Lena Dunham comedy "Girls." He's also had roles in major movies, showing up in "Inside Llewyn Davis," "The Purge: Election Year," and "The Island."

Though he hasn't come back to "Star Trek," Phillips did return to sci-fi in 2020, joining the main cast of the HBO space comedy "Avenue 5" alongside Hugh Laurie and Josh Gad.

Jeri Ryan as Seven of Nine

Though she didn't arrive on "Star Trek: Voyager" until Season 4, Jeri Ryan arguably became the series' biggest star. She came in to help liven up a series that was struggling and joined the cast as a former Borg drone named Seven of Nine . It proved to be just what the series needed and a career-defining role for Ryan. One of the few cast members of "Voyager" to parlay her role into bigger success, Ryan immediately joined the David E. Kelley legal drama "Boston Public" after the series ended.

There she had a three-season run and in 2006 she secured another starring role on another legal drama, this time in the James Woods series "Shark," with Danielle Panabaker and Henry Simmons. Smaller recurring roles came after, including multi-episode stints on "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit," "Two and a Half Men," and "Leverage," before Ryan returned to a main cast with her co-starring role in "Body of Proof" in 2011 alongside Dana Delany. Parts in "Helix" and "Bosch" came after, as well as brief recurring roles in "MacGyver" and "Major Crimes," leading right up to her return to "Star Trek" in 2020.

That year, Ryan joined the cast of the revival series "Star Trek: Picard." Returning to the role of Seven of Nine, she supported series lead Patrick Stewart by appearing in all three seasons, and rumor has it she may even star in a spin-off. 

Jennifer Lien as Kes

Joining the Starfleet and Maquis crew aboard Voyager was Kes, a young alien woman with mild telepathic powers and just a nine-year lifespan, and played by Jennifer Lien. Unfortunately, her character never quite gelled, and in Season 4 Lien was written out to make way for Jeri Ryan as Seven of Nine.

Leaving the series in 1997, Lien's career stalled in front of the camera, though she did manage a role in "American History X" alongside "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" star Avery Brooks. However, most of her subsequent work came in animation, with voice work in "Superman: The Animated Series" — where she played Inza, the wife of Doctor Fate — and a starring role as Agent L in "Men in Black: The Series." 

Unfortunately, Lien pretty much left acting shortly after that. She married filmmaker Phil Hwang and started a family but has faced personal problems along the way. While struggling to deal with her mental health, Lien was arrested in 2015 for indecent exposure and again in 2018 for driving without a license. 

If you or someone you know needs help with mental health, please contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741, call the National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264), or visit the National Institute of Mental Health website .

Manu Intiraymi as Icheb

Late in Season 6 of "Star Trek: Voyager," a storyline saw the ship rescue a stranded vessel commanded by a group of wayward Borg children. At the conclusion of the story, four young drones join the crew, becoming a surrogate family of sorts to Seven of Nine after jettisoning their Borg identities. The eldest of them is Icheb, a teenager who becomes like a brother to Seven, played by actor Manu Intiraymi. The young actor went on to make 11 appearances across the final two seasons of the show. 

When "Voyager" ended in 2001, Intiraymi continued acting, with his largest role coming in "One Tree Hill." There he played Billy — a local drug dealer — in a recurring role in 2012. Further projects were mostly independent films like "5th Passenger" in 2017 and "Hell on the Border," a 2019 Western starring David Gyasi, Ron Perlman, and Frank Grillo. 

In 2017, Intiraymi came under fire for criticizing fellow "Star Trek" actor Anthony Rapp, who'd made accusations of sexual assault against Kevin Spacey . A few years later, fans speculated those comments may have been why he wasn't asked to return to the role of Icheb in "Star Trek: Picard," with a new actor playing the part in a scene that killed off the character.

Scarlett Pomers as Naomi Wildman

Plenty of TV shows have added a kid to shake up the status quo late into their run, and "Star Trek: Voyager" was not immune to this trope. In addition to Borg kids like Icheb, Samantha Wildman — the newborn daughter of a crewperson — became a recurring character beginning in Season 5, played by Scarlett Pomers. She'd wind up in 16 episodes, including a few where she played a leading role. In the aftermath of the end of the series, Pomers appeared in the Julia Roberts film "Erin Brockovich," and in 2001 joined the cast of the sitcom "Reba."

For six seasons Pomers starred as Kyra Hart, daughter of the show's star played by Reba McEntire. Appearing in a whopping 103 episodes, it was only Pomers' second regular role but also her last on-screen performance. When that series concluded, Pomers essentially retired from acting. Unfortunately, her exit from the stage was at least partly due to her ongoing battle with an eating disorder, and Pomers has since become an outspoken advocate for those struggling with anorexia and mental illness. In a 2019 interview with StarTrek.com , Pomers also talked about her subsequent career as a photographer, musician, and jewelry designer.

If you are struggling with an eating disorder, or know someone who is, help is available. Visit the National Eating Disorders Association website or contact NEDA's Live Helpline at 1-800-931-2237. You can also receive 24/7 Crisis Support via text (send NEDA to 741-741).

Martha Hackett as Seska

In the early seasons of "Star Trek: Voyager," one of the most compelling ongoing storylines was that of Seska, a Bajoran and former Maquis rebel and on-again-off-again lover of Chakotay. Played by recurring guest star Martha Hackett, it was later revealed that Seska was actually an enemy agent in disguise. Hackett would appear in a total of 13 episodes of the series, making it by far the largest role in her career. Still, she has appeared in some big hits over the last two decades.

Those included a small role in "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" in 2005 and an appearance in the cult horror movie "The Bye Bye Man" in 2017. It also includes one-off appearances in episodes of popular projects on the small screen, like "The Mindy Project" in 2014, "Masters of Sex" a year earlier, and a recurring role in the daytime soap "Days of Our Lives" between 2016 and 2018. Thanks to her iconic role as Seska, though, Hackett continues to be a regular on the "Star Trek" convention circuit and was interviewed for the upcoming "Star Trek: Voyager" documentary "To the Journey."

Robert Picardo as the Doctor

For 30 years, the world of science fiction meant one thing when the moniker of "The Doctor" was uttered, but that all changed in 1995 with the launch of "Star Trek: Voyager." There, actor Robert Picardo — already known for antagonistic roles in "Gremlins 2: The New Batch" and "InnerSpace" — starred as the Doctor, the nameless holographic chief medical officer aboard the Voyager. Known for his offbeat humor and cantankerous attitude, he was played to perfection by Picardo, and it would become the actor's signature role. 

Still, even after leaving sickbay as the Doctor, Picardo had a healthy career, moving quickly into a role in "The Lyon's Den" starring Rob Lowe and Kyle Chandler in 2003. A year later he joined another iconic sci-fi franchise when he secured a recurring part in "Stargate SG-1"  as Richard Woolsey, a grumpy U.S. official who opposed the Stargate program. Following a string of appearances on the flagship series, Picardo joined the main cast of "Stargate: Atlantis" in 2006. A few years later, Picardo had another repeat role, this time as Jason Cooper on "The Mentalist," and he later enjoyed a stint on the Apple TV+ drama "Dickinson."

In 2023, the actor made a guest appearance on the "Quantum Leap" revival playing Doctor Woolsey, whose name is a clear tribute to his two biggest TV roles.

Star Trek: Prodigy just revealed what happened to Chakotay and it’s horrifying

By chad porto | dec 6, 2022.

Star Trek: Prodigy revealed what happened to Chakotay. (Spoilers ahead)

Star Trek: Prodigy has been building a storyline all season about the disappearance of Captain Chakotay of the USS Protostar. Fans may remember Chakotay as a Commander on Star Trek: Voyager. Well, several years after Voyager returned to the Alpha Quadrant, Chakotay was made captain and given the command of an experimental new ship; the Protostar.

The Protostar is a ship that is powered by a, well, protostar, and gives it a whole new ability to travel than conventional warp-travel. Yet, one day the ship goes missing and no one can find the former Voyager commander, the crew, or the Protostar.

It isn’t until the 16th episode, “Preludes” that we get a revelation as to what happened to Chakotay and the Protostar crew.

During the course of the episode, viewers are keyed into what happened to Chakotay and the Prodigy crew. The ship and its crew arrived at some point in the future after passing through a temporal anomaly and arrived on the planet of Solum. Solum is home to the Vau N’Akat, the species of Prodigy’s main villain, The Diviner.

After the ship arrived, the Vau N’Akat sent their Drednoks to invade the ship and capture the crew. Chakotay was able to break free from his prison and sent the Protostar back in time to avoid it being used as a weapon, as Diviner and several other members of his race, wanted to use it to go back in time and destroy the Federation.

Chakotay is lost in the future on a prison planet

Not only is our beloved commander turned captain in the future at some unknown time and date, but no one in the Federation knows this just yet, or how to get him home. It isn’t just the former Protostar captain lost to time at the moment, but is the entirety of his crew as well.

This is setting up some rather interesting possibilities for the season finale, the least of which will be how or even if, the current Protostar crew of wannabe cadets can save Chakotay.

Next. Ranking every Star Trek film in franchise history according to metrics. dark

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What happened after Voyager returned home?

Discussion in ' Star Trek: Voyager ' started by JanewayRulz! , Mar 14, 2010 .

JanewayRulz! Vice Admiral Admiral

Thoughts?  

Deks Vice Admiral Admiral

Voyager novels explain what happened in fair enough detail. That's not cannon though. Although, if you are asking for individual opinions, not directly tied to the books or canon ... then in my personal opinion ... Well, plenty. Canonically, we do know Janeway becomes an Admiral in the 2 years between 'Endgame' episode and 'Nemesis' movie. One would hope that SF would finally smarten up and use Voyager's experiences in the D.Q. and technologies (not necessarily the futuristic ones) it brought back to good use. It's high time for technological innovations that would break the stalemate. Voyager as such would probably spend a portion of time in spacedock undergoing some retrofits to latest SF standards, and hopefully retain all the modifications the crew did to it over their 7 years in the D.Q. (not necessarily with the futuristic tech). The crew itself could probably spend some time going about their personal business before getting back into space. Most would scatter, or try to serve together again ... whichever.  

Finn Bad Batch of TrekBBS Admiral

It would be pure spectulation. What's the point? it's not real and there's always the novelizations or use your imagination and write some fan fic.  

T'Girl Vice Admiral Admiral

Once reaching Earth orbit, Janeway beams down to Starfleet Admiralty for debriefing leaving Chakotay in command. Minutes later Voyager's warpcore collapses from the damage with it's recent battle with the borg sphere and explodes, killing everyone except Janeway.  

What? Even Miral? Too cruel, T'Girl, too cruel. Maybe Janeway took Miral and B'Elanna with her to Starfleet medical for their first Alpha Quadrant check up. ;-) The crew itself could probably spend some time going about their personal business before getting back into space. Most would scatter, or try to serve together again ... whichever Click to expand...

Finn said: ↑ It would be pure spectulation. What's the point? it's not real and there's always the novelizations or use your imagination and write some fan fic. Click to expand...

data_lover Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

im only about halfway through the series, but from what i understand, ensign kim is still an ensign when they get home...seven years later. so, after all i have seen him go through thus far (kidnapped, almost killed, actually killed, body parts harvested, mutated dna) and to know that he doesn't even get a single promotion? i bet he comes home and ends up rocking in a corner for the rest of his life just saying "ensign" over and over. janeway will have lots of sex with mark, but will be thinking about chakotay. later she and picard will bond over their shared experience re: sentient holodeck characters and do it, but she will still be thinking about chakotay. tom paris will retire from starfleet but run a lucrative company that designs holodeck pubs of the galaxy. chakotay decides being a vegetarian sucks and eats a bunch of meat, but he didn't know how to cook it so he died. b'elanna becomes intergalactically famous when half klingon models become all the rage.  

Joeman Captain Captain

^^^ Good. Seven decides she doesn't like it on Earth, and gets herself assigned to serve on Enterprise. She hooks up with Data. The sex is so good they both short out. Chakotay was glad to be back to where he was not so far from the bones of his people. He opens a restaurant called "The Bones of my People". It doesn't go over well, and he ends up opening an Indian casino. Harry Kim finally gets promoted to Lt. He also finally asks a girl out, only to discover later on that she's a tranny. Tom Paris gives him a hard time for once again "picking the wrong girl". Tuvok returns to Vulcan and rejoins his family. They all live emotionlessly ever after. Tom and B'Elanna have 2 children. Both have the fairly prominent forehead ridges, and always get called "turtlehead" at school. B'Elanna is a nightmare at PTA meetings. Tom leaves Starfleet, and spends much of his time at a local tavern, drunk. Janeway becomes Admiral. She marries Mark and they have a bunch of dogs. You know, they're the kind of people that after you visit them, your clothes are all covered in dog hair. I friggin' hate that. The Doctor (Joe), as we see, marries a beautiful real woman. While he still practices medicine, performing opera becomes his primary passion. The President of the UFP is assassinated while sitting in the balcony of one of his performances. Naomi Wildman has a fulfilling career as a Captain's assistant. Icheb becomes best friends with Wesley Crusher. They zip around the galaxy doing all sorts of really smart stuff.  

Joeman said: ↑ Chakotay was glad to be back to where he was not so far from the bones of his people. He opens a restaurant called "The Bones of my People". It doesn't go over well, and he ends up opening an Indian casino. Click to expand...

kes7 Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

data_lover said: ↑ Joeman said: ↑ Chakotay was glad to be back to where he was not so far from the bones of his people. He opens a restaurant called "The Bones of my People". It doesn't go over well, and he ends up opening an Indian casino. Click to expand...

propita Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

I like Chak, but even I have to laugh at that.  

RyuRoots Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

First-degree murder of a innocent and sentient humanoid (Tuvix), torture and threatening of a fellow Starfleet officer (Equinox), refusal to incarcerate an admitted and convicted murderer (Meld), among others. If we treat every ep as canon, Janeway would've gotten a court-martial. Or we could make her an Admiral. Whatever, same difference.  

USS Renegade Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

Harry Kim applies for duty on the Enterprise and is denied. He applies for duty on the Titan and is denied. He continues his slow advancement through the ranks as Admiral Janeway's aide. Tom and B'Elanna Paris move to Earth. Tom retires from Starfleet to be a stay-at-home Dad, and B'Elanna gets a job working for Miles O'Brien at Starfleet Academy. Tuvok begins working for Federation Security Council. After years of service, he retires to Vulcan and becomes the galaxy's worst Interpretive Dance Instructor. The Doctor publishes several works; medical, psychological, fiction, and an autobiography. He goes on a book tour, writes a musical with Commander Data, modifies his physical parameters and serves aboard a Klingon vessel for several months just for the experience, and then spends the rest of his existence doing all the random other things the Doctor could or would do. Chakotay retires from Starfleet and moves to Bajor. He becomes involved in rebuilding Bajor and Cardassia, and eventually falls in love with Ezri Dax, whom he marries and has puppies with. Seven of Nine desires to be a Starfleet Officer, but is rebuffed until given a chance to serve aboard the Enterprise by Jean Luc Picard. Once he retires and is selected as Ambassador to Vulcan, she is again rebuffed by Starfleet she considers returning to the Delta Quadrant to assimilate the Borg and become their new Queen, but instead ends up working as a researcher at the Vulcan Science Academy who don't feel the human's aversion to her Borginess. After several unsuccessful relationships she begins a long term and satisfying homosexual/interspecies/interracial relationship with Tuvok's daughter Azil. Neelix realizes staying in the DQ was a big mistake, since his new wife is a nag and his step children walk all over him. Everyone from Voyager loses contact with him except Naomi Wildman, and her letters depress him even more since he watched her grow up and no longer gets to see her grow and thrive. He gets fatter, and starts drinking, until the new Federation DQ fleet arrives. He then bails on his new family to join the fleet and attempt to relive past glories. Naomi Wildman graduates Starfleet Academy at the top of her class. Serves as a bridge officer on USS Renegade and USS Excalibur, First Officer on USS Lexington, and becomes the first Captain of the USS Enterprise NCC 1701-F. It is decided that Janeway should not be disciplined for her actions in the DQ, since she is publically considered a hero. They decide the best way to remove her from the Captain's chair is to promote her to Admiral. Janeway goes on to annoy the Star Fleet Admiralty so much that they nominate her for the Federation Council and let the politicians deal with her from there. She never marries, but does secretly continue her holographic relationship, and grows old as a pain in the butt politician and crazy dog lady. That's how I see it working out.  

something Cadet Newbie

Joeman said: ↑ Seven decides she doesn't like it on Earth, and gets herself assigned to serve on Enterprise. She hooks up with Data. The sex is so good they both short out. Chakotay was glad to be back to where he was not so far from the bones of his people. He opens a restaurant called "The Bones of my People". It doesn't go over well, and he ends up opening an Indian casino. Harry Kim finally gets promoted to Lt. He also finally asks a girl out, only to discover later on that she's a tranny. Tom Paris gives him a hard time for once again "picking the wrong girl". Tuvok returns to Vulcan and rejoins his family. They all live emotionlessly ever after. Tom and B'Elanna have 2 children. Both have the fairly prominent forehead ridges, and always get called "turtlehead" at school. B'Elanna is a nightmare at PTA meetings. Tom leaves Starfleet, and spends much of his time at a local tavern, drunk. Janeway becomes Admiral. She marries Mark and they have a bunch of dogs. You know, they're the kind of people that after you visit them, your clothes are all covered in dog hair. I friggin' hate that. The Doctor (Joe), as we see, marries a beautiful real woman. While he still practices medicine, performing opera becomes his primary passion. The President of the UFP is assassinated while sitting in the balcony of one of his performances. Naomi Wildman has a fulfilling career as a Captain's assistant. Icheb becomes best friends with Wesley Crusher. They zip around the galaxy doing all sorts of really smart stuff. Click to expand...

Admiral Shran Admiral Admiral

Janeway, even though she eventually becomes the Starfleet Chief of Staff, spends the rest of her days crying about how she never had a family with Chakotay. Chakotay tries to be a new-age mystic healer. He fails completely when he realizes that he just doesn't know what the hell he's doing. He ends up being a waiter at Sisko's Creole Kitchen. Tuvok gets his mental disease cured, but not entirely. He goes crazy every now and then. During such times, he thinks about leaving Starfleet and resuming his career as an Archery instuctor. Paris retires from Starfleet to pursue his dream of being a holo-writer. His first holo-novel, A Visit to Fair Haven , is universally panned by critics. He writes another one, a spin-off of Captain Proton, but set in the Delta Quadrant. While it's more accepted critically, nobody gives a shit and sales never materialize. He realizes his only hope for happiness is with his family. However, he soon realizes what it means to have two Klingons in the family and so commits suicide. Kim joins up with a new deep space exploratory vessel, in the hopes of finally getting a promotion. They're quickly thrown into the far reaches of the Gamma Quadrant. He spends the next five years as an ensign until the ship reaches the Wormhole and returns to the Alpha Quadrant. He finally has enough, retires from Starfleet, and spends the rest of his days drunk. Torres, after Paris' suicide, comes to have even less self-esteem and eventually becomes one of Quark's dabo girls. Seven is kidnapped by Section 31 and dissected for any tactical information she might provide on the remaining Borg threat. The Doctor resigns from Starfleet and becomes an intersteller superstar in medicine, literature, music, photography, and golf. Eventually he enters politics and is quickly elected UFP President. He enjoys having Janeway take orders from him for a change. Neelix stays in the Delta Quadrant, never to be seen or hear from again, thankfully.  

Kai Winn Captain Captain

Deks said: ↑ Voyager novels explain what happened in fair enough detail. That's not cannon though. Although, if you are asking for individual opinions, not directly tied to the books or canon ... then in my personal opinion ... Well, plenty. Canonically, we do know Janeway becomes an Admiral in the 2 years between 'Endgame' episode and 'Nemesis' movie. One would hope that SF would finally smarten up and use Voyager's experiences in the D.Q. and technologies (not necessarily the futuristic ones) it brought back to good use. It's high time for technological innovations that would break the stalemate. Click to expand...

Lynx Vice Admiral Admiral

Janeway becomes an admiral but stays in charge of Voyager which is now designed for special missions in and around Federation territory. Chakotay remains the first officer on Voyager. Tom Paris and B'Elanna Torres settles on Earth and tries to live an ordinary family life. But tey get bored and asks Janeway for an assignment on Voyager which is accepted. Tom becomes the pilot and B'Elanna the chief engineer. Tuvok is asigned to the ship Titan. However, Janeway wants him back on Voyager and after some years of absence he returns to his old role as security chief on Voyager. Harry is chief of security on Voyager for a while. When Tuvok returns, Harry gets his old job back as an operationa officer. Seven and The Doctor (AKA Shmullus Zimmerman) are assigned to the Jupiter Station and becomes Reg Barclay's guinea pigs. After a while they are so bored and tired of all that that they simply revolt and leavse the station. janeway solves the situation by bringing them back on Voyager. Neelix gets tired of the boring domestic life on the asteroid inhabited by Talaxians. Every single day he rejects his decision not to stay on Voyager until he finally sneaks out one cold night and leaves on his ship. He's now on his way to the Alpha Quadrant, searching for his old friends. Kes is restored back to normal by Q and gets a human lifespan as well, encounters a Maquis ship which also was transported to the Delta Quadrant by the Caretaker. After a brief encounter with Voyager, Kes and the Maquis crew find their way back to the Alpha Quadrant where they settle down on a planet between Bajor and the Tzenkethi Alliance, habited by former Maquis and other castaways from the Dominion War. There they gets involved in some dramatic events in which the Voyager crew takes part as well.  

something said: ↑ I had to join just to tell you that this is hilarious. Click to expand...

Withers Captain

Once reaching Earth orbit, Janeway beams down to Starfleet Admiralty for debriefing leaving Chakotay in command. Minutes later Voyager's warpcore collapses from the damage with it's recent battle with the borg sphere and explodes, killing everyone except Janeway. Click to expand...

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Star trek: voyager series ending explained - how the crew gets home.

The last episode of Star Trek: Voyager incorporated many of the show's core themes, including time travel, love, and the importance of family.

Star Trek: Voyager   ran for seven seasons before delivering its last episode, "Endgame" as a two-part special on May 23rd, 2001, making for an ending that saw the crew get home and encompassed many of the show's core themes. Voyager tells the story of the crew of the USS Voyager under the command of Captain Kathryn Janeway, and their journey to find their way back to the Alpha Quadrant after they are accidentally thrown into the Delta Quadrant, 70,000 lightyears from their home.

This premise offers a unique perspective on the Star Trek universe, allowing the show to introduce both unexplored sci-fi concepts and new alien races on a much larger scale than other shows in the franchise had been able to do. The crew must also learn how to live and work together, as a number of them are former Maquis , members of an anti-Federation resistance force who Voyager was sent to track down. Through the seven seasons, the crew of the ship goes from wary allies to a cohesive team and, finally, to a family, as close relationships form, and bonds are forged by being so far away from home.

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Not all the challenges the crew faced were foreign, however. One of the biggest enemies dealt with in later seasons was the Borg, the famous cybernetically enhanced hive-mind race that had been terrorizing the crews of various Star Trek shows since The Next Generation . The Borg play a significant role in over half of the show's run, especially with the addition of Seven of Nine , a former Borg drone rescued by the crew. Another common Star Trek plot device that showed up during Voyager's run was the idea of time travel. The Borg and the concept of time travel serve as the main plot drivers for "Endgame", and are ultimately the two reasons the crew are able to accomplish what they have been attempting to do all series: get home.

What Happens In Voyager's Ending?

"Endgame" begins 26 years in the future, a future where Voyager and her crew have made it home, although not without consequences. These consequences weigh heavily on the conscience of the now Admiral Kathryn Janeway, who decides to use a device called a chrono deflector stolen from a Klingon named Korath to create a temporal wormhole and return to the year 2378. She finds Voyager and convinces her younger self, the still-Captain Janeway, and her crew that she can help them get home. She directs them back to a network of wormholes in a nebula they originally avoided because of a massive Borg presence and provides them with technology including shipwide armor and transphasic torpedos, to protect against Borg attack. The crew adapts the technology to the ship and makes their way back to the nebula, only to find that the wormholes are part of a massive transwarp hub that if destroyed will deal a crippling blow to the Borg. Destroying it, however, will mean the crew will lose their chance of getting home. The Borg Queen communicates to Seven of Nine that, if Voyager attempts to use or destroy the hub, she will retaliate with deadly force.

Captain Janeway is furious with her older self for not telling her about the hub, and the two argue about the right thing to do before Admiral Janeway breaks her promise to not tell Captain Janeway anything about the future, and informs her of the horrors that will be wrought on her crew if the Captain does not take this opportunity; Tuvok will become mentally unstable, unable to get the cure in time for the neurological disease he has begun to suffer from. Seven of Nine will die on an away mission in the Delta Quadrant and her husband Chakotay will be so grief-stricken that he will never recover and die sometime later of an implied broken heart after Voyager gets home.

Shaken by this news, Captain Janeway tells her crew that they won't go through with the plan to destroy the hub unless everyone agrees to do it, but the crew agrees despite the risks. Touched by the crew's loyalty and love of each other, Admiral Janeway admits she was wrong for lying about the hub and agrees to help. Captain Janeway convinces her that there is a way to both destroy the hub and get Voyager home. While the Admiral distracts the Borg Queen , Voyager enters the hub and sets its destruction in motion, riding the shockwave from the explosions along a conduit the Alpha Quadrant. At the last minute, and ship is pursued by a Borg Sphere but is able to take on the Sphere and destroy it once they reach the Alpha Quadrant. The last shot of  Star Trek: Voyager  is the titular vessel triumphantly flying towards Earth, surrounded by Federation ships.

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How Did The Two Janeways Fool The Borg Queen?

Getting Voyager home relies entirely on the Janeways' plan to trick the Borg Queen in the Star Trek: Voyager series finale. This hinges on Admiral Janeway pulling off some sleight of hand. When the Admiral first appears to the Borg Queen, it seems as though she had turned on the Voyager crew again. Talking to the Queen in her mind using a device that allows her to pilot her ship via a neural link, the Admiral insists that she will give the Queen the information on how to stop Voyager from destroying the hub if the Queen will send a Borg ship to tow Voyager safely home. The Queen agrees to help but then turns on Admiral Janeway once she has found the physical location of her shuttle and body. She begins to assimilate Janeway, and it seems as though the Admiral has been outsmarted, until it is revealed that before leaving Voyager, she was deliberately infected with a neurolytic pathogen that begins to work on the Queen immediately, severing her connection from the rest of the collective and beginning to destroy her body as well.

Without their Queen, the Borg have no guidance, and Voyager is able to carry out its mission to destroy the hub. The Queen makes one last valiant stand by sending the last ship at her disposal after Voyager, but by a trick of flying, Voyager manages to fly inside of the ship, ride in it the rest of the way through the transwarp conduit to the Alpha Quadrant, and then detonate the ship from the inside out. Once the ship is destroyed, they fly out to meet the Federation ships waiting for them.

Because of the pathogen, The Unicomplex housing the Queen explodes, killing her and Admiral Janeway. The Borg Queen is defiant to the last , convinced that the ship she sent after Voyager will destroy Captain Janeway and crew and that Admiral Janeway will cease to exist as a result. Voyager destroys the ship, however, and in the end, the Queen is only right in her prediction that Admiral Janeway will also cease to exist. Admiral Janeway chooses the fate of assimilation and certain death, knowing that if the plan works, she will die anyway since the future will be rewritten by her actions. She has known this from the beginning of the episode, telling the future Harry Kim that she is aware her mission is a "one-way trip" .

Time Travel And Changing The Future

As previously stated, time travel plays a big role in Star Trek: Voyager . In fact, there is even a precedent for a member of the crew coming back from the future to prevent dire events from happening to the crew. The season 5 episode "Timeless" deals with a future Harry Kim and Chakotay attempting to get a message back in time from a bleak future where the rest of the Voyager crew was killed in an accident while trying to get home. They ultimately stop the crew from attempting the maneuver, and rewrite the future, just as Admiral Janeway does in "Endgame". Besides "Timeless", there are a number of important episodes that deal with time travel, such as "Future's End", "Year of Hell", and "Relativity".

Related: Star Trek: How Time Travel Works In Each TV Show & Movie

The fact that time travel is a well-used plot device does not take away from how jarring it is to set "Endgame" 26 years in a future that the audience knows nothing about. From the beginning, it is a shock to see the ship safe on Earth, and the crew aged and moved on with their lives. The jump to the future is used not only as a means to a narrative end, but as a way to shock and draw in the audience to the rest of the story.

Seven of Nine and Chakotay

While the relationship between Seven of Nine and Chakotay had been evolving into something more intimate over the last eight episodes of Star Trek: Voyager 's final season, it is not until "Endgame" that audiences see it reach its fullest potential. It is revealed early on in the episode that the two have begun dating in earnest, and they are shown to become closer throughout the episode, sharing their first kiss and several tender moments as the plot progresses. The biggest plot twist is the reveal that the two were married in Admiral Janeway's timeline, proving that their nascent relationship has the potential to become something more serious.

Seven of Nine and Chakotay's relationship was a surprise to many fans, as it had only been set up to be romantic late in the season. The fact that they seem to be in it for the long haul by the end of the final episode is a twist that fans would have been hard-pressed to see coming. Similarly, their deaths in the future serve to shock the audience and make Admiral Janeway's motivation for getting the crew home sooner even more clear.

The Importance Of Family

Voyager , more than any other Star Trek series, is at its core about a family, something that is no better demonstrated than in the case of main characters Tom Paris and B'Elanna Torres. Tom and B'Elanna start off as grudging allies who are reluctant to work together. By the end of the final season though, the two are married and expecting a child, a baby girl born in the final moments of "Endgame". Family, particularly a family of choice, is a core theme throughout Voyager and something that makes the show special to fans, the close character relationships serving as the driving force that makes the plot more engaging.

Related: All 6 Voyager Characters Who Returned In Other Star Trek Shows & Movies

It really is no surprise then that love for her Voyager family is what makes Admiral Janeway do what she does in "Endgame", or that it is the thing that convinces her in the end that there is a way to both destroy the hub and get Voyager home. Much of "Endgame" is centered on the relationships between the crew; the love they have developed for each other over the years is palpable throughout the episode. Likewise, whether it is Tom and B'Elanna's happy marriage, or Seven and Chakotay's budding romance, Star Trek: Voyager 's "Endgame" makes the point that this love, this family, is going to last, even after the show is over.

The Real Meaning Of Voyager's Ending

Throughout Star Trek: Voyager 's run, it was never made explicitly clear that the crew would be making it home. Even up until the last five minutes of the episode, it was unclear whether or not the crew's plan would come to fruition. The creative team behind the show could have made the choice to end "Endgame" with the ship in the Delta Quadrant, with their fates uncertain. Instead, "Endgame" makes it clear once again that not only does every single member of the Voyager crew deserve to survive, but that their ability seven years ago to put aside their differences, work together, and ultimately come to love each other like family is the singular thing that helped them accomplish their goal. " Endgame " proves that love really does conquer all, and that, in the words of Harry Kim, "Maybe it's not the destination that matters. Maybe it's the journey."

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Star Trek: Prodigy's Showrunners Discuss That Massive Cliffhanger Reveal, And What's Ahead With Voyager's Chakotay

The Hagemans shared some details on what's ahead.

Warning! The following contains spoilers for the Star Trek: Prodigy midseason finale “A Moral Star, Part 2.” Read at your own risk!

Star Trek: Prodigy premiered its final episode before its hiatus and showed the Protostar crew deal with The Diviner. With him securely out of the way, Dal informed them it was time to make the trip to reconnect with Starfleet, but a scene shortly thereafter teased at least one member of Starfleet is already on their trail. It turns out The Diviner wasn’t the only person in space searching for the ship, as Admiral Janeway asked her crew aboard a familiar ship to set a course, and hopefully, find Chakotay. 

Yes, the real Janeway ( though still not live-action ) is now in Star Trek: Prodigy , and that should be exciting news for all Star Trek: Voyager fans. I spoke to showrunners Kevin and Dan Hageman about the huge reveal and asked what they could tease ahead of the Paramount+ series’ return in late 2022. Dan Hageman teased that Admiral Janeway will pursue the Protostar , but that may be more difficult than fans think.

I can tease you there’s a weapon aboard the [Protostar] that will not allow that encounter. So that’s a problem that people are gonna have to overcome.

The co-showrunner later added that both brothers liked the idea of how Dal, Gwyn, Jankom Pog, Zero, and Rok are all coming together as a crew, and now Starfleet is on their tail. Admiral Janeway didn’t seem to have the first idea of all that’s transpired in the series so far, but she’s intent on finding the Protostar and Chakotay. 

Admiral Janeway’s arrival in Star Trek: Prodigy is an exciting one and fills a need of the series with The Diviner driven to madness by Zero’s Medusan abilities. Kevin Hageman shared a few details that Star Trek fans might want to know about Admiral Janeway’s ship and how she came into the story during the writing process.

[Janeway’s ship is] the Dauntless 2. So, people should look closely at that. This is not the same Dauntless. This is actually a Starfleet version of it. When we were creating the twenty-episode arc of Season 1, we knew The Diviner was going to be taking a step out, and there needed to be a new sort of antagonist. And Dan and I were like, ‘We have Hologram Janeway. We’re in the same space that the real Janeway could be there.’ And so we were suddenly talking about [how] she could become the sort-of antagonist for the back ten [episodes.] Sort of like Tommy Lee Jones in The Fugitive, right? Where you love Harrison Ford, but you also love Tommy Lee Jones hunting him down and doing his job.

Admiral Janeway will pursue the Protostar and its crew and act as a semi-antagonist in the next batch of episodes (which are hopefully just as good as the tribute-filled one ). As mentioned, though, it’s not like she’s aware of the current situation on the ship. All she knows is that Chakotay is potentially on that ship, which apparently was the case based on that corrupted video the Protostar crew saw episodes earlier. 

Star Trek: Prodigy fans have yet to see the actual Chakotay, however, and there’s no telling at the moment where he might be. I asked the brothers if the next batch of episodes will pull back the curtain further on where Robert Beltran’s character is , and Dan Hageman gave us an idea of what to expect. 

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In terms of pulling back that curtain more, I think a little bit. It’s not going to be as dramatic as people want. But, I think the search for Chakotay will continue. It’s definitely something on the top of the mind. It’s the main motivation for Admiral Janeway. She wants nothing more than to find her First Officer.

Fans may not get as many answers as they want on Chakotay right away, but rest assured, the Hageman brothers realize some Star Trek: Prodigy fans are invested in the storyline. Luckily, there’s plenty of other things to love about the series so far, which has served as a show that’s equally as entertaining for adults as it is for children. 

Star Trek: Prodigy may eventually get its Janeway and Chakotay reunion, but what exactly does that mean? I mentioned that Kate Mulgrew ( who described her return as Janeway as a want and a need ) requested the two characters don’t get together when she did Voyager , though fans still wanted to see that happen. I asked the Hagemans about juggling fan expectations while still discussing the dynamic with the actors involved, and Kevin Hageman assured me they’re taking the utmost care. 

Yeah, we’re constantly discussing that with her, with Robert, and it’s something that we take very seriously. And we want to make sure we do their relationship justice. And so, I think what fans will really enjoy in the next ten episodes is we’re taking this beautiful relationship from Voyager, and we’re taking it to the next chapter. You know, what happens after that. And we really go to some fantastic places with them.

It sounds like Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek fans, in general, have a lot to look forward to. We might even get to see the kids officially join Starfleet, provided they can get good recommendations in via Admiral Janeway should they have a face-to-face meeting. 

Unfortunately, they’ll have to wait a while for the return of Star Trek: Prodigy , though the upside is that Paramount+ has some of the best shows , including great upcoming Star Trek shows returning in 2022 ( with more on the way ). Those should keep fans busy in the meantime and make the wait for more Admiral Janeway just a bit more bearable.

Mick Joest is a Content Producer for CinemaBlend with his hand in an eclectic mix of television goodness. Star Trek is his main jam, but he also regularly reports on happenings in the world of Star Trek, WWE, Doctor Who, 90 Day Fiancé, Quantum Leap, and Big Brother. He graduated from the University of Southern Indiana with a degree in Journalism and a minor in Radio and Television. He's great at hosting panels and appearing on podcasts if given the chance as well.

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