Seska Was Voyager’s Excellent, Messy Fo...

Voyager and Deep Area 9 draw many intriguing parallels as sister sequence that aired in tandem for a superb chunk of their airings. Voyager‘s extra episodic format and tone struck an altogether different approach to DS9‘s rising lens on the darkish coronary heart of Star Trek‘s concepts and universe, digging into wider and deeper interconnected storylines. However one little piece of Deep Area 9 power that Voyager saved early on got here from an unlikely determine: Ensign Seska.

The turncoat Bajoran ex-Maquis revealed her true identification as a Cardassian double agent 30 years in the past right now with the published of “State of Flux,” setting off a uncommon little mini-arc for the early days of Star Trek: Voyager. Though by and huge an episodic present, for better or worse, Voyager did sometimes experiment with short-form arcs right here and there, and Seska’s was one in every of them, weaving in different plotlines throughout the remainder of season one till her premature loss of life and defeat in the beginning of season three, like Tom Paris’ seeming discontent aboard the ship, and the related leaker storyline with Michael Jonas. However she’s most fascinating as a distinction to how Deep Area 9 portrayed the Cardassians.

After all, DS9 had lots, just like the mischievously two-faced Garak, or the loud and audaciously hammy Gul Dukat. Seska leans extra the latter than the previous as soon as the masks’s off, however whereas she is suitably duplicitous and scheming within the methods one may anticipate of a Cardassian infiltrator who finds herself all of a sudden going from leaking Maquis plans to serving on a Starfleet vessel 70,000 gentle years away from Cardassia Prime, one factor defines her in distinction to the Cardassians we’d been usually seeing on Star Trek at that second in time: she’s simply type of an absolute sizzling mess.

It’s fascinating revisiting “State of Flux” to see simply how every little thing shortly falls aside for Seska. The episode largely offers with Voyager‘s discovery of a closely broken Kazon warship (a thorn within the crew’s aspect on and off since the pilot episode), solely to disclose that the harm was brought on by misuse of replicator know-how surreptitiously acquired from Voyager. Nearly the second the senior workers notice that there’s a traitor on board, Seska is horrible at protecting up the truth that she was the one who had been attempting to ally with the Kazon as every little thing falls aside round her, from the crew getting nearer to her path to the physician’s discovery that her story about her Bajoran background was fully made up. Seska succeeds in getting away from Voyager to crew up with Maje Culluh, nevertheless it’s a failing-upwards development that persists all through the remainder of her appearances throughout Voyager‘s second season and into her loss of life that displays every little thing “State of Flux” laid out for her.

The thought of a turncoat who sees the power to find combative allies to use Voyager‘s scenario could be very Cardassian, however Seska finds herself instantly performed when she’s thrust into the patriarchal society of the Kazon as her newfound besties. Her recommendation is basically solely ever accepted below scorn and duress from Culluh and his subordinates; regardless of her perceived sense of superiority she’s continuously undermined, which is commonly the trigger for the failure of her on-and-off makes an attempt to get again at Voyager. She will solely ever barely make the very best of a nasty scenario, regardless of most of the time having a lot of the playing cards in play: her historical past with Chakotay offers her a deliciously private angle of assault, her information of Voyager‘s capabilities from her time below cowl make her a extra harmful foe than most the present had thrown on the ship at this level.

But it surely’s type of what makes Seska work as a personality: regardless of all this, villainy or in any other case, nothing ever fairly clicks for her. It’s an excellent mirror to uphold towards Janeway’s choice to have the crew take the great distance dwelling within the first place, the concept that, in the event that they did in the end simply go Seska’s route and exploit their advantageous energy in an unknown quadrant, it will doom them. Seska is so usually thwarted in her schemes by the straightforward act of Voyager‘s unity, one thing seeded by her time on the ship all through the sequence’ first handful of episodes—at all times one of many crew to specific dissatisfaction at being below the yoke of Starfleet beliefs and guidelines, at all times one prepared to go spherical folks to attempt to get issues performed. In some ways Seska type of has to be a catastrophe as a lot as a risk to additional amplify our heroes’ burgeoning neighborhood.

Though Seska would go on to look a pair extra instances after her loss of life within the second a part of “Fundamentals,” it’s becoming that she perishes in a narrative that’s inherently in regards to the disruption of Voyager‘s neighborhood and a violation of their secure house aboard the ship, a two-parter the place the Kazon efficiently handle to briefly overtake Voyager and dump the Starfleet crew on an unknown barren planet.

Regardless of successful, Seska and the Kazon simply can not beat the crew’s resilience and unity, a reminder that, even so early on on this journey, that sticking collectively is what’s going to get Voyager by all this. It’s a disgrace we needed to lose a really compelling antagonist in doing so, however that Seska no less than will get to facilitate that solidarity is welcome.

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