Seska Was Voyager’s Good, Messy Foil

Voyager and Deep Area 9 draw many intriguing parallels as sister sequence that aired in tandem for a great 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 id as a Cardassian double agent 30 years in the past at this time with the printed 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 often experiment with short-form arcs right here and there, and Seska’s was certainly one of them, weaving in different plotlines throughout the remainder of season one till her premature loss of life and defeat originally of season three, like Tom Paris’ seeming discontent aboard the ship, and the related leaker storyline with Michael Jonas. However she’s most attention-grabbing 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 instantly 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 frequently seeing on Star Trek at that second in time: she’s simply form of an absolute scorching mess.

It’s fascinating revisiting “State of Flux” to see simply how all the things rapidly 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 injury was attributable to misuse of replicator expertise surreptitiously acquired from Voyager. Virtually the second the senior employees understand that there’s a traitor on board, Seska is horrible at overlaying up the truth that she was the one who had been making an attempt to ally with the Kazon as all the things 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 group up with Maje Culluh, nevertheless it’s a failing-upwards pattern that persists all through the remainder of her appearances throughout Voyager‘s second season and into her loss of life that displays all the things “State of Flux” laid out for her.

The thought of a turncoat who sees the energy 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 essentially solely ever accepted beneath scorn and duress from Culluh and his subordinates; regardless of her perceived sense of superiority she’s continuously undermined, which is usually 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 foul 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 data of Voyager‘s capabilities from her time beneath cowl make her a extra harmful foe than most the present had thrown on the ship at this level.

But it surely’s form 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 ideal mirror to uphold in opposition to Janeway’s determination to have the crew take the great distance house 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 might doom them. Seska is so typically 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 beneath the yoke of Starfleet beliefs and guidelines, at all times one prepared to go spherical folks to try to get issues executed. In some ways Seska form of has to be a catastrophe as a lot as a menace to additional amplify our heroes’ burgeoning group.

Though Seska would go on to seem a pair extra occasions after her loss of life within the second a part of “Fundamentals,” it’s becoming that she perishes in a narrative that’s inherently concerning the disruption of Voyager‘s group and a violation of their secure area 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 not less than will get to facilitate that solidarity is welcome.

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