Pixie Ships: Chakotay and Seska

[pixiedane]

First, we have to remember Seska was a spy. She was on that ship specifically to gather intel, and seduction is a tried and true way to do it. I have to believe what brought them together was orchestrated by Seska to bring them together.

So, what was it? We get the one scene in “State of Flux” where Seska is hilariously bad at seducing Chakotay with her soup made from stolen rations (LOL). But she’s hilariously bad at it due to the outside influence of one Kathryn Janeway, who, even so early in their journey, has already won over almost everybody on the ship. Certainly Chakotay. In the soup scene he is presented with the choice to be Seska’s Maquis Warrior or Janeway’s Honorable Soldier and it’s not a question. Because honor has always been huge for Chakotay – it’s why he joined the Maquis in the first place, but also why he was never fully at peace with it. Janeway gave him the opportunity to stop being the Angry Warrior and he took it and never looked back (as he tells her in “Resolutions”).

So I’m a little off track, but the point is, that soup scene actually tells us a lot. As Chakotay is super domestic, and does initially respond to Seska’s soup and wifey act, I feel confident that’s how she caught him. But she played it on three levels:

1. The crafty rebel, because that’s how he wants to see himself.
2. The damaged loner, because lbr, Chakotay has a saving-people-thing.
3. The yearning wifey, because, again, Chakotay is super domestic.

I’m sure he held out for a while due to being her superior, but she convinced him he was making an arbitrary choice not to date her because he was afraid to give into his feelings, and it worked because he did have feelings. And because Chakotay was at his lowest in the Maquis. He believed completely in his cause but he hated what he was doing. He hated the Cardassians and he hated the Federation and he hated himself. He was full of hate.

And Seska – Seska was forged by hate. Forged by hate and molded to deceive.

So what brought them together: Seska, playing a part, that spoke to Chakotay’s hatred.

What broke them up? Chakotay was uncomfortable with the power imbalance. But more importantly, Chakotay didn’t like how dark he became while paired with someone who didn’t shy away from it. I imagine Chakotay’s dark side scares him and he spends a lot of time meditating about it. But with Seska….she liked his dark side, she poked at it, she encouraged it (because she wanted him to tell her his plans for Cardassian destruction), and that scared him even more. So he broke it off and told himself he was a bad influence on her, and missed that he had been literally sleeping with the enemy.

Most of the Maquis group didn’t care one way or the other. They were all there for the cause and/or because they didn’t have anywhere else to go. I’ve said it before: I’m sure everyone was sleeping with everyone. A lot of them were probably impressed Seska broke through Chakotay’s defenses – and pleased, because they were a close knit group and Chakotay was their popular papa bear.

I dunno when Tom was around, but I think he might be one of the few who openly distrusted Seska. Tom wants to be a rebel but he’s still kinda a boy scout and Seska rubbed him the wrong way. Thing about Tom is, he has great instincts that he often ignores. He thought something was off about Seska but he never did anything about it.

B’Elanna, though, B’Elanna and her daddy issues had a crush on Chakotay and Seska was her best friend. Part of her was jealous. But a much bigger part of her was happy that if she couldn’t be with Chakotay, Seska was. She shipped it, she probably helped set it up. And she totally fantasized about a threesome (and now I want to write their drunken threesome).

Chakotay did care about Seska. He didn’t love her – that was the third reason he broke it off. Chakotay believed that Seska wanted a real, committed, relationship. Not casual, not transient. And he couldn’t give it to her, he would only enter that kind of relationship with someone he loves.

Seska loved Chakotay. Seska didn’t really know what love was, but she decided it was this. She didn’t want to change for him. But she wanted to want to change for him. He was so …real. Not like the Cardassians who taught her to live a lie. Not like the Federation that hides all their ugliness. Not even like the Maquis, who are all so driven because they are all so broken. Chakotay was real. He grounded her. He gave her something she never had: home. And then he took it away, and she didn’t know why, and she started to become a real Maquis: driven so as to hide her brokenness.

And then they were dragged across the galaxy. And Chakotay pledged them all to a woman who represented everything Seska had been taught to hate and fear and fight against. A woman who chose to interfere in the natural course of the quadrant on behalf of a bunch of weaklings who live underground and don’t even live long enough to matter – proving what Seska had been taught: the Federation are meddlers who think they know best and act on it with force. 

And Chakotay chose her.