At the beginning ofStar Trek: Voyager, two ships are transported to the Delta Quadrant, thousands of light years from home, by themysterious alien called the Caretaker. Knowing that there was strength in numbers, the two crews decide to integrate: the Starfleet vessel Voyager, with the Maquis rebel ship the Val Jean. Tensions were high at first. Starfleet crew distrusted the Maquis rebels, and the Maquis were reluctant to follow Starfleet protocol. But eventually, they gained mutual respect and began to work together, even becoming fast friends.
There was, however, one former Maquis who proved she could not be trusted. It turned out that her allegiances lay with neither the Federation nor the Maquis, but with enemies of them both. Just who was Ensign Seska, and why did she betray Voyager and her crew?
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Early Appearances
Seska was a recurring character in early episodes ofVoyager’s first season. She was a determined and sometimes headstrong Bajoran woman, growing easily frustrated with Starfleet protocol. However, she was generally friendly with the rest of the crew. Seska had a closefriendship with B’elanna Torres, as they had been in the Maquis together. She appeared to get along with Harry Kim, teasing him about a mishap on a double date. Seska and Chakotay had been romantically involved at some point in the past, and even though they had decided it wouldn’t work, she still displayed affection for him. Her connections with the other characters, as well as her determination to help getVoyagerhome, made Seska a likable supporting cast member.
That all changed in season 1, episode 11, “State of Flux.” In the episode, the crew of Voyager learns that someone has been secretly feeding informationto the Kazon, a ruthless race of aliens hungry for power and hell-bent on seizing Voyager’s technology. What’s more, Federation technology is found on a wrecked Kazon vessel. Many suspect Seska, who had previously been vocal in her willingness to trade technology for protection from the Kazon. These suspicions anger Seska, who sets about trying to prove her innocence.
Seska’s True Nature
Unfortunately for her, Seska’s efforts have the opposite effect. When she transports to the Kazon ship to try and remove the technology, she is knocked unconscious and beamed back to sickbay. There, the Doctor makes a shocking discovery: Seska’s blood is missing all the typical Bajoran genetic markers. He determines that she cannot be Bajoran, andis in fact Cardassian.
Seska tries to explain her anomalous physiology with Orkett’s Disease, which killed thousands of Bajoran childrenduring the Cardassian occupation. Seska claims that she survived due to a Cardassian bone marrow transplant. However, the Doctor examines her story and concludes that it can’t explain the genetic markers in her blood. After she falls into a trap set up by the crew’s officers, it is confirmed that Seska is the one behind the stolen technology.
Unmasked, Seska releases her anger on Janeway and Chakotay. She had been disguised as a Bajoran to infiltrate the Maquis, who were fighting the tyrannical Cardassians. She had tried to cooperate with Janeway’s crew, but grew frustrated and resentful with Starfleet’s way of doing things. She believed that a Cardassian ship, they would be home by now, and would have already established power in the Delta quadrant. Seska allied herself with the strongest force she could, the Kazon, in hopes of gaining and using their power for herself. Before Janeway can throw her in the brig, Seska beams off the ship with a voice-activatedtransporter program.
As a Cardassian, the idea of conquest and domination appealed to Seska. That had been her people’s goalin the Alpha Quadrant, and in the Delta Quadrant, she was determined to do the same thing. That was why she allied with the Kazon Nistrim, whose goals were similar: force others to submit to their rule.
Collaboration With The Kazon
After leaving Voyager, Seska became the paramour of Maje Culluh, leader of the Nistrim faction of the Kazon. Though the patriarchal Kazon expected Seska, a woman, to be subservient, she remained an expert manipulator. By influencing Culluh, Seska was thus able to influence the entire Kazon faction, abetting them in their pursuit of dominance over the quadrant. Her plan was to help the Kazon take Voyager, whose technology would make the Nistrim the most powerful Kazon faction.
After she left Voyager, a few of theformer Maquis crewmembersexpressed some agreement with what Seska had said and done. If giving technology to the Kazon would offer Voyager protection, why not do just that? With this mindset, Crewman Mike Jonas, a former friend of Seska’s, contacted the Kazon Nistrim and began feeding them information.
Matters were further complicated by Seska’s pregnancy. In the final moments of the episode “State of Flux,” the crew receives a video message from Seska, who tells Chakotay that she took his DNA and used it to become pregnant with his child. She used her child to continue to manipulate Chakotay from afar, which came to a head in the Season 2 finale, “Basics Part 1.”
Voyager Takeover & Seska’s Fate
In “Basics Part 1,” Voyager received a message from Seska. In the message, it appeared that when Seska’s child had been born and Maj Culluh saw that it was not his, he turned violent towards both Seska and the baby. Though he knew it could be a trap, Chakotay decided that if there were any possibility that his child were in danger, it was his responsibility to rescue the baby.Captain Janewayrefused to let him go alone, instead assuring him that Voyager would help him save the child.
Unfortunately, despite the precautions they took, Seska’s distress call was indeed bait for Voyager. The Kazon took the ship, stranding the crew on a nearby planet. Only the holographic Doctor appeared to remain onboard. It was the Doctor, though, who managed to surprise Seska with some unexpected news: her child was not in fact Chakotay’s. That had been her intention, but she had instead become pregnant with Maj Culluh’s child, and the baby was a Kazon-Cardassian hybrid. However, she wasn’t about to let it get in the way of her plans.
And yet, Seska’s plans crumbled anyway in “Basics Part 2.” The Doctor managed to ally with Lon Suder, who had hidden himself in the ship’s Jeffries tubes,and Tom Paris, who had escaped in a shuttle. Together, they managed to thwart the Kazon, but the ship sustained heavy damage as a result. The last viewers saw of Seska, she was crawling through the debris in the ship, trying to reach her crying baby. By the time the ship’s crew returned, she had died of her injuries. The Kazon were driven off the ship, and Maje Culluh took his and Seska’s child with him.
“Basics Part 2” was the last that the starship Voyager saw of the Cardassian traitor and the Kazon that she allied herself with. It marked the end of one of the show’s earliest major plot arcs, and the downfall of the first enemy they made in the Delta Quadrant. Despite Seska’s intelligence and her talent for manipulation, she ultimately chose the wrong side. Betraying Voyager came back to bite her in the end.
