Commander Chakotay

Commander Chakotay: Rebel With A Starfleet Soul

When you first hear that Voyager's Captain Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) makes a Maquis rebel leader her first officer, you don't see how that could possibly work.

It works because Commander Chakotay (Robert Beltran) was not a Maquis rebel because he has a rebellious nature. In fact he had a distinguished career in Starfleet before resigning to join the Maquis.

Chakotay felt that he had no choice. A border treaty between the Federation and the Cardassians resulted in his home world on the Cardassian side of the line and he felt he had to defend his home from Cardassian conquest. In fact, his father Kolopak (Henry Darrow) died fighting the Cardassians.

Chakotay was from a Native American tribe. He grew up on an Earth colony to which his tribe had relocated in order to be able to live in traditional tribal ways. As a youth, he rejected his heritage and his father's teachings, preferring the modernity of Starfleet, but his father's death brought him home to the tribe. His forehead is tattooed in a traditional tribal pattern.

A Blended Crew

Chakotay's dual background with Starfleet and the Maquis is the key to the success of Voyager's blended crew. He can easily fit the Starfleet mold, but also knows how to handle rebels who've never experienced Starfleet discipline. (Early on, a Maquis crewmember's distaste with Starfleet compelled Chakotay to settle things 'the Maquis way', which involved beating the stuffing out of the complainer. Suddenly, the Starfleet way looked a lot better to the malcontents.)

Chakotay is a very spiritual man and receives advice and guidance from a Spirit Animal in accordance with Native American beliefs. (The exact nature of a person's spirit animal is considered an extremely private matter, but his spirit animal is believed to be a wolf.)

Friends and Enemies

Early difficulties for Chakotay involve a Maquis crewmember selling out Voyager to their new enemies the Kazon. The crewmember Seska (Martha Hackett) was a previous love interest of his, which made the betrayal even more personal.

In early episodes, there was significant antagonism between the Commander and Lt. Tom Paris (Robert Duncan McNeill), the Starfleet-Maquis convicted traitor who was assisting Voyager in tracking the Maquis ship. The antagonism predated the series pilot; it seems that he had never had much use for Paris, whose frivolous attitude and privileged background no doubt rubbed the future equivalent of the scholarship student the wrong way. There was never any decisive 'settling differences' moment, but he did gradually become more accepting of Paris.

Chakotay's best friend on the ship is engineer B'Elanna Torres (Roxanne Dawson), but even he sometimes finds her Klingon volatility a bit hard to take.

The relationship between the First Officer and Captain Janeway always remained complex. From the moment he brought his crew to Voyager and integrated the crews, he was loyal to Janeway. Yet she sometimes kept him out of the loop, confiding instead in her best friend and security officer, the Vulcan Lt. Tuvok (Tim Russ).

Many fans hoped to see a romance between Janeway and Chakotay, and the writers and directors certainly gave them enough significant looks and hesitations to build on. But nothing ever came of the relationship, Chakotay near the series end becoming involved with Borg Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan).

Related Links

• Captain Janeway
• Star Trek: Voyager
• Lieutenant B'Elanna Torres
• Lieutenant J.G. Tom Paris
• The Doctor aka Holodoc