Seska Was Voyager’s Good, Messy Foil

Voyager and Deep House 9 draw many intriguing parallels as sister collection that aired in tandem for an excellent chunk of their airings. Voyager‘s extra episodic format and tone struck an altogether different approach to DS9‘s growing 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 House 9 power that Voyager stored 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 in the present day 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 among them, weaving in different plotlines throughout the remainder of season one till her premature demise and defeat initially 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 House 9 portrayed the Cardassians.

After all, DS9 had loads, 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 would possibly anticipate of a Cardassian infiltrator who finds herself abruptly going from leaking Maquis plans to serving on a Starfleet vessel 70,000 mild years away from Cardassia Prime, one factor defines her in distinction to the Cardassians we’d been commonly seeing on Star Trek at that second in time: she’s simply form of an absolute sizzling mess.

It’s fascinating revisiting “State of Flux” to see simply how the whole lot 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 facet on and off since the pilot episode), solely to disclose that the injury was brought on by misuse of replicator expertise 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 making an attempt to ally with the Kazon as the whole lot 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 workforce 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 demise that displays the whole lot “State of Flux” laid out for her.

The concept of a turncoat who sees the power to find combative allies to take advantage of Voyager‘s scenario may 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 always 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 perfect of a nasty scenario, regardless of most of the time having many of the playing cards in play: her historical past with Chakotay provides her a deliciously private angle of assault, her data 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 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 incredible mirror to uphold towards Janeway’s resolution to have the crew take the great distance dwelling within the first place, the concept, in the event that they did finally 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 way of her time on the ship all through the collection’ first handful of episodes—all the time one of many crew to specific dissatisfaction at being below the yoke of Starfleet beliefs and guidelines, all the time one keen to go spherical folks to try to get issues accomplished. 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 instances after her demise 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 group and a violation of their protected 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 profitable, Seska and the Kazon simply can’t 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 way of all this. It’s a disgrace we needed to lose a really compelling antagonist in doing so, however that Seska at the least will get to facilitate that solidarity is welcome.

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