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Star Trek: Picard 's latest Next Generation cameo was all about 'doing a paranoia thriller'

"I so desperately wanted to see the conclusion to that relationship," says showrunner Terry Matalas of Jean-Luc Picard and the latest surprise guest.

Warning: This article contains spoilers from Star Trek: Picard season 3, episode 5.

Patrick Stewart 's Jean-Luc is touring his greatest hits in the third and final season of Star Trek: Picard by bringing back a bevy of familiar faces from The Next Generation . The reunions keep coming in episode 5, titled "Imposters," which sees a character showrunner Terry Matalas says he really wanted for his story arc.

Actress Michelle Forbes returns as Ro Laren, a Bajoran member of Starfleet who served on the U.S.S Enterprise-D. Trekkies last saw her in season 7 of Star Trek: The Next Generation in 1994. The character now arrives on Picard to question Jean-Luc and Riker ( Jonathan Frakes ) about the Titan's activities, but similar to her past story arcs, there's a secret, more pressing reason why she's really there.

"There was nothing I wanted to do more than bring Ro Laren back," Matalas tells EW. "It felt like such a hanging chad from Next Generation . That episode to me is very special. It's the idea of doing a paranoia thriller."

Ro made her first appearance on The Next Generation in 1991 in the episode "Ensign Ro," and her colorful background includes a conviction for disobeying orders and getting eight crewmen killed. She was first stationed on the U.S.S. Enterprise on a secret mission to make a deal with a suspected Bajoran terrorist, but her principles in the matter are what gained her respect from Picard.

The last time Picard saw her — at least on screen — was in season 7 when she was sent to infiltrate a resistance group known as the Maquis and ended up defecting. A lot has seemingly happened to Ro off screen since that time. To use Picard's own words, "How the hell is Ro Laren back in Starfleet?!" It turns out she was once again rehabilitated and brought up through Starfleet Intelligence.

She beams aboard the U.S.S Titan in Picard season 3 with two armed security guards from the U.S.S Intrepid as Jean-Luc and Riker face potential treason charges. Once both Picard and Ro break the ice and confirm neither of them are Changelings, she reveals her true purpose for being there is because Starfleet has been infiltrated at the highest level by Changelings.

"The only way to be sure that the person that you're talking to is actually the person you hope they are is by getting through a catharsis of trauma of the past of this relationship, [which] to me felt like it could be really good television," Matalas says. "That was Ro and Picard, and I so desperately wanted to see the conclusion to that relationship."

Closure comes just in time. The episode concludes with the death of Ro, who realizes too late that her own detail has been infiltrated by Changelings who plant a bomb on her shuttle. She's at least able to leave behind her Bajoran earring containing all her files on the Changelings before crashing her shuttle into the Intrepid.

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Star Trek: Picard Season 3 Just Resolved One Of The Next Generation's Biggest Abandoned Storylines

This post contains spoilers for "Star Trek: Picard," season 3, episode 5, "Imposter."

The third and final season of "Picard" made no secret of the fact that it was bringing back "Star Trek: The Next Generation" characters. Some of the earliest sneak peeks that we saw for it last year ( such as this one ) put the "Next Generation" crew right out in front. In addition to the requisite Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart), we've already seen several familiar faces in the first half of "Picard" season 3, including Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden), William Riker (Jonathan Frakes), Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis), and the one and only Worf (Michael Dorn). We also know that Geordi LaForge (LeVar Burton) is on the way at some point, and a subsequent teaser trailer confirmed the impending return of Lore (Brent Spiner) and Professor Moriarty (Daniel Davis) as well.

There's one other surprise return, however, that the marketing for "Picard" withheld altogether: namely, Ro Laren (Michelle Forbes), who hasn't been seen in the canonical "Star Trek" universe since the penultimate episode of "The Next Generation" all the way back in 1994. Ro was a late addition to the "Next Generation" cast; she first appeared in the season 5 episode, "Ensign Ro," immediately establishing herself as an assertive presence who would bring conflict to the starship Enterprise.

Though Ro became a recurring character across seven more episodes, her fate was left dangling somewhat at the end of "Star Trek: The Next Generation." Yet as she helps uncover the changeling conspiracy in the latest "Picard" episode, "Imposter," it pays off both her first and last "Star Trek" appearance. And we soon learn that what happened to Ro after "The Next Generation" isn't so different from what happened to her before she joined the Enterprise crew all those years ago.

Introducing Ensign Ro Laren

As it happens, Ro's first appearance in "Star Trek: The Next Generation" was also tied to a conspiracy. In "Ensign Ro," some of her backstory is parceled out in dialogue before she ever appears onscreen.

Admiral Kennelly (Cliff Potts) has assigned Ro to the Enterprise without consulting Captain Picard. The first Picard even hears of it is when she's about to beam aboard, at which point Commander Riker orders Ro to remove her Bajoran earring to conform to Starfleet's dress code. Through the back-and-forth between Picard and Kennelly, and later, Picard and Ro herself, we learn that she was court-martialed and spent time in prison before the admiral pulled some strings to get her out and get her reinstated as an officer.

Picard is reluctant to have Ro on board the Enterprise, as it's alluded that she previously disobeyed orders and caused the deaths of eight away team members in an "incident on Garon II." However, Ro provides valuable insight into the Bajoran culture, such as how her people are traditionally addressed by their family names first. She's also a straight shooter who delivers lines like, "I think you're a small man who feels a rush of power in his belly and enjoys it far too much."

Picard eventually warms to Ro after Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg) vouches for her and Ro comes clean about her true mission, which is to draw out a Bajoran terrorist for Kennelly. It turns out the admiral has been working with the Cardassians, the very aliens who occupied the Bajoran home world, all along. This goes against Starfleet's whole peacekeeping ideal and shows that it's not a perfect organization, an idea that would come back into play when Ro made her final appearance in "The Next Generation" season 7.

Ro exits the franchise in Preemptive Strike

At the very end of "Ensign Ro," after they've exposed Admiral Kennelly, Picard convinces Ro to accept the challenge of remaining in Starfleet. He takes her under his wing and allows her to wear her Bajoran earring again, but in a weird way, Picard almost becomes the new Admiral Kennelly in "Preemptive Strike," which marked Ro's final appearance and the second to last episode of "Star Trek: The Next Generation."

The plot of "Preemptive Strike" involves Picard sending Ro (now, a lieutenant) to infiltrate the Maquis, a group of resistance fighters made up of former Federation colonists and even some ex-Starfleet officers who lost their homes and/or their belief in Starfleet when the Federation ceded territory to the Cardassians. Ro agrees to go undercover, telling Picard, "There's one good reason to take this mission, and that is, to validate your faith in me." However, she begins to have misgivings as she sees the Maquis up close and finds a new father figure in Macias (John Franklyn-Robbins).

Ro's loyalties shift further as she witnesses the Cardassians attack the Maquis, killing Macias before Picard tries to use her to lead the Maquis into a trap (just as Admiral Kennelly once did with her and the Bajorans). At one point, Ro and Picard wind up canoodling in a bar to maintain her cover, and he threatens to court-martial her if she sabotages the mission. This would put her right back where she started.

Ultimately, as oxymoronic as it might sound, Ro chooses to follow her conscience and betray Picard, alerting the Maquis and then leaving to join them. In the end, Riker tells Picard, "She seemed very sure that she was doing the right thing. I think her only regret was that she let you down."

Early life and family

A young Chakotay with his father Kolopak

Chakotay was born in 2329 on a Federation colony near the Cardassian Demilitarized Zone that his native tribe had moved to several generations earlier. Here, he was raised by his father , Kolopak , who considered him a "contrary" from the beginning because he had come out of his mother "upside down", as his father once remarked. ( VOY : " Tattoo ", " Endgame ")

Chakotay also had a sister and a cousin who lived in Ohio . ( VOY : " Author, Author ", " Message in a Bottle ") During an incident in 2373 that took Voyager to Earth in 1996 , Chakotay considered "looking up" a few of his ancestors, noting that he knew of one ancestor at that time who worked as a school teacher in Arizona . ( VOY : " Future's End ")

One of Chakotay's early ancestors was Ce Acatl , a man who was fathered by a white conqueror when they first took over Chakotay's tribe's native lands on Earth. ( VOY : " Basics, Part I ")

Being of Native American descent, Chakotay's tribe – mainly because of the intrusion of more technological societies – left Earth to find their own home on another planet near the Cardassian border . From an early age, his father tried to impart his values on Chakotay in many ways, such as taking him on hikes to nearby forested worlds of their ancestors. In 2344 , he took Chakotay on a quest through the Central American rainforest , looking for their fellow descendants of the ancient Rubber Tree People that had never left the forest.

As a young man, Chakotay was rather resistant to his family's way of life and in a technologically advanced world often felt out of place among the members of his tribe who asserted a strong connection to their ancestral lands and spirits and lived a simple life . Chakotay dismissed his tribe that he believed lived in the past of fantasy and myth. He did not want to be part of that and instead wanted to be like all the other tribes that had embraced the 24th century . When his father would take him on expeditions to discover his roots and connection to the "sky spirits", Chakotay remained a reluctant participant, even ridiculing the sky spirits once by suggesting they had "taken a wrong turn" somewhere. ( VOY : " Tattoo ")

Chakotay also refused to hunt deer with his father. ( VOY : " Waking Moments ")

Kolopak tried to teach Chakotay that without Spirits to guide him, he would lose his way. But Chakotay did not want to listen as he did not place much value in spirituality. He remained resistant, instead choosing to embrace technological advancement, believing that he was the master of his own life. One of Chakotay's childhood heroes was astronaut John Kelly . ( VOY : " One Small Step ")

While initially somewhat disappointed in his son's lack of interest in the culture and traditions of their tribe, Kolopak remained patient with Chakotay and, due to his son's curiosity, allowed him to read about other societies as he was growing up. He did so because he strongly believed that ignorance is one's greatest enemy. ( VOY : " Tattoo ", " Waking Moments ")

However, by the time Chakotay was fifteen years old, he had already set his sights on Starfleet and greatly surprised his father when he told him that he was going to leave the tribe to attend Starfleet Academy . His father disapproved of his son's decision but was unable to convince him otherwise. ( VOY : " Tattoo ")

Chakotay performs the Pakra

Chakotay and his father were not on good terms when Kolopak was killed while defending his colony against Cardassians. When the news reached Chakotay, he was unsure about how to reconcile their differences and heal their old wounds. To honor his father's memory and to continue the fight in his name, Chakotay resigned from Starfleet and joined the Maquis. It was then that he took the mark, the tattoo , on his forehead in order to honor the memory of his father and to signify his Native American heritage. ( VOY : " Tattoo ")

In the years following his resignation from Starfleet, he not only joined the Maquis to fight the Cardassians but he also finally began placing great faith in his spiritual background by taking pride in the stories and accomplishments of his people. He often embarked on vision quests to help guide his life and to commune with his father's spirit. He also used a medicine wheel to heal himself both spiritually and physically. ( VOY : " The Cloud ", " Basics, Part I ", " Cathexis ")

The Pakra was the name of the solitary ritual by which Chakotay commemorated the anniversary of Kolopak's death. On stardate 49005.3, Captain Janeway granted him the use of a shuttlecraft so he could perform the ritual in private. ( VOY : " Initiations ")

When Chakotay was young, he looked after his grandfather , who suffered from hallucinations caused by an inherited defective gene . This gene was suppressed in Chakotay before birth, although it was activated for a brief period in 2375 by aliens who attempted to make contact with the crew of Voyager . ( VOY : " The Fight ")

Starfleet Academy

At the age of fifteen, Chakotay entered Starfleet Academy, sponsored by Captain Sulu . Chakotay misled the officer into believing that he had Kolopak's permission to join. ( VOY : " Tattoo ")

Chakotay possessed great piloting skills and during his first year he trained as a pilot in North America . He then went to Venus for a couple of months to learn how to handle atmospheric storms and later dodged asteroids for a semester in the Sol system asteroid belt . ( VOY : " Future's End, Part II ")

He also became a proficient boxer at the light heavyweight level, with a record of twenty-three wins and one loss. The loss was to a Nausicaan boxer with "a mean right hook ." B'Elanna Torres once jested " legend has it that 'The Tattooed Terror' has put more men in sickbay than the Ankaran flu . " ( VOY : " Tsunkatse ") His personal trainer was Academy groundsman Boothby . ( VOY : " The Fight ")*

Starfleet officer

Chakotay graduated from Starfleet Academy in 2348 . ( VOY : " Endgame ", " Tattoo ", " Parallax ")

On his first starship posting , he served during the planned first contact with the Tarkannans . After spending a lot of time pushing his captain to let him be on the diplomatic team , he began studying everything about them. When he finally came face to face with their delegation, he very proudly made the traditional gesture for "hello", not realizing that males and females have different styles of movement when making such symbolic gestures. He later found out that he had actually propositioned the ambassador . He remembered this encounter and mentioned it to Captain Janeway when in 2372 they made first contact with the Drayans , noting that it almost got his sent back to the Academy for remedial training . ( VOY : " Innocence ")

On another assignment, he visited a tomb excavation on Ktaria VII on one of his earliest away missions . There, unaware of local custom, he – wanting to take a memento – stole a small stone from the burial. He was later informed that each stone represented a prayer and that he had desecrated the burial site. ( VOY : " Emanations ")

On another occasion, he beamed down to a planet and the pattern buffer malfunctioned, misreading his Starfleet uniform . When he rematerialized, all he had was his combadge . ( VOY : " In the Flesh ")

Once, while serving in Starfleet, he learned to communicate with a " Terrelian seapod "; something normally thought very difficult to communicate with. ( VOY : " Equinox, Part II ")

Chakotay aboard his Maquis raider Val Jean in 2371

After his father was killed in 2368 while defending their colony, Chakotay resisted the Cardassian takeover of his planet – as per the terms of the border treaty between Cardassia and the Federation. He refused to stand by and watch his people be displaced once again, as had happened on Earth hundreds of years ago. ( VOY : " Tattoo ") As such, he was one of the Maquis who were in the fight for principle, not mercenary gain or violent outlet. ( VOY : " Caretaker ", " Repression ")

On March 3 , 2368 he resigned from his position as an instructor in Starfleet's Advanced Tactical Training by submitting his resignation to Admiral Nimembeh . He was recruited in the Maquis by his old friend Sveta . ( VOY : " In the Flesh ", " Hunters ")

After joining the Maquis, he became one of its leaders and his cell one of the most successful in resisting the Cardassians and Federation. His vessel, the Val Jean , was his primary mode of space transportation. ( VOY : " Caretaker ") Like captains of other ships, he would have conversation with his. ( VOY : " The Haunting of Deck Twelve ") Aside from his Val Jean crew, including Seska , B'Elanna Torres , Ayala , and many others ; Chakotay had other Maquis friends, including Li-Paz , Sahreen , Meyer and Nelson . ( VOY : " Extreme Risk ")

Among their various missions as Maquis, included an instance when Chakotay, Torres, and Seska successfully disabled the computer core on a Cardassian frigate , orbiting Bajor . This was accomplished when Seska modified an antiproton beam to penetrate the frigate's shields and hull from an extremely close range. ( VOY : " Maneuvers ")

Around 2370 , Chakotay encountered two Starfleet runabouts near Teluridian IV . Although outnumbered, the Val Jean was able to escape using the Maquis trick whereby they blew out the dorsal phase emitters and cut main power, making it look as if the ship was in serious trouble. ( VOY : " Ex Post Facto ")

While trying to escape from a Cardassian warship commanded by Gul Evek in the Badlands , Chakotay and his crew, including Tuvok – Captain Janeway 's security chief working undercover as a Maquis – were transported to the Delta Quadrant by the Caretaker's array . In an attempt to locate the disappeared Maquis ship, USS Voyager followed them into the Badlands, becoming trapped 70,000 light years away in the Delta Quadrant shortly after. ( VOY : " Caretaker ")

USS Voyager

After having made contact with Voyager and accepting the realization of being alone in an uncharted part of the galaxy , Chakotay agreed to cooperate with Janeway when both of their crews were abducted and subjected to medical testing by the Caretaker . The crewmembers were eventually found, and the Caretaker's Array destroyed so it would not fall into the hands of the ruthless Kazon .

In order to protect Voyager while it destroyed the Array, Chakotay crashed his ship into a Kazon carrier vessel .

Following the destruction of his ship in the Delta Quadrant, Chakotay and his crew joined Voyager 's crew as one Starfleet crew in order to find a way home. He was granted the provisional rank of Commander and became Voyager 's second in command . As first officer, he was in charge of all ship personnel and of protecting the captain, both roles which he threw himself into. A man of great moral conviction and courage, Chakotay embraced Starfleet principles once again and served Captain Janeway as first officer, forging a meaningful friendship with her; despite moments of strong disagreement, he was loyal to Janeway and the ship and helped keep the peace and establish cooperation and a positive rapport between the Maquis and the Starfleet crew. As the one responsible for the personnel, and as a friendly and approachable person, he was familiar with the crew and understood how they were feeling, more so than the captain. ( VOY : " Caretaker ", " The Cloud ", " The 37's ", " Day of Honor ", " Course: Oblivion ", " Shattered ")

The first year (2371)

Chakotay shows Crewman Dalby how it's done "the Maquis way"

On appointment to First Officer, Chakotay was unsure if Janeway was using him as a "token" Maquis officer and confronts her about it while also advocating for his fellow Maquis members. However, his devotion to Voyager was strong, even though he never lost his sense of being Maquis: he even threatened to throw his Maquis crewmates Seska and Jarvin into the brig when they said they would support him in a mutiny against Janeway. When Tuvok wished to train a group of Maquis in order to bring them up to Starfleet standards, Chakotay forcefully persuaded them, after they initially resisted and wanted to do things "the Maquis way". ( VOY : " Parallax ", " Learning Curve ", " Life Line ", " Repression ")

Chakotay was thrown into command of Voyager early on in his time as part of the crew when Janeway and Tom Paris become stuck a day in the past on a planet's surface. Chakotay had to command the ship and lead an away mission to find Janeway and Paris. In this command position, over the first few years Chakotay has a number of clashes with Tuvok, who had been spying on him in the Maquis and who would naturally have been Janeway's first officer under more usual circumstances. The two came to respect each other over the course of the years they serve together, however. ( VOY : " Time and Again ", " Twisted ", " Night ")

Despite his attempts to stay as neutral and objective as possible when it came to the merged crew, he sometimes felt the need to stand up for some of his former Maquis members, knowing that if he didn't stand up for them, no one else would. He, for example, recommended a hot-tempered B'Elanna Torres as chief engineer and was willing, against all odds, to give Seska the benefit of the doubt when she was accused of secretly collaborating with the enemy . ( VOY : " Learning Curve ", " Parallax ", " State of Flux ") His recommendation of and advocacy for Torres was a vital moment for Voyager , not only helping to integrate the two crews, but also providing the ship with a truly brilliant engineer. While Janeway needed convincing, she quickly recognised the wisdom in Chakotay's work, telling him within their first two months in the Delta Quadrant, " A good choice for Chief Engineer, if I do say so myself ". ( VOY : " Parallax ", " Fury ")

Chakotay confronts Seska

He also had his share of personal disappointments after joining Voyager : he found out that Tuvok was a Federation spy and actually Captain Janeway's security chief sent to infiltrate his crew, Seska, his lover, was revealed to be a Cardassian spy who, now in the Delta Quadrant, had also begun to secretly collaborate with and transfer Federation technology to the Kazon, and he had to deal with Tom Paris , a person he not only disliked, but whom he actually considered to be nothing but a mercenary willing to sell out to the highest bidder. The betrayal of Seska was particularly hard on him, not only because he had an intimate relationship with her, but also because he had personally vouched for her. Her betrayal of his trust angered and humiliated Chakotay. When he confronted her, she told him that she did it for him and the crew because their captain was a fool and incapable of getting them home. Shortly after, Seska escaped from the ship and joined Maje Culluh of the Kazon Nistrim . ( VOY : " Caretaker ", " State of Flux ")

Chakotay's interests in anthropology and paleontology , and his respect for other cultures, is evident on a number of occasions during the voyage. They are revealed early on in the first year after an away mission uncovered that mineral deposits on an asteroid were part of decomposing remains in a burial site. Chakotay gathers a lot of information simply by observing closely, not wanting to show disrespect by even using passive tricorders scans. ( VOY : " Emanations ")

Chakotay quickly and naturally fell into the role of informal spiritual guide and counsel to a number of the crew, including Janeway, who he guides on a vision quest to find her animal guide during their first months together. ( VOY : " The Cloud ") In keeping with his character, this is understated role, something he is approached about or offers at appropriate times. ( VOY : " The Cloud ", " Mortal Coil ")

His tactical and piloting skills were also required from early on on Voyager . In one instance, with the usual helmsman unavailable, Chakotay used Maquis tactics to disable attacking ships. He stated, " out here in the Delta quadrant, every old trick is new again " and indicated he had many tricks to use. He also devised a way of detecting a hidden ship using Voyager 's phasers. ( VOY : " Ex Post Facto ", " Phage ")

During their first year in the Delta Quadrant, Voyager met a number of hostile species, including the Vidiians , who harvest organs from other species to perpetuate their own. The Vidiians were considered, along with the Borg and Species 8472 , the prime examples of species hostile to Voyager in the Delta Quadrant. ( VOY : " Good Shepherd ") During an ambush of Voyager within its first two months in the quadrant, Chakotay's Starfleet advanced tactical training combined with his Maquis ingenuity and tenacity saved the ship from being overwhelmed by the Vidiians, who had managed to attach a number of grapplers to Voyager 's hull. Janeway absent from the bridge, Chakotay took charge and instructed Kim to reverse the hull's polarity in an effort to shake the grapplers off. Rerouting the deflector to discharge antigraviton pulses along the hull and engaging the inertial dampers started a controlled pitch of the ship and snapped a grappler off. Chakotay then ordered helm to reverse thrusters at full power, to resist the Vidiians deploying a tractor beam , despite objections from the crew that doing so could tear the hull apart. A section of the hull came away with a grappler, but the ship was free and angled for an attack. Chakotay ordered a full spread of photon torpedoes to be fired at the Vidiian ship, neutralising the threat. ( VOY : " Fury ")

Another enemy Voyager faced in the first year were the Komar . Chakotay's shuttlecraft was attacked by them during an away mission . After the attack, Chakotay was apparently rendered brain dead , forcing The Doctor to use artificial means to keep his body alive. In reality, however, his neural energy had been extracted, turning him into a disembodied spirit, while Tuvok – who had been in the shuttlecraft with him – was possessed by the Komar in an attempt to lure the crew into a nebula and steal their neural energy. Although Chakotay soon learned how to control others in order to prevent the crew being led into the trap, his actions were initially taken as being the actions of a hostile entity trying to sabotage the ship. However, Chakotay's presence was confirmed when he ejected the warp core after having occupied B'Elanna Torres' body: she lacked the authority to eject the core by herself, but, as first officer, Chakotay possessed the required command codes . With his presence confirmed, he subsequently used a medicine wheel , which that Torres had placed in sickbay next to his body, to provide the crew with a map out of the nebula. The Doctor later developed a treatment that returned his mind to his body. ( VOY : " State of Flux ", " Cathexis ")

Another time, Chakotay, Kim and Tuvok were held hostage by a photonic lifeform because one of the lifeform's fellows was contained on Voyager for scientific tests. The crew are released when the lifeform is. ( VOY : " Heroes and Demons ")

Chakotay, undercover as a Vidiian

The first officer's bravery is demonstrated when, disguied as a Vidiian, one of Voyager 's most feared enemies, he infiltrates a Vidiian labor camp and medical facility to rescue Torres and Paris. ( VOY : " Faces ")

The second year (2372)

Early on in the second year, Voyager visited a planet where Humans lived. The inhabitants invited any of Voyager 's crew to stay with them. Both Janeway and Chakotay were saddened by the prospect that members of the crew might stay behind and concerned about how hard it might become to run a starship with a diminished crew. Chakotay reassured Janeway, however, saying, " No matter what happens, we'll make it. Remember that ". It turned out that not one crew member decided to stay on the planet. ( VOY : " The 37's ")

While honoring one of his tribal rituals , remembering the anniversary of his father's death, Chakotay's shuttlecraft was attacked by a young Kazon of the Ogla sect seeking to earn his Ogla name through killing. Chakotay outmaneuvered the Kazon and destroyed his ship before beaming the child to his own. The young Kazon, called Kar , was angry at Chakotay because being taken captive and either not being victorious or dying in battle were a disgrace. Chakotay's shuttlecraft was captured by Kar's sect's main ship and the Kazon-Ogla First Maje said Chakotay could go free if he killed Kar. Throughout his time with Kar, Chakotay had insisted that he wasn't interested in a fight or in killing people and he refused to kill Kar, instead taking the First Maje hostage and escaping with Kar's help. Chakotay continued to refuse to kill, ignoring Kar's information about how to destroy the Kazon ship, and Kar eventually realised that Chakotay wasn't his enemy. When the pair were eventually caught, Chakotay had devised a plan to enable Kar to return to his sect with honor: he told Kar to kill him, and he would then be beamed to sickbay on Voyager where he would be resuscitated. In the moment, however, Kar, unwilling to kill Chakotay, killed the First Maje and regained his place in his sect. ( VOY : " Initiations ")

When The Doctor 's program was damaged while he was in a holo simulation in the holodeck and he was experiencing delusions that were telling him he was really a Human trapped in a simulation on Jupiter Station , he was in danger of destroying his program by terminating the simulation. Chakotay was projected via a hologram into the simulation and tried to explain to The Doctor what was happening. Trying to convince him to terminate the simulation, his delusions asked him what he would rather be: a Human with a real life and family or a hologram trapped in a sickbay on a ship lost in deep space. Chakotay informed him that what he was made of didn't change who he was to the rest of the crew: he was their friend and no less real than anyone else. He manged to delay The Doctor long enough for the crew to work out how to free him from the simulation without terminating his program. ( VOY : " Projections ")

Chakotay's interest in anthropology became useful again when, during the second year, Voyager was attacked by a spaceborne alien of similar dimension to the ship. The alien saw Voyager as a mating rival. While Janeway is preparing to attack the alien in return in an attempt to escape, Chakotay, having observed how smaller members of the species behave in deference to the larger, recommends Voyager mimics them to appear less threatening. Chakotay's plan is successful. ( VOY : " Elogium ")

Chakotay had a frustrating period in command when Voyager was being distorted by an unknown force that didn't respond to any of their attempts to reverse it. Janeway had been incapacitated by the force, leaving Chakotay in command. During these events, Chakotay vehemently opposed a challenge to his command from Tuvok but, when they thought they were possibly going to die, Chakotay tells Tuvok that, while he does find him to be arrogant at times, he can't deny that he's an excellent officer. Tuvok, in return, admits that he has had difficulty accepting Janeway's decision to promote Chakotay to first officer over him and apologizes for anything he did to make him uncomfortable. The force warping Voyager turned out to be a lifeform trying to communicate with them and the ship returned to normal once it had moved on. ( VOY : " Twisted ")

Chakotay meeting with a Sky Spirit

While stranded on a planet during an away mission , Chakotay came in contact with an alien race that spoke the language of his ancestors. The aliens explained that they had visited his ancestors over 45,000 years ago, gave them a genetic bonding and were known to the tribe as the Sky Spirits . When they eventually returned to Earth on their last trip, finding no trace of the tribe, they believed they had been wiped out by other Humans.

When Chakotay met and spoke with the Sky Spirits, he was finally able to feel the kind of connection to his heritage that was always missing when he was younger. He wished that he could see his father's face now in this moment of epiphany. He explained to the aliens that Kolopak had died fighting for his colony, honoring the land just as he always said he would and just as his ancestors had done. During this encounter, Chakotay finally came to truly understand his father, telling him in spirit that he could finally hear the sky spirits. ( VOY : " Tattoo ")

Chakotay and Janeway's relationship was tested when Chakotay left Voyager without permission to pursue Seska and the Kazon on his own in a shuttlecraft. With Seska's help, the Kazon had successfully raided Voyager and stolen transporter technology – technology that was unique to their part of the quadrant and with which they could dramatically change the balance of power in their favor. Janeway had decided Voyager would retrieve the techonology; however, while all the crew had been beaten by Seska, Chakotay took it personally, Seska having deceived him a number of times in the past, which ended up humiliated him because he had defended her. Chakotay's daring mission to destroy the stolen technology – using Maquis tactics he had learned from Seska – was successful, but left him stranded with the Kazon and put Voyager in danger when they rescued him (he had asked that they abandon him, a suggestion that was seriously considered by Janeway; she decided against it following an intervention from Torres, who said it would badly effect the crew if they left him). Chakotay was put on report , Janeway asking him, " How do you expect me to keep order when the first officer decides to run off like some cowboy because he believes it's a good idea? ". Chakotay also received shocking news from Seska following his encounter with her: she said Chakotay was going to be a father because she had extracted some of his DNA and impregnated herself with it. (It turns out Chakotay wasn't the child's father, something he only learned months later – which, when discovered, was a surprise to Seska.) ( VOY : " Maneuvers ", " Basics, Part II ")

Janeway and Chakotay working on building a boat on New Earth

The same year, Chakotay and Janeway were infected with an incurable virus which necessitated them being left behind on a planet whose environment somehow halted the progression of the disease. They named the planet New Earth and, while Janeway was not willing to give up on a cure, Chakotay came to terms with their predicament and worked on making the planet a better home. He even built Janeway a bath tub . During their time together, they drew closer and Janeway asked him to drop the formalities and call her Kathryn. The first signs of affection between the two also began to manifest as outside of a command structure a romantic relationship seemed less inappropriate, but both were still hesitant to act on their feelings. After an antidote was found for the disease and they returned to the ship, they decided to leave everything that had happened on the planet between them behind and maintain a professional relationship which eventually developed into a deep friendship between the two. The one thing that remained of this time was his continued use of her first name, an intimacy never granted to anyone else on board Voyager . ( VOY : " Resolutions ")

The third year (2373)

Chakotay while stranded on Hanon IV with the rest of Voyager 's crew

After Voyager traveled back in time to 20th century Los Angeles on Earth to stop Henry Starling from stealing the timeship Aeon , Chakotay had a conversation with Torres about what they would be doing with their lives if they were stuck in the 20th century. Chakotay said that he could see himself pursuing archaeology full-time, teaching at the university or working in Central America , making important discoveries and maybe even winning the Nobel Prize . The crew were successful in stopping Starling from taking the timeship into the future on a poorly calculated journey that could have triggered a temporal explosion. They were then returned to the future they had come from, in their previous location in the Delta Quadrant, by a Federation officer piloting the Aeon from a now saved – and oblivious to the narrowly missed disaster – 29th century. ( VOY : " Future's End ", " Future's End, Part II ")

Later that year, he was injured during an away mission and trapped on a world where the inhabitants were engrossed in conflict. While recovering from his injuries, among one of the people who rescued him was a Human named Riley Frazier who, as it soon turned out, was a former Borg drone severed from the Collective , as had all the inhabitants on the planet . She explained that five years ago, their Borg cube was damaged by an electrokinetic storm and their link to the Collective severed. They moved to the planet but unfortunately, as soon as people began to assert their identities, conflicts erupted, and people turned against each other. Some, like Riley and her companions, were not interested in fighting but wanted to work cooperatively. They asked Chakotay to help them by activating the neuro-electric field generator in the Borg cube so that they could reconnect the entire population. Riley explained that the link would provide them with the unique ability to cooperate and problem-solve so they would be rid of conflict and instead could finally create a safe and productive community. Chakotay passionately advocated for Riley, but Janeway found it unconscionable to reactivate the cube. Pretending to have respected Janeway's decision, Riley and her friends – who had previously linked with Chakotay to heal his severe injuries – used the residual effects of the link to telepathically connect with him again and force him to reactivate their link. After Chakotay reactivated the cube, he was let go and the cube – as promised – was destroyed by the New Cooperative. Chakotay was somewhat disappointed with what they had done, stating that even though they held their part of the bargain, they did not hesitate to impose their collective will on him when it served their purposes. He wondered how long their ideals would last in the face of that kind of power . ( VOY : " Unity ")

The same year, Chakotay became involved in the Distant Origin Theory controversy among the Voth , a Saurian species that believed they were native to the Delta Quadrant. Forra Gegen , a leading Voth scientist and (like Chakotay) paleontologist, believed that the Voth were descended from a species in a different part of the galaxy : Earth. The official interpretation on the planet was that the Voth were the first beings to evolve into intelligent beings in the galaxy. After finding the bones of a Voyager crewmember, he believed that he had evidence of his theory. He discovered Voyager , and, using a cloaked device, boarded the ship, abducting Chakotay. The Doctor determined that the Voth had evolved from the dinosaurs on Earth. When the evidence was presented to the Voth council, Chakotay stood with Gegen to support his evidence and spoke persuasively. The council rejected the evidence and threatened to imprison Chakotay and the rest of the Voyager crew, unless Gegen publicly disavowed his theory, something Gegen felt he had no choice but to do. Before leaving, however, Chakotay gave Gegen a small hand-held globe of planet Earth in the hope that one day the Voth would see it as their place of origin. As they parted, Chakotay spoke Gegen's moto to him, " Eyes open ", which Gegen returned. ( VOY : " Distant Origin ")

Chakotay's holodeck image became a central figure in a Tuvok-written holoprogram about a Maquis-led mutiny. In that holonovel – which was originally written for training purposes in case of a mutiny – Chakotay was depicted as a traitor instigating a mutiny against Captain Janeway and the rest of the Starfleet crew in order to get them back home unhindered by Federation rules and principles. While amusing at first, the holonovel quickly turned dangerous when it was discovered that the program had been accessed by Seska before she left the ship and programmed to trap and kill whoever submitted changes to it. ( VOY : " Worst Case Scenario ")

That year also proved to be one of the most challenging chapters for Voyager and its crew as they finally entered the much-dreaded Borg space . When they discovered that the Borg were at war with a powerful species known as Species 8472 , Janeway decided to enter into an alliance with the Borg for safe passage through their space in exchange for helping them beat Species 8472. Chakotay was strongly against entering into such an unholy alliance, in part because of his experiences of being controlled by a collective using Borg techonolgy, but Janeway was convinced that it was the only option available to them. When the Borg betrayed Janeway, just as Chakotay had predicted, and she was injured, Chakotay took command and broke off the alliance. When Janeway recovered, she was disappointed that Chakotay did not trust her. This incident marked one of the many clashes between Chakotay and Janeway over command decisions. Chakotay was instrumental in defeating the Borg after they try to double-cross Voyager , linking with the drone Seven of Nine via a neural transceiver attached to his neck, communicating with the Human part of the drone before Torres send a power surge to overwhelm the drone. Chakotay was injured in the process. He was extremely skeptical of Janeway's decision to try to integrate Seven of Nine into the Voyager crew. ( VOY : " Scorpion ", " Scorpion, Part II ")

The fourth year (2374)

In 2374 , Chakotay had various encounters with a number of different races. After a shuttle accident, he was brainwashed by the Vori , who had him join their war against the Kradin . They used simulated scenarios of innocent Vori being killed and tortured. Despite the peace he had found and peaceful ways he had learned over the recent years while on Voyager , he became so embittered by the Vori propaganda that he turned into a killing machine. He was rescued by Tuvok and convinced of the brainwashing before he could complete his first real incursion against the Kradin. ( VOY : " Nemesis ")

Chakotay loses his hair and starts rapidly aging

He and the crew were used in medical experiments by the Srivani . When Neelix was almost killed in an accident and brought back to life, Neelix questioned his beliefs in the afterlife and the meaning of life itself. Chakotay, being a spiritual man himself, urged Neelix to not draw any negative conclusions from his experience but instead see them as a time for growth into a potentially stronger faith. ( VOY : " Scientific Method ", " Mortal Coil ")

Chakotay saved Voyager from the Dream Aliens : they had caused the crew to remain in a dream state while they were attempting to destroy the ship. Chakotay used lucid dreaming in order to remain in control during his dream and thus interacted with the aliens. He managed to wake himself and, with The Doctor's help, stay awake while he worked out how to help the crew. He eventually found that the aliens were using a large transmitter on their home world to boost their dream control to the entire crew. He told The Doctor to aim a torpedo at the cavern and, upon reentering the dream controlled by the aliens, tells the alien leader to end the dream or face destruction, freeing the crew from alien control. ( VOY : " Waking Moments ")

Chakotay and his fellow Maquis received bad news this year when Starfleet managed to get messages to Voyager . In a letter from Sveta, the person who had recruited him into the Maquis, Chakotay heard that the Maquis have been defeated and many of his Maquis friends had been killed. Chakotay relayed this to the other Maquis on board. ( VOY : " Hunters ")

The Hirogen hijacked Voyager during this year and turned the holodecks into a hunting arena, forcing the crew to battle against them in different holo simulations. The crew, with neural interfaces implanted in their necks, believed themselves to be the characters they were playing in these deadly games. In one such simulation, in which the Hirogen took on the role of Nazis during World War II , Chakotay was Captain Miller of the United States Army . Thankfully, efforts to liberate the crew, initiated by The Doctor and Harry Kim, were successful. ( VOY : " The Killing Game ", " The Killing Game, Part II ")

Chakotay and an alien from an isolationist species fell in love during the course of this year. The problem was, however, that due to their biology Kellin 's race, the Ramuran , were forgotten within hours of absence from members of other species. Chakotay didn't remember Kellin upon her return to Voyager , where she sought aslyum from her people, who would try to capture her and return her to Ramura . She had returned to Voyager because she loved Chakotay, specifically because he was kind. Initially unsure of Kellin, having forgotten her after her previous departure, they quickly fell in love again. Unfortunately, a Ramuran tracer boarded Voyager and wiped Kellin's memory of life outside of Ramura, including Chakotay. Chakotay tried to convince her they were in love but failed and sadly said goodbye. Before he forgot, he wrote down his memories of his time with Kellin. ( VOY : " Unforgettable ")

Chakotay demonstrated his extensive piloting ability when he landed Voyager on a Demon class planetoid, successfully navigating the starship through its savage atmosphere . Later, on an away mission to look for missing crewmates Paris and Kim, when tricorders weren't able to help he used scouting skills he had learned from his tribe. While on the planet, Chakotay and the crew allowed themselves to be duplicated by a biomimetic lifeform known as Silver Blood . ( VOY : " Demon ")

The fifth year (2375)

Chakotay effectively captained Voyager for months as it journeyed through an area of space seemingly devoid of life and even planetary objects and stars. During this time, Janeway had confined herself to quarters and was suffering from depression brought on because she felt guilty for stranding her crew far from home. Chakotay tries to convince her to resume her duties fully, but she refuses. Later, as Janeway tried to assuage her guilt by ordering the crew to abandon her at one end of a spatial vortex she will destroy once they have pass safely through, Chakotay leads the crew in refusing her orders, forcing Janeway to reconsider and stay with the crew. He informs the captain that he "wouldn't be a fine first officer if I hadn't" . Moments prior to the crew's confrontation with the cpatain, Chakotay asked for Tuvok's support in refusing her, which may have been a turning point in their relationship. ( VOY : " Night ")

The news received the previous year, about the defeat of the Maquis and the deaths of their Maquis friends effected the Maquis onboard Voyager in different ways. Months after hearing the news, B'Elanna Torres, who had initially reacted with anger, had become depressed and numb to all feelings in her life and began taking extreme risks in an effort to feel alive: turning the safety protocols off in the holodeck, she would fight Cardassians or go orbital skydiving . When it became apparent that she was unwell, Chakotay tried to help her. Using rather forceful methods – perhaps because he himself was disturbed by one of Torres' holoprograms , which depicted the deaths of their Maquis friends – he made Torres confront her thoughts and actions, reminding her that, while she had lost much of her Maquis family, the crew on Voyager were her family, too, that they would be with her, and that she needed to find other ways to deal with her depression. ( VOY : " Hunters ", " Extreme Risk ")

Chakotay and the infamous kiss with a member of Species 8472

Chakotay encountered Species 8472 again, when Voyager discovered an Earth-like recreation on a space station . It turned out to be a training facility for a possible invasion of Earth by Species 8472. They had assumed various identities of Starfleet officers. While on reconnaissance Away missions to the station he became romantically involved with one of the aliens who had assumed the identity of a Starfleet commander named Valerie Archer . Their mutual respect and trust were important factors in persuading their superiors to come to a diplomatic agreement to avoid conflict. ( VOY : " In the Flesh ")

In 2375 , Voyager was able to apparently perfect their own version of the Quantum slipstream drive to get them home. However, a potential glitch in the drive meant Chakotay and Harry Kim had to use the Delta Flyer to map the slipstream in advance of Voyager , monitoring potential instabilities in the slipstream matrix as it formed and relaying corrections back to the larger ship. The night before the voyage, Janeway invited Chakotay to dinner in her quarters , their last night in the Delta Quadrant. When asked, Chakotay expressed doubts about the plan to use the drive, stating that the risks were so high Starfleet engineers would not allow it. Janeway said she was willing to take the risk and asked if Chakotay was with her. " Always ", he replied. Chakotay piloted the Flyer while Paris was at Voyager 's helm . The drive destablised shortly into the voyage and did not return the ship to the Alpha Quadrantc, although it did knock ten years off the journey. ( VOY : " Timeless ")

It was this at point, more than a year since Seven of Nine had been severed from the Borg Collective and joined the crew of Voyager , who were now at risk of losing her to an illness, that Chakotay expressed to Janeway that she had proved him wrong regarding her decision to integrate Seven into the crew. ( VOY : " Infinite Regress ")

Chakotay, while affected by the telepathic pitcher plant

Chakotay's hopes and fears were revealed when Voyager came into contact with a " Telepathic pitcher plant " during this year. The enormous space-dwelling organism inticed the ship into its digestive tract by making the crew believe it was a wormhole home where they would receive their desires. Chakotay imagined he'd received a full pardon for his actions as Maquis and a professorship of Anthropology at Starfleet Academy. ( VOY : " Bliss ")

Chakotay devised the plan for stealing the Borg transwarp coil from a Borg sphere described by Janeway as " Fort Knox ". The heist was successful, except that during the away mission Seven of Nine chose to return to the Collective. Despite his previous steps to acceptance of Seven of Nine, Chakotay was ready to wonder if she had betrayed Voyager . ( VOY : " Dark Frontier ")

Chakotay being treated after running Chakotay Training Program 15-Beta

When Voyager became trapped in chaotic space , alien inhabitants of that region communicated with Chakotay by reactivating a medically suppressed, defective gene of his responsible for an inherited cognitive disorder called sensory tremens that could cause realistic auditory and visual hallucinations – which the aliens spoke through, appearing to Chakotay in the faces of his friends, family and a boxing opponent. Chakotay – whose grandfather , Chakotay believed, had become insane because of the gene – was frightened of becoming like his ancestor and resisted the aliens' efforts. Fighting against his fears, he learned from the aliens how to guide the ship out of chaotic space before the ship was destroyed by the anomaly . ( VOY : " The Fight ")

While bringing up the rear of an away team escaping a depressurising deck on a Malon export vessel contaminated with theta radiation , Chakotay was knocked unconscious by flying debris and had to be beamed out of the vacuum to Voyager . ( VOY : " Juggernaut ")

One of the more serious conflicts between him and Captain Janeway occurred in late 2375 with the discovery of the USS Equinox that was commanded by Starfleet Captain Rudolph Ransom . Ransom and his crew had been using nucleogenic lifeforms as fuel for their special warp drive ; an act that appalled Janeway unimaginably, especially because it was a dishonor to Starfleet, leading her to set upon a relentless hunt until the Equinox and its crew were brought to justice. In her fury, she not only compromised the safety of the ship on numerous occasions, despite Chakotay's advice, but also wanted to subject one of Ransom's captured crew members to torture to retrieve information out of him. Chakotay was successful at preventing the worst from happening and warned her that he would not tolerate her crossing that line again. Janeway, angered and determined, relieved Chakotay of duty, so she could pursue Ransom unhindered. When she finally came to her senses, she realized how she had crossed the line herself and that Chakotay would certainly have had good reason to have stage a mutiny against her. Chakotay said he had thought of doing such, but that that would have been crossing the line. ( VOY : " Equinox ")

The sixth year (2376)

Towards the start of this year, Seven of Nine learned she was responsible for the condition of three members of her former Borg unimatrix whose minds were still linked despite having escaped the Collective. As they lie unconscious in sickbay , she battles with guilt and their fate: to separate them into individuals who will die within a month or return them to the Borg where they will live longer but as part of the Collective. Chakotay tried to comfort Seven, asks her to think about her experience and to consider the difference between existing and living. Seven's decision is that " Existence is insufficient ". ( VOY : " Survival Instinct ")

Voyager was caught in a conflict begun by the Vaadwaur , a confrontational and treacherous species that was revived after over eight-hundred years in stasis . They had been revived by a crew member with good intentions and, as they were unknown to Voyager and seemed in need, Janeway made an alliance with them. Chakotay felt uncertain about the Vaadwaur's intentions and was wary of awakening them, recalling an old Greek myth about a dragon killed in battle whose teeth fell to the ground only to spring up as full-grown warriors to continue the fight. He used this allegory to demonstrate how Voyager might inadvertently be re-instigating a bloody war that had long stopped. ( VOY : " Dragon's Teeth ")

In the same year, Voyager encountered an ancient spaceship from one of Humanity's first manned missions to Mars floating in a gravimetric distortion . Chakotay instantly recognized the phenomenon, recalling how the Ares IV was lost to it in the early 21st century . He was intrigued by their discovery and more than enthused to be leading the mission to enter the distortion to retrieve the command module . Tom Paris was impressed that Chakotay knew more about the Ares IV than he did. Chakotay remarked that the Mars missions paved the way for the exploration of space and that Lieutenant John Kelly , who piloted the Ares , was one of his favorite childhood heroes. During the away mission, Chakotay also got to engage in another of his interests, paleontology, discovering things contained within the anomaly. Chakotay's obsession with recovering the command module, however, put the lives of the away team at risk. Despite being ordered to immediately leave the distortion because it was becoming too dangerous to stay inside, Chakotay insisted the team haul the module with them, inhibiting their escape and causing them to become trapped. Chakotay was injured when they were trying to leave the anomaly and had to remain on the Delta Flyer while the task of retrieving a component from the command module to fix the Flyer fell on Seven of Nine, who did not share Chakotay's or anyone else's enthusiasm for such sentimental attachments to history. Chakotay expressed his envy when he realized that he could not beam on board the Ares and insisted Seven download the data Kelly had recorded. While Seven was angry with Chakotay for endangering their lives, his and the rest of the crew's enthusiasm for discovery and remembering history affected her and she began to appreciate learning about, remembering and being inspired by history. ( VOY : " One Small Step ")

In the same year, when Seven overloaded her Human brain trying to download too much information at once from the ship's logs and became delusional about possible conspiracies aboard the ship, Chakotay and Janeway almost came into conflict when she told them two competing conspiracy theories and they became suspicious of each other. When they discovered what had happened, they realised they had come too far together not to trust each other. ( VOY : " The Voyager Conspiracy ")

When Voyager weathered a neutronic storm the crew filled their time in one of Paris' holo programs . Janeway begins to fall in love with one of the characters but is uncomfortable and embarrased by that. Chakotay, whilst teasing her a little, also encourages Janeway to enjoy the relationship, saying that it's nice to see her having a little fun, sharing that it's something he did with holo programs himself. Janeway took his advice (and that of The Doctor, who advised similarly) and countinued to cultivate a relationship with the holo character. A number of weeks later, when there was a dangerous problem with Paris' program, Janeway wanted to avoid turning off the energy supply to the program, if possible, so the program wouldn't be lost. She said that, while the characters weren't real, the crew's (including her own) feelings for them were. ( VOY : " Fair Haven ")

Chakotay's love of anthropology brought vital information to Voyager when it was caught in the gravimetric gradient of a planet on which time passes more quickly than in the rest of space. Chakotay launches a probe that records images every ten milliseconds, enabling the crew to see civilisations develop on the planet and track seismic activity caused by the presence of Voyager . He says the information provided by the probe could be the greatest anthropological find of his career. With Seven of Nine, he was also the first the find and translate a message from the planet's inhabitants. When a difficulty transporting The Doctor back to the ship from the planet's surface meant The Doctor was trapped on the planet for years (by the time frame of the planet) and hard to locate, Chakotay, knowing The Doctor's love of opera and concert music, suggests narrowing sensor scans to the arts district. The Doctor is immediately found. ( VOY : " Blink of an Eye ")

The ship's crew suffered traumatic memories of participating in the massacre of innocent civilians on a nearby planet, believing they had been responsible the atrocity. Chakotay and an away team who first surveyed the planet suffered the most from the memories. At one point Neelix, suffering from these memories and believing himself to be in a firefight, holed himself up in the mess hall and Chakotay had to talk him out of it. The crew discovered the memories were being transmitted by a synaptic transmitter in a structure on the planet that sent neurogenic pulses that caused memories of the massacre to be implanted in anyone who came near. It was a memorial to the victims of the massacre and a reminder to never let such a massacre happen again. Most traumatised, Chakotay and other members of the original away team wanted to dismantle the monument so that others wouldn't have to experience the trauma they had. The memories could not be removed and would always stay with them. Janeway overrulled them, saying that the monument must stand as a testimony to the lives lost. The crew repaiered the structure so that it functioned properly and left a warning buoy orbiting the planet to inform other ships of what to expect. ( VOY : " Memorial ")

During shore leave on Norcadia Prime , Chakotay and other members of the crew were able to enjoy watching martial combat competitions. Jokingly, he said he was observing it for anthropological research but, being a boxer, he was quite a fan of the local martial art tsunkatse , discussing fighters' statistics with his crewmates. While watching a match, Seven of Nine entered the combat arena, having been kidnapped, along with Tuvok, and forced to fight. Janeway being away from the ship herself, visiting a planet in the neighboring system, Chakotay lead Voyager in finding the ship on which Seven and Tuvok were held and attacked it, despite the ship being stronger than Voyager – in Torres' words, it was " way out of our weight class ". As they attacked the ship, Penk , the leader of the kidnappers, commended Chakotay on his fighting spirit. With the help of Janeway returning in the Delta Flyer , they mamaged to extract Seven and Tuvok from Penk's ship. ( VOY : " Tsunkatse ")

Returning from an away mission in the Delta Flyer , Chakotay is captured by a Borg cube along with Paris, Kim and Neelix. Held in an assimilation chamber , Chakotay manages to keep his team calm, despite their fears of impending assimilation and organizes them to try to find a way to escape. Their efforts are foiled but thankfully they are later rescued by Voyager . ( VOY : " Collective ")

Like others of his former Maquis fellows, Chakotay's sense of being Maquis was never lost, even after six years on Voyager . When Starfleet managed to get a message to Voyager and Admiral Hayes inquires specifically about the status of the Maquis onboard the ship, Janeway is unsettled by it, saying she has forgotten the former antagonism between Starfleet and Maquis. Chakotay confesses that he hasn't. ( VOY : " Life Line ")

Towards the end of this year, in response to a request for help against the Borg, Janeway made a plan to inflitrate a Borg vessel and introduce a nanovirus into the Collective. She told Chakotay that, despite having forged ahead in the past without Chakotay's support, she wouldn't follow this through unless Chakotay supported it. Chakotay was unconvinced that Janeway would listen to him even if he didn't support the plan. This time, however, he did support her, seeing it as a potential way to finally defeat the Borg. However, when Janeway planned on infiltrating a Borg vessel alone, Chakotay, believing it too risky, insisted Janeway agree to take Tuvok and Torres with her. Janeway resisted and Chakotay pushed back. Janeway said she thought she had his unconditional support this time; he replied, " This is the best I can do " and indicated he would take measures to stop her from going alone, if he had to. Janeway agreed to take Tuvok and Torres with her, who were invaluable. As they approached the Borg vessel and Janeway went to join the away team, perhaps realising the seriousness of this mission she reached out a hand to Chakotay, who held it as they both stood and Janeway gave command of the bridge to him. When the away team, in the Delta Flyer , was approaching the Borg vessel to board it, Chakotay attacked the Borg, drawing fire to Voyager and weakening the Borg's shields so the away team could teleport inside.

While Voyager waited at a distance for the away team to complete their mission, Chakotay experienced a little of what it must have been like for Janeway with him as her first officer. With Janeway and Tuvok away, Lieutenant Paris was technically Chakotay's first officer, and he approached Chakotay to offer his opinion, as was first officer's duty. Chakotay wasn't immediately interested in listening to Paris who, worried about the away team – especially because his partner, Torres, was part of it – said Voyager should return to the Borg cube immediately to rescue them. Chakotay said they would wait until the away team's mission was complete. Paris, like Chakotay to Janeway, was insistent but overruled by Chakotay, who told him that, for the mission to work, he needed the support of his "first officer", Paris. Paris agreed.

At the right moment, initiating the next stage of the plan, Chakotay commanded Voyager back to the Borg vessel and rescued the away team with the help of an allied ship – and the support of his "first officer". ( VOY : " Unimatrix Zero ", " Unimatrix Zero, Part II ")

The final year (2377-78)

Chakotay's body in a state of temporal flux in 2377

Chakotay's identity as Maquis was still present in his seventh year after being taken from the struggle in the Demilitarized Zone . When members of Voyager 's crew who were Maquis were being attacked one by one, Chakotay became defensive of them and suspicious of the Starfleet part of the crew. In words that caught both Janeway and himself off guard, he referred to the Starfleet part of the crew as " your [i.e., Janeway's] crew ", correcting himself when called up on it. He organised the Maquis to work in pairs and to carry sidearms . It transpired that the attacks were being carried out by Tuvok, who, during his time undercover in the Maquis, had had supressed memory commands implanted into him, and now activated, by Bajoran fanatic Teero Anaydis . During the attacks Tuvok mind melded with the Maquis and implanted in them the command to mutiny . Under this mind control , Chakotay and the other Maquis whom Tuvok had attacked successfully hijacked Voyager until Tuvok, awakened by Janeway, performed another meld with Chakotay to free him from Anaydis' influence. ( VOY : " Repression ")

When The Doctor betrayed Voyager and joined a group of holograms intent on liberating other holograms from organic species and setting up their own homeworld , Janeway believed his program must have been tampered with by the holograms. Chakotay, perhaps because of his experiences joining the Maquis, suggested another possibility: that The Doctor " may have done what he did because he genuinely believes in their cause " and that maybe he had started thinking of the other holograms as his family. As it turned out, Chakotay's perception was correct, but Janeway was unwilling to believe it or that the holograms should be regarded as people. Later, Chakotay piloted the Delta Flyer through the atmosphere of a Class Y planet , with Paris and Tuvok in tactical support, and attacked the holograms' ship, saving Torres, The Doctor and five Hirogen from them. When back on Voyager , Janeway is lenient with The Doctor, feeling partly responsible for his development into someone who could make mistakes, and counts his time with the holograms as an "away mission". ( VOY : " Flesh and Blood ")

Twice around this time in the journey, Chakotay approached Janeway with Tuvok to express the same concerns they had about possible actions the captain might take. Once, they approached her when she wanted to make an alliance with the Hirogen to find the holograms The Doctor has joined – Tuvok was concerned about the security risk; Chakotay questioned the level of responsibility they had towards this potentially dangerous mission. A few months later, they approached Janeway when she wanted to make an alliance with other ships who were trapped with them in an area of space devoid of stars, planets, or any other source of energy. They both wondered whether Voyager 's tactics should rather be like that of the ships that have survived in the void for years: to take supplies from other ships. Janeway overruled them both both times: the first time because she felt partly responsbile for the holograms because she had been the one to give the technology to the Hirogen; the second time because of her committment to Startfleet principles. ( VOY : " Flesh and Blood ", " The Void ")

Chakotay's trustworthiness and respectability – and the vital nature as a unifying presence on the ship – was shown later that year when he restored Voyager to its proper timeline after it was hit by a chronokinetic surge from a spatial rift that shattered the ship into 37 different timeframes separated by temporal barriers . Some of the timeframes were from before Voyager was in the Delta Quadrant, some up to 17 years into Voyager 's future. In order to fix the timeline, Chakotay had to convince members of the crew – most importantly, Janeway, who was from the time they were still enemies – of their predicament and to work together. The task was made harder by the presence of Seska in one of the timeframes, who was working against him yet again. When Janeway realised she might be able to stop Voyager from ever getting trapped in the Delta Quadrant, Chakotay convinced her not to change the timeline, for the sake of all the positive things that had happened to Voyager 's crew over the past six years – for example, the liberation of Seven of Nine. When he had finished convincing her, Janeway asked him if, in their shared future, he always lectured her like that, to which Chakotay replied that she needn't worry, she would always have the last word. Chakotay made such an impact on Janeway that, as the parted, she asked if their closeness had ever become romantic. Chakotay said that there were some barriers that they never crossed. When the timeline was restored, Chakotay diverted all of Voyager 's power to its deflector system and setting it to a specific frequency, thus using the deflector array as a lightning rod for the energy surge from the spatial rift, burning it out, but avoiding the timeframe shattering. Due to the Temporal Prime Directive , Chakotay, the only one who knows what's happened, couldn't tell anyone about it and Janeway and the crew have to trust him, which they readily do. ( VOY : " Shattered ")

B'Elanna Torres became pregnant this year, which made Chakotay happy. When Torres was annoyed that people were offering parental advice all the time, Chakotay was there for her, offering some normality, which she appreciated. Chakotay suggested himself as the child's godfather, an offer Torres declined, choosing The Doctor instead, in part because she believed Chakotay didn't really know about raising children. ( VOY : " Lineage ")

Chakotay disguised as Amal Kotay so he can infiltrate the workforce

While on an away mission with Kim and Neelix, the rest of the crew were kidnapped and made to work on a planet with a labor shortage. The crew were brainwashed so that they could not remember their past and believed they had lives on the planet. Chakotay and Neelix carried out reconnaissance on the planet, Chakotay assuming the false identity of Amal Kotay and working in the factory where many of the crew were. Together, they managed to liberate Torres, but Chakotay, injured by guards, became trapped on the planet, a fugitive. He then tried to convince Janeway of who she really was, but she turned him over to the authorities. Chakotay appeared saddened when he learned that Janeway was falling in love with someone who lived on the planet. Once caught by the authorities he was brainwashed and order Voyager to return to the planet, where it was ambushed. Thankfully, the skeleton crew were able to escape and Chakotay had done just enough to help his brainwashed crew mates begin to question their situation on the planet, find each other and expose those who are performing the brainwashing. ( VOY : " Workforce ", " Workforce, Part II ")

Chakotay, with Kim, look for Friendship 1 at its final destination

After Starfleet worked out a way to communicate with Voyager on a regular basis, they gave the crew their first official mission in seven years: to find Friendship 1 , a deep space probe launched by the United Earth Space Probe Agency in 2067 with the purpose of finding other species. The last known location of the probe was close to Voyager 's route and, after tracing it to a seemingly uninhabited planet, Chakotay lead an away team to retrieve the probe. It turned out the planet was inhabited – by people who had suffered a devastating disaster after using the technology they learned from Friendship 1 , and they blamed Humans for it. The inhabitants attacked the away team and Paris, Neelix and Joe Carey were taken hostage and Carey was murdered. Chakotay and Kim had to retreat from the planet. Later, Chakotay returned with an away team to rescue the remaining hostages. Dispite now not being compelled to help the planet's inhabitants (because the hostages had been rescued), Voyager reversed the worsed effects of the disaster before resuming its course. ( VOY : " Friendship One ")

On the way to a scientific conference on Ledos , Chakotay and Seven of Nine became stranded under an energy barrier on the planet's surface after their shuttle crashed into it. The barrier protected a primative people, the Ventu , from the other inhabitants of the planet but needed lowering in order for Chakotay and Seven escape. Chakotay was fascinated by the Ventu from an anthropological perspective but he and Seven kept their distance because of the Prime Directive . However, Vendu found Chakotay as he rested under a tree, his leg injured during the crash. While with them, he received their hospitality and medicine and learned some of their language. He became concerned about the influence his presence was having on them, however, after members of the tribe started imitating him and incorporating scavenged parts of the shuttle into their dress. Finding themselves with no other choice, Seven and Chakotay asked the Ventu to help them move a large part of the crashed shuttle so it could be positioned correctly and adapted to lower the barrier. They managed to get in contact with Voyager and returned to the ship where they talked about what they thought would now be best for the Ventu: Chakotay advocated for restoring the barrier to allow the people to carry on living undisturbed by those outside; Seven, while concerned that a culture might be lost, suggested that maybe the outside influence could help a resourceful and intelligent people develop positively. Chakotay questioned how she might know what it best for the people. Janeway agreed with Chakotay, and the barrier was raised. ( VOY : " Natural Law ")

Chakotay was the first to realise things weren't right after Janeway returned from a trip with The Doctor. She was acting unusually and being secretive and Chakotay suspected someone might be impersonating her. He invented a story about her past, mentioning it to her, and when Janeway acted as if it was something that had happened, he knew it wasn't really her. He tried to contact security but was overpowered, sedated and hidden in the morgue . It transpired that The Doctor was the one impersonating Janeway, who had been kidnapped by two Overlookers when she was travelling back to Voyager in the Delta Flyer with The Doctor. The Doctor kept this secret from the crew for fear for the captain's life and was attempting to outwit the crew and take Voyager 's warp core to the Overlookers in exchange for Janeway. Thankfully, Tuvok and Paris were able to attack the ship Janeway was hostage on and bring her back to Voyager . ( VOY : " Renaissance Man ")

During the visit to Ledos a few months previously, Chakotay and Seven became closer. Seven had been attracted to Chakotay for some time but had never told him. Prior to the trip to Ledos, Chakotay had expressed interest in Seven, but very gently, inviting her to a social event hosted in the mess hall . Their closeness increased over the last few months they were in the Delta Quadrant, and they became romantically involved with each other. Seven of Nine tried to end the relationship, however, when she learned that Chakotay's growing love for her could cause him pain should she be injured or killed – a pain she didn't want to inflict on him. Chakotay argued with her, reassuring her that the only thing that was certain in the relationship was the love they felt in the present, not a potential future event. ( VOY : " Human Error ", " Natural Law ", " Endgame ")

The return home

It was during this time that Admiral Janeway arrived on the ship and helped Voyager return to the Alpha Quadrant . Unsurprisingly, Chakotay got on well with the Admiral, joking together as they worked. Admiral Janeway had come from what was to become an alternative future. For her, Voyager had taken a further 16 years to get home, experiencing tragedy along the way, and she had traveled back in time to help Voyager get home quicker. Admiral Janeway wanted to avoid the tragedies, but her plan was risky, involving traveling through a nebula with high Borg activity. Chakotay trusted the Janeways could be successful, though, telling Seven, " Our chances would be good with one Kathryn Janeway on the bridge, but with two, I'd bet on this ship any day ". At one point, the crew felt deceived by Admiral Janeway, who hadn't told them they would be using a Borg transwarp hub to get home (they believed they'd be using a wormhole ). Captain Janeway said they should destroy the hub because it would stop the Borg traveling and assimilating people so easily, saving lives, and Voyager would continue on its route through the Delta Quadrant. The whole crew, including Chakotay, were behind her, recognising the family they had on the ship and the value of the journey. Thankfully for them, the two Janeways devised another plan, involving Admiral Janeway sacrificing herself to blow up the Borg in the hub, allowing Voyager to use traverse the transwarp conduits home, destroying the conduits along the way. ( VOY : " Endgame ")

Chakotay is interrogated by Seska

Chakotay became one of the central figures in the conflict with the Kazon. One of the first encounters took place during the time he was performing the Pakra, a ritual to honor his father's death. A young Kazon, Kar , who was being initiated as a warrior, attacked him while he was alone in the shuttlecraft performing the ceremony. Chakotay destroyed his ship, and both were captured by the Kazon and condemned to die. After escaping their death sentence, Kar killed the maje and was proclaimed a warrior, thanks in part to Chakotay's help. However, Chakotay was warned that next time he met the Kazon, they would not be as lenient and kill him. His next meeting with the Kazon also was a reunion with Seska , who had defected to the Kazon-Nistrim , led by Maje Culluh . They had stolen a module that enabled them to penetrate Voyager 's shields. Chakotay was able to board the Kazon ship and destroy the module; however, he was captured and tortured by the Kazon. He was rescued by Voyager , but shortly thereafter, Seska told him that she had extracted his DNA and impregnated herself with it. ( VOY : " Initiations ", " Maneuvers ")

During a constant series of attacks on Voyager by the Kazon, Chakotay suggested to Captain Janeway that Voyager form alliances with some of the Kazon factions and others in the quadrant . This failed when the Trabe , the Kazon's enemies, under the guise of cooperation with Voyager and the Kazon, attempted to assassinate the Kazon leaders at a conference and otherwise didn't show much interest for diplomacy and building coalitions. ( VOY : " Alliances ")

Shortly after that, Chakotay received a message from Seska that she had given birth to his child, and that Culluh planned to kill her and take the child. Conflicted as to whether he should accept this child into his heart and life given that it was conceived against his will and through deception, he sought the wisdom of his father through a vision quest. In his vision, his father appeared to him saying that the child knows nothing of deception, that it is innocent and that Chakotay must accept him just as centuries ago his ancestors accepted the children of the white conquerors who had forced themselves upon their women; one of whom was a direct ancestor of theirs. Chakotay recognized the wisdom in his father's words and decided to go find his son. Although Seska was not trustworthy, Janeway agreed to try and help him. It turned out to be a trap, however, and Voyager ended up being captured, and the crew stranded on a barren planet with nothing to survive on while the Kazon took the ship and left. Chakotay's knowledge of nature and his Maquis training helped the crew survive. He rescued Kes from the primitive tribe that inhabited the planet. He also helped the crew to elude an enormous eel-like creature that lived inside a cave that they sought shelter in by sealing off the opening as they exited. He also won the friendship of the tribe when he saved one of them from a lava flow. The crew was eventually rescued by Tom Paris, The Doctor and Lon Suder and returned to Voyager to resume their course home. ( VOY : " Alliances ", " Basics, Part I ", " Basics, Part II ")

Conflict with the Borg

In 2373 , he encountered a group of former Borg drones , who, due to an accident in space, were released from the Collective and attempted to regain their original identities. Chakotay was seriously injured on this away mission. The group, headed by a Human called Riley Frazier , still maintained the ability to link. They used their link to help heal Chakotay. Frazier told him that there was another group of former drones with whom they were in conflict. She wanted Voyager to help her activate a neural transmitter on the disabled Borg ship so they could link with the dissenting group to establish cooperation and peace in their colony. Janeway refused, so the group used its former link with Chakotay to activate the transmitter. ( VOY : " Unity ")

This neural link proved beneficial when later that year, Voyager formed an alliance with the Borg. In exchange for right of passage through Borg space, the crew of Voyager agreed to help them fight Species 8472, who were destroying the Borg. Chakotay was against the alliance and he and Janeway had a fundamental disagreement over how to approach the Borg. Chakotay believed her decision to be foolish at best. He did not trust the Borg and believed Janeway made a fatal mistake of entering into any kinds of agreements with them and expecting to come out alive. On numerous occasions he opposed her, believing she was not only underestimating the enemy but that she was also selfish for wanting to arm the Borg with such a powerful weapon. Janeway was disappointed at Chakotay's perceived lack of trust in her, but he remained adamant, stating that safe passage through Borg space was not worth the devastation that would be unleashed on them after the Borg were equipped with such a powerful weapon. After Species 8472 was defeated, the Borg, as predicted by Chakotay, broke the agreement and attempted to assimilate the crew. Chakotay used his neural link ability to sever Seven of Nine, the Borg drone in charge, from the Collective, thus allowing Voyager to escape assimilation by the Borg. ( VOY : " Unity ", " Scorpion, Part II ")

In 2375 , Chakotay and Janeway devised a plan to steal a transwarp core from a Borg ship. When Seven was captured, Janeway lead an away team to rescue her. Chakotay, in command of Voyager , attacked the Borg conduit, destroying it. ( VOY : " Dark Frontier ")

He was also once captured by a Borg ship piloted by child Borg drones that were separated from the collective when the elder Borgs died due to a mysterious illness. With the aid of Seven, he was rescued. ( VOY : " Collective ")

USS Protostar

Holo-recording of Chakotay in command of the Protostar

Sometime after he and Voyager returned home to Earth, Chakotay officially rejoined Starfleet. He was promoted to captain and given command of a prototype starship, the USS Protostar . ( PRO : " Kobayashi ") Before departing on a return mission to the Delta Quadrant , Chakotay was reunited with Janeway, now a vice admiral , during the traditional christening of the Protostar . As Janeway refused to explore the Delta Quadrant again, Chakotay had an advisory hologram made in her likeness integrated to the ship's systems. ( PRO : " Asylum ")

During its mission, the Protostar entered a temporal anomaly , ending up on Solum decades in the future, where they encountered the Vau N'Akat , a species that blamed the Federation for a civil war which devasted their homeworld fifty years after the Federation made first contact with them. Chakotay attempted to send a distress call , but the damaged ship was then stormed by Drednoks and Chakotay was captured alongside his first officer Adreek-Hu on the bridge. The two officers eventually escaped but were unable to disarm a weapon called the living construct that was placed inside the Protostar nor board the ship to escape. As a last resort, Chakotay remotely sent the crewless ship back through the anomaly to prevent the Vau N'Akat from using the weaponized Protostar in their plot to destroy Starfleet before it makes first contact with Solum. ( PRO : " Preludes ")

By 2383 , the Protostar was stranded on Tars Lamora , with Chakotay and his crew trapped in the future following the collapse of the anomaly over Solum. ( PRO : " Lost and Found ") Without news from the Protostar , Janeway mounted a rescue mission and chased after any clues regarding her friend's fate with the USS Dauntless . The Protostar was recovered by a ragtag crew of six young aliens , with both Vau N'Akat operatives and Janeway's Dauntless chasing them. ( PRO : " A Moral Star, Part 2 ") After unlocking an encrypted part of the ship's systems, the crew found a recording of a distress call by Chakotay made just before the ship was boarded. ( PRO : " Kobayashi ") Having discovered the living construct onboard and its nefarious purpose, Chakotay's successors avoided contact with the Federation to prevent infection. Eventually, Janeway learned of Chakotay's predicament from her holographic counterpart while on the Protostar . After Janeway restored her holographic counterpart's corrupted program, Hologram Janeway's memories returned and she showed the real Janeway a recording of Chakotay's distress call and the ship being boarded, but the hologram admitted that she didn't know what had become of him. ( PRO : " Mindwalk ")

The plot of the Vau N'Akat was ultimately thwarted when Hologram Janeway sacrificed herself and the ship to destroy the living construct. In the process, she intentionally created a new temporal anomaly and a second distress call from Chakotay was thus able to pass through from 2436 , confirming that he and half of his crew were still alive in an alternate future. Starfleet discussed sending an exploratory mission to find Chakotay which Janeway decided to lead herself. ( PRO : " Supernova, Part 2 ")

Alternate timelines

During the " Year of Hell " conflict with the Krenim , Chakotay advised Janeway of the option of the crew abandoning Voyager and traveling through Krenim space in smaller groups. Janeway dismissed the idea and Chakotay was somewhat relieved. Later, Chakotay was captured by Annorax , the commander of the Krenim ship, along with Tom Paris . At first, he helped Annorax, who promised to return Voyager intact to its original timeline if Chakotay gave him enough detail about Voyager 's time in Krenim space, so that Annorax could have the right calculations to use in his time weapon. But after Annorax destroyed a species to try to restore the timeline, Chakotay was convinced to help Paris sabotage the ship by transmitting its location to Voyager and taking its weapons offline. This allowed Janeway to crash Voyager into the Krenim time ship and through its destruction restore the timeline. ( VOY : " Year of Hell ", " Year of Hell, Part II ")

In 2375 , Voyager was able to apparently perfect their own version of the Quantum slipstream drive to return home, but a potential glitch in the drive prompted Chakotay and Harry Kim to use the Delta Flyer to map the slipstream in advance of Voyager to monitor potential instabilities in the slipstream matrix as it formed. Due to Kim's miscalculation, Chakotay and Kim were the only two people to make it back to Earth while Voyager crash-landed on a Class L ice planet in the Beta Quadrant , killing all aboard. Fifteen years later, Chakotay had formed a relationship with Tessa Omond , who accompanied him and Harry when they stole the Flyer and certain Borg components from Starfleet before setting out to find Voyager , salvaging The Doctor's program and Seven's corpse with the goal of sending modified slipstream calculations back to before Voyager was destroyed so that the ship could make it home. According to Kim, because of their actions, stealing from Starfleet, and their plans to break the Temporal Prime Directive , Omond, Kim and Chakotay were the most wanted criminals in the galaxy. Despite being pursued by Captain Geordi La Forge and his ship, who damaged the Flyer causing it to suffer a warp core breach , Chakotay was able to buy enough time for Harry to send modified calculations back to Voyager that would disperse the slipstream entirely, stopping the flight before it could reach Earth but cutting ten years off their journey home. As they prepared for the completion of their plan, which would erase the previous 15 years of history – including Omond and his relationship – Chakotay had momentary second thoughts because he loved Omond. Omond reminded him, however, that his heart had always be on Voyager and hoped that perhaps they might still meet in the unwritten future should their plan succeed. ( VOY : " Timeless ")

Personal interests

Chakotay's quarters

Chakotay didn't use the holodeck often but enjoyed reading instead. When he did use the holodeck, he enjoyed developing relationships with characters in programs. He also enjoyed boxing in the holodeck, which he said helped him relax. ( VOY : " One Small Step ", " Fair Haven ", " The Fight ")

He occasionally took the time to embrace his artistic side, such as creations using colored sand while trapped on "New Earth" and carvings of Native American symbols. ( VOY : " Resolutions ", " State of Flux ")

Spirituality

When younger, Chakotay had little interest in the traditions of his tribe or in spirituality. However, he connected with the spirituality and traditions of his culture as an adult out of respect to his father, who was killed by the Cardassians while defending the planet his tribe lived on, a connection that grew because of his experiences on Voyager far from home. (On one away mission, he actually met the sky spirits his ancestors prayer to.) ( VOY : " Tattoo ") He carried out rituals, like pakra (to commemorate the anniversary of his father's death ) and vision quests , praying and using his medicine bundle . ( VOY : " Initiations ") He would seek guidance from his animal guide and used a medicine wheel for physical and spiritual healing. ( VOY : " The Cloud ", " Cathexis ") He would pray for others and also acted as a spiritual guide and counsel to others. ( VOY : " Initiations ", " The Cloud ", " Mortal Coil ", " Barge of the Dead ") He was noncommittal on the existence of an afterlife, stating that he accepted there were " things that can't be scanned with a tricorder ". ( VOY : " Barge of the Dead ") He recognised that vision quests, while spiritual practices, were underlain by science. ( VOY : " Sacred Ground ") He said that to understand what one experienced in a quest or similar ritual was a process that involved careful consideration of what the elements of the quest were symbolising. ( VOY : " The Cloud ", " Mortal Coil ", " Barge of the Dead ")

Chakotay was a vegetarian ; one of his favorite meals was mushroom soup . ( VOY : " State of Flux ") Some foods he hated were carrots and fried food (because it upset his stomach), and he refused to eat pudding because he thought it was slimy. ( VOY : " Unforgettable ") Neelix was aware of his dietary choices. During a trade mission to the Nar Shaddan in 2377 , he did not press the delicacy of falah nectar on Chakotay because the beverage was made from a meat byproduct, even though it would have been a diplomatic gesture; Neelix convinced Harry Kim to try it instead. ( VOY : " Workforce ")

Chakotay preferred to avoid alcoholic beverages when possible, saying he preferred to "stay in control". ( VOY : " In the Flesh "). One of his favored beverages was Antarian cider that he kept a secret stash of hidden in the cargo bay 2 . ( VOY : " Shattered ")

If Seven of Nine's holographic recreation of him was true to life in this regard, Chakotay was an inexperienced cook with poor cooking skills, calling himself more of a " replicator man ". ( VOY : " Human Error ")

Anthropology and paleontology

One of the many reasons he joined Starfleet was to pursue his interests in anthropology and paleontology . He was fascinated by 20th century Earth during Voyager 's visit to its 1996 from 2373 , and said that if they were trapped there, he might become an anthropologist. Once, he considered becoming a paleontologist as well. ( VOY : " Future's End, Part II ", " One Small Step ")

While serving in Starfleet, he visited a tomb excavation on Ktaria VII . ( VOY : " Emanations ")

In 2373 , while examining the Distant Origin Theory , Chakotay suggested that the Voth might have evolved on an isolated continent on Earth and that natural disasters could have buried the evidence under water or rocks. ( VOY : " Distant Origin ")

The depths of Chakotay's thrill for anthropology was perhaps revealed in 2375 when the telepathic pitcher plant tricked the Voyager 's crew into its digestive tract by making them believe they were entering a wormhole home. As part of the deception, it made them believe they were going to get what they most wanted when they returned. Chakotay imagined he'd received a full pardon for his actions as Maquis – and a professorship of Anthropology at Starfleet Academy. ( VOY : " Bliss ")

Chakotay was interested in the early history of space exploration, John Kelly being one of his childhood heroes. So when Voyager got the chance to actually find his ship in 2376 , he was more than eager to salvage the craft when he'd found it intact. Too eager in fact – he injured himself, damaged the Flyer and endangered his crew in his attempts to claim the craft before leaving the graviton ellipse it was caught in. Seven of Nine had to beam aboard the Ares IV , to retrieve a component to fix the Flyer , and Chakotay tried desperately to get her to realize how special it was. As a result, Seven played several of Kelly's logs that were left active when she beamed aboard. He was able to use his skills and knowledge of paleontology to explore various other items caught in the anomaly, saying he could happily stay inside it for a longtime discovering things about the universe's history. ( VOY : " One Small Step ")

Later that year, he was very interested in a planet they discovered that moved at an accelerated rate compared to normal space-time. Despite Voyager being trapped in the planet's orbit and in danger, he still had a deployed probe take images as the civilizations developing below, saying it could be the greatest anthropological find of his career. At one point he commented that every second they missed they could be missing "whole civilizations", to which Torres replied " So? We'll catch the next one. " ( VOY : " Blink of an Eye ")

In 2378 , Seven and Chakotay were trapped together again, this time on a world inhabited by the primitive " Ventu ", who Chakotay was fascinated with. His interest in anthropology helped him to understand their culture, and he even learned many of the phrases in their sign language. ( VOY : " Natural Law ")

He told renowned Voth molecular paleontologist Forra Gegen he was a scientist too and spoke of years studying science alongside navigation and starships to Kar . ( VOY : " Distant Origin ", " Initiations ")

Chakotay's boxing gloves

Since his time at Starfleet Academy, Chakotay was a fan of boxing. While there, the legendary Boothby helped him train. On Voyager he occasionally ran a program on the holodeck where he would box a Terrellian with Boothby's assistance. He also said that boxing helped him relax.

In fact, in 2375 while running this program an alien species that lived in chaotic space tried contacting him and used images of the boxing simulation in their communication. ( VOY : " The Fight ")

He was also a fan of professional sumo wrestling , once getting into an argument about the 77th Emperor's Cup . ( VOY : " Latent Image ")

In 2376 , while on shore leave on Norcadia Prime he came across a martial art called Tsunkatse on. He was quite a fan, discussing various fighters' statistics with other members of the crew, and made sure he was able to watch several of the matches live. Although The Doctor didn't approve of Tsunkatse (or boxing, for that matter), Chakotay insisted it was an excellent way to test a warrior's skills and instinct. ( VOY : " The Fight ", " Tsunkatse ")

Personal relationships

Chakotay got along with most of the people he worked with and had many personal relationships among the crews of both the Val Jean and Voyager . On his Maquis ship, people were very informal, so he got to know his crew on a very personal level. He got the respect of the Voyager crew when Janeway put her trust in him by making him first officer and when he decided to re-embrace Starfleet principles. He forged a deep and meaningful friendship with his Captain, but never hesitated to speak up when he believed that she might be making an unwise move. He was also often the liaison between the crew and the captain, as people trusted him. In the beginning, Chakotay felt that some of his former Maquis crew members might be unfairly judged, so he always had a soft spot for them and did his best to stand up for their interests, especially when he felt that no one else was.

While he was not the kind of person to hold a grudge, he also knew when to be tough and enforce the rules. On one occasion, when two of his former Maquis friends, Jarvin and Seska, suggested that they would support him if he wanted to mutiny against Captain Janeway, Chakotay told them point blank that if he ever heard them talk like that again, he would personally throw them in the brig . He also occasionally turned to rather unconventional non-Starfleet methods to discipline his former Maquis crew members who had a little more difficulty or were unwilling to adjust to Starfleet standards: on one occasion, when Kenneth Dalby disrespected Tuvok's orders and just walked out on him after he was specifically ordered to participate in special training, Chakotay decided to teach him a lesson "the Maquis way": he walked into the mess hall and knocking Dalby out of his chair, saying that this was the way the Maquis handled situations like this and that he could continue to do it "the Maquis way" until everyone got it. Dalby and other troublemakers got the point and became more cooperative. Situations like this were rare, however, and through his journey aboard Voyager Chakotay was able to remain on good terms with almost everybody. ( VOY : " Parallax ", " Learning Curve ")

Kathryn Janeway

Chakotay and Janeway share an intimate moment they fear might be inappropriate

From early on in their time on Voyager Chakotay and Kathryn Janeway forged and maintained a relationship based on deep respect and admiration for the other. In fact, Janeway once remarked that while just a few years ago she did not even know his name, now she could not imagine a day without him. Chakotay would reassure Janeway when needed and he recognised Janeway as an excellent captain who could face the biggest of challenges. The mutual respect they had for each other was never lost even when they disagreed quite vehemently over command decisions, although their trust for each other was shaken a few times and had to be rebuilt. ( VOY : " The 37's ", " Scorpion ", " Scorpion, Part II ", " The Omega Directive ", " Equinox ", " Endgame ")

They got off on a shaky start when they were first trapped in the Delta Quadrant and Chakotay had reservations about destroying the Caretaker's array that was going to leave Voyager and his own Maquis stranded in an unknown part of the galaxy . For the sake of cooperation and survival of both of their crews he submitted to Janeway's authority. ( VOY : " Caretaker ")

They also shared a certain chemistry that eventually became evident to both of them while they were trapped on a planet in Vidiian space they called " New Earth ." The two were infected with a virus that trapped them on the planet, and while Janeway tried to find a cure – as Voyager had continued on its mission – Chakotay preferred to make the planet their home. The two formed a familiarity during their isolation and Janeway invited Chakotay to call her by her first name, Kathryn. After a long day repairing damages caused by a plasma storm , Janeway complained about an ache in her shoulders. Chakotay offered to give her a massage , which she enjoyed until she realized it probably wasn't appropriate for them to become this intimate. She couldn't sleep that night, and when she attempted to "define parameters" about their relationship, Chakotay reassured his allegiance to her whatever their form their relationship would take. In this intimate moment, Chakotay said that he had been a discontented and angry person before he met Janeway. Through a story, he called her " brave and beautiful and very wise " and said he would do " whatever he could to make her burden lighter ", putting her needs first. By doing this, he said, he had found peace. After their conversation they held hands across the table. After a cure for their illness was found and they were finally rescued, they silently agreed that certain things were better left behind on the planet, and resumed their respectful and cordial relationship, although their chemistry was still present in the background from time to time. As Chakotay put it at one point, there were " some barriers [they] never cross[ed] ". Chakotay continued to call her by her first name, a unique intimacy that no one else on the crew was ever invited to do. ( VOY : " Resolutions ", " Shattered ")

While accepting and respecting Janeway as his captain, Chakotay never hesitated to speak up and assert himself when he felt that the situation required it or when Janeway was making questionable command decisions. Months into Voyager 's journey and after constant attacks by the Kazon, Chakotay urged Janeway to reconsider her position with regard to the Kazon and think more like the Maquis. He felt that Starfleet regulations were too rigid for them to survive their journey through that part of space. He suggested they seek alliances with other sects of the Kazon. Hesitant at first Janeway agreed to reconsider her position. ( VOY : " Caretaker ", " Alliances ") He also did not agree with her decision to bring a Borg drone she had disconnected from the Collective along on their journey through the Delta Quadrant, believing it nearly impossible that Seven of Nine could ever be anything but an automaton. ( VOY : " Infinite Regress ")

On another occasion he refused to let her go off alone on a dangerous mission to destroy the Omega molecule after it had been detected by long range sensors . He said to her, " You're asking me to abandon my captain and closest friend without even telling me why ". Janeway asked that he trust her, but Chakotay remained adamant, telling her that the mission would succeed if they worked together, not if she just went off on a suicide mission by herself. He emphasized that they were a team and as such she could count on them for support, even if Starfleet orders said otherwise. ( VOY : " The Omega Directive ") In 2375 , he staged yet another intervention when Janeway once again insisted on taking matters into her own hand and going off on a one-way mission to save her crew: they had entered a vast region of space with no stars or systems, and their only way out of the void was through a spatial vortex . The Malon used the vortex to dump their poisonous antimatter waste into the void, which in turn poisoned the species indigenous to that void. Reasoning with the Malon failed and Janeway soon realized that the vortex had to be destroyed so the Malon could not return to it; however, this time she was not willing to sacrifice her crew once again to save another species, like she had done with the Ocampa and the Caretaker's array. Therefore, she decided to stay behind after Voyager passed through the vortex, so she could destroy it. Chakotay did not want to allow her to make such a sacrifice and, working with the crew, he made sure they all refused to carry out her orders. She was outwardly upset at this rank insubordination, but it was evident that she was actually touched by their action. ( VOY : " Night ")

A similar incident happened towards the end of Voyager 's sixth year in the Delta Quadrant, when Janeway, in response to a request for help against the Borg, planned a solo mission to a Borg vessel to introduce a nanovirus into the Collective. Prior to Janeway revealing she'd be going on her own, Chakotay had given his support to her. However, believing this element of the plan to be too risky, Chakotay insisted Janeway take Tuvok and Torres with her. When Janeway said she thought she had his unconditional support this time, Chakotay replied, " This is the best I can do " and indicated he would take measures to stop her from going alone, if he had to. Janeway agreed to to take Tuvok and Torres on the mission.

As they approached the Borg vessel and Janeway went to join the away team, perhaps realising the seriousness of this mission, she reached out a hand to Chakotay, who held it as they both stood and Janeway gave command of the bridge over to him. ( VOY : " Unimatrix Zero ")

Janeway and Chakotay

One of the most serious conflicts between them occurred during the encounter with the USS Equinox in 2376 : the Equinox , which was commanded by Starfleet Captain Rudolph Ransom , had been using sentient nucleogenic lifeforms as fuel for his ship. When Janeway found out about Ransom's actions which violated every Starfleet directive and code of moral conduct, she was disgusted and furious. When the Equinox tried to escape, Janeway, who felt betrayed and enraged about Ransom's atrocious actions, began a relentless hunt, even going so far as to compromise the safety of the ship and its crew to get to Ransom. Chakotay confronted her about the issue, accusing her of having tried to satisfy a personal vendetta at the cost of the ship. Janeway remained relentless, however, and told him that she wasn't going to stand by and let Ransom torture and murder innocent lifeforms just so he could get home a little sooner. Chakotay tried to get through to her but to no avail. When she resorted to torture of one of Ransom's crewmembers in exchange for information, he warned her that he wouldn't let her cross that line again. Upon hearing this, Janeway, blinded by her desire to bring Ransom to justice, relieved him of duty.

After Ransom had a change of heart and surrendered to Voyager , Janeway returned to her senses. In a silent moment, she told Chakotay that he may have had good reason to stage a little mutiny of his own. Chakotay admitted that the thought had occurred to him, but that it would have been "crossing the line." This struck a chord with the captain who realized how close her recent actions had come to being no better than that of the Equinox and Captain Ransom. ( VOY : " Equinox, Part II ")

Chakotay desperately trying to revive Janeway after their shuttle crashes

Even though Chakotay considered Janeway to be one of his closest friends, he also found her to be sometimes an unreasonable person who did not know when to step back. During another incident three years earlier involving the Borg and Janeway's decision to strike a deal with them in exchange for safe passage through their space, Chakotay told her point blank that what she was proposing was foolish and too great a risk. Using the parable of the scorpion , he tried to explain to her that the mission she was planning to embark on was doomed to fail as the Borg were not the kind one could strike equitable deals with. He also believed Janeway's decision to be selfish as she was willing to supply the Borg with means to assimilate yet another species just so she and her crew could get home faster. When Janeway asked him to trust her he remained steadfast with his belief, accusing her of being blinded by her desire to go back home no matter the cost. After a lot of arguing that was not going anywhere, however, both realized that in order for the mission to be successful, they had to set their differences in opinion aside and work together. Chakotay's objections ended up inspiring a backup plan between the two, in case the Borg turned on them; this ended up saving the crew. ( VOY : " Scorpion ", " Scorpion, Part II ")

According to Captain Janeway's mimetic duplicate , Chakotay was a " friend who wasn't afraid to let me know when I am wrong ." Their working relationship was perhaps summed up informally by Janeway from an alternative future who, visiting the grave of Chakotay in her timeline, said, " Any final words of advice for your old captain? Wait, don't tell me. I'm being impulsive. I haven't considered all the consequences. It's too risky. Thanks for the input, but I've got to do what I think is right ". From Chakotay's perspective, he came to recognised that it was his duty to advise Janeway but that she would always make the final decision. ( VOY : " Course: Oblivion ", " Shattered ", " Endgame ")

Chakotay's relationship with Kathryn Janeway wasn't always controversial. Early during their voyage home, he shared with her some of his spiritual rituals, such as how to embark on a vision quest and talk to her " animal guide ". He also showed and shared with her his private medicine bundle . They often had weekly dinners together and once went on a moonlight sail on Lake George . He was also the first person she confided the end of her relationship with her former fiancé Mark Johnson to, who in 2374 revealed in a letter that after believing her lost, he moved on and married another woman. They remained great friends throughout and she even lent Chakotay a copy of Dante's Inferno given to her by Mark, which she'd never lent to anyone. They were supportive of each other and Chakotay was happy to see her have some fun when she in 2376 had developed an interest in one of the characters of the Fair Haven program created by Tom Paris, encouraging her he enjoy it when she was embarrassed about having feelings towards a hologram. ( VOY : " Fair Haven ") When a Janeway from a passed timeline, evidently struck by him, asked him about the closeness of their relationship in the future, he simply replied that there were some barriers they never crossed. ( VOY : " The Cloud ", " Coda ", " Hunters ", " Shattered ")

Her love for Chakotay was one of the reasons Admiral Janeway risked time traveling back to Voyager and sacrificed herself to help the ship get home quicker. She desperately wanted to avoid Seven of Nine's death, which happened during that Janeway's 23-year journey home, and the trauma it caused to Chakotay, who was married to Seven by that point. ( VOY : " Endgame ")

B'Elanna Torres

Chakotay tries to get Torres to tell him why she's been "trying to hurt herself"

B'Elanna Torres was Chakotay's engineer, and unofficial first officer aboard the Val Jean , and the two shared a close friendship as well as working relationship for years. Despite their occasional differences, Chakotay was the one she trusted the most and probably also the only who truly understood her nature and inner struggle; she often returned to him for guidance.

With a fiery temper mostly from her Klingon side, Torres was the first to speak up that it wasn't Captain Janeway's right to destroy the Caretaker's array and thus get them all stranded in the Delta Quadrant. Speaking as her commanding officer, however, Chakotay made it clear who the captain was. From then on, Chakotay asked his entire crew to respect Janeway as their leader and embrace the Starfleet way. Initially, the most hesitant and resistant person to do this was Torres. ( VOY : " Caretaker ")

Voyager 's violent hurtle into the Delta Quadrant cost them the lives of many of their crew members, leaving key positions open that needed to be filled urgently. One of those positions was that of chief engineer which Chakotay championed for Torres to get, even though Joe Carey was next in line. Chakotay, knowing that Torres was the better engineer, insisted that Janeway consider her for the position. Although Janeway thought it was a long shot, as she saw Torres as brash and incapable of exhibiting the kind of professionalism required from a command officer, he continued standing up for her, insisting that if she only gave her a chance, Torres wouldn't disappoint her. He also told Torres that she would have to start treating people better if she wanted to get ahead on the ship and make it. Even though Torres put up a fight, she was thankful that Chakotay still believed in her; after proving herself to Janeway, she got the job. ( VOY : " Parallax ")

Torres didn't instantly become a model Starfleet officer though, and it took her some time and a few lessons to turn her life around and fully embrace the Starfleet crew. ( VOY : " Prime Factors ") Whenever she needed someone to turn to when she was going through a rough patch in her life over, she'd go to Chakotay. They often relied on each other when they needed their emotional compass checked and when they needed to put things into perspective, but Chakotay was never hesitant to tell her like it is when she behaved stubbornly or out of line. He also never played favorites with her due to the past they shared, even though it was sometimes difficult for him to separate the strong friendship they had shared over the years from his standpoint as the first officer. ( VOY : " Twisted ", " Maneuvers ", " Barge of the Dead ")

In Torres vision: " I'm the Chakotay you want me to be "

As friends, they did spend time together engaging in various activities; the two occasionally played hoverball together on the holodeck , though he wasn't very good. On one occasion, she was beating him 19 to 7, but he claimed he was just lulling her into a false sense of security. Chakotay had also helped her find her animal guide and he prayed with her when they both believed they were going to die. Even though they had always shared a friendship and never crossed the line into romance, Torres felt a hidden attraction toward Chakotay. This was revealed when the Botha manipulated the crew and induced disturbing hallucinations in them and Torres was carried away by a passionate hallucination involving Chakotay. She never acted on her feelings for him, however, and was able to move on. ( VOY : " The Cloud ", " Twisted ", " Persistence of Vision ", " Maneuvers ")

When Chakotay once left Voyager – without authorization – in order to pursue Seska, it was Torres who pleaded with a rather upset Captain Janeway to try to understand Chakotay's struggle and the humiliation he faced after Seska's betrayal, asking her not to lose faith in him as her first officer. Janeway remarked that Chakotay was quite lucky to have someone care about him as much as Torres did.

Around 2374 , Chakotay received word from one of his Maquis friends back home that the insurrection was over, and that the Maquis had all been wiped out by the Cardassians and their ally from the Gamma Quadrant . The news both saddened and angered Torres, who realized that everything she had known and fought for back home was gone. Through the course of the year, she regularly went to the holodeck and played the most dangerous programs she could find with the safety protocols offline. This eventually impaired her ability to work, and although Janeway confined her to her quarters and took away her holodeck privileges, Chakotay took the time to find out what was really bothering her. He even took her down to the holodeck, leading her to believe they'd play a simple program – and instead, he forced her into a program where she was re-enacting the massacre of the Maquis. He forced her to face her inner demons and come to terms with the fact that they both wished they could have been there to help their friends fight the good fight, but that because they hadn't been there, it didn't mean that they did not deserve to live and move on with their own lives. ( VOY : " Hunters ", " Extreme Risk ")

When in 2377 Torres found out she was pregnant, he came up to her and jokingly asked, " Have you checked the warp core for radiation leaks today? … You have a certain glow about you. " She immediately knew someone had told him. Chakotay would have liked to be the child's godfather, and even suggested several names – such as Taya, the feminine form of Chakotay – but recognised, perhaps more than others, that parental advice and suggestions from others could become irritating to the parents and knew when to step back, which Torres appreciated in him. In the end, Torres decided not to choose Chakotay to be the godfather, in part because she believed he didn't really know about raising children. ( VOY : " Lineage ")

The mimetic duplicate of Chakotay walked Torres down the aisle and gave her away to Tom Paris during their wedding aboard the duplicate Voyager in 2375 . ( VOY : " Course: Oblivion ")

Chakotay knew Tom Paris from a time when Paris had joined the Maquis after his disgraceful discharge from Starfleet. He didn't like Paris because unlike himself who had joined the Maquis on moral grounds, he saw in Paris nothing more than a mercenary, willing to fight for anyone willing to pay his bar bills. Needless to say, he was not too happy to see him on Captain Janeway's bridge after they were stranded in the Delta Quadrant.

They eventually came face to face, after the Caretaker had released them to their ships, and Chakotay was forced to cooperate with Janeway. Although Chakotay was particularly angry at Paris, possibly added to by the fact he'd just found out that Tuvok was a spy, Janeway asked Chakotay to grant Paris the same respect he expected her to show his crew. The two were able to come to terms enough to go down to the planet together, and when Chakotay broke his leg trying to escape, Paris went back to save him. When Chakotay told him to leave, Paris snarked that if he saved Chakotay's life, it would belong to him. The two eventually made it out safely, and Chakotay joked to the captain when they returned that his life belonged to Paris and volunteered to be his "personal bodyguard," against possible hostility from the former Maquis crew. ( VOY : " Caretaker ")

In 2372 , Paris pretended to harbor animosity towards an unknowing Chakotay in order to expose a traitor on board Voyager . During this time, he regularly showed up late to his duty shift, set up a gambling operation which Chakotay broke up and he eventually pushed Chakotay to the floor of the bridge when called on his unacceptable behavior. He also loudly expressed his negative opinion on Chakotay's role as first officer in Voyager 's mess hall to many crewmembers. The two later set aside their differences when Chakotay finally found out about Paris' true intentions, and in an interview with Neelix, Paris particularly apologized for giving Chakotay such a hard time as part of his role. From that point onward, they buried their hatchet for the last time and finally got over their past animosities and hard feelings for one another. ( VOY : " Meld ", " Lifesigns ", " Investigations ") Chakotay, for his part, frequently addressed Paris by his first name, suggesting a certain level of affection, and by their seventh year together appreciated Paris', saying " we love having him around ". ( VOY : " Shattered ")

Chakotay asking Tuvok for advice in 2375

Chakotay and Tuvok served together on the Val Jean , where Tuvok was posing as an undercover agent for Starfleet in order to infiltrate Chakotay's cell. After they had been stranded in the Delta Quadrant by the Caretaker's array, Tuvok's real identity was soon revealed. This angered Chakotay who felt fooled and betrayed by Tuvok. However, as the nature of their situation required, they maintained a cordial relationship when they were forced to cooperate and work together aboard Voyager . ( VOY : " Caretaker ")

When Captain Janeway picked Chakotay as her first officer over Tuvok, Tuvok was disappointed but respected her decision. Tensions between the two still occasionally arose, especially when Tuvok kept reciting Starfleet protocols and procedures to Chakotay who sometimes had his own way of doing things. When B'Elanna Torres had punched Lieutenant Carey in the nose, and this accident landed him (Carey) in sickbay, Tuvok insisted on having her put in the brig, pointing out that striking a fellow officer was considered a court martial offense. Chakotay, understanding Torres' ways and that she could succeed if given a chance, asked Tuvok to drop the matter as he would discipline her in another manner. ( VOY : " Parallax ")

They also occasionally disagreed over command decisions such as the time when Voyager encountered an inversion field which had twisted and distorted the ship's hull . Tuvok suggested accessing the navigational array and from there engaging thrusters . Chakotay, however, decided to follow Torres' suggestion. This lead Tuvok to second-guess Chakotay's decision, which in turn irritated Chakotay who reminded him that he was in command. When it turned out that Tuvok's suggestion would indeed have been the wiser choice, Chakotay admitted that while he sometimes found Tuvok arrogant and irritating, he nonetheless believed him to be "one hell of an officer". Tuvok responded that while he in fact hadn't always been particularly partial to his methods either, he had always respected Captain Janeway's decisions, even though her decision to make Chakotay first officer put him in a position he was unaccustomed to. Tuvok apologized if that had ever caused him to make things more difficult for Chakotay, an apology Chakotay graciously accepted. ( VOY : " Twisted ")

Throughout their journey back home, their relationship gradually softened, and both came to greatly appreciate and respect the other. On one occasion, when a former Maquis crew member directly disobeyed Tuvok's orders, Chakotay even went so far as to personally set him straight, making sure he understood whose orders he needed to respect on the ship and that disobedience of those the Maquis did not personally approve of would have its consequences. ( VOY : " Learning Curve ")

When Voyager was traversing what they dubbed " the Void " in 2375 , Janeway fell into a deep, guilt-based depression over the ship being trapped in the Delta Quadrant due to her decisions. Worried, Chakotay relied on Tuvok's knowledge of her past and her psyche to predict that she would likely resort to self-sacrifice to protect the crew. When asked by Chakotay, Tuvok pledged his support in preventing any such outcome. ( VOY : " Night ")

Chakotay and Seska share a moment

Seska and Chakotay were not only together in the Maquis, but they were also romantically involved sometime in the past, although they had eventually decided not to pursue their relationship any further. A certain attraction between them still existed, however, and when Chakotay once reminded Seska of their decision to not be together anymore, she laughed it off, joking that stranded in the Delta Quadrant, he didn't have all that many options.

Despite being hesitant to pursue a romantic relationship with her, Chakotay nonetheless remained very protective of Seska and when she was accused of sabotage and collaboration with the Kazon, he was the only one on her side until, much to his disappointment, evidence proved that she was indeed betraying them. She not only had collaborated with the Kazon, but it turned out that she was in fact a Cardassian spy who had her physique surgically altered to look Bajoran in order to infiltrate Chakotay's Maquis cell. She insisted, however, that she had only one agenda with Chakotay which wasn't all that secret.

Shortly after she was exposed and before her departure from Voyager , she expressed her deep disappointment in Chakotay who had decided to take on "mighty Starfleet principles", which she believed to be responsible for their perilous situation. She wondered how she could ever have loved him. ( VOY : " State of Flux ")

After this betrayal by Seska, Chakotay felt a great sense of shame and disappointment, because she had not only taken advantage of his trust and care for her, but also because after everything he had done for her, she publicly humiliated him by turning out to have been a Cardassian spy who now had, once again, turned her back on him by defecting to the enemy.

After Seska fled Voyager , she joined Maje Culluh of the Kazon-Nistrim, constantly plotting new ways to capture Voyager . In one instance, she lured Chakotay into a trap in which he was caught and tortured by Culluh and his men unsuccessfully for information about Voyager . She used that opportunity to artificially inseminate herself and eventually gave birth to a baby boy she claimed to be Chakotay's son.

Unable to abandon his child, Chakotay – as soon as he found out – pursued her. It turned out to be a trap once again, and Chakotay's pursuit led to the capture of Voyager by the Nistrim and to the crew being marooned on a desolate planet.

The Doctor, who had stayed aboard Voyager when the Nistrim took over, examined the child and much to Seska's surprise revealed that the baby was half Kazon and thus not Chakotay's son.

A rescue attempt led by Tom Paris lead to the Nistrim being forced to abandon Voyager . it was during Paris' rescue attempt when Seska received a high dose of electric charge at one of the consoles and shortly after died with her baby in arm. Culluh took the baby with him when leaving Voyager , leaving her remains behind – which Chakotay later found when retaking the ship. ( VOY : " Maneuvers ", " Basics, Part II ")

In 2371 , Seska had found Tuvok's Insurrection Alpha holonovel training program depicting a Maquis mutiny and reprogrammed it with the goal of trapping Tuvok and anyone with him inside the program the next time he tried editing the narrative parameters file , and with the safety protocols turned off. The novel portrayed a holo Chakotay programmed to be strongly enamored by Seska, and the two were enthusiastically living out their old wild Maquis ways. ( VOY : " Worst Case Scenario ")

Chakotay and Kellin's brief love affair

Kellin , a Ramuran , who came from a closed society , fell in love with Chakotay on one of her missions to retrieve and bring back someone who had decided to leave their society. The Ramuran's biology was such that those whom they met couldn't hold their memories of contact with the Ramurans for more than a few hours. Similarly, Ramurans who escaped also had their memories of the new species they encountered wiped out. Kellin explained that she had visited Voyager previously and that she and Chakotay had fallen in love. Chakotay was taken aback by the things Kellin said and it took him a while to fall in love with her again.

Shortly after Kellin's return, the Ramurans pursued her and an agent beamed aboard to take her back; he hit her with a neurolytic emitter and wiped out her knowledge of Chakotay. Chakotay tried hard to get her to remember him and what they felt for each other, but with Kellin's memory of Chakotay and their feelings for one another wiped out, Kellin just wanted to return to her world and was not interested in pursuing a romance with Chakotay. As she left, Chakotay – knowing that he would soon forget about her and that all electronic records would be wiped clean as well by the Ramurans, began handwriting down his memories of her visit, so they wouldn't be forgotten. ( VOY : " Unforgettable ")

Valerie Archer

Chakotay and Archer meet in Species 8472's recreation of the Quantum Café

Valerie Archer and Chakotay (calling himself Jason Hayek ) met while Chakotay was on a reconnaissance away mission investigating a recreation of Starfleet Command and Starfleet Academy constructed on a space station in the Delta Quadrant. At first unbeknownst to Chakotay, Archer was one of Species 8472 , genetically modified to look Human. Chakotay's initial interactions with Archer, while flirtatious, were solely for the purposes of finding out information, while Archer's were for the purpose of practicing acting like a Human (Species 8472 were running the recreation as a training facility to prepare trainees to infiltrate Starfleet on reconnaissance missions). When they met a second time, for a date suggested by Archer, both were using the interaction for espionage (Archer had been informed by her superior that Chakotay might be a Human and had been charged with investigating him). However, by the end of the date, when Archer initiated a kiss (ostensibly as part of her training to learn more about the Human species), Chakotay, initially resistant, kissed Archer passionately. The kiss was a ploy by Archer to get a genetic sample from Chakotay to test what species he was. Having informed her superior that his suspicions were correct, Chakotay was caught before he managed to leave the space station. During interrogation and a procedure to extract more of Chakotay's DNA to improve Species 8472's genetically engineered disguises, Chakotay managed to further engage Archer on an intellectual and empathetic level. While their relationship had initially been based on suspicion and utility, a genuine romantic and respectful connection developed between the two during their times together. Their evident mutual respect and trust was persuasive to their superiors during the subsequent diplomatic engagement between Voyager and Species 8472 to try to avoid conflict. When the two sides had reached an agreement, Chakotay and Archer met again and expressed their appreciation for each other, indicating how they would have liked to be able to spend more time with each other. Archer said it was a shame their two species were so different, otherwise she would have asked him for a second date. Chakotay said Archer had made a "terrific human" and that he would like Archer to give him a tour of her relm (i.e., fluidic space ) in the future; Archer replied that she would like that. Before they parted, Archer initiated another kiss, which they both enjoyed. ( VOY : " In the Flesh ")

Seven of Nine

Seven of Nine and Chakotay got off to a rough start; he initially saw in her a mere drone that was not to be trusted. He made it clear to Captain Janeway that he did not think it was a good idea to take her along on their journey, stating that trying to bring her back to Humanity might be impossible as her Borg part might always cause complications and haunt her. He also disliked Seven's adversarial and insubordinate attitude toward Captain Janeway in particular and ship regulations in general and he once voiced his concern of allowing her to be the sole person in charge of Voyager when it was passing through a dangerous Mutara class nebula . ( VOY : " Scorpion ", " Prey ", " One ")

As their journey progressed and as the crew began slowly warming up to her, Chakotay also began seeing in Seven a valuable crew member. His impression of her changed and he no longer believed that she could not make it as Human. He told Captain Janeway once that when she first came aboard, he did not think that she would last a day, much less a year. He was glad that Janeway had proven him wrong in that regard. ( VOY : " Infinite Regress ")

On one occasion he encouraged her to take on three former child drones from her former collective by having their neural implants removed so they could live as individuals. ( VOY : " Survival Instinct ") When in 2376 she asked to be relieved as the children's guardian – mainly because she couldn't get them to obey her rather rigid schedule that allotted specific times for "fun" – Chakotay denied her request, stating that she treated the children as if they were still on a Borg cube, making them do the same things at the same times and not allowing them to express their individuality. He encouraged her to grant them some leeway and spontaneity so they could develop as individuals. ( VOY : " Ashes to Ashes ")

Seven breaks up with Chakotay

In 2378 , while trying to explore different aspects of her Humanity such as social activities and intimate relations, Seven began playing with the possibility of a romantic relationship with Chakotay. She simulated a few dates with her new love interest on the holodeck. ( VOY : " Human Error ")

When Seven's cortical node shut down during the simulations she was running, mainly because of a certain level of emotional stimulation she had experienced, she decided to terminate her experimentation with dating and the strong emotions that followed it. It turned out that the shutting down of her cortical node was a fail-safe mechanism to deactivate drones who started to regain their emotions. Even though The Doctor offered to help her to function normally again through several operations, Seven refused, stating that all those holographic fantasies were an inefficient use of her time. She was also quite embarrassed that The Doctor had found out about her fantasies with Chakotay but knew that he would keep that information confidential. ( VOY : " Human Error ")

Chakotay and Seven kiss.

Chakotay doesn't want to let Seven go just yet

However, The Doctor did not give up and several months later was able to devise a safe method of removing her implants in one surgical procedure. This gave Seven the freedom to experience emotions without the feared repercussions and she finally began pursuing a relationship with Chakotay. On one date, she prepared a picnic in cargo bay 2 for them, complete with wine , which the Chakotay described as "perfection." Later, they had a private dinner in Chakotay's quarters. Seven transported in, saying she didn't think it would be seen as appropriate carrying flowers to the first officer's quarters. To avoid the uncomfortable anticipation of the first kiss, Seven figured it would be best if she got it over with and kissed him. When Chakotay asked about the second kiss, she replied she'd have to check her research – but the two continued passionately, until being called to the bridge moments later. ( VOY : " Endgame ")

In an alternate timeline , Admiral Janeway revealed to her that Chakotay and Seven got married in that timeline, and that she died while he remained heartbroken. Upon hearing this, Seven tried to break off the relationship with Chakotay in order to save both of them from a lot of heartache, but Chakotay refused to let her end it based on what he believed to be mere speculation and they decided to continue their romance despite what they had heard. ( VOY : " Endgame ")

Alternate Chakotays

Biomimetic duplicate.

In 2374 , the Voyager , while dangerously low on deuterium as fuel, landed on a Demon Class planet rich in deuterium sources. The planet was filled with silver fluid with mimetic properties. The Silver Blood sampled the crew's DNA and created duplicates with identical memories and personalities but with the ability to survive on the planet. The silver blood would not let Voyager leave unless it could duplicate the rest of Voyager 's crew to populate the planet. Captain Janeway, understanding that this was their only way out, allowed the "silver blood" to duplicate the crew. In 2375 , this duplicate ship – unaware that it was a facsimile of the original Voyager crew – began suddenly dying one by one due to warp drive radiation. Upon finding out their true identities, "Chakotay" argued with "Janeway", who wanted to carry on towards Earth, that they should return to their real home, the Demon class planet, or the entire crew would die. "Janeway" refused but was convinced when "Chakotay" died from the raditaion. In her impromptu eulogy informing the crew of his death, "Janeway" called "Chakotay" a " friend who wasn't afraid to let me know when I am wrong ". Unfortunately, everyone died before the ship could reach home. ( VOY : " Demon ", " Course: Oblivion ")

The Bajoran "Katanay", from Photons Be Free

Chakotay was holographically duplicated on a number of occasions:

• Recreations of crew members from Voyager and the Jupiter Station Holoprogramming Center were seen by The Doctor during a holographic malfunction in 2371 . This simulation, or daydream, included Chakotay. ( VOY : " Projections ")
• The entire crew of Voyager was recreated by Tuvok from his Insurrection Alpha program, including Chakotay, who was depicted as the leader of the Maquis mutiny. ( VOY : " Worst Case Scenario ")
• The Kyrian Museum of Heritage in the 31st century used the program The Voyager Encounter to detail their encounter with the warship Voyager as an aid to a history lesson. In that recreation, Chakotay (whose name in the simulation was pronounced differently) was depicted as a cold-blooded killer working for an equally cold-blooded captain, who had ordered the genocide of millions of people. His tattoo was shown to be a lot bigger, covering half his face. ( VOY : " Living Witness ")
• In 2374 , The Doctor recreated the crew of Voyager , including Chakotay, in order to help Seven of Nine improve her social skills. ( VOY : " One ")

Chakotay as an unscrupulous killer as imagined by the Kyrians

• Lt. Barclay 's recreated most of the crew of USS Voyager at the Communications Research Center on Earth for the Pathfinder Project in 2376 . The Maquis crew members, including Chakotay, were not wearing Starfleet uniforms . ( VOY : " Pathfinder ")
• In 2378 , Seven recreated the crew of Voyager to perfect her social skills, including Chakotay, who is her romantic interest and encouraged her to explore her humanity through music and their relationship. He is sad when Seven ends their relationship, pleading with her to reconsider. This Chakotay can't cook, calling himself a more of a " replicator man ". ( VOY : " Human Error ")
• The Doctor's holonovel Photons Be Free was set aboard the USS Vortex and crewed by characters based on the crew of USS Voyager , albeit the names were changed to protect the innocent. The character of Katanay was based on Chakotay. ( VOY : " Author, Author ")
• The Doctor was forced to impersonate members of Voyager 's crew during a crisis in 2378 . One was Chakotay. ( VOY : " Renaissance Man ")

Alternate realities and timelines

Chakotay in 2390 of an alternate timeline

In another timeline, Chakotay and Harry Kim flew the Delta Flyer to Earth after Voyager was destroyed due to a mistake of Kim's. Fifteen years later, as fugitives, they found Voyager and "fixed" history. ( VOY : " Timeless ")

Another separate timeline was created when Captain Braxton, from the 29th century , placed a temporal disruptor aboard Voyager , creating several temporal distortions. At one point while Chakotay was giving a damage report to Captain Janeway, he passed through a temporal distortion, and appeared to echo – both his voice, and his appearance. ( VOY : " Relativity ")

Chakotay's grave

In an alternate timeline , Chakotay married Seven of Nine, who later died on an away mission. He himself died in 2394 , the same year as Voyager 's return. According to Admiral Janeway, shortly after Voyager 's return Chakotay died from grief over Seven's death. He had a grave marker at a cemetery on Earth. ( VOY : " Endgame ")

In another alternate timeline experienced by Kes, Chakotay was captain of the USS Voyager after Captain Janeway and B'Elanna Torres were killed by a chroniton torpedo in a Krenim attack in 2374. ( VOY : " Before and After ")

• 2329 : Year of Birth
• 2344 : Enters Starfleet Academy
• 2348 : Graduates from Starfleet Academy
• Resigns from Starfleet
• Joins the Maquis
• 2368 – 2371 : Member of the Maquis
• 2371 – 2378 : First officer of the USS Voyager
• Promoted to Captain
• Given command of the USS Protostar
• Late 25th century : Imprisoned on Solum

Memorable quotes

" I have no intention of being your token Maquis officer! "

" We talk to animals. "

"You were working for her, Seska was working for them, was anyone on that ship working for me?"

" Trapped on a barren planet and you're stuck with the only Indian in the universe who can't start a fire by rubbing two sticks together! "

" Is there something on your mind? " " Yes, but you're not going to like it. " " That's never stopped you before. "

" I guess you never assimilated any Indian scouts. "

" Maybe you can just flip some Borg switch and shut down your emotions, but I can't! "

" Mayday! Mayday! The Protostar sustained heavy damage after passing through a temporal anomaly. " " Captain, send out the warning. We're being boarded."

" Mayday. Mayday. It's day 72 since the Vau N'Akat captured the Protostar . They're planning to launch it back through the wormhole with a weapon aboard. Half my crew's gone, but I'm trying to hang on. "

Appearances

• " Caretaker "
• " Parallax "
• " Time and Again "
• " The Cloud "
• " Eye of the Needle "
• " Ex Post Facto "
• " Emanations "
• " Prime Factors "
• " State of Flux "
• " Heroes and Demons "
• " Cathexis "
• " Learning Curve "
• " The 37's "
• " Initiations "
• " Projections "
• " Elogium "
• " Non Sequitur "
• " Twisted "
• " Parturition "
• " Persistence of Vision "
• " Cold Fire "
• " Maneuvers "
• " Resistance "
• " Prototype "
• " Alliances "
• " Threshold "
• " Dreadnought "
• " Death Wish "
• " Lifesigns "
• " Investigations "
• " Deadlock "
• " Innocence "
• " The Thaw "
• " Resolutions "
• " Basics, Part I "
• " Basics, Part II "
• " Flashback "
• " The Chute "
• " The Swarm "
• " False Profits "
• " Remember "
• " Sacred Ground "
• " Future's End "
• " Future's End, Part II "
• " Warlord "
• " The Q and the Grey "
• " Macrocosm "
• " Fair Trade "
• " Alter Ego "
• " Blood Fever "
• " Darkling "
• " Favorite Son "
• " Before and After "
• " Real Life "
• " Distant Origin "
• " Displaced "
• " Worst Case Scenario "
• " Scorpion "
• " Scorpion, Part II "
• " The Gift "
• " Day of Honor "
• " Nemesis "
• " Revulsion "
• " The Raven "
• " Scientific Method "
• " Year of Hell "
• " Year of Hell, Part II "
• " Random Thoughts "
• " Concerning Flight "
• " Mortal Coil "
• " Waking Moments "
• " Message in a Bottle "
• " Hunters "
• " Retrospect "
• " The Killing Game "
• " The Killing Game, Part II "
• " Vis à Vis "
• " The Omega Directive "
• " Unforgettable "
• " Living Witness " ( hologram )
• " Hope and Fear "
• " Extreme Risk "
• " In the Flesh "
• " Once Upon a Time "
• " Timeless "
• " Infinite Regress "
• " Nothing Human "
• " Thirty Days "
• " Counterpoint "
• " Latent Image "
• " Bride of Chaotica! "
• " Gravity "
• " Dark Frontier "
• " The Disease "
• " Course: Oblivion "
• " The Fight "
• " Think Tank "
• " Juggernaut "
• " Someone to Watch Over Me "
• " Relativity "
• " Warhead "
• " Equinox "
• " Equinox, Part II "
• " Survival Instinct "
• " Barge of the Dead "
• " Tinker Tenor Doctor Spy "
• " Riddles "
• " Dragon's Teeth "
• " One Small Step "
• " The Voyager Conspiracy "
• " Pathfinder "
• " Fair Haven "
• " Blink of an Eye "
• " Virtuoso "
• " Memorial "
• " Tsunkatse "
• " Collective "
• " Spirit Folk "
• " Ashes to Ashes "
• " Child's Play "
• " Good Shepherd "
• " Live Fast and Prosper "
• " Life Line "
• " The Haunting of Deck Twelve "
• " Unimatrix Zero "
• " Unimatrix Zero, Part II "
• " Imperfection "
• " Repression "
• " Critical Care "
• " Inside Man "
• " Body and Soul "
• " Flesh and Blood "
• " Nightingale "
• " Shattered "
• " Lineage "
• " Repentance "
• " Prophecy "
• " The Void "
• " Workforce "
• " Workforce, Part II "
• " Human Error "
• " Author, Author "
• " Friendship One "
• " Natural Law "
• " Homestead "
• " Renaissance Man "
• " Endgame "
• " Kobayashi " (holographic recording)
• " First Con-tact " (holographic recording)
• " Asylum " (holographic recording)
• " Preludes "
• " Mindwalk " (holographic recording)
• " Supernova, Part 2 " (voice recording)

Background information

Chakotay was played by Robert Beltran during the course of Star Trek: Voyager .

In " Tattoo ", a younger Chakotay was played by Douglas Spain . In " Cathexis ", he was briefly "portrayed" by Kate Mulgrew , Roxann Biggs-Dawson , Ethan Phillips , Garrett Wang , and Brian Markinson while possessing the bodies of their respective characters.

Chakotay was the first person to be seen in Star Trek: Voyager 's series premiere, " Caretaker ". In fact, the Native American character that became Chakotay was one of the first characters devised for Star Trek: Voyager . It was inspired by the positive influence that the character of Uhura has had on African Americans. Commented Executive Producer Jeri Taylor , " It seemed to us [meaning herself, Rick Berman and Michael Piller ] that Native Americans needed that same kind of role model and that same kind of boost… the future looks good, you have purpose, you have worth, you have value, you will be leaders, you will be powerful. That was one character choice we had early on. " ( A Vision of the Future - Star Trek: Voyager , p. 174)

The as-yet-unnamed Native American was briefly mentioned in a set of handwritten notes that Taylor dated 30 July 1993 , and the character was outlined on 3 August 1993 , by which point his occupation as first officer for the new series (the similarly not-yet-named Star Trek: Voyager ) had been decided upon. The outline read, " A Human native American male, 'Queegquog' person who has renounced Earth and lives as an expatriate on another planet. A mystical, mysterious man with whom the Captain has some prior connection, not explained. " ( A Vision of the Future - Star Trek: Voyager , pp. 175 & 176) On or by 17 August 1993 , the producers decided that, due to the character's allegiance to the captain, he would not be a likely candidate for wanting, in conflict with her, to settle for being stranded from Earth in the unexplored space that served as the series' setting. It was also decided that it would be "his people," rather than himself, who had renounced Earth and were living as expatriates on another planet. " This man has made another choice – to re-enter the world of Starfleet, " explained notes dated 17 August, which also replaced the word "mystical" with "complex". ( A Vision of the Future - Star Trek: Voyager , pp. 188-189)

To find out more about the character's Native American background, the producers enlisted the assistance of Jamake Highwater . ( A Vision of the Future - Star Trek: Voyager , p. 199) Around 21 September 1993 , he forwarded the producers seven pages of research suggestions concerning Chakotay's background, though one point that remained undecided was the character's tribal ancestry. ( A Vision of the Future - Star Trek: Voyager , p. 206) The fact that this had not been identified was noted in the first draft of the series writers' bible, which also named the character "Chakatoy". ( A Vision of the Future - Star Trek: Voyager , p. 208) Ultimately his introduction in the premiere's script simply described him as "an intense Native American man in his late thirties" with "a tattooed face."

The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode " Preemptive Strike ", which was written and aired well into Voyager 's production phase, the lieutenant commander to whom Ro Laren refers as her instructor at Advanced Tactical Training in 2369 /2370, and who joined the Maquis , was intended as a reference to Chakotay. As was the Native American connection made in that epsiode, and previously in " Journey's End " (and " The Maquis, Part II "). ( Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion  (2nd ed., p. 298)}

Indeed, these original intentions about Chakotay were included in Ro Laren's biography at StarTrek.com but were ultimately nixed onscreen through contradictory information revealed in the Voyager fifth season episode " In the Flesh ". Here, Chakotay stated that he resigned his commission on March 3 , 2368 , whereas according to his StarTrek.com biography, he resigned his commission in 2370.

Chakotay's rank insignia

Although Chakotay was invariably referred to as "commander" during the run of the series, his character wore what was indicated in reference materials to be the provisional officer rank insignia of a lieutenant commander (two solid stripes, one hollow stripe), a rank shared with his predecessor, Lt. Cmdr. Cavit . ( Star Trek Encyclopedia  (3rd ed., p. 211)) While remaining true to production intentions from "Preemptive Strike", this was apparently a costuming error that continued throughout the course of all seven seasons.

Episode credit

While it has been shown to be generally accepted in Star Trek to refer to officers by the higher ranking component of their actual rank, as indicated with both Tom Paris and B'Elanna Torres being credited as "lieutenant", while in actuality being lieutenants junior grade , the same practice was not likely the case for Chakotay, who was otherwise identified as "Commander Chakotay" in the opening credits of virtually every episode from the first three seasons.

On Chakotay's choice to wear the provisional rank insignia (having resigned) versus being given standard commission like Tom Paris (who was discharged), Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 1, Issue 19 , p. 109, suggested that " while Chakotay would be entitled to a full commission, he chose to wear the same rank insignia as the rest of the Maquis, to show where his loyalties lay. "

Cmdr. Chakotay (lower left)

Aside from being initially addressed as "Commander Chakotay" in " Caretaker ", even before joining the crew of Voyager , at least two other instances formally referred to him as a full "commander". The first instance appeared on the crew manifest shown in " The Killing Game ", while the second was referenced in " In the Flesh ", where his name, rank, serial number, position, and assignment were collectively revealed by Boothby .

Character Bible description

The First Officer is a complex – some would say difficult – man. His background is unique: he spans two cultures, one foot in each, belonging to both and yet to neither. In the twenty-second century, a group of Indian traditionalists became dissatisfied with the "homogenization" of Humans that was occurring on Earth. Strongly motivated to preserve their cultural identity, they relocated to a remote planet near what has now become known as the Demilitarized Zone. Chakotay is a member of that Indian nation, but was always what his people call a "contrary;" he had a mind of his own, an individualistic rather than communal way of thinking. Though proud of his heritage and his traditions, he was not satisfied to ignore the galaxy around him – a galaxy teeming with diverse life-forms and amazing technology. He broke from his people, educated himself in the ways of the twenty-fourth century, and attended Starfleet Academy. But he was "contrary" at the Academy, also, and found he had difficulty adhering to the rigid codes and rules. He was commissioned and posted to the Merrimac just after the end of the Cardassian wars. When he learned that his people were becoming victims of attack by Cardassians, he left Starfleet to defend them, joining the then-infant group, Maquis. Chakotay never gave up his practice of traditional rituals, and he preserves them aboard Voyager . In his quarters is an Indian altar and other traditional ritual items. One wall contains a version of traditional mural art. He visits the Holodeck where he has a "habak" program for the celebration of his people's ceremonial cycle. As an adolescent, Chakotay pursued a vision quest, and in doing so obtained a "spirit guide" – a timber wolf – which appears to him now in dreams and visions, and often guides him in his decision-making process. He has a reverence for all living things, and when he eats he offers thanks to the earth for providing food; he will not eat meat; he takes no drugs or alcohol. As a leader he is steady, fearless, and capable of inspiring absolute devotion. Though he comes onto Voyager more by necessity than choice, he quickly wins the respect of even the most die-hard Starfleet veterans. He strikes an immediate and powerful bond with Janeway, and an unusual one with Kim, who through Chakotay's example begins to question his own homogenization and the loss of his traditional values.

In the novel Pathways it is stated that the Starfleet captain who sponsored Chakotay in applying to Starfleet Academy was Hiromi Sulu, the grandson of Hikaru Sulu , while in the short story "Seduced" from the anthology Tales from the Captain's Table , it is stated that it was Demora Sulu. That Chakotay referred to this captain as a "he" is explained as a deliberate deception on Chakotay's part as he did not believe that his father would have the same respect for a woman as he would for a man.

Chakotay graduated from the Academy in 2351. By 2353, he served aboard the SS Vico as an aide to Captain Roger Hackney and held the rank of lieutenant . It was aboard the Vico that Chakotay had his first encounter with a Cardassian warship that had violated the Federation border. In 2362, Chakotay transferred to the USS Gage where he stayed aboard for four years of conflict with the Cardassians. Following the end of the Federation-Cardassian War , Chakotay was granted an extended leave to his homeworld. By 2368, Chakotay was promoted to lieutenant commander and serving aboard the USS Gettysburg , under the command of Captain Madolyn Gordon.

Pathways also asserts that Chakotay's homeworld is called Trebus, but the relaunch novels assert that he and his family were native to Dorvan V which – as established in Star Trek Monthly Issues 4 and 10 (pages 55 and 14, respectively) – the producers of Voyager initially intended to be Chakotay's homeworld, even though that contradicts with Chakotay's year of birth of 2329 and the fact that Dorvan V became a colony in 2350 .

Pathways references Chakotay originally having a room to himself at the Academy, before being roomed with a Bolian named Chert, and being put on report by a dorm officer for not having his bed made with a mitered corner. These details were also included in an article on Starfleet Academy in Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 1, Issue 2 , p. 104.

In the short story "Isabo's Shirt" from the Voyager anthology book Distant Shores , Chakotay would begin serving on the USS Heritage . where he and a female officer named Grant who was the first officer would begin a romantic relationship, one which Grant noted in Chakotay's Starfleet file. In 2375, the Voyager crew held a "roast" of Chakotay for his birthday and parts of his Starfleet record were read aloud, including Grant's note about their relationship.

In the Voyager relaunch book series , Chakotay returned to Starfleet. His activities as a Maquis were pardoned, and his provisional rank was made official. Through the efforts of the former Captain Janeway, now a vice admiral , he himself was promoted to captain and given command of Voyager where Tom Paris served as his first officer. Chakotay and Seven subsequently ended their romantic liaison. The series also showed his younger sister, Sekaya, who had become a spiritual leader of their tribe.

In the Voyager novel Full Circle , Chakotay and Janeway finally admitted their feelings for each other and began a romantic relationship in 2379 ; they agreed to meet again in Venice after Voyager 's return from the Yaris nebula the following year. When Chakotay traveled to Venice to meet Janeway, however, he was greeted by her former fiancé Mark Johnson who revealed the news of her death. Distraught, Chakotay made a questionable and out of character command decision on his next mission. This and other questionable command decisions resulted in Chakotay requiring a psychological evaluation and eventually resigning from Starfleet altogether. In the Voyager novel Unworthy Chakotay finally returned to Starfleet and was once again given command of Voyager . In The Eternal Tide , Chakotay resumes his relationship with Janeway when she is brought back to life by Q's son and Kes .

In an alternate timeline illustrated in the Star Trek: Myriad Universes novel Places of Exile , Voyager was forced to remain in the Delta Quadrant due to serious damage to the ship and Chakotay became a statesman in the Vostigye Union, which had become Voyager 's new home. In this timeline, he and Janeway were romantically involved and had a daughter named Shannon Sekaya Janeway.

External links

• Chakotay at StarTrek.com
• Chakotay at Wikipedia
• Chakotay at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
• Chakotay at the Star Trek Online Wiki
• 1 Abdullah bin al-Hussein
• 3 John Paul Lona

'Star Trek: Picard' Season 3: That Episode 5 Cameo Explained

The return we needed and wanted.

Ro Laren is back (for a little bit)! While the final season of Star Trek: Picard has announced the return of the majority of the main cast from Star Trek: The Next Generation , the return of Michelle Forbes was kept close to the chest as a secret from fans. The last time we saw her was in The Next Generation Season 7 episode, "Preemptive Strike," where she decides to sabotage a Starfleet operation against the Maquis, a group of former-Federation citizens resisting Cardassian oppression, and subsequently defects to the organization. This was considered a massive betrayal by Picard, leading to the tension caused by her return in Picard 's fifth episode of the season, "Imposters."

Additionally, Ro Laren was one of the intended leads for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine , but the role was retasked as Kira Nerys ( Nana Visitor ) when Forbes declined. So, let's take a look at Laren's past for those new-age Trek fans or anyone with a short memory. After all, 29 years is a long time.

Who is Ro Laren?

Ro Laren, with Ro as her surname, first appeared in the Season 5 episode, "Ensign Ro." As a Bajoran, she grew up under the Cardassian Occupation, having caused her people to scatter among refugee camps. Eventually, she witnessed Cardassians interrogate, torture, and murder her father. The shame she initially experienced due to this and the poor quality of life at the camps pushed her to run away, but she would later overcome that shame to appreciate her heritage. After graduating from Starfleet Academy, one of Ro's posts was aboard the USS Wellington . While on an away mission, her rebellious nature cost the away team their lives. She was subsequently court-martialed and imprisoned.

RELATED: ‘Star Trek: Picard’ Season 3 Gives This 'TNG' Episode a Satisfying Resolution

Ro is released, however, and reinstated (but demoted) to Starfleet as an Ensign in exchange for locating a Bajoran terrorist in a star system she was familiar with. When they reach the location of the terrorist, Ro disappears. Picard ( Patrick Stewart ) beams down with an away team anyway and finds Ro with a group of armed Bajorans, who let Picard know that they did not commit the act of terrorism against a Federation colony that they were wanted for.

Later, it is revealed that Ro was actually sent on this mission to negotiate a deal with the resistance fighters that went against the Prime Directive — a supply of guns and ships in exchange for a cease in attacks against the Federation. This allows the Enterprise to work with the resistance fighters to expose the true terrorists, the Cardassians. It's at this point, Picard begins to take Ro under his wing and requests that she transfer to the Enterprise , and she agrees, with the condition that she is permitted to wear her Bajoran earring, which will become important in her appearance on Picard .

Ro's History Aboard the Enterprise

Ro faced several unusual situations while she was onboard the Enterprise as an Ensign. She struggled with solving a failure in the Enterprise's containment fields due to a quantum filament, contended with criminals-turned-energy-beings taking over the bodies of the crew, became stuck in a time loop, got caught in a different phase state due to a transponder accident, and was temporarily transformed into a child. She doesn't appear for 42 episodes after these adventures, and when Ro returns in Season 7, Episode 24, "Preemptive Strike," it's explained that she was completing an Advanced Tactical Training course at Starfleet on Picard's recommendation. This further cements the bond between the two, making their upcoming falling out even more tragic.

Upon graduation, she is once again assigned to the Enterprise as a newly promoted lieutenant and assigned to infiltrate the Maquis, a task she wasn't certain about. After a manufactured chase, Ro meets a Maquis leader and piques his interest. He later kidnaps her, and she is able to gain the trust of him and the other members of this cell by stealing medical supplies from the Enterprise under fake pretenses. With their trust earned, she is able to convince them to use considerable resources to launch an attack on a convoy, which in reality was a Federation trap.

After one of the Maquis members dies in a Cardassian attack, Ro begins to question her loyalties due to his final words, "When an old fighter like me dies, someone always steps forward to take his place." While she wants validation from Picard, but she also feels belonging to the resistance group. Ro tries to lie to try to cancel the attack, but Picard sees through this causing her to reassure him that she would carry out her duties. When it was time for the attack, the Captain sends Riker ( Jonathan Frakes ) on the mission with her to ensure its success, but Ro still fires a particle beam to reveal the Starfleet forces hidden nearby, revealing them to the Maquis. She allows Riker to return to the Enterprise on the shuttlecraft, but not before she asks him to tell Picard that she was sorry and beams to a Maquis ship. Considering Picard's faith in the officer and Ro's need for Picard's approval, this is quite a blow that Picard hasn't managed to let go of, even decades later.

• Cast & crew
• User reviews

Preemptive Strike

• Episode aired May 14, 1994

Following her return from Advanced Tactical Training, Bajoran Ro Laren is sent to infiltrate the Maquis and finds herself torn between her loyalty to Picard and Starfleet, and her sympathy w... Read all Following her return from Advanced Tactical Training, Bajoran Ro Laren is sent to infiltrate the Maquis and finds herself torn between her loyalty to Picard and Starfleet, and her sympathy with the Maquis fighting "the good fight". Following her return from Advanced Tactical Training, Bajoran Ro Laren is sent to infiltrate the Maquis and finds herself torn between her loyalty to Picard and Starfleet, and her sympathy with the Maquis fighting "the good fight".

• Patrick Stewart
• Gene Roddenberry
• René Echevarria
• Naren Shankar
• Jonathan Frakes
• LeVar Burton
• 17 User reviews
• 8 Critic reviews

• Captain Jean-Luc Picard

• Commander William Thomas 'Will' Riker

• Lieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge

• Lieutenant Worf

• Doctor Beverly Crusher

• Counselor Deanna Troi

• Lieutenant Commander Data

• Lieutenant Ro Laren

• Adm. Alynna Nechayev

• Ensign Gates
• (uncredited)

• Juhraya Colonist
• Human Colonist
• Cardassian Spy
• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

Did you know

• Trivia This episode contains the only instance of Ro being (correctly and intentionally) referred to by her given name - when Captain Picard meets her at the bar and asks "Laren, what is going on?"
• Goofs When Capt. Picard is talking to Lt. Ro in the bar, he tells her that there are only going to be six ships in the convoy and they could cut that number down if they had to. However, later, when Data is talking Capt. Picard, he says, "This is the convoy," and the camera changes to view the Long Range Scan 0128 and there thirteen objects with labels, nine white and four blue moving on the screen.

[Ro has managed to steal Enterprise's medical supplies, with 'announcement']

Commander William T. Riker : Now we know what they mean by 'advanced' tactical training.

• Connections Edited from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Shadowplay (1994)
• Soundtracks Star Trek: The Next Generation Main Title Composed by Jerry Goldsmith and Alexander Courage

User reviews 17

• Sep 24, 2017
• May 14, 1994 (United States)
• Official Site
• Paramount Studios - 5555 Melrose Avenue, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA (Studio)
• Paramount Television
• See more company credits at IMDbPro

Technical specs

• Runtime 45 minutes
• Dolby Digital

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Recap / Star Trek: Picard S3E05 "Imposters"

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Jack Crusher finds himself assailed by constant blood-spiderweb dreams and images of himself taking a phaser and blowing away everyone in sight. The dreams whisper, "Come home."

The Titan has made it back to Federation space and has dropped anchor to make some critical repairs. The four command staff — Picard, Shaw, Riker, and Seven — are still puzzling over how a Changeling imposter got onto the Titan before she left Spacedock. Not only does this imply The Conspiracy is way deeper than anyone thought, Starfleet is still using security checks left over from the Dominion War which are specifically designed to detect Changelings. Riker points out that Starfleet will also be expecting answers for Riker's and Picard's commandeering of the Titan and endangering of her crew. With that, Riker tells Captain Shaw that he has something to return to him and officially turns the chair back over. Shaw is still happy to be rid of them but asks if Seven would prefer to face the music with them re-instated — which she does — and grants her request. Then, in light of having become Fire-Forged Friends with them, he gives them some time alone together to get their "bullshit story" straight. Picard makes it clear that he'll take full responsibility for the debacle.

The USS Intrepid , NCC-79520, arrives, and a shuttle of Starfleet Intelligence officers comes over. It's Cmdr. Ro Laren ( Michelle Forbes ), back in Starfleet despite joining the Maquis 30 years ago . After surviving the Dominion war and the purge of the Maquis, she turned herself in to the Federation and served a prison sentence. She was subsequently recruited by Starfleet Intelligence due to her knowledge and tactics from both the Maquis and her own advanced Starfleet tactical training. She was put through an arduous training rehabilitation program and slowly worked her way back up the ranks. Picard, still stung by her betrayal , is angry that she is now representing Starfleet for his court-martial. He also notes that she is not wearing her Bajoran earring, for which he gave her special dispensation despite it being a dress code violation because it represented both her faith ( important to Bajorans ) and her family.

Worf's handler denies him and Raffi permission to access Daystrom Station. Raffi is furious and decides to simply break in herself— empirically speaking, it can be done, since Sneed's / T'Luco's group did it. Worf suggests they speak to Krinn, a Vulcan crime lord who worked with them, and the two venture out into M'Talas Prime to find him.

Beverly approaches Picard and requests permission to do an autopsy on the Changeling. She and Dr. Ohk investigate the Fake Sidney, which has retained its shape despite Changelings normally dissolving into goo on death. They encounter not only fake blood but fake organs, all of which hold their shape in the absence of conscious thought; the Changelings have evolved to the point where Starfleet's current TSA security protocols, which rely on the fact that Changeling flesh reverts (reverted to) to goo form if separated from the main body, are completely ineffective. She sends this knowledge to Picard, who uses it as an excuse to visit Sickbay and have a discussion about a private medical matter. However, this is thwarted when Ro pulls a phaser on him and directs him into the holodeck. At Ten Forward LA, the two have a heartfelt conversation about Ro's decision whether To Be Lawful or Good , and Picard's feelings of betrayal thereof... and, from the hurt, the confessions, the soul-baring, each learns that the other is not a Changeling. This is when Ro becomes a Conspiracy Theorist : she believes that Starfleet is compromised by Changelings at all levels, and has been consistently denied permission to open an investigation. (She won't even use the transporters for fear of a " Teleporter Accident ".) She has had most of the Titan 's crew beamed over to the Intrepid for debriefing: Picard can now commandeer the ship and run. As a parting gift, she gives him her Bajoran earring.

Raffi and Worf are captured by Krinn, who forces them to Duel to the Death . Raffi, to the Vulcan's surprise, wins. After having his mooks confirm the lack of pulse, he has Worf's body dragged off and announces that Raffi will join his crew. Raffi isn't interested, of course... And neither is Worf, who takes out the remaining mooks before giving a technobabble explanation about how he has mastered the art of controlling his heart rate. However, he was in fact stabbed, so the interrogation is a bit rushed. That said, Krinn knows when he's beaten : he invented some Phlebotinum that will allow them to break through Daystrom Station's security, and withholding it from his assailants would be illogical.

As Picard tries to argue with Shaw about going on the run, Ro's shuttle is sabotaged: her two Security Mooks set up a bomb, the same kind used to blow out the Titan 's power conduits two episodes ago , and then beam back to the Titan . They shapeshift into Titan personnel and summon reinforcements to apprehend Jack Crusher. However, Jack taps into the blood-spiderweb dreams and unlocks his Superpowered Evil Side , taking the mooks in a four-on-one fight worthy of James Bond . Back up on the bridge, Picard suggests Ro turn around so that Seven can (try to) get a transporter lock, but Ro steers her shuttle towards the Intrepid 's port warp nacelle; the explosion cripples the ship. Intrepid immediately orders Titan to surrender and prepare to be boarded, and Riker points out that they are about to be framed. Shaw, having no other choice, turns the ship and runs.

Picard, alone, mourns his friend, which he so recently got back and recently lost. Riker comes to comfort him, and Picard shows him the earring... which Riker recognizes as an old bit of spycraft. It is encoded with all of Ro Laren's investigation... including, apparently, her cellphone number, as it (the earring) is hailed while Picard and Riker page through the data. When they answer the phone, it's Worf, trying to reach his handler.

• Adaptive Ability : It's revealed that Changelings have found some way to maintain their solid forms even upon death, requiring significantly more proof than the blood tests of the past.
• All for Nothing : Invokved by Picard when Intrepid is about to fire on Titan and Shaw's indecisive. He furiously states that if they don't run now , then Ro will have died for nothing and many more will follow.
• Art Evolution : The fight choreography for Klingon melee weapons has become far more sophisticated than what we previously saw during earlier Next Generation -era episodes.
• Back for the Dead : Commander Ro returns after her last appearance in TNG: " Preemptive Strike ", 29 years ago. Sadly, she doesn't survive the episode.
• The Blade Always Lands Pointy End In : When Raffi presses Worf on what he's sacrificed for the mission, Worf chucks his dagger into the metal floor in anger. Raffi complains about him putting holes in the floor every time he needs to make a point.
• Bookends : Ro's final scene on TNG's "Preemptive Strike" took place in a (Maquis) shuttle. Her final scene in the franchise here likewise takes place in a shuttle.
• Brick Joke : When Picard and Ro discuss Frontier Day, Picard brings up again that he was supposed to give a speech.
• Guinan's penchant for keeping loaded weapons behind Ten Forward's bar (as a security precaution). Even the Ten Forward simulation incorporates this quirk of the El-Aurian's— something Picard exploits to gain access to a phaser when confronting what he believes is a Changeling posing as Ro. This also isn't the first time Picard has exploited a Holodeck against a hostile foe.
• Ro's friendship with Guinan during TNG also gets brought up during this scene. Picard acidly asks Ro if she remembers Guinan (though it's also a test to see if this is really Ro and not a Changeling).
• Raffi has access to a mobile emitter, 29th century tech that Voyager picked up in "Future's End". Starfleet has clearly managed to duplicate the tech in the interim.
• When citing their historic accolades for possible leniency with Starfleet, Shaw points out to Picard and Riker that they could also remember the times they dropped the Enterprise-D saucer section on a planet , threw out the Prime Directive to "snog a villager" on Ba'ku , or nearly wiped out humanity with a time paradox in the Devron system .
• Calling the Old Man Out : A non-familial variation with Ro and Picard (though, in his way, he became a surrogate father figure to her during TNG). Ro's reunion with her former Captain is icy and bitter for both of them, as she blasts Picard's flaws and her own old resentments that have festered for 30 years.
• Canon Immigrant : Aspects of the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Relaunch are formally canonized with Ro (her surviving the Dominion War and the eradication of the Maquis, eventually being granted amnesty by Starfleet and rejoining the organization, etc.).
• Can't Kill You, Still Need You : Krinn is initially defiant when Raffi and Worf have him dead-to-rights, reasoning that his intel makes him too valuable to kill. Raffi points out that Worf is presently bleeding to death and tells him to factor that in, at which point he gets a lot more cooperative.
• As they talk in Ten Forward, Ro mentions that she has very little evidence and no support: "All I have are a pair of Intelligence assets on the ground that I trust." They are, of course, Worf, House of Martok, and Raffaela, House of Musiker.
• When Worf and Raffi return to M'talas Prime in search of Krinn, a mobile holo-emitter is visible on her arm, though it's not immediately obvious. When Krinn arrives, though, he spots it immediately and shoots it, disabling the hologram, while one of his henchmen captures the real Raffi, who was aiming a gun at his head from a nearby vantage point.
• Ro Laren, someone Picard hasn't seen in 30 years, conveniently returns as a Starfleet Intelligence representative (let alone reinstated despite her treason during the Maquis crisis) just as the Titan has uncovered evidence of a Changeling infiltration? Picard justifiably calls bullshit and thinks she's a Changeling (especially after Beverly's autopsy reveals their new shapeshifting abilities). However, their confrontation in the Ten Forward simulation ultimately makes Picard realize this really is Ro and not a Changeling. Given her investigation, Ro's decision to confront Picard personally likely isn't a coincidence, either, being someone she could confirm isn't a Changeling through personal experience (and she's right).
• Under Beverlys' request not to alert Starfleet, Picard and Riker quietly caught a ride on the Titan hoping to piggyback to get close enough to her location. During the battle with the Shrike it's revealed that the Titan had a Mole operating under Vadics' orders, which seemed absurd given how random the conflict came about. This episode reveals the Changeling infiltration is throughout Starfleet and is not just a handful of minions, while maybe not on every ship there was likely to be one close enough to cause trouble.
• According to Worf's research, the late Sneed's associates include FCA Liquidator Brunt, Morn , Thadiun Okona , and Larell .
• The display indicating that Intrepid is raising shields uses the same outline of dots graphic from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan , albeit with much better graphics that transition into a rendering of the shield bubble.
• Court-martialed : Picard, Riker, and Seven are facing a prospective one over the events of the preceding episodes, though this is the least of their problems once the depth of the Changeling infiltration becomes apparent.
• Crazy-Prepared : Downplayed, but Picard's had a conversation rehearsed and ready to go for 30 years in the event his and Ro's paths ever crossed again, and even learned Bajoran just to get his point across. While it's not outright stated, it's also obvious Ro's done the same and rehearsed her side of this potential conversation over the years.
• Death by Irony : A variation with Ro. She survived the Dominion's purge of the Maquis , only to still end up getting killed by the Dominion (albeit rogue Founders) decades later. Adding to the irony, Ro — a Starfleet officer who infiltrated the Maquis (i.e. a Federation Renegade Splinter Faction ) and ended up defecting — is killed by another Renegade Splinter Faction that's infiltrated Starfleet.
• Death Glare : Picard has an icy one on his face upon seeing Ro Laren again for the first time after her betrayal 30 years ago.
• Deliberate Injury Gambit : Because they were surrounded and outgunned, Worf allows Raffi to stab him when pitted against each other by Krinn and uses his meditation techniques to slow his heart rate for Faking the Dead . When dragged off screen he was able to overwhelm the now split up Krinn security and return with the upper hand, though struggling from the original injury.
• Easily Forgiven : Defied. Picard is outraged that not only has Ro Laren become reinstated into Starfleet after betraying him and joining the Maquis, but is now interrogating him for treason.
• Among the past incidents that Shaw cites against Picard and Riker, he mentions the anti-time anomaly in the Devron system from " All Good Things... " supposedly "nearly [wiping] out all of humanity" — except the anomaly never even came to be or have any effects in the first place because Picard and his crew passed Q's self-contained test, and the only reason anyone knows about it at all or in any detail would be from Picard's own reports after the fact, as Q left him as the only one who remembered the branching timeline(s) involved.
• Shaw also cites Picard romancing Anij on the Ba'ku planet in Insurrection as "throwing the Prime Directive out the window", but as Admiral Dougherty (though corrupt) pointed out in that movie, the Prime Directive didn't apply to the Ba'ku as they had formerly long been a space-faring species and retained knowledge of all that technology, even if they chose not to use it .
• Furthermore, Shaw lists the Enterprise -D primary hull crash-landing on Veridian III in Generations as another strike against them, but Riker and those still aboard were following established emergency procedures in the circumstances, and they crash-landed on an uninhabited planet, as it was instead Veridian IV that had the (unseen) pre-warp civilization. Admittedly, though, they did manage the Epic Fail of losing the Enterprise -D, a top-of-the-line Starfleet vessel, to an old and obsolete model of Klingon Bird-of-Prey.
• Evil Evolves : The renegade Founders have somehow modified their genetics or refined their shapeshifting in the interim since the Dominion War. They can now accurately mimic organs, bleed convincingly, and hold their shape to such an extent that even dead they have to be dissected to return to gelatinous form. Even Starfleet's full-body imaging scanners, developed after the Dominion War to expose Changelings, can't detect them.
• Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap! : Beverly's autopsy of "Sidney LaForge" documents the differences in this dead Changeling compared to previous deaths on Deep Space Nine ... and she slowly realizes all of Starfleet's Dominion War-era blood tests and other Changeling detection methods are now completely useless.
• False Flag Operation : The Changelings engineer the destruction of Ro's shuttle both to kill a major threat to their conspiracy and to manufacture a casus belli to fire on (and possibly destroy) the now "hostile" Titan -A. The only Spanner in the Works is that they didn't anticipate that Ro would do a kamikaze run on one of Intrepid 's warp nacelles, preventing the ship from pursuing.
• Faking the Dead : Worf allows Raffi to stab him during their Forced Prize Fight and slows his heartbeat to fake his death. After ambushing Krinn, he then admits he's bleeding pretty badly and will need medical attention to avoid actually being dead.
• Family of Choice : A theme of this episode. Krinn and Sneed were not brothers by blood, but they had a brother's bond. Ro is not Picard's daughter, but they had a daughter/father bond.
• Fatal Flaw : Worf cites impulsiveness, stubbornness, and shortsightedness as Raffi's. Raffi (non-verbally as part of a sneak attack) cites Worf's nobility and inability to shut up as his.
• First-Name Basis : After reconciling with Picard, Ro begins calling him Jean-Luc.
• Flat "What" : This is Raffi's reaction to Starfleet Intelligence unexpectedly denying them permission to access Daystrom Station.
• Forced Prize Fight : Krinn forces Raffi and Worf to fight to the death, or he'll kill them both.
• Frame-Up : After Ro's shuttle destroys one of the Intrepid's nacelles, they demand the Titan surrender. Riker spells out for Shaw that they're being framed for what happened and have to run.
• Fugitive Arc : By episode's end, the Titan is forced to go on the run to evade the Changeling conspiracy and a compromised Starfleet.
• Heroic BSoD : Picard enters it after Ro's death. He's forced to snap out of it once the Intrepid prepares to attack Titan . Riker also gets hit with it and while he holds it together better than Picard, you can hear his grief and fury over Ro's death in his voice while explaining the Frame-Up to Shaw.
• Heroic Sacrifice : Rather than attempt to save herself and potentially fail, Ro rams her shuttle into the Intrepid 's nacelle, both it and the bomb ensuring the Intrepid won't be pursuing the Titan .
• Hidden in Plain Sight : Seven forces Jack to dress as Starfleet, so he won't stick out like a sore thumb in civilian clothes.
• Worf requested access to Daystrom Station following "Seventeen Seconds" and he and Raffi are eager to continue the investigation into the true purpose of the Changelings' Kansas City Shuffle . However, Starfleet Intelligence unexpectedly denies their request.
• The arrival of the Intrepid is one for Shaw. Despite working with Riker and Picard to survive Vadic and the Shrike , he's all but gleeful to not only be rid of them, but to also see them hit with a prospective court martial for endangering the Titan and her crew. It doesn't last, as the revelation of the Changeling conspiracy and the frame-up against the Titan mean Shaw has no choice but to stick it out with Picard and Riker.
• How Did You Know? I Didn't : Beverly asks Jack how he knew the four officers were Changelings. Horrified, he admits he didn't, having killed them on instinct.
• Hyperspeed Escape : The Titan manages to warp out moments before its nacelles get redecorated by two torpedoes from the Intrepid .
• Insane Troll Logic : Krinn wouldn't be the first Vulcan to invoke "logic" to justify whatever he wants it to, but "There can be no utopia without crime, ergo an organized criminal enterprise is logical," really takes the cake.
• Internal Reveal : Having been cut off from the larger Federation during the last four episodes, Picard finally learns of the Changeling attack on the Recruitment Center.
• Knighting : Shaw does a faux version of this when he asks Seven if she'd like to be reinstated prior to her court-martial, using a chopping motion on each shoulder to confirm she's been returned to duty.
• Know When to Fold 'Em : Krinn is reluctant to give in to Worf and Raffi's demands, even with his mooks dead, but when Raffi points out that Worf is slowly bleeding to death and they won't risk letting him go, he realizes cooperation is the logical choice.
• Last-Name Basis : Even though the Enterprise -D crew is largely on a first-name basis throughout this season — and Riker even addresses Shaw as "Liam" at one point — Ro Laren is continually addressed as "Ro." note  Remember that Bajoran names list the surname first.
• Leitmotif : Jerry Goldsmith's "Klingon Theme" again plays as Worf's during his sparring match with Raffi.
• Mexican Standoff : Picard and Ro both wind up in one during the Ten Forward simulation confrontation, as each character believes the other's a Changeling.
• Mistaken for Betrayal : Finally after the events of "Preemptive Strike" over 29 years ago, Ro and Picard get a chance to hash out who betrayed whom. They both come to accept that they didn't truly betray each other, and they finally reconcile.
• Never My Fault : Ro still feels that she made the right choice defecting to the Maquis thirty years ago — though deep down, and despite her anger and resentments towards Picard, she does still regret betraying him.
• Nightmare Sequence : The episode opens on Jack dreaming about murdering the bridge crew. Esmar, the last survivor, claims to know who he is before red cracks and vines begin growing on the walls, floors, and them.
• Starfleet unexpectedly denies Worf's request to visit Daystrom Station, and Worf gathers from his handler's order to "find another way" that she is also being stonewalled. It later turns out that the Changelings, having infiltrated leadership, are likely responsible for covering up the scope of the Changeling threat.
• Picard asks why Ro didn't go to someone in Starfleet beyond reproach like Admiral Janeway. Ro answers that every time she tried, she was blocked off, not even able to get a message onto Janeway's call list, which convinced her someone was making sure her suspicions didn't go far.
• Jack dreams of himself murdering the bridge crew in a command uniform, and wakes with a phaser in his hand. He is understandably horrified when Seven forces him to wear an identical uniform as a disguise.
• What starts as a moment of silence for Ro's sacrifice becomes a herald of terror as the Intrepid begins to right itself and raises shields, now bent on disabling or destroying the Titan for Ro's murder.
• Old Master : Worf again has very much become this in the decades since Nemesis .
• When Riker and Picard are facing court martial, Shaw is almost gleeful in pointing out their history: Riker: You know, we have saved the galaxy more than a few times. Picard: And hopefully they'll remember. Shaw: Or they might remember that time someone hot-dropped the saucer section of the Enterprise -D on a planet , or that time that someone threw the Prime Directive out the window so they could snog a villager on Ba'ku , or the time you boys nearly wiped out all of humanity by creating a time paradox in the Devron system . Basically, when it comes to rescues from danger, you two have a real "chicken or egg" thing happening. Picard: Those were the days...
• Picard is still nursing a grudge over Ro's betrayal thirty years later, unaware of her being brought to justice in the interim.
• Palm Bloodletting : Ro slits her palm so that her blood can prove to Picard that she's not a Changeling. This, however, comes shortly before Beverly covertly informs him that the new Changelings can pass blood tests, meaning that Ro proved nothing.
• Paranoia Fuel : In-universe example. The renegade Founders are back to their old Dominion infiltration/subterfuge tricks — and this time, Starfleet's Dominion War-era detection methods are completely useless. Anyone could be a Changeling, and nothing short of butchering them can definitively prove it. Ro in particular has seen better days and been run ragged by her own paranoia over the infiltration.
• Pet the Dog : Though it's done with plenty of sarcasm, Shaw excuses himself from the conference room so Picard, Riker and Seven can "get [their] bullshit story straight".
• Properly Paranoid : Ro has taken multiple precautions to protect herself from the Changeling infiltration (such as traveling by shuttlecraft to avoid a transporter "accident" ). Unfortunately for her, it's ultimately not paranoid enough and the Changelings still take her out, though not before she can pull a Heroic Sacrifice .
• Rank Up : After returning to Starfleet, Ro Laren has now advanced to the rank of Commander.
• Recruiting the Criminal : Having survived the Dominion's purge of the Maquis, Ro did time in a Federation prison before being recruited by Starfleet Intelligence. It's justified, as Ro was a graduate of Advanced Tactical Training. Combine that with skills she picked up while with the Maquis and she's still a valuable asset for tradecraft operations.
• Redemption Equals Death : While Ro still firmly believes her decision to join the Maquis was the right one, she does reconcile with Picard. Just before her death, he tells her he finally sees that she never betrayed him as a person or her beliefs in doing the right thing. Her final act is to save his life and everyone else on the Titan .
• Jack's eyes glow red after his nightmare, and again when he imagines the transporter scrambling a bunch of people.
• Done symbolically with the Intrepid , which has four glowing red spots from the phaser arrays being charged as it slowly levels out to face the Titan . Her torpedo tube also begins glowing red just before she opens fire.
• The renegade Founders have somehow refined or altered their shapeshifting in the interim since leaving the Great Link. Either way, every single detection method and blood test Starfleet developed during Deep Space Nine is now completely and utterly useless for unmasking Dominion infiltrators. This is why the Changeling in the previous episode didn't revert when killed (as was previously the case during such deaths on DS9).
• Ro Laren is (until her death) Worf's handler. She survived the Dominion's purge of the Maquis on Deep Space Nine and served a Federation prison sentence before being recruited and reinstated by Starfleet Intelligence.
• Sadistic Choice : Shaw's in his own no-win scenario by the episode's climax when Intrepid prepares to fire on Titan . If he surrenders to Intrepid , the Changelings onboard will kill everyone with knowledge of the conspiracy and Ro will have died for nothing (to say nothing of the crewmen injured trying to stop Vadic from capturing Jack). If they exchange fire with Intrepid , they risk injuring or killing the majority of the Titan crew who were already transferred over before Ro's shuttle was destroyed. If they run, the remaining Titan crew will become fugitives. Shaw ultimately and grudgingly has to accept the third option .
• Sequel Episode : To TNG's " Preemptive Strike ", finally following up on Ro Laren's ultimate fate and the long-awaited reckoning between her and Picard over her betrayal.
• Picard turns off the Holodeck safety protocols by finding a control panel behind the bar and clicking "Off". Previously, this safety feature (when it wasn't arbitrarily disabled by a Holodeck Malfunction ) required at the very least voice authorization from a ranking officer, though Picard admittedly qualifies for the latter even if he isn't an officer of the Titan specifically.
• Blood tests to root out Changelings was not just demonstrating they can bleed, but sampling the blood with a hypospray or dropping the blood on to the table because once separated from the main form it would revert to the liquid form. That said, the episode does establish previous Changeling detection methods have become obsolete.
• Starfish Language : The Changelings communicate with each other using clicks, just as Vadic's crew did.
• Something Only They Would Say : Picard and Ro are equally suspicious of each other, but when they pour their hearts out over Ro defecting to the Maquis, each knows that the other is the genuine article.
• Similarly, while Shaw had to work with Riker and Picard to survive the Shrike crisis — and has mellowed out a little — he still doesn't particularly like either man. Shaw also (rightly) holds them responsible for the entire Vadic debacle and for endangering his ship and crew. So, while he does give them and Seven a chance to "get [their] bullshit stories straight", Shaw is understandably relieved, if not joyful , to be rid of both of them and to see them facing the music (at least until everything goes sideways again ).
• Even with the end of the Dominion War, the Federation still has an uneasy peace with the Gamma Quadrant. So Starfleet has remained vigilant against a repeat of the Changelings' infiltration campaign during the Federation-Dominion Cold War years. The detection methods developed during Deep Space Nine have been refined with the lessons from the War and the advances in technology and bio-science in the decades since the Battle of Cardassia. Unfortunately, much like with the Romulans and the cloaking devices/detection technological arms race, the Founders have also kept up and evolved to match Starfleet's efforts.
• Switch to English : Inverted when Picard switches to Bajoran during his argument with Ro. Picard: When you first came on the Enterprise , your Bajoran earring violated the uniform dress code. Ro: We've been through all of this. Picard: Yes, but you claimed it represented the family you'd lost. And I allowed it only to realize it was for your ego. Dabaldor rut gahar sahay ut see-grem faren. (An ego that would lead to you betray me.) Ro: Your Bajoran has improved. Picard: Oh, I have been rehearsing this conversation for 30 years.
• Sworn Brothers : Krinn says that Sneed was his brother, as they had a blood oath.
• Taking the Heat : With him, Riker, and Seven facing a prospective court martial, Picard is prepared to take the brunt of the blame to protect them.
• Ro is now intentionally traveling by shuttlecraft to avoid getting killed by a Changeling-engineered transporter " accident ".
• Jack has a vision of a group of officers getting scrambled by the transporter, which combined with his previous vision of a murder spree is even more unsettling to him.
• Teleport Interdiction : The Changeling bomb also blocks transporters to prevent Ro from beaming to safety, convincing her to use her last moments to buy the Titan a chance to escape.
• Tempting Fate : Just like in the first episode, Shaw expresses glee about finally having Picard and Riker off his ship and awaiting a court martial so he can get back to his neat and orderly life. So, of course everything goes sideways and he gets dragged along into a Fugitive Arc . Man needs to get his pogo stick off of the Tempting Fate button.
• Time Skip : Raffi's dialogue reveals that 24 hours have passed on their end since the events of "Seventeen Seconds".
• Tragic Keepsake : Subverted. Ro leaves her earring with Picard. He's confused as to why, but Riker realizes it's actually a disguised datachip containing the entirety of her investigation, as well as her secure line to Worf.
• Tranquil Fury : Picard's reunion with Ro Laren 30 years after she betrayed him.
• Uncertain Doom : The signal between Ro's shuttle and the Titan is cut off a few seconds before her shuttle is destroyed, so we don't know for certain if she died in the explosion or if she escaped at the last moment.
• Unspoken Plan Guarantee : Zigzagged with Worf and Raffi's plan to get at Krinn. Although they never discuss their original plan on camera (Worf using a hologram of Raffi, who watches over him with a sniper phaser), it fails and they get captured. However, they do eventually manage to turn the table on him (by having Worf faking the dead), although it is not entirely clear if this was part of their plan from the beginning.
• Villain Respect : YMMV on villainy, but Ro is genuinely impressed that Picard's become fluent in the Bajoran language since their days aboard the Enterprise -D (something which Picard did specifically to get his point across to Ro in the event they ever crossed paths again).
• Vomit Discretion Shot : La Forge vomits just offscreen at the sight of her dead Changeling copy.
• We Are Everywhere : Ro feels this about the Changelings, convinced that they're placed in the highest levels of Starfleet. She indicates that she doesn't even trust her own security mooks , rightfully so as it turns out. That said, her paranoia clearly didn't go far enough, since they still manage to plant a bomb on her shuttle and beam out. Jack manages to kill four Changelings from the Intrepid who tried to capture him, which only highlights the extensiveness of their infiltration of Starfleet.
• Whatever Happened to the Mouse? : Ro Laren's ultimate fate following her defection to the Maquis, which has been one of the biggest loose ends of the 24th Century era, is finally revealed. Ro survived the Dominion's destruction of the Maquis and did time in Federation prison before being quietly recruited by Starfleet Intelligence.
• The Worf Effect : Seemingly Played Straight when Raffi delivers a fatal stab wound to the Trope Namer despite the obvious disparity in size and skill...only for it to be Subverted when the not-quite-dead Worf kills Krinn's mooks despite bleeding heavily, revealing he threw the fight on purpose.
• You Have to Believe Me! : Picard implores Shaw to trust him when he says they have to run. Shaw is skeptical, but the fact that the Intrepid is about to fire upon them (on top of Ro's murder) convinces him to go along with it.
• Star Trek: Picard S3E04 "No Win Scenario"
• Recap/Star Trek: Picard
• Star Trek: Picard S3E06 "The Bounty"

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Published Apr 9, 2024

From Ensign to Commander Ro: The Essential Ro Laren Watch List

How Ro Laren saved Starfleet by breaking the rules.

StarTrek.com

The Bajoran Ro Laren earned the admiration of Star Trek: The Next Generation viewers by speaking candidly. Without asking for permission.

Born in the year 2340 on Cardassian-occupied Bajor, Ro Laren's earliest memories are of personal and cultural loss. At seven years old, she was forced to watch her father die by interrogation. She spent almost 10 years in and out of refugee camps. Ashamed by what she perceived as Bajoran weakness, Ro Laren grew desperate. Anything was better than watching her people suffer. So, she joined Starfleet.

Ro Laren beams aboard the Enterprise-D, "Ensign Ro"

Ro rose in rank from Ensign to Commander with well-documented authority issues that include a body count and a court martial record. People lived, and died, by her decisions. But despite an open contempt for rank, and her one-time defection to the Maquis, Starfleet command was her natural path. Transformation is one of Ro's attributes.

In honor of the serially disobedient ensign, here are some of Ro Laren’s defining moments on her climb towards Commander.

" Ensign Ro ," Star Trek: The Next Generation (Season 5, Episode 3)

Classic Ro Laren vibes, "Ensign Ro"

You know you’re a Star Trek legend when your debut episode is your name.

Ensign Ro reported for duty on the U.S.S. Enterprise -D under orders from a shifty Admiral Kennelly. Kennelly needed Captain Jean-Luc Picard's help with a revolutionary Bajoran named Orta who was causing trouble for the Cardassians, and now Starfleet, following a recent attack on Federation colony Solarion IV. A diplomatic approach to engage Bajor was suggested, and Kennelly had just the Bajoran for the job. 

Enter disgraced ensign Ro Laren whose name instantly draws anger from Picard. In infamous Starfleet history, Ro's disastrous away mission on Garon II is the stuff of nightmares. According to Starfleet records, eight crew members of the U.S.S. Wellington died because she failed to follow orders. Still, Kennelly insists on Ro's appointment aboard the Enterprise . Guess she’s seriously reformed....

Jean-Luc Picard and Ro Laren at a refugee camp on Valo II, "Ensign Ro"

"Ensign Ro" demonstrates Ro Laren’s greatest asset. Her complete disdain for Starfleet formality means that she has no qualms telling Picard the true score of the Cardassian Occupation. She suggests, forcefully, that Starfleet's "diplomatic" efforts would be better spent in the camps on Valo II. And by episode's end, Ro's authenticity rises to the surface. She is compassionate to Bajor. And she tells the truth, even when it is against protocol or dangerous to do so. 

After Kennelly's underhanded deal with Cardassia is exposed, Ensign Ro tells Picard that she’ll, actually, maybe, stick around. But only if she is allowed to break uniform code by wearing a Bajoran earring .

" Disaster ," Star Trek: The Next Generation (Season 5, Episode 5)

Ro Laren reacts to scenario on the disabled bridge, "Disaster"

Wherein everything that can go wrong, goes wrong. When a catastrophic phenomenon leads to a hull breach and a rapidly deteriorating containment field, only three Enterprise -D crew members are on or near the bridge — highest-ranking officer Counselor Troi, Chief Miles O'Brien, and Ensign Ro. 

Cut and dry Ro recommends a full separation from the Enterprise 's saucer section. Brutal, but hear her out; since no life signs or survivors were detected in the breached area of the ship, a separation maneuver would ensure that the rest of the vessel doesn't imminently combust. Ro Laren — strategist for a disaster.

" The Next Phase ," Star Trek: The Next Generation (Season 5, Episode 24)

Ro Laren and Geordi La Forge touch hands, "The Next Phase"

Ro Laren inhabits the spirit of teamwork in this version of a ghost story. 

After being beamed away during an explosion aboard a Romulan ship, Ensign Ro and Geordi La Forge discover that they are no longer "with the living." Instead, they’re out-of-phase transporter ghosts whose patterns are no longer detectable to the Enterprise crew. While stuck in dematerialized limbo, Ro introduces the idea of them being Borhya , the Bajoran concept for a "spirit." When La Forge offers a scientific solution for their non-state, Ro is quick to problem solve, carrying out an investigation alongside Geordi and Data on the "other side."

By episode end, a corporeally-realized Ro admits that she's been pushed into another way of thinking about life after death. Or, life after traumatic transporter accident.

" Rascals ," Star Trek: The Next Generation (Season 6, Episode 7)

Guinan and Ensign Ro, in their kid form, peek around the corner, "Rascals"

Who knew the Ro Laren watch list includes two transporter accidents?

When Captain Picard, Ro, Guinan, and Keiko O'Brien are regressed to the adolescent ages of 10-12, the scenario is inconvenient. Or… a therapeutic exercise? With a little nudge from Guinan, Ro is able to reclaim the part of her past she described as "long" and "depressing." She even draws a portrait of her mother in crayon.

" Preemptive Strike ," Star Trek: The Next Generation (Season 7, Episode 24)

Ro Laren cries over Macias' death, "Preemptive Strike"

Ro Laren, the traitor?

Ro's sympathies to the Maquis, a resistance group opposed to the Occupation, led to her defection from Starfleet in this monumental episode.

Ro's redemptive path under Starfleet had been fought and hard won, and a single, undercover mission alongside a Maquis leader named Macias led to a crisis of faith. While Picard couldn’t recognize her motivations, we understood why Ro defected. She had met a parental figure in Macias, a proud Bajoran who loved spicy hasperat like her dad and had the same appreciation for playing Klavion . Inspired by this leader, Ro reclaimed an identity worth fighting for, like her father once fought for. So, she left for that same cause.

Her only regret, Riker conveyed, was that she had let her captain down. 

" Imposters ," Star Trek: Picard (Season 3, Episode 5)

Ro Laren and Jean-Luc Picard have a frank discussion, "Imposters"

AKA, "How the hell is Ro Laren back in Starfleet?!"

Always capable of a comeback, Ro Laren wore the pips again, this time as a commander in Starfleet Intelligence.

Commander Ro's sacrifice in Star Trek: Picard "Imposters" is a full restoration of her heroic status. True to her nature, she acts boldly and with conviction, engendering trust through uncomplicated honesty. When Ro confides to Admiral Picard that a Changeling infiltration has permeated Starfleet's highest level, he has no choice but to believe her.

There is still a depth of feeling in their relationship, after all — Picard's disappointment over Ro's betrayal, Ro's anger at Picard's righteousness. It's a stalemate of spurned hope, but the important fact remains; Commander Ro’s intelligence, hidden on her signature Bajoran earring , saves Starfleet from what’s to come.

Ro moments before the Changeling bomb is detonated, "Imposters"

"Imposters" is a fittingly complicated end to the life of Ro Laren. To some, she is Starfleet's persona non grata, a habitual rule-breaker whose brashness had led to casualties. To others, her ability to stand and die for a fighting chance, either with Starfleet or the Maquis, makes her a strong contender for best in command.

And her final act is a trademark. After discovering that a Changeling bomb was planted on her shuttle, Admiral Picard orders Ro to turn her vessel around so that she can be beamed to safety.

Commander Ro refuses.

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Robyn Belt is a writer, editor, and journalist (Startrek.com, Marvel.com) who loves thinking about the real and speculative science of Star Trek. DS9, TNG, SNW super-fan. Find her on Twitter @robyn_belt or Threads @robynbelt_.

In addition to streaming on Paramount+ , Star Trek: Picard also streams on Prime Video outside of the U.S. and Canada, and in Canada can be seen on Bell Media's CTV Sci-Fi Channel and streams on Crave. Star Trek: Picard is distributed by Paramount Global Content Distribution.

Picard's Latest The Next Generation Vessel Makes the Reunion Complete

Star Trek: Picard Season 3 has been an unapologetic The Next Generation reunion, and the return of a beloved Galaxy-class starship makes it complete.

The following contains spoilers for Star Trek: Picard Season 3, Episode 9, "Vox," now streaming on Paramount+.

Star Trek: Picard Season 3 was always sold as a reunion of The Next Generation cast , but the penultimate episode of the series brought back another important "character." After being destroyed in the first film for this cast, the USS Enterprise-D returns in all her Galaxy-class glory. Insofar as a setting can be a character in a series, bringing back this vessel makes the reunion complete.

Thankfully, the storytellers set up very clever reasons the heroes would use this ship beyond it being something every TNG fan watching wanted to see. Against Geordi La Forge's objections, Starfleet employed a kind of "Bluetooth for Ships" that allows them all to be linked and controlled by a single crew. A stealth Borg invasion caused by Jack Crusher and his big secret means that all Starfleet ships are now compromised. So, Picard and the gang need an "analog" ship, as Geordi puts it, that can't be taken over by the Borg without old-fashioned tactile assimilation. As the curator of the Starfleet Museum and a master engineer, Geordi was in a unique position to be able to restore this ship over the past couple of decades. He also made sure the Enterprise-D was fully weapons capable, and even as a classic, the vessel still packs a powerful punch.

RELATED: Who Is Picard's Top Starfleet Admiral Elizabeth Shelby?

For The Next Generation, Home Is a Place as Much as Its People

Countless stories impart the message that "home" doesn't have to be a building, a city or even a country. It's people. If that's true, then once Worf and Deanna joined the crew of the USS Titan-A , Picard was home. However, places can have important meanings, too. And the return of the signature vessel on The Next Generation reminds these characters of the best time in their lives. Even with the world ending outside that museum, it's fitting that returning to the bridge still filled them with joy and levity. In trying times, people are always a little more comfortable when they are home.

The trick for Picard during its entire run is fans want a return of The Next Generation 's glory days instead of new stories about a man at a different point in his life. Throughout Picard 's run, Jean-Luc hasn't done all that much captaining. He usually finds himself in a chair in the latter episodes, but never on his ship. Season 3 is the most time any of these characters have spent on a ship (at least on-screen) since Star Trek: Nemesis fizzled at the box office. The Titan-A is a great ship. The moment Picard took the chair to guide them out of the nebula was satisfying but, in hindsight, now feels like a half-measure. Picard belongs in command of a ship, and that ship better be called "Enterprise."

From the retro-futuristic late-1980s and early-1990s design of the bridge to Andrew Probert's reimagining of the classic saucer and nacelle shape, the Enterprise-D is a special ship. It was the flagship of second-wave Star Trek , as recognizable as the original Enterprise. Putting Picard back in the chair of that particular ship on that specific bridge is unquestionably fan service. Still, that doesn't mean it's extraneous, forced or not emotionally resonant to the characters involved. If anyone has a chance to beat this particular "no-win scenario" it's that crew on that ship.

RELATED: Star Trek: Picard Season 3 Honors Every Version of Data

Star Trek: Picard Season 3 Has Been Building Up to the Enterprise-D

In the Picard Season 3 premiere , Picard's favorite bar, Ten Forward, gave out model starships to celebrate Frontier Day. Riker noted that the Enterprise-D models were not a popular choice. No one wanted "the fat ones" he said. Yet, to these characters, this ship is the most beautiful thing in the universe. From Riker talking about the USS Titan being where his children were born to Seven of Nine reminiscing about being reborn on Voyager , ships being "home" is a recurring theme this season.

Riker and Troi fell in love on that ship. Data lived most of his conscious life on it. Beverly Crusher let one son go and left the ship before it could take another. The Enterprise-D was a huge part of their lives. To the audience, it's the only place they've ever truly belonged. At a time when humanity is threatened by its worst enemy, being home is a comfort, albeit a small one. Yet, as Beverly said earlier in the season, facing down impossible problems together is what this crew does. On the bridge of this ship is when they were at their best, and Earth needs them at their best.

After the ship was all but destroyed in Star Trek: Generations it makes sense the ship would end up where it was. Starfleet should know better than to leave its tech lying around, and Geordi is the type to restore it. Yet, this moment also gives The Next Generation fans the equivalent of the "Chewie, we're home" moment in Star Wars: The Force Awakens . It's not just the audience who will get closure from the return of the Enterprise-D. If these characters have to face certain death, there is no better place to be than with their friends back home.

Star Trek: Picard debuts its series finale Thursday, April 20, on Paramount+ .

Captain Picard's Best Story Is in a Surprising Star Trek Show

• Patrick Stewart's iconic performance as Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine is a career highlight.
• Picard's traumatic assimilation by the Borg in "The Best of Both Worlds" shaped his character and haunted him throughout the series.
• Deep Space Nine delves into Picard's guilt and trauma from the perspective of Benjamin Sisko, offering a new angle on forgiveness and healing.

Jean-Luc Picard made Patrick Stewart a household name, launching him from the comparative obscurity of the English stage thanks to the now-classic Star Trek: The Next Generation . Stewart's long association with the role let him deliver a number of performances as Picard that now stand as career highlights. That includes Season 5, Episode 24, "The Inner Light" in which he lived out the life of an ordinary man on an alien world, and Season 2, Episode 9, "The Measure of a Man," when he delivered a stunning courtroom argument in defense of Data's free will.

However, out of all of Stewart's Star Trek appearances, his best performance as Jean-Luc Picard might not have come in The Next Generation or even the de facto follow-up series Star Trek: Picard . Star Trek: Deep Space Nine features a cameo by Stewart in the series' premiere, in which Picard encounters one of the survivors of Wolf 359. Not only did it signal a key moment in the character's biggest ongoing plot thread, but it gave Stewart a moment to quietly shine in his signature role.

The Borg Will Always Haunt Jean-Luc Picard

Picard was famously abducted by the Borg in The Next Generation Season 3, Episode 26, "The Best of Both Worlds, Part 1." He spent six days as a member of the Collective, which referred to him as "Locutus" and intended to use him as a go-between for a presumably soon-to-be-assimilated humanity. Season 4, Episode 1, "The Best of Both Worlds, Part II" depicted the infamous Battle of Wolf 359, in which the vast bulk of Starfleet engaged a single Borg cube under Locutus's directive, and was utterly destroyed. 11,000 people lost their lives, and the cube continued unopposed to Earth, where it intended to assimilate the entire population.

They were thwarted by the Enterprise-D, now under Will Riker's command, who abducted Locutus and used his link to the Collective to put the Borg to sleep. The cube imploded, and Picard was freed from Borg control, though he remembered everything he did while he was assimilated. "The Best of Both Worlds" was a watershed moment for the franchise, bringing the Borg back for a triumphant curtain call after their celebrated introduction in Season 2, Episode 16, "Q Who." Besides introducing one of the greatest villains in the entire franchise, it marked Star Trek's first real departure from stand-alone episodes and towards more complex arcs.

That came part and parcel with growth and change for the protagonists -- something that never happened in Star Trek: The Original Series . The Next Generation even punctuated the severity of Picard's assimilation with the very next episode -- Season 4, Episode 2, "Family" -- which acknowledged the extent of his trauma and devoted the bulk of its running time to exploring it. That was unprecedented for a Star Trek series, which typically just warped off to the next planet once a given crisis was resolved. Picard's psychological wounds have never truly healed, and much of his character in the ensuing years has been defined by the way he grappled with that dark legacy.

Exploring the extent of Picard's trauma began during The Next Generation's run, most notably in Season 5, Episode 23, "I, Borg" when he learned to accept another ex-Borg in spite of his hatred for the Collective. His big moment of catharsis arrived in the feature film Star Trek: First Contact , where he must first halt another Collective attack on Earth, and then stop them from traveling back in time to assimilate the Earth of the past. Even then, however, his time as Locutus haunted him, which all three seasons of Picard developed in some detail.

Deep Space Nine Confronts Picard with His Victims

How star trek: deep space nine was created.

Picard feels unconscionable guilt for his role in Wolf 359 , but the fact remains that he had been assimilated and was a helpless puppet to their will. He's a victim of the Collective as well, and there's a fair amount of survivor's guilt that factors into his trauma. All of that, however, is centered around Picard himself, and not Locutus's victims. Most of the time, that process is largely internal. "Family" aside, The Next Generation rolled merrily along after "The Best of Both Worlds" without any indication of the devastation left behind, with Starfleet in shambles and tens of thousands of its personnel dead. The slow rebuilding took place almost entirely off-screen.

Deep Space Nine changed all of that with its own central protagonist, Benjamin Sisko, whose wife was killed at Wolf 359 and who has had to raise their son Jake by himself ever since. "Emissary" opens with the battle itself, which hadn't been depicted onscreen before. For example, the Enterprise-D arrives in the aftermath during "The Best of Both Worlds." Sisko is a lieutenant commander onboard the starship Saratoga during the battle, only to see his vessel and its crew taken apart in the space of moments. He's able to rescue Jake, but his wife Jennifer is killed, and he's forced to abandon her body as the survivors flee the ship in an escape pod. All the time, Locutus's passive, indifferent face seems to loom above it all.

"Emissary" officially begins three years later, as Sisko takes command of Deep Space 9 for the first time. He's consumed by feelings of reluctance for the job, and is considering resigning Starfleet to take Jake back to Earth. Picard arrives to give him the assignment: ensure Bajor's reconstruction and application to the Federation. In the course of their conversation, it becomes clear that Sisko blames Picard for the death of his wife, and hasn't begun to forgive him for the loss. That changes during the course of the series pilot, as Sisko has his encounter with the Bajoran Prophets (who are advanced alien beings who dwell within the wormhole), and finds closure for Jennifer's death. He and Picard meet again, and Sisko rescinds his desire to return to Earth, then shakes Picard's hand before the two return to their respective posts.

Picard's Journey to Forgiveness Will Never End

How star trek's vulcans evolved beyond gene roddenberry's creation.

The two scenes speak volumes about both men, as Sisko finds new purpose in his life and learns to forgive Picard for his part in his wife's death. That serves as the launching point for Sisko's journey, ending with him joining the Prophets at the end of Deep Space Nine's run. Picard faces a darker reality: for the first time onscreen, he's properly confronted with someone who lost a loved one at Wolf 359. While he earns Sisko's forgiveness, it's a task he'll need to do over and over again, sometimes for no one's sake but his own. That pays dividends in Star Trek: Picard Season 3, when Captain Liam Shaw reveals he too is a survivor of Wolf 359. Like Sisko, he's not inclined to forgive the once and former Locutus either, and unlike Sisko, he never really reconciles with the man.

All of that is set up with Stewart's performance in "Emissary." Though brief, it establishes a strong baseline for the trauma inflicted by the Borg, as well as Picard's somewhat halting ability to confront his complicity in Wolf 359. He masks it behind duty, pushing through Sisko's obvious anger and falling back on military protocol to complete the assigned task. Stewart conveys the oceans of emotional turmoil going on beneath the surface without overtly tipping his hand. The audience can see how much Picard's guilt weighs on him without diminishing Sisko's anger or pain in the process. There's no undoing what's been done, however, and no matter what steps he takes, forgiveness and reconciliation will always be slow in coming.

The actor reveals this vulnerability in the space of a few short minutes, in a story that isn't his. Yet the way he uses that time is quietly awe-inspiring. He doesn't overshadow Sisko in these scenes, and the attention remains firmly where it should be on Deep Space Nine's lead. At the same time, he lays the groundwork for what becomes Picard's central emotional wound as a character, and the ways he can't always heal the damage no matter how hard he tries. It's a reasonably quiet moment in a long career, both within the franchise and without. But amid a bumper crop of brilliant performances from the actor, its brevity and emotional resonance may have no peer.

Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine are currently streaming on Paramount+.

The Star Trek universe encompasses multiple series, each offering a unique lens through which to experience the wonders and perils of space travel. Join Captain Kirk and his crew on the Original Series' voyages of discovery, encounter the utopian vision of the Federation in The Next Generation, or delve into the darker corners of galactic politics in Deep Space Nine. No matter your preference, there's a Star Trek adventure waiting to ignite your imagination.

Created by Gene Roddenberry

First Film Star Trek: The Motion Picture

Latest Film Star Trek: Nemesis

First TV Show Star Trek: The Original Series

Latest TV Show Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

Cast Nichelle Nichols, Scott Bakula, Kate Mulgrew, Jonathan Frakes, Patrick Stewart, William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Avery Brooks, Deforest Kelley, James Doohan

TV Show(s) Star Trek: Animated, Star trek, Star Trek Voyager, Star Trek: Enterprise, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek Lower Decks, Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Picard, Star Trek: Prodigy, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Star Trek: Lower Decks