Seska Was Voyager’s Excellent, Messy Foil

Voyager and Deep House 9 draw many intriguing parallels as sister sequence that aired in tandem for an excellent chunk of their airings. Voyager‘s extra episodic format and tone struck an altogether different approach to DS9‘s growing lens on the darkish coronary heart of Star Trek‘s concepts and universe, digging into wider and deeper interconnected storylines. However one little piece of Deep House 9 power that Voyager saved early on got here from an unlikely determine: Ensign Seska.

The turncoat Bajoran ex-Maquis revealed her true identification as a Cardassian double agent 30 years in the past right this moment with the printed of “State of Flux,” setting off a uncommon little mini-arc for the early days of Star Trek: Voyager. Though by and huge an episodic present, for better or worse, Voyager did sometimes experiment with short-form arcs right here and there, and Seska’s was considered one of them, weaving in different plotlines throughout the remainder of season one till her premature demise and defeat originally of season three, like Tom Paris’ seeming discontent aboard the ship, and the related leaker storyline with Michael Jonas. However she’s most attention-grabbing as a distinction to how Deep House 9 portrayed the Cardassians.

After all, DS9 had loads, just like the mischievously two-faced Garak, or the loud and audaciously hammy Gul Dukat. Seska leans extra the latter than the previous as soon as the masks’s off, however whereas she is suitably duplicitous and scheming within the methods one would possibly anticipate of a Cardassian infiltrator who finds herself abruptly going from leaking Maquis plans to serving on a Starfleet vessel 70,000 mild years away from Cardassia Prime, one factor defines her in distinction to the Cardassians we’d been recurrently seeing on Star Trek at that second in time: she’s simply sort of an absolute scorching mess.

It’s fascinating revisiting “State of Flux” to see simply how every little thing rapidly falls aside for Seska. The episode largely offers with Voyager‘s discovery of a closely broken Kazon warship (a thorn within the crew’s facet on and off since the pilot episode), solely to disclose that the injury was attributable to misuse of replicator know-how surreptitiously acquired from Voyager. Virtually the second the senior workers understand that there’s a traitor on board, Seska is horrible at overlaying up the truth that she was the one who had been making an attempt to ally with the Kazon as every little thing falls aside round her, from the crew getting nearer to her path to the physician’s discovery that her story about her Bajoran background was fully made up. Seska succeeds in getting away from Voyager to group up with Maje Culluh, nevertheless it’s a failing-upwards pattern that persists all through the remainder of her appearances throughout Voyager‘s second season and into her demise that displays every little thing “State of Flux” laid out for her.

The thought of a turncoat who sees the energy find combative allies to take advantage of Voyager‘s scenario may be very Cardassian, however Seska finds herself instantly performed when she’s thrust into the patriarchal society of the Kazon as her newfound besties. Her recommendation is basically solely ever accepted underneath scorn and duress from Culluh and his subordinates; regardless of her perceived sense of superiority she’s consistently undermined, which is usually the trigger for the failure of her on-and-off makes an attempt to get again at Voyager. She will be able to solely ever barely make one of the best of a nasty scenario, regardless of most of the time having many of the playing cards in play: her historical past with Chakotay provides her a deliciously private angle of assault, her information of Voyager‘s capabilities from her time underneath cowl make her a extra harmful foe than most the present had thrown on the ship at this level.

However it’s sort of what makes Seska work as a personality: regardless of all this, villainy or in any other case, nothing ever fairly clicks for her. It’s an ideal mirror to uphold in opposition to Janeway’s determination to have the crew take the good distance dwelling within the first place, the concept, in the event that they did in the end simply go Seska’s route and exploit their advantageous energy in an unknown quadrant, it could doom them. Seska is so typically thwarted in her schemes by the easy act of Voyager‘s unity, one thing seeded by way of her time on the ship all through the sequence’ first handful of episodes—at all times one of many crew to specific dissatisfaction at being underneath the yoke of Starfleet beliefs and guidelines, at all times one prepared to go spherical individuals to attempt to get issues executed. In some ways Seska sort of has to be a catastrophe as a lot as a menace to additional amplify our heroes’ burgeoning group.

Though Seska would go on to seem a pair extra occasions after her demise within the second a part of “Fundamentals,” it’s becoming that she perishes in a narrative that’s inherently concerning the disruption of Voyager‘s group and a violation of their secure house aboard the ship, a two-parter the place the Kazon efficiently handle to briefly overtake Voyager and dump the Starfleet crew on an unknown barren planet.

Regardless of successful, Seska and the Kazon simply can not beat the crew’s resilience and unity, a reminder that, even so early on on this journey, that sticking collectively is what’s going to get Voyager by way of all this. It’s a disgrace we needed to lose a really compelling antagonist in doing so, however that Seska at the least will get to facilitate that solidarity is welcome.

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