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Seskaedit

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Seska in 2372
Seska in 2372
Gender: Female
Species: Cardassian
Affiliation: Cardassian Union
Maquis
Federation Starfleet
Kazon-Nistrim
Occupation: Spy
Status: Deceased (KIA)
Died: 2373
Children: One son, with Culluh
Played by: Martha Hackett
Ensign Seska, Sciences Division (2371)
Ensign Seska, Sciences Division (2371)
Ensign Seska, Operations Division (2371)
Ensign Seska, Operations Division (2371)

Seska was a Cardassian operative, genetically altered to appear Bajoran in order to infiltrate the Maquis. She was assigned to Chakotay's Maquis raider, the Val Jean, and used her relationship with him in order to steal Maquis secrets.

Contents

[edit] History

In 2371 she, along with the rest of Chakotay's crew, was stranded in the Delta Quadrant. Her true origins remained undiscovered and she became a member of the crew of the USS Voyager, with a field commission of ensign, initially in the science department but later moving to engineering. If it had ever occurred, Seska would have supported a Maquis mutiny on board Voyager. She was involved with Lieutenant B'Elanna Torres, Lieutenant Joe Carey and Lieutenant Tuvok in their attempts to acquire spatial trajector technology behind Captain Janeway's back. (VOY: "Caretaker", "Parallax", "Emanations", "Prime Factors")

While appearing to perform her duties normally, she was in fact attempting to negotiate the transfer of Starfleet replicator technology to the Kazon-Nistrim. She was seriously injured while trying to cover up the fact that the Kazon were trying to develop replicators from specifications she had given them. The Doctor's subsequent examination caused her true Cardassian nature to be revealed (although she initially claimed that she had suffered from Orkett's disease as a child and received an extensive transfusion from a Cardassian to survive), but she escaped aboard a Kazon raider. (VOY: "State of Flux")

Among her most memorable criticism of Janeway, replying to Chakotay, when he asks her why she had assisted the Kazon:

"I did it for you. I did it for this crew. We are alone here, at the mercy of any number of hostile aliens, because of the incomprehensible decision of a Federation captain. A Federation captain who destroyed our only chance to get home. Federation rules. Federation nobility. Federation compassion? Do you understand, if this had been a Cardassian ship, we would be home now. We must begin to forge alliances. To survive, we must have powerful friends. The Kazon-Nistrim were willing to be our protectors in return for some minor technology."

She immediately set about restoring her Cardassian appearance, and became the consort of First Maje Culluh, the leader of the Kazon-Nistrim sect. She provided them with technological and tactical expertise, and planned a successful attempt to steal a transporter control module from Voyager. On this occasion, however, she was outsmarted by her former Maquis commander Chakotay, who was successful in destroying the module. He was, however, captured by the Kazon and interrogated. During this time, Seska claimed that she had impregnated herself with Chakotay's DNA and was carrying his child. However, she also claimed that the child belonged to Culluh, using the baby to manipulate the two men. (VOY: "Maneuvers")

Disillusioned with Captain Janeway's policies, Voyager crewmember Michael Jonas contacted Seska, offering to act as a spy and later as a saboteur. However, Janeway and Tuvok discovered Jonas's transmission and developed a plan to have Lieutenant Tom Paris leave Voyager on the grounds that he had become dissatisfied with life on board; they knew that the Kazon would seek to capture him, allowing Paris to discover the identity of the traitor. While Paris returned to Voyager in a stolen Kazon ship, Neelix discovered Jonas' actions as he was about to sabotage the ship's warp drive and weapon systems, the subsequent fight resulting in Jonas' death when Neelix threw him off a balcony and into a plasma leak. (VOY: "Alliances", "Investigations")

Seska's baby

In late 2372, Seska gave birth to the child, a boy. She immediately contacted Chakotay, claiming that Culluh had discovered that the child was not his (apparently due to its more Human appearance) and was going to raise him as a slave. This lured Voyager into a trap. With the ship's secondary computer core already damaged and off-line (thanks to repeated Kazon attacks), a Kazon operative named Tierna was able to detonate organic explosives in his bloodstream while on board Voyager, disabling the ship's power systems and the primary computer core. Janeway was unable to activate the auto-destruct sequence and the ship was boarded by Kazon troops. The crew was put off the ship on Hanon IV.

During the Kazon occupation of the ship, Seska took stringent precautions against any possible threats, even interrogating the Doctor about his ability to lie. That line of questioning was cut short when he revealed through a DNA analysis that her baby was actually the offspring of herself and Culluh, the first Cardassian/Kazon hybrid in history; his human appearance was simply due to their unfamiliarity with how Kazon and Cardassian genes would interact. Eventually, Paris- who had left Voyager in a shuttle to seek help during the attack-, with assistance from Talaxian forces, was able to retake the ship as the Doctor and Lon Suder (who had been able to escape into the ships' Jefferies tube and was killed during the liberation of Voyager) sabotaged the ships' weapons systems, causing an overload. Seska was mortally wounded in the resulting explosion, crawling over to her baby with the last of her strength before she died, leaving Culluh to escape with their son. (VOY: "Basics, Part I", "Basics, Part II")

At some point in the early days of Voyager's time in the Delta Quadrant, Tuvok developed a holodeck training simulation called "Insurrection Alpha", which challenged the participant to deal with a Maquis mutiny. However, when he realized that the two crews were getting along better than he had initially suspected, he deleted the program and never told anyone about it, fearing that it would trigger the mutiny he wanted to avoid. Seska discovered it and reprogrammed it to act as a trap. In 2373, Tuvok and Tom Paris attempted to alter the program- which had become a popular holonovel among the crew-, triggering Seska's changes. With the holodeck safety protocols disengaged, the program quickly became extremely hazardous. However, Captain Janeway was able to reprogram portions of the simulation and allow Tuvok and Paris to escape, simultaneously causing the 'death' of the holographic Seska. (VOY: "Worst Case Scenario")

In 2377, the timeframe aboard Voyager became shattered. The effect of this was to cause different areas of the ship to exist at different times throughout the ship's past, present and future. Isolated from the effects of this, the 2377 Chakotay was able to pass through the ship unaffected. One of the areas he visited was Engineering during the Kazon-Nistrim takeover of the ship in 2372, where he encountered Seska and a number of Kazon. Seska learned that their takeover would only be temporary, and tried to use this situation to her advantage. She attempted to stop Chakotay's efforts to restore the timeframe to normal, trying to reset history to her point in time, but was prevented from doing so by Voyager crew members from various points in history and Chakotay's future (Such as a still-Borg Seven of Nine, a Maquis B'Elanna Torres, and future versions of Icheb and Naomi Wildman), and the timeline was successfully restored. (VOY: "Shattered")

[edit] Appendices

[edit] Appearances

[edit] Background Information

Seska's rank insignia
  • Although Seska was invariably referred to as "ensign" during her appearances in uniform, she wore what otherwise figures to be the provisional rank insignia of an enlisted crewman (one hollow stripe).
  • In 2002, Seska placed nineteenth in TV Zone's list of the top twenty science fiction television villains. The Borg Queen was second, Dukat was fourth, Weyoun was eighth and Q was eleventh.
  • Seska's true intentions in helping the Kazon-Nistrim were never explicitly revealed. Though she initially claimed that by helping them, she would be helping Voyager gain a protective ally in VOY: "State of Flux".

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Seska"
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