You know what is odd, Chakotay may be the only major human character in Star Trek who has religious beliefs. Native American spiritual beliefs seem in endangered in present time, but in the future we have seen several people practice Native American spirituality and major religions like Islam and Christianity have just died off. Chakotay talks about the spirits of people all the time, you don't see Janeway talking about Jesus or God or something. It seems odd to me that almost every human has abandoned religion in favor of humanistic atheism, except Native Americans.
Kira disagrees... well human. But yeah... I think that had a lot to do with Roddenberry's views too. Chakotay's "religion" was really made up anyways. It would be like taking elements from Christianity, Judaism, Islam and Hinduism to invent a "religion."
I recall Ron Moore saying something along the lines of, the writers by that time didn't really buy into the idea of religion dying out by the 23rd\24th century. But it was a part of Roddenberry's vision of the future that they didn't feel it was their place to overturn. So I guess Chakotay is sort of a compromise, he has spirituality of a handwavey\made up sort. But he's not part of the sort of dogmatic organised religion that is influential in our society today.
Aliens came down and screwed some humans who happened to be Native Americans, who happened to like it so much that they prayed to the heavens for the space strange to come back. His "religion" is an intergalactic bootycall. We met the Human-Alien inbred hybrid remnants in Voy Tattoo on Earth somehow hiding form the 24th century. So even though this kinda looked what TV taught us Native American Religion kinda looks like, it's not. It's fake and pretend. Unless every religion on Earth is based on aliens sticking their wang into anything too slack witted to run. Yup, I'm talking about Joseph Sisko.
What bothers me about the Chak talking to dead relatives deal is if it was as easy as he makes it out to be wouldn't plenty of folk on Voyager want to do it? Wouldn't they be lining up to talk to their dead loved ones? Because they are not doing this I think it's clear his crewmates see it as being a bunch of crapola in his own head.
Maybe they are afraid what their ancestors would tell thim (think of Picard's father in "Tapestry") Though I'm still trying to figure out why Chakotay was wearing this little Maori tattoo (did his parents belong to different cultures?) the spiritism of the Native Americans still strikes me as essential spirituality which we have or had among many cultures on our planet before dogmatic religions took its place. Bob
It doesn't look Maori, it looks wannabe Maori, aka a tribal tatt. But hey, he was from a colony planet. Who knows what went on there.
So not Maori. Even Q's bigger tat was Polynesian more-so than Maori. Chakotay's tat was alien. Nothing to do with earthling bollocks. B'Elanna flatlined to talk to her mother on the Barge of the Dead. "Death" itself told Janeway that it was coming for her in Coda. Tuvok can telepathically suck up consciousnesses and then dump them into no where special in particular. Seven should have been able to talk to her parents when they were all part of the collective... At least one of them should have the genetic defect that allowed her to "visit" Unimatrix Zero... Unless Magnus was cuckolded? Which hardly makes sense if they tracked her DNA to Admiral Hansen. Kim died and might want to pray to himself. Sam must have been fucked up about her daughter still walking around after dying during birth. Kes was dead in a coffin in a cargo bay after the second month of season one, which was effectively a grave that the other crewmen, and Kes herself must have visited and talked to reverently for years after Janeway murdered the little girl, especially after Kes turned into a god. If Chakotay wanted to talk to his ancestors, he was a 15 minute shuttle ride away from a couple of them in Futures end, so "her" hauting spirit in the future might have felt snubbed. The crew could send timedelayed email to Braxton calling him an asshole. Chakotay did share his peyote machine with others, introducing them to their animal spirit guides inside a hive mind he maintained. B'Elanna killed her guide... I wonder why she didn't meet herself on that Barge because of what happened in Faces? I wonder if anyone tried to use MulCahey as a substitute for One? Did Quicksilver B'Elanna who died before she knew she was Quicklsilver go to the Barge? Did Tuvok miss his sentient Syphilis enough to get a medium to contact it in heaven? Stuff.
And yet this is the problem with proving a negative..as in the case that many global societies informed by certain elements of history conclude that all Religions, in a sense are made up. This of course most evident when one questions what does (a religion) mean. And any answer is given.
I would submit that the debate about the validity of all religions being an invention of mankind vs characters in a fictional setting being bound by precedent established in the long term existing religions are two seperate discussions. They go out of their way to make Chakotay a native American, but all his spiritual moments are either cherry picked from various tribes and cultures or flat out invented. If Chakotay was some New Age ancestor worshipper that would've been fine, but they make him out to be something that's existed for hundreds of years that never did.
Yeah they should given him an actual fictitious religion rather than botching it, but they wanted to lend weight by making his religion older than us, the viewers. So instead of being somewhat interesting and science fictiony like Bajor we get a bunch of crap that grates and offends.
What if he was a scientologist? And that because of forewarning from Eye of the Needle, Chakotay manoeuvred himself to ransack the Delta Quadrant for evidence about Xenu and the Galactic Federation? If they'd done this. No matter how ridiculous. Suddenly Tom Cruise and Travolta are asking if they can work for scale as guest stars. Unless the story turns out to be accidentally offensive.
Yes I did, the Chef quit over that. I don't think Trek would touch Scientology but it would make Chak even more fun to make fun of..
I came across a Scientology stall a while back, flogging the books and dvds and of course the Intelligence test they use to flatter people with. Took a couple photos of them and they went apeshit, guy was actually chasing me yelling "what are you going to do with those photos?!?" Weirdos.