Was Chakotay for the opportunity to effectively rejoin Starfleet?

[Angry Fanboy]

We know Chakotay resigned from Starfleet to fight with The Maquis, then effectively rejoined for all intents and purposes during Caretaker. But do you think he was secrectly glad/relieved to 'be back' when Janeway made him her second in command aboard Voyager?

He clearly changes gears from Maquis freedom fighter to Starfleet first officer without so much as missing a beat, which is probably to be expected since he's only been off the job a few years, but to my mind he throws himself into it do completely that I wonder if he's happy to be back where he belongs.

He never seems to express much urgency to get back into the fight with the Maquis. He's very much of the view 'she's the captain' and 'we need to follow Starfleet regulations' and usually favours the Janeway/Starfleet side whenever there's a dispute with the Maquis. He even goes so far as knocking Dalby to the deck to 'persuade' the four Maquis taken under Tuvok's wing to cooperate.

Do you think a large part of Chakotay is pleased to be back? We never delve into his Starfleet career. Was he a first officer when he resigned? I know Ro Laren referencing one of her instructors being sympathetic to the Maquis is sometimes considered to be Chakotay (I don't really see him as having been an instructor personally).

 

[jmidnight_99]

We know Chakotay resigned from Starfleet to fight with The Maquis, then effectively rejoined for all intents and purposes during Caretaker. But do you think he was secrectly glad/relieved to 'be back' when Janeway made him her second in command aboard Voyager?

He clearly changes gears from Maquis freedom fighter to Starfleet first officer without so much as missing a beat, which is probably to be expected since he's only been off the job a few years, but to my mind he throws himself into it do completely that I wonder if he's happy to be back where he belongs.

He never seems to express much urgency to get back into the fight with the Maquis. He's very much of the view 'she's the captain' and 'we need to follow Starfleet regulations' and usually favours the Janeway/Starfleet side whenever there's a dispute with the Maquis. He even goes so far as knocking Dalby to the deck to 'persuade' the four Maquis taken under Tuvok's wing to cooperate.

Do you think a large part of Chakotay is pleased to be back? We never delve into his Starfleet career. Was he a first officer when he resigned? I know Ro Laren referencing one of her instructors being sympathetic to the Maquis is sometimes considered to be Chakotay (I don't really see him as having been an instructor personally).

I can't tell if he's "pleased" to be back, only "Chakotay" would know. I do know that the decisions he made after "Caretaker" make sense for someone who was a diciplined officer in the first place.

He left Star Fleet to fight for those who couldn't fight for themselves. He was hurled across the galaxy, and there was no reason to continue to fight.

A lot of people have voiced the opinion that the Maquis "conflict" should have continued after the crews merged. I disagree with that, because except for anomolous characters like Lon Suder, it would have made no sense. The Maquis were fightng for what they felt was right, there was no implication that they were all simply single-minded hostile miscreants looking for a fight. Many of them were former Star Fleet, it wouldn't have made much sense to continue hostilities to the detriment of everyone for no good reason. The conflict was 70,000 light years away, and eventually ended completely with the Dominion war. This doesn't mean the crew integration should have been simple, and therefore smacking Dalby or having to deal with similar situations probably happened "off camera" a few times. Bottom line: In real life in similar situations, with strrong leadership the conflicts would have been minimal and people would have settled into ther new roles as best they could.

I hate episodes where someone "takes over the ship". I can't believe that security protocols are so lax on a ship that complex that "Seska" can "take over the ship from a console in engineering". Out of everything... transporters, warp drive, hyper evolution, holograms, artificial intelligence, cybernetics, mind melds, out of all of it the thing I find most unbelievable is that "Seska can take over the ship from a console in engineering". I'm glad they didn't have a Maquis mutiny once a season, it would have been pure trash.

Once back in federation space, I have no idea what the authorities might do to the former Maquis. Maybe they would be pardoned if none of them committed serious crimes, I doubt any of them would regain their commissions, but who knows? I seriously doubt Chakotay would have been named captain of Voyager or any other ship, like those silly novels.

 

[Tenacity]

there's a scene in Jane ways ready room where laneway remarks that she doesn't think of the marquis as separate, but as one crew with starfleet.

to which chakotay says that the marquis still think of themselves as marquis and not ever as starfleet.

dispite the uniform he wears, chakotay is completely marquis.

and no I can't remember the episode title. can anyone help?

 

[Farscape One]

Given Janeway's dialogue to Chakotay in response to him being the 'token Maquis officer', he has Starfleet command experience. Given he wears Lt. Cmdr. pips (or rather, the Maquis insignia version of one), I find it very likely he was an XO on a ship somewhere. He did say he turned in his resignation to an admiral, who was not happy he left. I doubt an admiral would bother with showing that displeasure of a resignation over anyone below an XO.

And since he did show very good leadership qualities on many occasions from the early point of the series, it further indicates he was an XO previously.

(I've also noted that of the few times we see Maquis leaders, they tend to be former Starfleet officers who held the rank of Lt. Cmdr. and Commander. Since Chakotay was captain of his ship, this gives even further indications of hus Starfleet career.)

 

[Farscape One]

there's a scene in Jane ways ready room where laneway remarks that she doesn't think of the marquis as separate, but as one crew with starfleet.

to which chakotay says that the marquis still think of themselves as marquis and not ever as starfleet.

dispite the uniform he wears, chakotay is completely marquis.

and no I can't remember the episode title. can anyone help?

I'm pretty sure it was after they established regular contact with Starfleet. Perhaps "LIFE LINE"?

 

[Tracy Trek]

He wanted to join Starfleet from the time he was young. I doubt that he was happy to give it up. But he felt like the Maquis cause (because of what had happened to his people) was more important.

 

[Timo]

The ready room scene would indeed be from "Life Line": Janeway comments how odd it feels for the folks back home to send a message inquiring on "the status of the Maquis", stating that she doesn't think of Torres, Chakotay or the rest as anything but her crew. Chakotay responds with "You may have forgotten, but we haven't. And that's basically the end of Season 6!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[NewHeavensNewEarth]

There's a difference between:
A) having a sharp disagreement with an organization about a specific policy, and even taking action based on that conviction
B) having a fundamental issue with that organization's existence

Chakotay mainly had issues with Federation policy & attitude towards the DMZ. Eddington, on the other hand, had a fundamental issue with the entity itself, comparing it to the Borg.

With no DMZ in the Delta Quadrant, Chakotay took the best option and put the uniform back on. End of story.

 

[Oddish]

Chakotay is a man with principles, similar in nature to the ones that Starfleet defends. It was those principles that made him leave Starfleet. Look at other Maquis we know. Only one, Michael Eddington, is actually a snake. The others are decent men and women who believe that their cause is just. They're just on the wrong side of a given border, and they're threatening a peace treaty that stopped a very ugly war between the Federation and Cardassians.

Given that the conflict is over, I see no reason why Starfleet wouldn't pardon the surviving Maquis on Voyager. Given that Chakotay was an excellent officer and that B'Elanna seems to have calmed down a bit, they might be willing to take them back, especially given that they have a solid backer in VADM Janeway.

 

[Lynx]

We know Chakotay resigned from Starfleet to fight with The Maquis, then effectively rejoined for all intents and purposes during Caretaker. But do you think he was secrectly glad/relieved to 'be back' when Janeway made him her second in command aboard Voyager?

He clearly changes gears from Maquis freedom fighter to Starfleet first officer without so much as missing a beat, which is probably to be expected since he's only been off the job a few years, but to my mind he throws himself into it do completely that I wonder if he's happy to be back where he belongs.

He never seems to express much urgency to get back into the fight with the Maquis. He's very much of the view 'she's the captain' and 'we need to follow Starfleet regulations' and usually favours the Janeway/Starfleet side whenever there's a dispute with the Maquis. He even goes so far as knocking Dalby to the deck to 'persuade' the four Maquis taken under Tuvok's wing to cooperate.

Do you think a large part of Chakotay is pleased to be back? We never delve into his Starfleet career. Was he a first officer when he resigned? I know Ro Laren referencing one of her instructors being sympathetic to the Maquis is sometimes considered to be Chakotay (I don't really see him as having been an instructor personally).

Chakotay is a pragmatic man.

I don't think that he liked to be back in Starfleet, at least not in the beginning of the journey home. If possible, he would have taken the Maquis ship through the first possible wormhole and rejoined the Maquis.

But he knew that it was impossible and he also realized that now when his ship was destroyed, the only way to go back to Federation space was to do it on Voyager. If that meant to join Janeway's Starfleeet crew, so be it.

As time went on, he probably realized that he missed his time in Starfleet and would be ready to give it another try if and when they did manage to go back to federation space.

In the book "Pathways" by Jeri Taylor, one chapter deals with Chakotay's past. He was a first officer on a ship when he got the news that his parents and in fact the whole population on the planet he lived on had been exterminated by the Cardassians and then he decided to join the Maquis.

It's possible that Chakotay was the instructor which Ro Laren mentioned. before he got the news about his parents being killed, he did express his dislike of the Federation policy in a private conversation with his captain Gordon on the ship Gettysburg. Chakotay told the captain that his opinion was that it was bad politics and that the Federation would regret it in the future.

 

[Lynx]

Chakotay is a man with principles, similar in nature to the ones that Starfleet defends. It was those principles that made him leave Starfleet. Look at other Maquis we know. Only one, Michael Eddington, is actually a snake. The others are decent men and women who believe that their cause is just. They're just on the wrong side of a given border, and they're threatening a peace treaty that stopped a very ugly war between the Federation and Cardassians.

Given that the conflict is over, I see no reason why Starfleet wouldn't pardon the surviving Maquis on Voyager. Given that Chakotay was an excellent officer and that B'Elanna seems to have calmed down a bit, they might be willing to take them back, especially given that they have a solid backer in VADM Janeway.

I agree with most of what you have written but not about Eddington.

He was also a Freedom Fighter and a good one!

 

[Oddish]

Certainly he was good at what he did. He totally flummoxed Sisko on multiple occasions. And Sisko had to SERIOUSLY go off the reservation to stop him.

 

[Nyotarules]

Chakotay was mature and had the good sense to make the most of a bad situation. What else was he to do, Voyager was the only ship around in order to get back to the the alpha quadrant. Its a shame there was not an alternative universe episode where the Maquis was the only ship that survived and the Starfleeters had to join their crew....

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Chakotay was rational enough to see that Starfleet was not the enemy, he just saw them as morally misguided where the Cardassians are concerned.

They never made it clear what he did after he got home from the Delta Quadrant. The Maquis are gone, he probably has an invitation to once again be part of Starfleet. The only reason he wouldn't take it up is if there was something more important to him. He might have spent the next few years tracking down his old Maquis friends, knowing the Cardassians' penchant for keeping secret prisoners. But I believe he has gained the wisdom to think there are smarter ways to correct the moral wrongs Starfleet turns a blind eye to.

 

[Court_Vince]

I mean he probably just realized which way the wind was blowing, and figured that it would be easier to just accept Janeway as captain and to be a starfleet XO then try and mutiny or passively protest in some way

 

[at Quark's]

There's no reason to keep on fighting in the Delta Quadrant, now is there? The only reason they split of from Starfleet/the Federation was that they wanted to fight to keep their colonies, which are now 70.000 light years away and out of reach for the time being.

Even a successful rebellion to turn the ship into a Maquis ship would do them more bad than good. They're still 70K LY from home, and probably with a significantly lower number of crewmates (dropping the ones off that won't submit to Maquis rule, such as Janeway), diminishing their chances of getting home even further, because the one thing they don't have in abundance is 'human resources'. So they might as well hop in for the ride, and start the fight again when (and if) they come back to the AQ, and if their cause is still there, by that time.

So if Chakotay thought things over rationally, I don't even think the question of whether he was happy to return to Starfleet even really factored in. It simply was the most sensible thing to do, by far. And he also was quite capable of doing it, being a Starfleet graduate, so the decision wasn't that hard, probably.

 

[Oddish]

It's an interesting speculation whether the principal Maquis crew decided to stay in Starfleet after Voyager's return... and if so, what Starfleet trusted them with.

I do think they were pardoned (unlike the Equinox's crew, who I think had New Zealand in their future). But the book narrative featuring Chakotay as the new captain of Voyager... just not sure.

 

[at Quark's]

It's an interesting speculation whether the principal Maquis crew decided to stay in Starfleet after Voyager's return... and if so, what Starfleet trusted them with.

I do think they were pardoned (unlike the Equinox's crew, who I think had New Zealand in their future). But the book narrative featuring Chakotay as the new captain of Voyager... just not sure.

Probably also would have depended a great deal on their personal records. Someone with an "Eddington" type record might have a slightly harder time of regaining Starfleet's trust than someone who was nominally in the Maquis but never did anything else than tend to the engine room or scrub plasma conduits.

As a matter of fact, I was thinking about the Equinox as well, as an illustration that ships with smaller crews probably would have had a tougher voyage back than Voyager ... even though they ventured into clearly immoral territory, it's probably also true they would have had to do more desparate stuff just to stay alive than the Voyager crew ever did.

 

[Farscape One]

It's a valid point, but there's a difference between doing an immoral thing to survive and doing immoral things to get home faster.

I wonder what happened to their original XO... I'm thinking likely killed by the Krowtonan Guard. (I have never seen or heard of a ship having a First Officer with a rank below Lt. Cmdr., even if it's a science ship. There is no way a Lt. was put in that position unless the original one was killed.) I always wondered if that XO would be a voice of reason with Ransom and the experiments wouldn't continue. Burke clearly didn't have a problem with ethics, so I wonder if that kind of person constantly being your only sounding board, you might end up becoming more unethical.

 

[Makarov]

I find it interesting the lengths Chakotay goes to keep everyone in line with Starfleet, and how quickly he gets into that mode. In Meld we learn he left some details about the Maquis crewmembers out to smooth everything over and get them to rejoin so he wanted them to follow his example maybe