Commander Chakotay (Robert Beltran) (placeholder)

Commander Chakotay, played by Robert Beltran, is a character in Star Trek: Voyager. He is the first officer of the USS Voyager.

Chakotay was born in 2329. As a boy, Chakotay often rebelled against his Native American upbringing in his father Kolopak’s unnamed tribe, with its sometimes strict spiritual and cultural traditions. He dreamed of entering Starfleet Academy, which he finally managed to do at age 15 (Voyager episode “Tattoo”). He attended Starfleet Academy from 2344 to 2348, where he engaged in the sport of boxing. During his tenure in Starfleet, he was assigned as an instructor in Starfleet’s Advanced Tactical Training and achieved the rank of Lieutenant Commander. In 2370, Chakotay’s home planet in the Demilitarized Zone was annexed to the Cardassians in lieu of a treaty between the Federation and Cardassia. He subsequently resigned from Starfleet and joined a rogue group known as the Maquis. During his time as a renegade fighter against the Cardassians, Chakotay inducted into his Maquis cell the half-Klingon woman B’Elanna Torres who became his chief engineer. He also invited a ‘Bajoran’ named Seska and the two became involved in a relationship for a time. However, unknown to Chakotay, Seska was actually a Cardassian spy who had been surgically altered to infiltrate the Maquis.

Chakotay was captain of the Val Jean raider (“Repression”). This vessel is destroyed after both it and the USS Voyager are transported to the Delta Quadrant. Captain Kathryn Janeway, the commanding officer of Voyager, offers the Val Jean crew a chance to serve on her ship, and appoints Chakotay as her first officer with the provisional rank of lieutenant commander (in episode “Caretaker”). Janeway and Chakotay eventually become close friends, though in the second season episode “Resolutions”, they experience romantic tension when they enter a state of self-imposed quarantine on an alien planet, after contracting a fatal virus. After several weeks on the planet, however, the Voyager crew manage to find a cure, and they return to the ship.

Chakotay’s calm and insightful demeanor made him a respected officer. Near the end of Voyager’s seven-year journey in the Delta Quadrant, the former Borg drone Seven of Nine chose Chakotay to be the object of her affections in her continuation of her rediscovery of her humanity. In an alternate future, seen in the series finale “Endgame”, Seven and Chakotay marry, though she dies before Voyager reaches home and Chakotay dies in 2394.