It's 90's Trek: ears, big-ass V on his forehead, the wig, bulky shoudler-pad uniform with squares everywhere.
How would you have written Chakotay?
- Thread starter GulBahana
- Start date
There's a number of ways I would have written Chakotay:
- Like Major Kira to Janeway's Sisko. A lot of the dynamics of Voyager sound way more interesting through a DS9 lens. Even Chakotay/Seven with the same long term build up as Kira/Odo, or even just them as good friends has a certain appeal to me.
- An older officer who might have been a captain in Starfleet as a counterpoint to younger Janeway.
- Gul Evek. Or at least that kind of dynamic of having a completely mixed ship of two crews, where the problems can't be solved shoving the Maquis into Starfleet uniforms. Maybe not Cardassians because that's DS9's thing, but something original.
- Other than that, if you kept everything the same, I guess I'd just have more serialisation to the show and arcs fleshed out for the characters each season. Season 1 of Voyager would have been about building trust between Janeway and Chakotay and then I'd have done "Worst Case Scenario" for real, but with Janeway and Chakotay teaming up against a joint Starfleet/Maquis coup.
- I liked Ira Behr's approach to character in looking at them regularly and giving them something to do. Not everything worked perfectly but when it did it was great.
I'm down for this. Yeah, UPN wanted Voyager to be episodic and continuity was sometimes sloppy, but we still got great character arcs.
I go with the "Older Captain to younger Janeway" dynamic, myself.
And the only real issue I have with the "Worst Case Scenario" thing is...well, how do you come back from that? If these people rebelled once you know they'll be thinking it again and can't trust them.
When the Walking Dead did stuff like this with how Shane kept turning on Rick, they didn't try to rehabilitate Shane...Rick (reluctantly) killed him.
Same deal here, only way I can see the traitors being dealt with after that is getting ditched on some planet somewhere to fend for themselves and/or just getting killed off and them getting replacement crew from Delta Quadrant aliens who are fine serving under the Ship Leadership.
Frankly the main cast was too big in the first place IMO, the mains should have been Janeway, Chakotay, Tuvok, the Doctor and maybe Paris.
Torres, Kim, Kes and Neelix should have been the secondary ones who we didn't need in every episode.
I never got it completely straight in my head, but I figured it would be about 30 people who rebelled, led by Seska and Carey hoping to bring others along once they'd been in charge long enough and being confined to quarters became a drag. And then you would lose a bunch of people in the retaking the ship including the ring leaders, creating like a third caste of crew as the prisoners, which is what I thought they should have done with the Equinox leftovers. And then that loss of crew necessitates another idea I'd thought of, which is Voyager recruiting alien crewmen as it went along through the galaxy, who could do random work for free space travel or boarding. And then that gives Neelix and Kes a job as community leaders or something. That way you could try out recurring characters on the regular.
My own idea would've been for the mutiny to be what allowed the Kazon to capture the ship, and when they do they simply kill all the mutineers because it turned out they felt such people weren't worth keeping around and have come to respect Janeway and the others enough to just leave them to fend for themselves.
The most important thing for Chakotay and every other character on the series is to decide where you want to take them, and let them move in that direction.
I don't know what journey would work for the Chakotay we got, honestly. Some character journeys are easy: Seven rediscovering her humanity (this was handled quite well), the Doctor evolving (also done well), B'Elanna learning to control and channel her anger (this was completed in one episode), and Harry Kim growing from wet behind the ears Quark mark to seasoned and knowledgeable officer (this wasn't done at all). But Chakotay wasn't really a renegade, he just left Starfleet on principle, to fight in a war that didn't exist in the Delta Quadrant. For him to return to Starfleet wasn't much of a stretch... but where to go from there? Romance with Janeway wasn't going to happen, outside of 27 trillion musical shipping videos on YouTube. And he was as high in the hierarchy as was possible, unless Janeway got snuffed or brigged or otherwise eliminated. Probably the sensible thing would have been to modify the character from the ground up, early in the series.
I don't know what journey would work for the Chakotay we got, honestly. Some character journeys are easy: Seven rediscovering her humanity (this was handled quite well), the Doctor evolving (also done well), B'Elanna learning to control and channel her anger (this was completed in one episode), and Harry Kim growing from wet behind the ears Quark mark to seasoned and knowledgeable officer (this wasn't done at all). But Chakotay wasn't really a renegade, he just left Starfleet on principle, to fight in a war that didn't exist in the Delta Quadrant. For him to return to Starfleet wasn't much of a stretch... but where to go from there? Romance with Janeway wasn't going to happen, outside of 27 trillion musical shipping videos on YouTube. And he was as high in the hierarchy as was possible, unless Janeway got snuffed or brigged or otherwise eliminated. Probably the sensible thing would have been to modify the character from the ground up, early in the series.
Maybe his arc could have been that he's always running - from family, his work, life, always chasing something more. Now, ironically, the farthest away he's ever been (not by choice), and he begins to put down roots even as he tries to go home again. "Home isn't a place, it's people."
I think that you are too critical to Beltran and Chakotay here.
Beltran did what he could do with the script and Chakotay wasn't a bad character.
Chakotay could have been excellent with better writers and scripts.
The only time I recall him really giving a darn was in "Living Witness" where he got to play the evil Hologram Chakotay.
I don't think there were any bad actors in VOY's cast... just poorly used or underused ones.
Once again I have to disagree.
I think that he was good in many episodes, like Caretaker, Parallax, Prime Factors, Twisted, Initiations, Tattoo (despite the bad script), Maneuvers, Resolutions, Basics #1 and #2, False profits, Flashback, Future'se End #1 and #2, Unity, Distant Origin, Nemesis and others as well.
Written....at what point?
If I was assigned to write the character from the beginning, with the criteria that he's from an off-world colony of Native Americans who joined Maquis, and becomes Voyager's XO, I'd have looked for a real tribe that I could find more than one consultant for. He'd have an authentic name from said tribe's language, or just a name commonly used in that tribe right now. I might still use the futuristic vision quest machine provided it wasn't overly offensive. The tattoo probably wouldn't even occur to me, but if it was in the criteria I'd look for an authentic design and write in a reason for it.
If I came in at Season 4, with Chakotay already being the way he was, here's how I'd handle the character:
If I was assigned to write the character from the beginning, with the criteria that he's from an off-world colony of Native Americans who joined Maquis, and becomes Voyager's XO, I'd have looked for a real tribe that I could find more than one consultant for. He'd have an authentic name from said tribe's language, or just a name commonly used in that tribe right now. I might still use the futuristic vision quest machine provided it wasn't overly offensive. The tattoo probably wouldn't even occur to me, but if it was in the criteria I'd look for an authentic design and write in a reason for it.
If I came in at Season 4, with Chakotay already being the way he was, here's how I'd handle the character:
- Make his distrust of Seven and overall skepticism related to Seska's betrayal, and the news of the Maquis massacre. That way it would serve his character as well as the plot, and Beltran could have some juicy angst or whatever to get excited about.
- Retcon his fake tribe as a reconstructionist movement, made from a melting pot of real cultures
- Come up with a meaning for his frigging Tattoo! (Beyond honoring his dad. I mean the design itself.)
- Address how one-sided JC has been up to this point. If they want JC to happen, then have Kathryn start doing more for him and make the relationship more balanced. If JC is vetoed, then make the one-sidedness part of the reason they don't putsue a relationship, and end it there. Don't put random JC moments in sporadically, only for nothing to come from it.
- If JC is vetoed, start developing his relationship with Seven, since she's now the most likely candidate (from a show writer's perspective). Not necessarily with romance set in stone, but give them enough interaction that a romance will seem more believable should we decide to do it.
- Introduce a recurring character from a real Native American tribe, who isn't a stereotype.
Need it be a native meaning? Could be an alien symbol, or something someone saw in a dream/vision.
- Cast an actual Native American as him and have him really actually be Native American.
- The Maquis Raider survives the events of the first episode, and ends up having to be sacrificed to save Voyager (the crew survive), at the end of Season 1.
- Have him be a lot more bold and prone to questioning Janeway.
- The Maquis would be a lot larger of a presence in Voyager, with him regularly clashing with Seska, who would end up betraying them for the Kazon far later on in the show.
- He would be arrested when arriving back on Earth and end up having to prove that he can be trusted, there'd be an episode around that, where the crew convince Starfleet to not convict him of any crime.
- Far in the future, Chakotay ends up becoming an Admiral in Starfleet, a rough, no nonsense type of guy who has a personal mission to prevent young people from being radicalized like he was when he was younger.
- The Maquis Raider survives the events of the first episode, and ends up having to be sacrificed to save Voyager (the crew survive), at the end of Season 1.
- Have him be a lot more bold and prone to questioning Janeway.
- The Maquis would be a lot larger of a presence in Voyager, with him regularly clashing with Seska, who would end up betraying them for the Kazon far later on in the show.
- He would be arrested when arriving back on Earth and end up having to prove that he can be trusted, there'd be an episode around that, where the crew convince Starfleet to not convict him of any crime.
- Far in the future, Chakotay ends up becoming an Admiral in Starfleet, a rough, no nonsense type of guy who has a personal mission to prevent young people from being radicalized like he was when he was younger.
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