Summary
- Chakotay's first romance on Star Trek: Voyager showed why dating Captain Janeway would have been a bad idea due to their power dynamic and need to maintain professionalism.
- Chakotay pursued other romances on the show, including an ill-fated relationship with Seven of Nine and a doomed romance with Seska.
- Star Trek: The Next Generation explored the issue of captains dating subordinate officers, setting the precedent for why Janeway and Chakotay's relationship would not have worked.
Chakotay's (Robert Beltran) first romance on Star Trek: Voyager laid the groundwork for why his dating Captain Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) would have been a bad idea. Chakotay was the USS Voyager's First Officer and a former Maquis rebel. Janeway promoted him to First Officer after the ship became stranded in the Delta Quadrant, and the two of them ended up developing a close working relationship and friendship as the show progressed. Although there was an undertone of romantic tension between Janeway and Chakotay, especially after Voyager season 2, episode 25, "Resolutions," they never became a couple on the show.
While any feelings Janeway and Chakotay had for each other remained unrequited, the two characters certainly pursued other romances over Voyager's seven seasons. Chakotay, in particular, was given and variety of romantic subplots, eventually ending up in an ill-fated romance with Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan). Before this, Chakotay's second-biggest romantic storyline was with Seska (Martha Hackett) one of his fellow Maquis who ended up being a Cardassian spy and betraying Voyager to the Kazon. Even before Seska was exposed as a traitor though, her and Chakotay's relationship was doomed to fail.
