Tag: voyager

cmdrtpol:

cmdrtpol:

cmdrtpol:

wait a second hold please am having a thought

the depth to chakotay and tuvok’s relationship that is completely accidental is insane. given that dates are murky and made up (obviously) if you choose to read that tuvok and chakotay first met back when the former was an ensign on the excelsior and the latter a fifteen year old who was petitioning sulu for a letter of recommendation to enable his early enlistment in the fleet…. it just throws everything into such a different light. chakotay knowing tuvok, even if it was only vaguely, prior to defection would give him a reason to welcome tuvok into the maquis– it would have even been comforting to have another former officer in his cell because it would be reinforcing that he made the correct decision. it would also make the betrayal so much worse during the events of caretaker. it throws the contempt and hatred that he had for tuvok into a more stark light because it’s not just politics or profession, it’s personal

literally like. imagine you are a bright and precocious young man who is desperate to escape life on your home planet. you live on the edge of a warzone– or a place that is a breath away from becoming a warzone at any given moment– and if that isn’t enough you’re feeling stifled by your family, by the culture you’re expected to embrace and take part in. you see a future stretching out ahead that, to you, is full of violence and tradition being enacted on you by others, a life outside of your control the opposite of what you want. you want exploration. expansion. challenge and adventure and peace.

so when a starfleet captain visits your planet for the first (and for all you know the last) time you don’t miss your chance. you work to impress him and his crew and beg him to give you a recommendation letter to starfleet academy so that you can leave as soon as possible to begin your studies there. call it luck or provenience or whatever, but it works. there’s a man, tall and dark and stoic who observes you coolly as you fight to keep your composure as you thank the captain for his help.

fast forward a few decades, and nothing is the way you thought it would be. it turns out “peace in the name of progress” really just equates to “turning a blind eye to atrocities when it suits in order to maintain the status quo” and now your father is dead. your father is dead and the home he died protecting is burning and you’ve spent decades away from a family and culture that are irrevocably marred by everything that’s happened while you’ve been running away pursuing your dreams. it feels like the universe should stop spinning, but instead things move faster. the fight is still going and this time, you join it.

you hand in your resignation to the palace of ideals that failed to protect your home and with an anger and bloodlust that you’ve never experienced before, you strike out on your own. you join a resistance cell, you work your way up. you use everything you learned in the fleet to better how you fight here and now where it really matters. it doesn’t surprise you that you’re good at this. you move up the ranks fast– that doesn’t surprise you either, the people here care for the cause (for the most part, anyway), but they lack discipline, tactical experience, military knowledge.

that’s why it’s a pleasant surprise when that tall, stoic alien from a lifetime ago slips into your life. a fellow fleeter, a fellow deserter– someone completely unlike you but also more similar to you than anyone else under your command. he doesn’t have your reasons to fight, but he understands why you went into the service and even moreso why you left. you can discuss tactics and strike patterns quickly, in a shorthand you’re both fluent in (even if you’re virtually strangers). you don’t have time to admit it, even to yourself, but his presence here could make you weep with relief (if this vulcan, this paragon of logic and reason, abandoned starfleet and its principles to fight for the rights of these colonies then you aren’t mad with grief and anger. he has no dog in this fight and yet he’s here. if he’s here, you aren’t irrational, aren’t swept up in vengeance, you haven’t made any rash decisions or lost your sense of self. if he’s here, you’re justified in being here too).

then the unimaginable– the truly unimaginable– happens and you are suddenly 70,000 light years from everyone you know and love. from a warzone that you know will immediately be impacted by its loss of your leadership. you have no choice but to board a federation ship and when you turn to look at the man who has followed you out of starfleet and into a warzone he looks back and points his weapon at you. “I must inform you,” he says, stepping around to stand beside the starfleet captain, a small woman with a large bearing. “That I was assigned to infiltrate your crew,
sir.”

and though you can’t show it, especially not now, it all comes tumbling down.