Seska (Martha Hackett)

Martha Hackett portrays Seska. In addition to her role as Seska on Voyager, Hackett has also appeared on Deep Space Nine as the Romulan T'Rul in The Search, and as a Klingon in the advert for Hallmark. Hackett has an extensive theatre, television, and film background, including guest appearances on Hill Street Blues, Civil Wars, and Touched By An Angel, and recently appeared in the Drew Barrymore romantic comedy Never Been Kissed. A Boston native, and her first love is theatre and she recently appeared as Sylvia in The Women. While she enjoys working on film, she prefers being able to spend time with her young son, Ciaran.

Seska, a female Obsidian Order agent, was surgically altered to appear Bajoran and infiltrate a Maquis cell commanded by former Starfleet officer Chakotay. A good friend of the Starfleet dropout B'Elanna Torres, she joined the cell after Chakotay's approval and soon became his lover.

Swept into the Delta Quadrant when the Caretaker Nacene pulled her ship and the U.S.S. Voyager there, Seska was among many who were merged into the crew on the starship. Seska was among those involved in he early weeks of friction with the merged crews, supporting Torres in her bid for chief engineer against Joe Carey and helping plot to take Sikarian spatial trajector technology against Janeway's orders. Even so, she eventually drifted away from both friend and lover as the two assimilated into Voyager's command structure.

Frustrated at Janeway's leadership that thwarted both getting home and building alliances, Seska finally revealed her true nature after having been caught stealing transporter technology to the Kazon-Nistrim. She escaped to become the consort of the Nistrim first maje, Culluh, and was the power and brains behind his brief rise to glory despite her frustration at keeping her ambitions in check publicly, thanks to Kazon male chauvinism.

Mindful of Chakotay's anger at being fooled by her while in the Maquis, Seska grew adept at manipulating him and Voyager to benefit the Kazon. She continued to toy with Chakotay's emotions as if unsure herself about her feelings for him and, during one mission in which he was kidnapped even impregnated herself with his DNA. Seska, who allowed her true Cardassian appearance to re-emerge while among the Kazon, was shocked to learn months later that her infant son was not Chakotay's but Culluh's instead, having told her maje that the human raped her while in his crew.

Ironically, Seska died aboard her old starship ca SD 50037, as Culluh's short-lived conquest of the prize vessel came to an end. Leaving her behind, he escaped with their baby boy.

Before leaving the Voyager ca. SD 48658, she had reworked Tuvok's abandoned Insurrection: Alpha holo-scenario so it would backfire on him with deadly results, long after her actual demise.

On Stardate 49624 when Voyager was fractured by a chrono-kinetic surge that interacted with the warp core into 37 different time periods, Engineering is under control of Seska and the Kazon (circa Stardate 50023.4) after the entire Voyager crew had been stranded planetside. In the alternate timeline created by the temporal anomaly, Seska attempts to bring the entire ship into her timeframe, but is thwarted by Chakotay and an alternate Janeway. (Sha) Because these events never took place in the unaltered timeline, while Chakotay retains memories of this encounter, it never actually occured for Seska and the Kazon outside of the loop created by the anomaly.

To learn more about Martha Hackett, check out Seska & Martha Hackett Fan Club and My Seska Page.
To learn more about Cardassians and Cardassia, check out The Bajoran Central Archives.