Before serving as first officer on the U.S.S. Voyager NCC-74656, Chakotay had resigned Starfleet after years of service to join the Maquis to defend his home colony against the Cardassians.Born in 2329, he was a rebellious youth, often rejecting his Native American upbringing in this father's tribe, which included strict traditions. His boyhood dream was to study at Starfleet Academy -- a dream realized as a teenager when he was sponsored by the famed Captain Hikaru Sulu. All was going according to Chakotay's plan when his home planet was annexed to the Cardassians in lieu of a treaty between the Federation and Cardassia. In protest, he resigned from Starfleet and, as a man of action, joined a rogue group known as the Maquis. (Who take their name from a group among the French Resistance during the Second Global War, famous for basing themselves in mountainous regions.)During his time as a rebel fighter against the Cardassians, Chakotay formed a trusted crew, including the half-Klingon B'Elanna Torres as chief engineer and the (as he supposed) Bajoran Seska, with whom he became romantically linked. Chakotay served as captain of the Val Jean raider until his crew, and the crew of the U.S.S. Voyager, were transported to the Delta Quadrant. In that quadrant, he and Captain Kathryn Janeway of Voyager fought a joint action against elements of the fleet of the Kazon Ogla. Val Jean was destroyed, but Chakotay evacuated himself and his entire crew to Voyager. Captain Janeway determined to integrate Chakotay's crew into her own. She gave him commander's pips and made him First Officer, to replace her own First Officer, who had died in the first Big Snatch.Chakotay is a gentle man but resolute, and is one of the Maquis who are truly in the fight for principle.During the fourth year of the cruise of Voyager, the ship made contact with the Hirogen Deep-space Relay Network. Captain Janeway used it to send their holographic Doctor to Federation space. Of The Doctor's wild adventure aboard an experimental tripartite warship, others have told. Here let it be said that Starfleet Command, once they realized Voyager had not been lost with all hands, as they had supposed, sent a message back to Voyager with letters from home. Among them came the devastating news that the Cardassian/Dominion Alliance had wiped out the Maquis for good. Only later--when Voyager at last came home--did Chakotay learn that Starfleet, with the Klingon Empire to help them, at last made the Dominion pay dearly for that and other atrocities.Note: in the abandoned Year of Hell time-line (cf. episode Before and After ), Chakotay dons the fourth pip of a captain after Captain Janeway dies in action against the Krenem. Later he promotes Tom Paris--twice--and Harry Kim at least once. He also performs a wedding with each man as bridegroom, when Tom Paris marries Kes, and Harry Kim marries their daughter, Linnis.In the surviving timeline, Chakotay and Paris fall prisoner to the insane captain of a time-ship carrying a Temporal Inversion weapon. This weapon obliterates an object, or even a civilization, and projects a new time-line without the target. The war ends only when Voyager rams the enemy ship and triggers the primary weapon to perform a Temporal Inversion upon it--thus undoing all the mistakes this insane captain has made with time. Show less «