Matthew's Star Trek Page

Jonathan Frankes- William T. Riker

Played By: Jonathan Frakes
Rank: Commander
Serial number: SC 231-427
Current assignment: First officer, U.S.S. Enterprise, NCC-1701/E
Full Name: William Thomas Riker
Date of birth: August 19, 2335
Place of birth: Valdez, Alaska, Earth
Parents: Kyle and Betty C. Riker
Education: Starfleet Academy, 2353-57, graduated eighth in his class
Marital status: Single
Children: none
Quarters: formerly, Enterprise: Room 0912, first Deck 8, then Deck 9

Starfleet Career Summary

2358 -- As ensign, first assigned to U.S.S. Pegasus test project under Capt. Erik Pressman

2361 -- As lieutenant, stationed with Starfleet detachment on Betazed

2362 -- Assigned to U.S.S. Potemkin; decorated for rescue of ship's away team on Nervalla IV six weeks later and promoted to lieutenant commander, transferring from operations to command division. Named first officer of U.S.S. Hood under Capt. Robert DeSoto

2364 -- Promoted to commander, named first officer of U.S.S. Enterprise by Capt. Jean-Luc Picard

2366 -- Temporary field promotion to captain by Adm. Hanson during Borg crisis

2369 -- (*) Accidental double, retaining rank of lieutenant from Nervala IV crisis, assigned to U.S.S. Gandhi and uses middle name "Thomas"2370 -- Temporarily detained due to earlier involvement with Pegasus project; charges dropped

2371 -- (*) Riker "twin" resigns Starfleet to join Maquis, leads raid on Orias III in captured U.S.S. Defiant and is imprisoned by Cardassians upon capture

2372 -- Transferred with remainder of Picard's senior staff to Sovereign-class U.S.S. Enterprise
2373 -- During attempt to repair Borg temporal sabotage with Earth first contact, acts as replacement flight crew for Zefram Cochran's Phoenix warp test

Professional Assessment: Report of Starfleet Command Review Board

Enterprise Second Officer Data once estimated that Riker uses traditional tactics only 21% of the time. After winning admission to the Academy, Riker began acquiring this lifelong reputation for unorthodox solutions when, during a simulation, he figured out a Tholian ship's sensor blind spot for use as a hiding place. Riker finished eighth in his graduating class; one fellow cadet was Paul Rice, who would later fall victim to the computer weapons systems on planet Minos.

As an ensign on his first assignment, Riker had served with now-Admiral Pressman on the test ship U.S.S. Pegasus as and proved pivotal in defending his captain against a rare Starfleet mutiny before they and only a handful of others escaped, shortly after the ship's destruction during a test project. Only in 2370 was Pressman's renegade cloaking experiment unmasked, and Riker was detained briefly for complicity but cleared.

Later stationed on Betazed, his mission there ended in 2362 with a posting that would launch a rapid rise in his career. Sent to the U.S.S. Potemkin in 2362 as a lieutenant, he proved unorthodox again in avoiding a confrontation by hanging over a planet's magnetic pole to confuse an opposing ship's sensors. Only six weeks after coming aboard, though, he barely escaped from Nervala IV, where his rescue of crewmates led to a promotion and a switch from operations to command division, where he eventually became first officer of the U.S.S. Hood under Captain Robert DeSoto. During this stay he was offered his first command on the light cruiser U.S.S. Drake, but turned it down.

From there, he was promoted to commander and picked sight unseen from among 50 candidates by Jean-Luc Picard as his first officer on the new Galaxy-class U.S.S. Enterprise; in fact, the two had not met until he signed aboard at Farpoint Station, after he was dropped off by the U.S.S. Hood.

Riker grew so satisfied with his assignment under Picard, who quickly dubbed him "Number One" according to old Terran naval parlance, that he twice turned down two more commands of his own: once to the frontier scout ship U.S.S. Aries in 2365, and again to the ill-fated U.S.S. Melbourne a year later, although he temporarily had a field promotion to captain during the Borg crisis of 2366-67 during Picard's abduction. Ironically, he likely would have died on the Melbourne during the Borg massacre at Wolf 359 and would not have been present to play a major role during the Enterprise's last-ditch attack.

Knowledgeable on legal issues, he was pressed into presenting Starfleet's case against Data's independence at Starbase 173 in 2365 and, two years later, defended first Crewman Tarses and then even Picard before Admiral Satie's inquiry in 2367. He was the first human to serve aboard a Federation-Klingon exchange program in 2365, where he showed a keen knowledge of their culture and became one of the few to obtain Picard's "surrender."

He had been given temporary command of the U.S.S. Excalibur in Picard's blockading fleet against Romulan involvement in the Klingon civil war of 2367-68, but Admiral Nechayev passed over him by placing Captain Jellico in command during Picard's abduction by the Cardassians in 2369. Their budding disagreements led to Riker being temporarily relieved of duty until he was called back by Jellico for Cardassian negotiations.

Riker's latter tour years on the Galaxy-class Enterprise were filled with more surprises. Aside from being drugged and made nearly insane by the Tilonians, captured and nearly killed by the xenophobic Malcorians on a first contact recon gone bad, abducted by solanagen-based aliens, and revealed for his role in the Pegasus incident, he discovered [*] a duplicate of himself created as a transporter fluke from the Nervala IV mission.

[*] Ironically, the two clashed in temperament, with the "found" Riker finding his own restless career on the Gandhi before resigning to join the Maquis rebels and his subsequent capture by Cardassians in a useless theft of the U.S.S. Defiant from DS-9.

Riker, meanwhile, again gave no thought to his own command and joined Picard and the other senior staff aboard the new Sovereign-class Enterprise namesake. Though the incident has been classified, Riker also has the satisfaction of having joined Chief Engineer LaForge in the cockpit of Zefram Cochrane's warp test vehicle Phoenix during efforts to repair temporal damage caused by Borg invaders in 2373.

Psychological Profile: Report of Ship's Counselor Deanna Troi

Although Riker has displayed a well-rounded personality and temperament throughout his rising command career, his mother's death when he was only 2 helped foster an acrimonious 15-year separation from his father at age 15, when he left home. He had deeply missed his mother, but came to loathe the distance his father erected between them as his own means of grief. Their relationship resorted to an ongoing competition in activities such as fishing trips, and formally manifested itself in the martial art of anbo-jyutsu as way to work out their problems. The two began a tentative rapprochement in 2365 during a surprise encounter, where Riker discovered his father had nearly died in a Tholian attack in 2253. The family history includes a veteran of the Terran American Civil War, Col. Thaddeus "Iron Boots" Riker, who was wounded as commander of the 102nd New York at the Battle of Pine Mountain, serving in Gen. W.T. Sherman's march to Atlanta in 1864; he was carried for two miles from the front lines or would not have survived.

Riker's knack for improvisation runs throughout his hobbies and interests as well. A master poker player and bluffer, he had learned the game during his brief stint on the U.S.S. Potemkin; his reputation won him the role as replacement Federation negotiator during the short-lived Barzan wormhole talks. He has also visited Quark's bar and casino on DS9, where in its first year of operation under Starfleet-Bajoran administration he was the only person to win a triple-down dabo.

He can play keyboards, but his favorite musical instrument is the trombone. He especially loves jazz and has played for numerous shipboard functions and concerts; he displays it in his quarters - having loaned his old boyhood instrument to Thomas Riker - and also displays a Risian horga'hn Picard once brought him, as well as a fishing reel. Under Dr. Crusher's direction, his acting talents have increased greatly since "Something for Breakfast" in 2369 until his riveting "Frame of Mind" performance only weeks later. Cooking is another hobby, thanks to the necessity of a father who hated to do it, and his language skills include basic Ferengi as well as Klingon. Generally, he claims to be inept at organizing his time off and - predictably - prefers to let events happen unplanned.

Riker has a strong libido and - aside from encounters made in the line of duty, such as on Angel I and Tilonia IV - has fostered several romantic relationships, including the enhanced holo-woman Minuet, the doomed assassin Yuta and colonizer Carmen Davila, and Soren of the normally androgynous J'naii, for whom he risked court-martial over Prime Directive charges. His encounters nearly cost him a murder sentence on Tanuga IV and, after a Risian resort visit, the Ktarian takeover of Starfleet through a mind-control device. Additionally, he and Ensign Ro engaged in a love/hate working relationship, especially exposed during a memory blanking incident in 2368, and he offered to speak in her behalf when she was presumed dead later that year. (See addendum below).

Despite his nominally robust outlook, Riker has been prone to short bouts of self-doubt regarding his perceived complacency toward ambition each time he debated and turned down his own ship command. His imposing physical presence has been an unintended impediment to effective communication with some in his command, especially junior officers, and he has taken steps to deal with it.

Medical File: Report by Beverly Crusher, M.D., CMO

Riker generally enjoys good health; an infectious plant on Surata IV proved nearly fatal but for a precise and direct neural-cortical therapy. Athletically, he still enjoys Parrises Squares, despite medical warnings; he also trains for the Klingon bat'tleh with sticks and studies in Worf's mok'bara classes. While he does not care for equine events he does indulge mountain climbing and fishing holo-programs, having grown up in the great outdoors of Earth's Alaska.

Psychological Profile Addendum by Beverly Crusher, M.D., CMO

(Due to the conflict of interest, this entry is being entered by the chief medical officer rather than ship's counselor, who has been personally involved with the subject of the report.)

Aside from his string of incomplete female relationships, Riker's major romance last involved Counselor Deanna Troi, who began calling him "imzadi," the native word for "beloved," after they met during his Betazed mission. He had last seen her there the day before he shipped out on the U.S.S. Potemkin in 2362, but it would be two years before they were reunited again as fellow officers on the U.S.S. Enterprise, unbeknownst to Picard. They had planned to get together six months after his departure, but the Nervala IV incident changed that; his early feelings for her at that time can still be seen in his twin "Thomas." Riker professed a warm friendship for Troi in later years that occasionally blossomed into romance, but they generally stayed platonic - although Worf's surprising courtship of her in 2370 seemed never to have settled well with him.

Personnel File Addendum: Report of Capt. Jean-Luc Picard
CONFIDENTIAL

On a personal level, I was heartened to find Riker commanding the refit Enterprise as captain in 20 years, but disturbed to discover that he and my chief security officer Worf had clashed over their affections for Deanna Troi along the future timeline shown to me by the Q entity in late 2370. Owing to the tentative nature of this "future," I chose to share these developments among the officers involved with the conviction that this future was not immovable, in the hope they can avoid the problem.