Hello all, this is the personnel file series where we look into the canon of a character from Star
Trek, before delving into the extra content such as books to flesh out any missing gaps
where it does not necessarily contradict with the lore. In this case however,
the life and death of Charles “Trip” Tucker the third is a little messy in his later life,
but we’ll get to that when we get to it. For now, let’s look at his timeline,
beginning with his birth in 2121 to Charles and Elaine Tucker. He was born in Panama City, Florida
and had a sister, Elizabeth and a brother, Albert. He was named after his grandfather
and father, hence “the Third” part of his name, which also earned him the nickname, Trip.
He went to Bayshore elementary. And had childhood ambitions of being a starship captain,
while his father wanted him to be an engineer and mother, an architect.
However as he grew, he idolised Emory Erikson as the inventor and refiner of the Starfleet
transporter which helped him choose to be an engineer. In his early years, Trip owned a Car,
and tinkered with as many machines and devices as he could, dismantling them to learn and his early
job involved repairing boat engines. In 2139, he applied for Starfleet
and was accepted at the age of 18, engineering division. He specialised in
warp theory and was soon promoted to an ensign. By 2140, he was working under Victor Brodesser
as a maintenance engineer on his Daedalus Project to create a cascading Ion warp drive.
This was a failed experiment, but Trip had noted and raised concerns on the engine’s performance.
Presumably this insight got him noted and he was soon reassigned to the Warp-5 program.
Presumably, much of his engineering training was “hands-on” with active projects and in 2143,
he was promoted to Lieutenant. That is some seriously quick advancement,
but hey Early Starfleet was looking for talent. This year he was part of the Warp-2 prototype
project under Captain Jefferies when the NX-Alpha was destroyed in a testing
accident. This year he met Commander Jonathan Archer and the two became fast friends.
After the breaking of the Warp 2 barrier, he continued to work on the project for some time,
but eventually was reassigned as an Orbital Engineer over the next 7 years.
In 2150, his friend, now Captain Archer requested Tucker as chief engineer for his new command
in he accepted. In 2151, he was promoted to Commander and assigned as chief
engineer to the Enterprise NX-01 as one of Starfleet’s most qualified warp specialists.
This year, he experienced an… issue with a Xyrillian engineer when he became the
incubator for one of their young. The infant was returned, but highlighted the need for
certain protocols when First Contact was made. That year he was also exposed to and learned
quantum engineering beyond current Starfleet understanding through the Temporal Agent Daniels.
In 2152, he was stranded with an Arkonian, and kept the former
aggressor alive through the ordeal. He also caused a diplomatic incident
with the Vissian cogenitor, when he attempted to incite them to seize individuality, despite
their place the Vissian society. While acting in an attempt to right a societal wrong, it was
another culture’s issue to deal with and placed Starfleet in a difficult diplomatic position.
In 2153, the Xindi attacked Earth and he lost his sister when their test weapon cut through Florida.
To help with the stress, loss and sleepless nights, he was prescribed Vulcan Neropressure by
Doctor Phlox to help with psychological issues. During the Enterprise’s mission in the Delphic
Expanse, he generated warp theory equations that could work within the altered space of the area.
He was rendered comatose by nucleonic particle contamination and a Mimetic simbiot
was created as a compatible tissue donor. That year he also led what was technical a
mutiny against a compromised Captain Archer, but considering the captain
was indeed not his usual self, it was classified as a lawful reliving of duty.
He was present for the time travel incident to stop the Na’khul in 1944.
In 2154, he was killed by a silicon based virus, but he was revived by Organians.
Memories of this experience were erased however. He also created a telepresence unit for the
Enterprise to combat the Romulan Drone ship and later in the year accepted a transfer to
the Columbia NX-02 as chief engineer. This went through, but in an incident with the Warp Core of
the NX-01, he transferred back to the Enterprise to fix it before reassuming his old position.
In 2155, there was the incident with Tera Prime and their creation of the Vulcan-Human
hybrid child, “Elizabeth”. Sadly, the child died due to poor cloning techniques used.
He continued to operate as the chief engineer on the Enterprise until 2161 when the Enterprise
NX-01 was to be decommissioned with the founding of the United Federation of Planets.
However he was killed in a self-rigged plasma conduit explosion to save the life of Captain
Archer before this could happen. This is where the canon storyline ends, but apocrypha chose a
different fate for him. So let’s explore that. The 2161 date of death was actually a cover up
based partly on the true events and made the official storyline, one that would go
on to be experienced by Commander Riker in the form of a holodeck recreation in the future.
In reality, this incident occurred in early 2155 and his death was faked by Section 31 who
required his expertise. The Romulan Star Empire was close to creating a Warp-7 engine and he was
selected for his experiences to deal with it. He underwent facial and medical alteration of
his blood on Adigeon Prime to pass as a Romulan. Section 31 knew of the
Romulan-Vulcan connection but kept it secret to preserve the fledgling Coalition of Planets.
During the course of his mission, he was placed on the Vulcan ship, the Kiri-Kin-Tha
and recruited into the V’Shar Vulcan security service to continue his work for a different
secret service organisation. He was then later captured by Romulans and assigned a mission by
Admiral Valdore to locate Romulan dissidents on Ejhoi Ormiin and take out their Warp 7 program.
During complications on his missions, he spent 2 years travelling at near-light speeds,
without a warp drive, which caused time dilation so he only experienced two weeks.
In 2160 he returned to Coalition space and finally had his appearance restored where
he took part in stopping Terra Prime terrorism incidents with Section 31.
Throughout 2162, he continued to work alongside Section 31 and supplied Admiral Archer with
information as discreetly as he could, but Trip chose to remain with Section 31
because he considered himself in too deep and too changed by his experiences.
In 2164 he undertook a mission to Sauria to prevent the dictator Maltuvis and in 2165,
he adopted the cover identity of Phillip Collier during the Ware crisis. He was assigned as advisor
and temporary chief engineer to the USS Pioneer NCC-63 under Captain Malcolm Reed.
In 2165, he travelled to Alpha Centauri and met with the immortal “Flint” to help establish a
new cover identity and get out from Section 31’s operations. He had cosmetic alterations to hide
his identity and took on the name Michael Kenmore. He eventually moved back to Vulcan with T’Pol
and had two children with her, T’Mir and Lorian. This was downplayed and not common knowledge,
with T’Pol pretending the children were from her previous marriage to Koss.
He was still alive by 2238, making him 117 years old. His ultimate fate is
unknown. There existed a Tucker Memorial Building on Starfleet headquarters, which functioned as
the office for the Starfleet Corps of Engineers. In terms of interests, there is of course a myriad
of technological intrigues for him based on his profession. Both out of professional curiosity
and personal, Tucker is unlikely to pass up an opportunity to get hands on with alien or
unfamiliar technology, especially if it is beyond Starfleet levels. He has the sort of practical
mind that can easily construct and destruct almost anything, and even if he doesn’t understand it,
he can mimic and generally recreate something. Clearly Starfleet recognised the technological
savant in him, as according to his record, he was almost instantly placed in positions where
he would benefit Starfleet, despite still being at the academy. However, technical tinkering is
not his only interest as he enjoys scuba diving since childhood and has a fondness for movies with
a preference on the mid-20th century selection. He took it upon himself to host a Enterprise “Movie
Night” but his choices were often drawn from his personal preference, to the chagrin of the crew.
Trip is generally hospitable, curious and complimentary, but can bristle and
become confrontational when his ethical values or technical skill are questioned.
He frequently becomes emotionally invested in people and projects, which can cloud
his judgement, giving him a biased opinion. This can lead him into frequent situations
where he approaches things from a very human perspective, with lots of assumptions but this
was often an issue with many early humans, as a relatively new species to the galactic scene.
Trip remains collected under pressure and capable of devising on the fly improvisations.
His disposition shifted a lot with the death of his sister and he became far more reserved
and stressed. Trauma and grief interrupted his sleeping, which led him to become more irritable
and as an extroverted character, he seldom held back on expressing himself, for good or ill.
His loyalty to his friends is based on respect and repaid in kind, which ensured that he
was surrounded by support at most times, even befriending the often unapproachable Malcolm Reed.
He developed a relationship with T’Pol and although it was brief
and surrounded by confusion on both parts, it had the foundations for a real relationship.
The apocrypha brings back Tucker as a secret agent and as outlandish as that sounds
it is played from that angle with him being lousy liar and frequently at odds with his
missions and the morally compromising actions that they may entail. After six years of being
at it however, surrounded by Romulans and other intelligence services, he eventually becomes far
more paranoid and proficient at falsifying information, combining his natural flair for
improvisation to become adept at spy-craft. Alongside the classified nature of his work,
it was this change in his personality that saw him maintain his official label as “killed in
action”, finding it too challenging to pick up where he left off before 2155.
Eventually, he gets his happily ever after with T’Pol on Vulcan, even if the road to
get there was full or twists, betrayals and the long erosion of his extroverted friendliness.
So I have a question, would you rather have Tucker survive as a Section 31 agent, even if it meant
putting him through events that would challenge everything that made him, him, or is having him
die to protect his crew and friends in 2161 a better approach. There’s an argument for both,
I think, although I’m glad he finds some measure of happiness in the books in the end.
Some Charles Trip Tucker essential episodes include “The Forgotten”,
which sees him struggling with the Xindi and his sister’s loss, “Shuttlepod One” is generally a
good episode and has him stranded with Reed, a complete foil to his Trip’s lighter personality,
and I’m actually going to suggest the intro story of “Broken Bow” as it
pretty well showcases the early attitudes to exploration humanity had,
reflecting their own experiences onto other cultures from a lack of well…
experience yet. This is something that Tucker continually struggles with throughout the show.
As one of the main cast, he is in practically every episode at some point, with dialogue and
actions pretty in keeping with a consistent character. So what else are some quintessential
tucker moments? I enjoy his response at being asked by elementary kids to
elaborate on where poop goes on a Starship. Thanks for watching this Personnel file, I’ve been Ric
and is it possible for me to do one of these without noticing a typo at the end? Goodbye!