Charles "Trip" Tucker III (short for “Triple”,
since he is the third generation of his family to be named Charles
Tucker), played by
Connor Trinneer,
is a
fictional character in the
television series Star Trek: Enterprise.
Tucker was the chief engineer on the
Enterprise, and also briefly served
as chief engineer aboard the
Columbia.
Biography
Tucker first met
Jonathan Archer
about a decade prior to the launch of
Enterprise when the two worked
together on an early
warp 2 prototype
vessel utilizing the warp engine designed by Archer's father, Henry
Archer.
While a knowledgeable engineer, Tucker can be rash and “illogical”,
a fact that early on causes friction between him and
Enterprise’s
Vulcan
science officer,
T'Pol. During the first year
of
Enterprise's mission, he finds himself coping with
situations no
Starfleet engineer has ever
coped with, and is a key player in the vessel finally achieving its
then-record breaking speed of warp 5. Tucker also has to contend
with a more dubious honor when he
becomes the first human male to
become pregnant.
Tucker also enjoys occasional romantic relationships, including one
with an exotic alien princess in the episode "
Precious Cargo." When
challenged about these relationships, his stock phrase is, "I was a
perfect gentleman."
The destruction of his home town and the death of his sister
Elizabeth in the
Xindi attack on
Earth left Tucker emotionally scarred and
unable to sleep without experiencing vivid
nightmares. At the request of Dr.
Phlox, Tucker agreed to undergo Vulcan
neuro-pressure treatments with T'Pol. Although the treatments
required very intimate contact between the two, there were no signs
at first of anything beyond a professional relationship developing
between the officers.
At a crucial point during the Xindi mission, Tucker suffered a
potentially fatal injury, and the only way to save his life was to
create a
clone in order to harvest needed
brain cells. The clone, named "
Sim",
grew to adulthood over only a few days, and many of the crew became
fond of him, in particular T'Pol, who actually kissed Sim after he
confessed to being attracted to T'Pol — but adding that he was
uncertain whether those feelings were his own or Tucker's. Against
Sim's objections, Archer ordered him to undergo the medical
procedure to extract the needed cells in order to save Tucker's
life, even though this proved fatal to Sim.
As the Xindi mission progressed, Tucker found himself growing
closer to T'Pol, and the two briefly became lovers, an event T'Pol
later dismissed as an experiment, though the real cause was a
side-effect of her addiction to the substance Trellium D, which
affected her emotional judgment. Later, however, the two found
themselves continuing a somewhat clandestine relationship.
Tucker realized he was in love with T'Pol during a trip to Vulcan
with her after the Xindi mission, during which she decided to marry
a Vulcan named Koss in an arranged marriage. Although T'Pol's
mother encouraged Tucker to express his feelings to her daughter,
he chose not to do so. Later, following T'Pol's annulment of her
marriage, Tucker considered becoming involved with her again;
however, T'Pol told him that she was not interested in reviving
their relationship. In the episode "
Observer Effect", T'Pol
expressed great concern for Tucker, suggesting her feelings for him
remained strong, despite her claims to the contrary.
In 2154, during a mission to prevent a
Romulan automated marauder from starting a war,
Tucker determined that his attraction to T'Pol was negatively
affecting his ability to do his job. After the mission, he
requested, and received, a transfer to the new warp 5 starship,
Columbia, under the
command of
Captain Erika Hernandez. Within two days of Tucker's
assignment to the vessel, several of
Columbia's
engineering crew request transfers. During this period, Tucker
began experiencing vivid
daydreams
involving T'Pol, not realizing that she was actually
unintentionally communicating with him via a newly discovered
mental ability that was unlocked when she began performing mind
melds. In the episode "
Bound", it was revealed that
Tucker and T'Pol had somehow psychically bonded when they had made
love a year earlier, although this link apparently didn't manifest
itself right away.
During the events of the episode "
Divergence", Tucker was
temporarily reassigned to
Enterprise in order to
facilitate repairs following a run-in with the
Klingons. He subsequently submitted a request to
return to
Enterprise full-time, a request that was
presumably granted. Not long after, Tucker and T'Pol reestablished
their relationship.
Tucker served as
Enterprise's chief engineer for a full
decade, and prepared to transfer to one of the newly-built warp
7-capable starships following the decommissioning of
Enterprise in 2161, which was to coincide with the signing
of the
Federation
Charter. The series finale "
These Are the Voyages..." revealed
that Tucker and T'Pol ended their romantic relationship at some
point after the events of "
Terra Prime", for reasons
as yet unrevealed. Despite this, the two remained close, and Tucker
had to reassure T'Pol that the decommissioning of
Enterprise and their reassignment to different vessels
would not have any bearing on their friendship.
In the last episode, when Shran's former associates track down
Enterprise and board the ship, they demand that Archer take them to
Shran, but the captain refuses. The aliens are about to kill
Archer, so Trip, thinking fast, tells them that he will take them
to Shran. When Archer protests, the aliens knock him out. Trip
leads the aliens into what appears to be a harmless utility closet
— he tells them it's simply a com station and he's going to get
Shran to come to them. Trip tells them he just needs to connect a
couple of things, but when he brings a pair of conduits together, a
massive explosion erupts, taking out both Trip and the aliens. Trip
is critically wounded; despite Phlox's best efforts, he dies. In a
July 2005 interview, Berman revealed that had the series been
renewed, Trip Tucker would not have been killed off.
Personal life
In 2153,
Tucker lost his sister, Elizabeth, in the Xindi attack on Earth
which destroyed his hometown of Panama City, Florida
. In a first season episode, "
Fusion", he revealed he had a
brother whom he practiced "dancing with", although we never saw
him.
His
parents survived the attack and later relocated to Mississippi
; they were invited to attend the signing of the
UFP treaty in 2161, and
kept their promise to attend even after Tucker's death.
T'Pol requested the opportunity to meet them
at this occasion, but it's not known if she did. Little is known of
Trip's parents except that Archer described them as being
"eccentric."
At least three offspring have — directly or indirectly — been
linked to Tucker:
- In 2151, Tucker was accidentally impregnated by a Xyrillian female, but had the unborn fetus transplanted into another Xyrillian before it
was born. The offspring was not genetically related to Tucker as
Xyrillian reproduction only utilizes the mother's genes. No further information about this offspring has
been revealed. ("Unexpected")
- In an alternate timeline in the episode "E²", at some point following an
incident that sent Enterprise back to the year 2037,
Tucker and T'Pol marry and have a son, Lorian, whose fate after the
restoration of the timeline has yet to be revealed.
- In 2155, in the episode "Demons", Tucker learns that he
has a six-month-old daughter, the mother apparently being T'Pol. It
was revealed that the daughter was cloned using Tucker and T'Pol's
DNA, which was stolen from Enterprise
by an infiltrator working for Terra
Prime. The cloning procedure was improperly executed, however,
and the daughter — whom T'Pol named "Elizabeth" after Tucker's
sister — died soon after being rescued. The child's death left
Tucker emotionally devastated as T'Pol — herself emotionally
drained — tried to comfort him.
Trip is knowledgeable about the ancient
board
game Go, and actually has a Go
board in his cabin (he is seen playing the game with the title
character of the episode "
Cogenitor").
Alternate timelines
In the alternate timeline seen in the episode "
Twilight", Tucker becomes
captain of
Enterprise
following the incapacitation of
Jonathan
Archer and
T'Pol's resignation from
Starfleet. He is killed when
Enterprise's bridge is destroyed shortly before Archer
resets the timeline.
As stated above, the episode "
E²" takes place in another
altered timeline, except for the fact that Lorian is the son of
T'Pol and Tucker. Little else is revealed of the alternate Trip
except that he is long deceased (the cause apparently was a tragic
one, but not specified in the episode) by the time Lorian's version
of
Enterprise rendezvous with its namesake.
Mirror Universe
In the
Mirror Universe, Tucker is
the chief engineer of the
ISS
Enterprise, but is badly disfigured due to exposure
from heavy
delta ray radiation emanating
from his
Enterprise's
engines. This version of Tucker has an ongoing sexual relationship
with the Mirror
T'Pol, who once exploited this
relationship in her attempt to sabotage
Enterprise; she
used a
mind meld to implant a
post-hypnotic suggestion in Tucker's mind. It is implied this isn't
the first time she has used him in this way. Tucker is subsequently
tortured in the
agony booth, but
vehemently denies any wrongdoing, insisting that he has always been
loyal. This version of Tucker, along with much of the ISS
Enterprise crew, travels to the
USS Defiant - which had been
discovered in the Mirror Universe - and tries to get the ship
working to further the Mirror
Jonathan
Archer's attempt to take over the
Terran Empire. Tucker successfully foils a
plot by the mirror
Phlox to
sabotage key systems aboard
Defiant.
Novels
In the
framing story of the
Enterprise novel,
Last Full Measure, officially released in May 2006 but
available for purchase in April, it is revealed that Tucker did not
actually die in "
These Are the
Voyages...", but survived and lived to be over 120 years of age
(Tucker meets the young
James T.
Kirk and his family). The details of
this plot point were revealed in the novel
The Good That Men
Do (written, as was
Last Full Measure, by
Andy Mangels and
Michael A. Martin).
In
The Good That Men Do, Tucker becomes impatient to do
something about the coming
Romulan threat to
Earth, even though
Starfleet has ordered
Enterprise to return home to bolster
the upcoming formation of the Coalition of Planets (a precursor to
the
United Federation of
Planets).
Tucker's crewmate,
Malcolm Reed, puts
him in touch with Harris, Reed's contact within
Section 31. Tucker agrees to an undercover
mission into Romulan territory to find and neutralize the Romulans'
new warp 7 engine, which is faster than any other warp drive in
existence and would undoubtedly endanger the whole quadrant. He is
successful, but in the process he learns that
Vulcans and
Romulans were once one species. Tucker reluctantly
agrees to remain officially "dead", lest this secret become public
and thereby endanger the newly formed Coalition. Also, the novel
suggests that Tucker's extended lifespan is partly due to the
genetic engineering he receives in order to pass as a
Romulan.
As with most
Star Trek books,
this novel's canon status is debatable.
See also
References
- TrekToday - Berman Bothered By 'These Are the Voyages...'
Criticism
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