Charles Tucker III: Encyclopedia II - Charles Tucker III - Biography

Charles Tucker III - Biography

Charles 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.

While a very knowledgeable engineer, he can be rash and "illogical", a fact that early on caused friction between Tucker and Enterprise's Vulcan science officer, T'Pol. During the first year of Enterprise's mission, Tucker found himself coping with situations no Starfleet engineer had ever coped with, and was a key player in the vessel finally achieving its then-record breaking speed of Warp 5. Tucker also had to contend with a more dubious honor when he become the first pregnant human male, in the episode "Unexpected" (an event T'Pol continued to tease him about months later).

Tucker was also not against enjoying the occasional romantic liaison, including one with an exotic alien princess (as seen in the second season episode "Precious Cargo"). When challenged about these dalliances, Tucker's stock phrase was "I was a perfect gentleman."

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, he agreed to undergo Vulcan neuropressure treatments with T'Pol. Although the treatments required very intimate contact between the two, there was 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. 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 Trip's. Against Sim's objections, Archer ordered him to undergo the medical procedure to extract the needed cells in order to save Trip's life, even though this proved fatal to Sim. (The episode in which this occurs, "Similitude", is one of the most controversial in all of Star Trek history).

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 judgement). 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 Koss in an arranged marriage. Although T'Pol's mother encouraged Trip to express his feelings to her daughter, Trip chose not to do so. Later, following the annulment of her marriage to Koss, Trip considered becoming involved with her again, however T'Pol told him that she was not interested in reviving their relationship. In "Observer Effect", T'Pol expressed great concern for Trip, 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, Trip determined that his emotional 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, the Columbia (NX-02) under the command of Captain Erika Hernandez. Within two days of his 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 didn't apparently 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 Capt. Hernandez asking 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 Archer's chief engineer for a full decade, and prepared to transfer to one of the newly-built Warp 7-capable starships following the decommission of Enterprise in 2161, which was to coincide with the signing of the United Federation of Planets charter. The finale episode "These Are the Voyages ..." revealed that Trip 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 Trip had to reassure T'Pol that the decommissioning of Enterprise and their reassignment to different vessels, would not have any bearing on their friendship.

During a brief mission prior to the decommissioning of Enterprise, Tucker gave up his life in order to prevent Archer from being killed by a group of aliens that had invaded the ship. He was the only member of the original NX-01 command crew not to survive to see Archer sign the charter of the United Federation of Planets.

• Note: Some events regarding the NX-01 presented in the finale "These Are The Voyages...", including the above-mentioned brief mission, are presented as a holographic representation. This has led to speculation by a few fans that occurances in the episode are not accurate. Although, Troi, one of the characters who goes to the hologram notes Tucker's death indicating that it happened in history and that the holosuite's images are indeed history.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Biography", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki