Trip Tucker - Biography

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 using 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." He is statistically the greatest charmer aboard the Enterprise and he has gone down in Star Trek history as the first human male ever to be pregnant and the first human male ever to be in a relationship with a member of another species. (Before Trip, there was a woman who fell in love with a Vulcan in disguise when he, along with one of T'Pol's ancestors, crashed on planet Earth while studying the first man-made satellite.) Even though he had multiple romances that were one episode long, his true love was T'Pol.

On the first episode of the third season Earth was attacked by an alien race called the Xindi. The attack was made by a prototype WMD that struck Florida and caused the deaths of 7 million people, including Tucker's sister. This 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. Fellow officers (especially Travis) were suspicious but Trip denied all their conclusions.

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. In a July 2005 interview, Berman revealed that had the series been renewed, Trip would have survived; and he and T'Pol would be back together.