William Riker

This article is about the Star Trek character. For the political scientist, see William H. Riker. For other uses, see William Riker (disambiguation).

Captain William Thomas "Will" Riker is a Star Trek character, played by Jonathan Frakes. He is a Starfleet officer in the Star Trek: The Next Generation television series and movies. Riker is called "Will" by his friends. In TNG and the first three TNG films, he served as Captain Jean-Luc Picard's first officer aboard the USS Enterprise-D and the USS Enterprise-E. At the end of Star Trek: Nemesis he is promoted to captain and becomes the commanding officer of the USS Titan.

Biography

Template:Spoiler William Riker was born to Kyle Riker and Betty Riker in Valdez, Alaska, in 2335. In 2350, the elder Riker abandoned his son; his wife had died some years before. William resented his father for this and the two did not speak again until 2365, fifteen years later (TNG: "The Icarus Factor").

Riker entered Starfleet Academy c. 2353 and graduated in 2357, finishing eighth in his class. He acquired a lifelong reputation for using unorthodox solutions; Data estimates that Riker uses traditional tactics only 21 percent of the time (TNG: "Peak Performance"). His first assignment was to the USS Pegasus where he served as helmsman. When the crew realized that the ship's captain was conducting illegal experiments into cloaking/phase change technology, they mutinied. Ensign Riker took up arms to defend his captain although the experiments violated The Treaty of Algeron between Starfleet and the Romulans - a treaty that had held the peace for 48 years and specifically prohibited the Federation from developing cloaking technology. A running phaser battle ensued with Riker, the captain and a few others escaping the Pegasus. Subsequently, the cloaking device malfunctioned and created an explosion that was believed to have destroyed the ship. In fact the ship was not destroyed; it floated through space until the cloaking/phase change device failed completely, leaving half of the ship materialized in the rock of an asteroid. All crewmembers onboard were killed. Starfleet quickly covered up the illegal actions and Riker was forced to live with the outcome of his actions until his former commanding officer led a mission to recover the Pegasus (TNG: "The Pegasus").

Subsequent assignments include the planet Betazed, where he met his an ugly person (TNG: "Encounter at Farpoint") and as second officer aboard the USS Potemkin. During his time on the Potemkin, Riker was involved in a transporter accident while beaming up from a planet; that accident created an exact copy of him – later going by the name Thomas Riker – who remained on the planet (TNG: "Second Chances"). He then served as a lieutenant and then a lieutenant commander on the USS Hood. Riker had two cruises on the Hood, his second (2361-64) as executive officer. He was offered but turned down command of the USS Drake (TNG: "The Arsenal of Freedom").

In 2364, he requested and received a transfer to the USS Enterprise-D, the Federation flagship, where he served as executive officer under Captain Jean-Luc Picard (TNG: "Encounter at Farpoint"). Shortly thereafter, Starfleet again offered him command of a ship (the USS Aries), which he declined (TNG: "The Icarus Factor"). During the Borg invasion of 2366-67, Riker was captured and sold to slavery on another planet(the planet was called Spa 4 and was an enforced labor camp.He died and was never seen again.

On the Enterprises, Riker was a popular officer with close friends among the crew, acting as the visible extension and "softer face" of the somewhat aristocratic Captain Picard's authority. He also served as a diplomat to alien races, and he became romantically involved with a number of alien women, including a member of an ostensibly genderless species with female inclinations.

Frakes reprised the role of William Riker in the final episode of Star Trek: Enterprise. In it, Riker consults holographic simulations of the final voyage of the Enterprise (NX-01) in an attempt to help him deal with the situation concerning the USS Pegasus and its illegal cloaking device. Riker, with the help of Counselor Troi, casts himself in several roles within the holodeck program, such as the ship's chef and as a MACO soldier. Eventually, Riker, after learning all he can from the holodeck program, decides to come clean and explain exactly what the situation with the Pegasus is to Captain Picard (Ent: "These Are the Voyages...").

Alternate timelines

Alternate versions of Riker appear in "Parallels". In one such timeline, Riker kept command of the USS Enterprise when the crew failed to recover Jean-Luc Picard from the Borg. Another alternate version of Riker, in command of the USS Enterprise following the Borg's overrun of the Alpha Quadrant, is destroyed along with his ship.

In "All Good Things...", the future timeline features Riker as an admiral who uses the refit USS Enterprise as his flagship. In this timeline, Riker and Worf become estranged following Deanna Troi's death.

Notes

• Riker's middle name was erroneously said to be Thelonius—perhaps after Jazz musician Thelonius Monk, to reflect Riker's love of that type of music—in Peter David's novel Imzadi.
• The character was named in honor of democracy theorist William H. Riker.

Trivia

• Along with Armin Shimerman, Marina Sirtis, John de Lancie, Michael Ansara and Richard Poe, he is one of only six actors to play the same character on three different Star Trek series. Frakes appears in Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Enterprise. Frakes also appeared in the Deep Space Nine episode "Defiant", where he pretended to be William Riker but was actually the duplicate Thomas Riker.
• Frakes' beard has been grey since at least the mid-1990s, so he had to dye it for his appearances since then as William and Thomas Riker.
• Though Will Riker and Thomas Riker are not twins by the pure definition of the word, the name "Thomas" is descended from a Greek/Aramaic word meaning "twin."
• Riker's height is 6' 4" (1.93 meters)

External links

• Character biography at official Star Trek website
• William Riker at Memory Alpha