Commander Charles Tucker, III
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Name: Charles Tucker, III
Rank: Commander
Position: Chief Engineer/Second Officer Enterprise(NX-01)
Age: 258 (appears 33)

Starfleet History
2139: Enters Starfleet
2143: Lieutenant assigned to Captain Jefferies' engineering team
2151: Assigned to Enterprise as Chief Engineer
2380: Named Second Officer

Personal History
Born in 2121, Charles Tucker III grew up in Panama City, Florida. He was born with a birthmark on the right side of his body. Tucker acquired the nickname "Trip" due to the fact that he was the third (the "triple") Tucker to be named "Charles", after his father and grandfather. As a child, Tucker read The War of the Worlds with his mother. Growing up, he always wanted to be a starship captain, but his father thought he should be an engineer while his mother thought he should be an architect. At the age of seven, Tucker's mother bought him a copy of Emory Erickson: Father of the Transporter, and he made her read it to him every night for a month. It was his childhood admiration for Emory Erickson that made him finally decide that he wanted to be an engineer. As Tucker later recalled, he was extremely skilled at taking things apart, but not so good at putting them back together. Tucker used to take his younger sister, Elizabeth, to a movie theater near their house. He later remembered that she would "scream like a banshee" if he didn't take her. Tucker once put a garden snake in his sister's doll house, and his family once had a large dog named Bedford. On several occasions, Tucker went on camping trips with his friends. They would spend half the night looking up at the stars and wondering what Earth's sun would look like from a distant planet. During his early childhood, Tucker attended Bayshore Elementary, where he attended his first dance. He knew before the event that Melissa Lyles, a girl who he had a crush on, would be there, and spent weeks practicing dance steps with his brother in preparation for the event. On the night of the dance, Melissa wore a red dress, and Tucker believed she was the prettiest girl there. He desperately wanted to ask her to dance with him, but he was not courageous enough to approach her. Tucker caught the girl looking at him a few times, but he eventually ended up standing in a corner with his friends. Twenty years later, he still regretted not asking the girl to dance. In Tucker's tenth grade biology class, a Vulcan scientist who the children referred to as "Mr. Velik" came to teach the class about life on other worlds. Tucker, who had never seen a Vulcan up close before, was terrified of the teacher. Velik often reminded his students, "Challenge your preconceptions or they'll challenge you." Tucker went on to associate this advice with his memory of Velik. According to Tucker, his grandmother taught him to never judge a species by their eating habits. His personal favorite food was pan-fried catfish with hushpuppies. Tucker had no allergies that he knew of.

Trip was self-taught, having learned engineering from working on boat engines. Tucker first joined Starfleet in 2139, at which time he lived in Sausalito, a few blocks from the Vulcan Compound. He subsequently recalled that he "got into a lot of trouble" at Starfleet Training Command. By 2143, Tucker was a member of Captain Jefferies' engineering team, with the rank of lieutenant. After the destruction of warp-2 prototype vessel NX-Alpha in that year, Tucker met Commander Jonathan Archer. He later assisted Archer and A.G. Robinson in stealing a backup warp-2 prototype vessel, the NX-Beta, in an attempt to prove to Starfleet Command that the engine design was sound. Shortly thereafter, Tucker taught Archer how to scuba dive off the coast of Florida. Tucker did his survival training during two weeks in the Australian Outback in a group that included Archer. Additional Starfleet training simulations familiarized Tucker with mind-altering agents. In 2147, Tucker was on Titan as part of the Omega training mission, together with Archer. A malfunction with Tucker's environmental suit occurred on Titan's surface, so Tucker desperately tried to take off his helmet, but Archer saved his life by preventing him from doing so.

By 2151, Tucker held the rank of commander. Renowned as a gifted orbital engineer, he first served aboard the starship Enterprise NX-01 as chief engineer. He experienced existence in a weightless environment when Ensign Travis Mayweather showed him the "sweet spot" on Enterprise. Aboard the starship, one of Tucker's self-appointed responsibilities was overseeing movie night. Tucker took part in the efforts to return the Klingon Klaang to his homeworld with information that could avert a civil war, and he and the rest of the crew came into conflict with the Suliban Cabal, who were attempting to ignite a war on orders from a strange humanoid from the future. The mission was successful. Tucker was part of the away team that became infected by the pollen of the plant life on a deserted planet Enterprise was exploring. The pollen caused paranoid and delusional behavior in the away team; Tucker thought that each member was trying to kill him. In the course of first contact with the Xyrillians, Tucker boarded their ship to fix their engines, an experience he at first found too strange. During his stay on their ship, however, he developed a relationship with Ah'len, an engineer. After the ship left, Tucker discovered he was pregnant. Although he had no sexual encounter, a game he and Ah'len played that enabled them to read each other's minds may have served as a medium to transfer genetic material. Doctor Phlox said the embryo was actually not Tucker's child, but that he was simply serving as a host. When the ship was tracked down, the embryo was successfully transferred to another host. While visiting a Vulcan monastery on P'Jem, Tucker, along with Captain Archer and Sub-Commander T'Pol, became involved in a dispute between the Andorians and Vulcans. He was held hostage along with the others until they were rescued by Lieutenant Malcolm Reed. It was discovered that the monastery was a front for a spy station operated by the Vulcans. Tucker gave a tour of Enterprise to a group of Borothan pilgrims that included Silik, who was in disguise and tried to sabotage the ship. On a mission to Coridan, Tucker and Reed attempted to rescue Archer and T'Pol from rebel forces, but were captured themselves. They were freed by the Andorian Shran and his men, who helped Tucker and Reed rescue T'Pol and Archer. Tucker and Reed became stranded in a shuttlepod after they mistakenly believed Enterprise was destroyed when they found debris at the coordinates where they were supposed to meet the ship. In reality, the debris was from another ship, the crew of which Enterprise had rescued and was transporting back to their planet. With their air running out, Tucker jettisoned the impulse engines as a flare, which Enterprise saw and thus was able to come to their rescue. The Ferengi hijacked Enterprise after rendering the crew unconscious. Tucker, who was in a sealed compartment, was not affected. He woke T'Pol, and both worked to play the Ferengi against each other, trapping them and regaining control of the ship. Tucker was captured by a symbiotic creature which had stowed away on Enterprise. The creature integrated Tucker's nervous system along with other crewmembers it captured to its own system, but after the crew learned that the creature wished to return home to reunite with its main host, it released Tucker and the others. Tucker, as part of an away team to salvage an abandoned ship on a planet, found that there was a settlement there. They were called the Kantare; after their ship crashed, they were stranded on the planet. Tucker became romantically involved with Liana, but it was discovered that the settlement was a hologram created by Liana's father, Ezral, to keep his daughter company. Tucker and Archer, after helping to repair Zobral's ship, were invited to visit his village. Zobral was really a rebel fighting against an oppressive government, and when the village was attacked, Tucker and Archer became stranded in a vast desert until they were rescued with help from Zobral. While on shore leave on Risa, Tucker and Reed were robbed by two beautiful aliens who turned out to be morphs using their disguises to lure their victims. When Enterprise was captured by Silik and the Suliban, and Archer was transported to the future by Daniels, Tucker helped retake engineering, restore the timeline, and return Archer to his own time. Required to build quantum beacons, Tucker was forced to learn quantum engineering at a level beyond his training.

While attempting to discover the powers of an automated repair station Enterprise had entered, Tucker was transported off the station back to Enterprise in an effort to stop the investigation. He later discovered that the station was using humanoid lifeforms to power its computer. Tucker was affected by a black hole's radiation, and became obsessed with fixing Archer's captain's chair. Tucker trained miners in self-defense on a planet the Klingons were pillaging. He befriended a young child on the planet, and gave him a tour of Enterprise. Tucker rescued Archer and Reed from a planet that had given them a death sentence, and modified a Suliban cell ship with a cloaking device in order to save them. While doing so, however, he accidentally "cloaked" his right forearm. Tucker saved an alien princess, Kaitaama, from kidnappers, and had a brief romantic relationship with her during the rescue. Tucker became stranded on a barren planet with an Arkonian who had tried to shoot his shuttle down. At first, they tried to kill each other, but realized that the only way they could survive was to cooperate with each other. Zho'Kaan's dehydration was causing cellular breakdown, which made using the transporter not an option. Tucker refused to leave him, and cared for him until a modified Arkonian shuttle rescued them. When three aliens who boarded Enterprise warned that a deadly neutronic wavefront was quickly approaching and the crew needed to take shelter to be protected from the storm's deadly radiation, Tucker suggested that the one heavily-shielded place on board that might suffice for the eight-day ordeal was the cramped quarters of the catwalk, the maintenance shaft that ran the length of each nacelle. While they were in the catwalk, alien intruders attempted to steal Enterprise, and Tucker helped drive them off. During a stop at a medical conference, Tucker met Feezal, Phlox's wife. Feezal became attracted to him and tried to seduce him, and when Tucker told Phlox about this, he was told by Phlox that he should have taken advantage of Feezal's offer. While assembling a neutron microscope Feezal delivered, Tucker bragged he could put back together just about any equipment he had ever met. Later, Tucker and Reed discovered that a derelict ship Enterprise salvaged was from the future. Even the few papers he read on spatial geometry could not explain the ship's dimensions. While investigating an alien ship, Tucker's body was invaded by an alien wisp that began to control his actions. Their plan was to take over the bodies of the crew and steal Enterprise. The Vulcans and Andorians were again involved in a dispute over a planet, Weytahn. While Archer tried to mediate the dispute, Tucker, commanding Enterprise, stopped the ships of both sides from engaging in battle when he steered Enterprise between the two fleets, giving Archer time to settle the dispute. Tucker and Archer were unjustly sentenced to the penal colony of Canamar. A prisoner, Kuroda, took over the ship and enlisted Tucker and Archer's help in escaping. His plan was to transport off the ship to another he was meeting, and crash the ship along with the other prisoners and guards. Tucker and Archer foiled his plan, and were rescued by Enterprise. Tucker led an away team to rescue three Denobulan geologists from the planet Xantoras. The government had ordered all aliens to leave their world immediately, and Tucker had to persuade the geologists to leave. Tucker's encounter with the Vissians proved costly. The Vissians used a cogenitor, a third gender, to reproduce; these cogenitors were treated as an inferior class with no rights. After meeting with a cogenitor, Tucker found that it had the same mental capabilities as the other Vissians, and took it upon himself to convince the cogenitor he met to fight for her rights. He also secretly taught the cogenitor how to read, play go, and educated it about its rights as an individual. The cogenitor chose the name "Charles" for itself, in honor of Tucker. Later, it asked for asylum on Enterprise, which, after several meetings, was denied. Archer finally decided that to grant asylum would ruin any chance of Starfleet making successful trade with the Vissians. Several days later, Tucker was informed that the cogenitor had killed itself, and blamed himself for the suicide. Tucker was devastated to learn that his sister, Elizabeth, was killed in the Xindi attack on Earth.

Tucker became bitter after his sister's death, and was full of hatred and revenge. His mental state led to many sleepless nights. Phlox tricked Tucker into taking Vulcan neuro-pressure from T'Pol; this helped him sleep properly, and moved his relationship with T'Pol to another level. Tucker's first contact with the Xindi occurred at a mining camp where a Xindi, Kessick, was rescued. Kessick was killed in the escape, but gave the coordinates of the Xindi homeworld before he died. An away team consisting of Captain Archer, T'Pol, Lieutenant Reed, and Ensign Hoshi Sato was endangered on the homeworld of the extinct Loque'eque race when a virus left on the planet mutated Archer, Reed and Sato into the lost species. When another alien race landed on the planet, determined to exterminate any of these species, Tucker led a MACO team to stop the alien exterminators and rescue the away team. Tucker and T'Pol tried to replicate trellium-D, a substance that would protect Enterprise from the Delphic Expanse's deadly anomalies. The attempt ended in an explosion. Tucker attempted to "rewrite the book on warp theory" once he realized the Cochrane equation wasn't constant in the Expanse, with spatial gradients destabilizing the warp field. Eventually, he succeeded, as he rerouted the system taps, compressing the antimatter stream before it entered the injectors, thus stabilizing the warp field. Tucker was badly injured, ending up in a coma, due to a primary injector flare during an encounter with a polaric field. He was cloned using a mimetic simbiot in an attempt to harvest brain tissue from the clone in order to save his life. The clone, Sim, attempted to escape Enterprise to save his own life, but decided against it at the last minute and allowed Phlox to transplant the tissue even though it meant his death. After recovering a small craft in the Expanse with an unknown alien in it, Tucker determined that the alien was a test subject to see what effects the atmosphere would have on it. This was the first indication that an alien force was behind the Xindi and their attack on Earth. After coming in contact with a Xindi-Insectoid ship, Tucker questioned Archer's ability to captain Enterprise after Archer had been infected with a toxin that made him believe he was the caretaker to the eggs of the Xindi-Insectoids, and was endangering the mission. Tucker led the crew in a mutiny to retake the ship from Archer before he could be cured. Tucker piloted a captured Xindi-Insectoid shuttle and discovered the location of the Xindi weapon. In the battle of Azati Prime, Enterprise took heavy damage and lost eighteen crewmen. Tucker was terribly affected, and it did not help when he had to compose letters to the families of the slain crewmembers, a task that reminded him of his sister's death. To make matters even worse for Tucker, he found it extremely difficult to forgive Degra, one of the Council members of the Xindi who had designed the Xindi weapon, and had a couple of tension-filled encounters with him, as Archer was trying to gain Degra's trust. Eventually, however, the experience of consoling others helped Tucker finally deal with Elizabeth's death. Tucker helped steal the primary warp coil of an Illyrian ship to replace Enterprise's after it was damaged in the Battle of Azati Prime. After an accident using Xindi subspace corridors, Enterprise met its future counterpart. Enterprise's counterpart was captained by Lorian, the son of Tucker and T'Pol. The crew of the future Enterprise helped Enterprise keep an appointment with Degra, so peace could be discussed. Tucker played a large role in the final battle with the Xindi. He destroyed one of the spheres that disrupted the energy field that the Sphere-Builders, who were behind the Xindi attack, were using to help the Xindi; this gave time for Archer and the MACOs to board the weapon, destroy it and save Earth. Enterprise was then transported to the year 2380 and a different quantum reality.

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