Charles "Trip" Tucker III

Commander Charles Tucker III, known as Trip (for "triple", since he is the third generation of his family to be called Charles Tucker), is a fictional character in the television series Star Trek: Enterprise, played by Connor Trinneer. He is Chief Engineer on the NX-01 Enterprise. While a very knowledgeable engineer, he can be rash and "illogical" (to borrow a phrase from T'Pol).

Tucker had the dubious distinction of becoming the first pregnant human male, in the episode "Unexpected".

During the Xindi mission, Tucker found himself growing close 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. How their relationship plays out during the remainder of Enterprise's fourth season has yet to be seen. In "Observer Effect", T'Pol expressed great concern for Trip, suggesting her feelings for him remain, and the producers of the series have promised a "unique" resolution to their relationship before the series ends.

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 (an event predating her relationship with Trip). 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).

In the alternate timeline seen in "Twilight", Tucker becomes the captain of Enterprise following the incapacitation of Jonathan Archer and the resignation from Starfleet of T'Pol.

In 2154, during a mission to prevent a remote-controlled Romulan vessel 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.

Family

Trip Tucker lost his sister, Elizabeth, in the Xindi attack on Earth which destroyed his (unidentified) hometown in Florida. He has no other known siblings. His parents survived the attack and later relocated to Mississippi.

In an alternate timeline shown in the episode "E2", Tucker and T'Pol marry and have a son, Lorian, whose fate after the restoration of the timeline has yet to be revealed.

Trivia

A man of unexpected talents, it is known that Trip enjoys playing the harmonica and is also knowledgeable about the ancient Oriental 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 "The Cogenitor").