William Riker

William Thomas Riker was a protagonist in Star Trek: The Next Generation television series. A human male, he was noted for being the first officer of the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D and its successor NCC-1701-E before being named Captain of the USS Titan in 2379. He was portrayed by .
==History==
Riker was born in 2335 in Alaska on Earth to Kyle and Betty Riker. It was theorized that the Riker family descended from Augment children sent to Alaska following the Eugenics Wars. Riker's mother died at a very young age. Not quite knowing how to deal with his grief and help his son at the same time a rift developed between Kyle and Riker that continued for many years until the two patched things up in 2365.
In 2353 Riker entered Starfleet Academy. He performed well in his classes at the academy, graduating eighth in his class. After graduation he was assigned to the USS Pegasus under then Captain Erik Pressman. Following the destruction of the Pegasus Riker was eventually stationed on Betazed where he met Deanna Troi and the two began a relationship. During this time he also became friends with Carol Freeman, serving as a mentor to her as she began her Starfleet career. The two would get into quite a bit of trouble during this time. 
Afterwards he was posted to the Potemkin as a lieutenant. Riker was part of a rescue mission to Nervala IV while on the Potemkin. A transporter accident while beaming up from Nervala IV created his twin brother Thomas Riker, who was essentially an exact duplicate of Riker. The crew did not realize that Thomas had been created and he spent the next eight years stranded on Nervala IV.
Riker was soon a Commander and first officer of the USS Hood under Captain Robert DeSoto. While on the Hood he disobeyed an order by refusing to allow DeSoto to beam down to Altair III, worried that the Captain would be in danger doing so. More embarrassed than anything, DeSoto did not pursue any disciplinary action, but did make a brief mention of the incident in Riker's file.
In 2364 Jean-Luc Picard was reviewing first officer candidates for his new command on the Enterprise and saw the Altair III incident in Riker's file. Looking for a person who would stand up to him if need be and worry more about the ship and crew regardless of how it might reflect on his record, Picard decided Riker was the ideal candidate and offered him the first officer's position.
Meanwhile Riker was offered a promotion to Captain and command of the USS Drake, but he turned that down in order to serve on the Enterprise. Riker became friends with Captain Picard and many other members of the Enterprise crew. He would remain as first officer of the Enterprise-D until the ship was destroyed in 2371. The following year he was named the first officer of the Enterprise-E.
Riker remained on the Enterprise until 2379. Having rekindled his romance with Deanna Troi, the pair married that year. Riker finally accepted a promotion to Captain and was given command of the USS Titan after Admiral Kathryn Janeway told him it was his last chance to advance in rank.
===Star Trek: Lower Decks===
In 2380 Captain Riker and the Titan came to the rescue of the USS Cerritos under the command of Captain Carol Freeman. Hailing the Cerritos, Riker was pleasantly surprised to find Freeman's daughter Beckett Mariner in temporary command, and told Beckett they were even now. When Bradward Boimler asked how she knew Riker, Mariner began explaining over subspace how Riker was her chief contraband supplier. Riker quickly cut the communication, but Troi said they would talk about it later.
===Star Trek: Picard===
Riker's marriage to Troi produced two children, a son named Thaddeus Troi-Riker, and later a daughter named Kestra Troi-Riker.
After several years commanding the Titan, Riker left and settled on the planet Nepenthe with his wife and children after Thaddeus became seriously ill and subsequently died. The family elected to remain on Nepenthe and built a comfortable home there that was well protected in the event hostile forces appeared.
By 2399, Riker had retired from active duty status Starfleet, but remained on active reserve. When Picard showed up with a young woman named Soji, Riker deduced that Picard was in trouble, and after seeing a facial tic deduced that Soji was related to the late Commander Data. Riker, Troi, and their daughter did everything they could to help Picard and Soji until their ride arrived in orbit.
However, Riker and Troi were later captured by Vadic and her rouge faction of Changelings to try and get Jean-Luc to hand over his son Jack to them, but help from Beverly Crusher, Data, Geordi LaForge, Seven of Nine, Raffi, and Worf led to their rescue, thus costing Vadic and her Changelings their bargaining chip, and Data also took control of the USS Titan-A back from them before ejecting Vadic into space to freeze to death, while the Changeling ship, Shrike, was also destroyed.
Unfortunately, when Troi probed Jack's mind, she found a horrible secret: A Borg Cube. It was soon discovered that Vadic and her Changelings had taken some of the Borg DNA still in Picard's late body he had left over from his assimilation as Locutus and used it to infect the Starfleet transporter system and Starfleet mainframe, meaning the whole fleet was now infected with Borg nanoprobes that would activate the moment they received a command signal. Picard and his crew, along with the Titan-A, retreat back to Earth and Sector 001 to warn Fleet Admiral Elizabeth Shelby, who was in the middle of celebrating Frontier Day with the fleet, including her own flagship USS Enterprise-F, but though they attempt to warn her, and she is alarmed to hear mention of the Borg, having remembered what happened at Wolf 359 and later with the Battle of Sector 001, it is too late. Jack had gone to see the Borg Queen, and let himself become assimilated as Vox of Borg, voice of the Collective, and successor to Locutus, triggering the Borg Queen's endgame. Geordi's daughters, along with many other young Starfleet crewmembers, become assimilated as loyal Borg Drones, and the fleet, thanks to the Fleet Formation, also fall under the Borg Queen's control. Shelby and many other senior Starfleet personnel are killed by their own younger crewmembers, and even the captain of the Titan-A, Liam Shaw, is mortally wounded by one of his own assimilated crewmembers, but gives Picard and his command crew time to escape, while passing command on to Seven of Nine, leaving her and Raffi Musiker, to rally the unassimilated members of the crew to take back the Titan-A.
Picard, Riker, and the others travel to the Fleet Museum at Athan Prime, where they find that Geordi had recovered and been restoring the USS Enterprise-D since what happened to it at Veridian III, per the Prime Directive, to prevent its presence disrupting the pre-warp civilization living in the Veridian System. Upon entering the rebuilt original bridge, they are amazed to see it looks just like how it did back in its glory days. At that point, when Picard says that they don't have to join him on what is potentially a suicide mission to take out the Borg Queen for good, Riker and the others make it clear that they are Picard's family, and they will follow him to the end to end the threat of the Borg once and for all.
Powering up the Enterprise-D, they soon set course back to the Sol System, picking up a distress call from UFP President Anton Chekov urging any ships hearing him to avoid Earth due to the grim situation there. After the signal is lost, Riker demands to know where the cavalry is, but Data confirms that the Enterprise-D is the cavalry. Once Data detects a Borg signal coming from Jupiter, they divert to Jupiter, discovering a massive Borg Super-Cube hidden in Jupiter's Big Red Spot. Riker beams aboard with Worf and Picard, with Riker and Worf locating the Cube's schematics to locate the beacon controlling Starfleet, only to be engaged by some still-active Borg Drones, with Riker retrieving a phaser from Worf's Klingon sword to shoot them down. However, they find the schematics and send them to Troi, and Data flies the Enterprise into the Cube to the beacon's location. Upon finding it, they realize that if it is destroyed, the Cube will go with it. Riker tells Troi and the others to go ahead and destroy it as he is not leaving without Jean-Luc as he and Worf enter the dead zone to find Jean-Luc, only to watch in horror as Jean-Luc willingly plugs into the Borg Collective again to try and break Jack free of the hive mind. Only when Picard offers to stay with Jack in the Collective to the end out of love, Jack breaks free of the hive mind and frees himself and Picard from the Borg Queen's control, declaring the time of the Borg is over, before as the Cube blows up from the beacon's destruction, Riker telepathically says goodbye to Troi, saying he'll be waiting for her with their son in the afterlife. However, this allows her to locate them, drive the Enterprise to their location, and beam Picard, Jack, Riker, and Worf safely back aboard before making their escape, leaving the enraged Borg Queen to howl in fury as she and her Cube are destroyed, while the Enterprise escaped. With the Queen and her Cube gone, the assimilated Starfleet and young crewmembers are freed from her control, but are horrified and traumatized by the atrocities they committed against their will while under the Queen's control.
Riker reunites with Troi, and together, the Enterprise crew return to Earth, where they are hailed as heroes, pardoned of any and all crimes they committed to expose the Changelings and Borg plot and stop it, and Riker himself is last seen joining Jean-Luc and the rest of his old crew for one last toast and poker game at Guinan's Ten Forward in Los Angeles.
===First Splinter Timeline===
In a timeline where the Borg had conquered Earth after interfering in first contact between humans and Vulcans, the Borg attempted to remove Picard and the Enterprise-E from history so that their timeline would continue by firing a temporal beam at the ship while the ship was returning to the 24th century from the mid 21st century.
While the beam did not harm the Enterprise, it created two separate timelines at the moment the Enterprise returned to the 24th century. The first timeline was one where the Borg continued to rule the Alpha Quadrant, and the second was one in which the Enterprise returned to the 24th century. This second timeline would eventually come to be called the First Splinter Timeline. 
Initially the two timelines were largely identical however divergences began to creep in over the years. One of the ways the timelines diverged was that Leonard James Akaar was named Commmander-in-Chief of Starfleet in the 2380s rather than fellow Fleet Admiral Victor Bordson. A major divergence between the alternate and prime realities occured was when the Borg invaded the Alpha Quadrant in 2381, nearly destroying the Federation in the process before they were absorbed into the Calier gestalt.
Akaar was unable to convince Picard to accept a promotion to the rank of Admiral and Picard remained in command of the Enterprise, unlike the prime reality where Picard was promoted in 2382. Additionally, another divergence occured in that Riker and Troi only had one child, a daughter they named Natasha Troi-Riker after their late friend and former crewmate Tasha Yar rather than the two children of the prime reality. 
After the death of Federation President Nanietta Bacco in this timeline, Akaar realized that something was very wrong with the new interim President Ishan Anjar. Recalling the Titan to Earth, Akaar told Riker to either accept a promtion to Admiral or he would be discharged from Starfleet. Reluctantly, Riker accepted the promotion to Admiral. Riker played an insturmental role in defeating the attempted coup of the Federation government by Baras Rodyira, who had assumed the identity of Ishan Anjar during the Cardassian occupation. Working with Akaar and Picard the conspiracy was defeated. Baras and his co-conspirators were all imprisoned.
Following the attempted coup and the election of z'Tarash of Andoria as Federation President, Riker requested a return to space duty. Akaar allowed Riker to use the Titan as his flagship and mobile base of operations, with Riker's former first officer Christine Vale named Captain of the Titan. 
Section 31 was finally exposed to the public in 2386. Among the revelations was that Picard had been involved in the Section 31 plot to remove former President Min Zife from office. Because Picard had not killed Zife and had not even known that Zife had been killed until much later, Picare was shielded from the worst of the fallout. However Picard was subjected to a very through investigation and inquiry by Attorney General Phillipa Louvois, and Riker was subjected to an intense interrogation by Louvois. This had the effect of bringing Picard back to Earth to answer for his actions and to protect Riker from any further fallout. Picard was not subject to criminal charges, the Judge Advocate General entered a reprimand on Picard's record, and confirmed that he would be permanently ineligible for promtion to Admiral.
During this time the Devidians, who had discovered how to collapse timelines and absorb neural energy thanks to the Borg's earlier interference in the timelines, began working to collapse the First Splinter Timeline. The Devidian temporal apocalypse caused Riker's mind to be taken over by an insane version of Riker from another timeline. That Riker had lost all his friends and family and had been driven mad with grief. Taking over Riker's mind and body, he began acting increasingly irrational, and imprisoned his wife and Captain Vale. Finding out what Riker was up to, Akaar and President z'Tarash attempted to relieve Riker of duty, but both died when the Sol system was destroyed by the Devidians. 
Riker assumed command of the remnants of Starfleet. Finding out that there was an insane version of Riker from an alternate timeline in command, Riker's allies were able to excise the insane Riker. Riker then helped battle the Devidians. Even though he died in the battle, he bought his friend Jean-Luc Picard enough time to implement a temporal reversion. This reversion prevented the Borg timeline and the First Splinter Timeline from ever being formed, and the Devidians never discovered how to collapse timelines to absorb neural energy. As a result, the prime timeline was saved from the Devidian predations. 
==Trivia==
* Riker was partially based on the character of Will Decker from the cancelled Star Trek: Phase II series. During the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation the writers had Riker duplicate many of Decker's character traits.
* Jeffrey Combs was considered for the role of William Riker before Frakes was cast. In addition to Combs, Michael O'Gorman, Gregg Marx, Ben Murphy and Patrick Duffy were also considered for the role of William Riker.
* Frakes and Troi actress Marina Sirtis voiced their characters on the Lower Decks episode No Small Parts, making them the only actors to portary the same character in five different Star Trek series.
* The uniform that Riker was wearing in Star Trek: Generations is actually the uniform worn by Benjamin Sisko in the first five seasons of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
* Riker, along with Picard, Data and LaForge are the only four in the TNG main cast to wear the Voyager-style uniform in Star Trek: Generations.
* Riker's Voyager-style uniform in Star Trek: Generations has his sleeves rolled up (similar to Miles O'Brien's in the first five seasons of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine).
* The First Splinter Timeline in which Riker was promoted to Admiral was developed as a way of concluding the existing novelverse given the divergence between the events of the novelverse and galactic history as depicted in Discovery, Lower Decks, Picard, and other works. 
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