As an ensign on his first assignment, Riker had served with now-Admiral Pressman on the test
ship U.S.S. Pegasus as and proved pivotal in defending his captain against a rare Starfleet
mutiny before they and only a handful of others escaped, shortly after the ship's destruction
during a test project. Only in 2370 was Pressman's renegade cloaking experiment unmasked,
and Riker was detained briefly for complicity but cleared.
Later stationed on Betazed, his mission there ended in 2362 with a posting that would launch a
rapid rise in his career. Sent to the U.S.S. Potemkin in 2362 as a lieutenant, he proved
unorthodox again in avoiding a confrontation by hanging over a planet's magnetic pole to
confuse an opposing ship's sensors. Only six weeks after coming aboard, though, he barely
escaped from Nervala IV, where his rescue of crewmates led to a promotion and a switch from
operations to command division, where he eventually became first officer of the U.S.S. Hood
under Captain Robert DeSoto. During this stay he was offered his first command on the light
cruiser U.S.S. Drake, but turned it down.
From there, he was promoted to commander and picked sight unseen from among 50 candidates
by Jean-Luc Picard as his first officer on the new Galaxy-class U.S.S. Enterprise; in fact, the two
had not met until he signed aboard at Farpoint Station, after he was dropped off by the U.S.S.
Hood.
Riker grew so satisfied with his assignment under Picard, who quickly dubbed him "Number One"
according to old Terran naval parlance, that he twice turned down two more commands of his
own: once to the frontier scout ship U.S.S. Aries in 2365, and again to the ill-fated U.S.S.
Melbourne a year later, although he temporarily had a field promotion to captain during the Borg
crisis of 2366-67 during Picard's abduction. Ironically, he likely would have died on the
Melbourne during the Borg massacre at Wolf 359 and would not have been present to play a
major role during the Enterprise's last-ditch attack.
Knowledgeable on legal issues, he was pressed into presenting Starfleet's case against Data's
independence at Starbase 173 in 2365 and, two years later, defended first Crewman Tarses and
then even Picard before Admiral Satie's inquiry in 2367. He was the first human to serve aboard
a Federation-Klingon exchange program in 2365, where he showed a keen knowledge of their
culture and became one of the few to obtain Picard's "surrender."
He had been given temporary command of the U.S.S. Excalibur in Picard's blockading fleet
against Romulan involvement in the Klingon civil war of 2367-68, but Admiral Nechayev passed
over him by placing Captain Jellico in command during Picard's abduction by the Cardassians in
2369. Their budding disagreements led to Riker being temporarily relieved of duty until he was
called back by Jellico for Cardassian negotiations.
Riker's latter tour years on the Galaxy-class Enterprise were filled with more surprises. Aside
from being drugged and made nearly insane by the Tilonians, captured and nearly killed by the
xenophobic Malcorians on a first contact recon gone bad, abducted by solanagen-based aliens,
and revealed for his role in the Pegasus incident, he discovered [*] a duplicate of himself created
as a transporter fluke from the Nervala IV mission.
[*] Ironically, the two clashed in temperament, with the "found" Riker finding his own restless
career on the Gandhi before resigning to join the Maquis rebels and his subsequent capture by
Cardassians in a useless theft of the U.S.S. Defiant from DS-9.
Riker, meanwhile, again gave no thought to his own command and joined Picard and the other
senior staff aboard the new Sovereign-class Enterprise namesake. Though the incident has been
classified, Riker also has the satisfaction of having joined Chief Engineer LaForge in the cockpit
of Zefram Cochrane's warp test vehicle Phoenix during efforts to repair temporal damage caused
by Borg invaders in 2373.
Riker's knack for improvisation runs throughout his hobbies and interests as well. A master poker
player and bluffer, he had learned the game during his brief stint on the U.S.S. Potemkin; his
reputation won him the role as replacement Federation negotiator during the short-lived Barzan
wormhole talks. He has also visited Quark's bar and casino on DS9, where in its first year of
operation under Starfleet-Bajoran administration he was the only person to win a triple-down
dabo.
He can play keyboards, but his favorite musical instrument is the trombone. He especially loves
jazz and has played for numerous shipboard functions and concerts; he displays it in his quarters
- having loaned his old boyhood instrument to Thomas Riker - and also displays a Risian
horga'hn Picard once brought him, as well as a fishing reel. Under Dr. Crusher's direction, his
acting talents have increased greatly since "Something for Breakfast" in 2369 until his riveting
"Frame of Mind" performance only weeks later. Cooking is another hobby, thanks to the
necessity of a father who hated to do it, and his language skills include basic Ferengi as well as
Klingon. Generally, he claims to be inept at organizing his time off and - predictably - prefers to
let events happen unplanned.
Riker has a strong libido and - aside from encounters made in the line of duty, such as on Angel I
and Tilonia IV - has fostered several romantic relationships, including the enhanced holo-woman
Minuet, the doomed assassin Yuta and colonizer Carmen Davila, and Soren of the normally
androgynous J'naii, for whom he risked court-martial over Prime Directive charges. His
encounters nearly cost him a murder sentence on Tanuga IV and, after a Risian resort visit, the
Ktarian takeover of Starfleet through a mind-control device. Additionally, he and Ensign Ro
engaged in a love/hate working relationship, especially exposed during a memory blanking
incident in 2368, and he offered to speak in her behalf when she was presumed dead later that
year. (See addendum below).
Despite his nominally robust outlook, Riker has been prone to short bouts of self-doubt regarding
his perceived complacency toward ambition each time he debated and turned down his own ship
command. His imposing physical presence has been an unintended impediment to effective
communication with some in his command, especially junior officers, and he has taken steps to
deal with it.
Aside from his string of incomplete female relationships, Riker's major romance last involved
Counselor Deanna Troi, who began calling him "imzadi," the native word for "beloved," after they
met during his Betazed mission. He had last seen her there the day before he shipped out on the
U.S.S. Potemkin in 2362, but it would be two years before they were reunited again as fellow
officers on the U.S.S. Enterprise, unbeknownst to Picard. They had planned to get together six
months after his departure, but the Nervala IV incident changed that; his early feelings for her at
that time can still be seen in his twin "Thomas." Riker professed a warm friendship for Troi in
later years that occasionally blossomed into romance, but they generally stayed platonic -
although Worf's surprising courtship of her in 2370 seemed never to have settled well with him.
