Thomas Riker - Lt. Commander or better?

So, Lt. Thomas Riker remained on Nervala IV, while Lt. William Riker beamed back up to the Potemkin.

Will Riker was given a commendation and a promotion for valorous acts in the rescue of personnel from Nervala IV... Shouldn't Lt. Thomas Riker immediately be given the same promotion (to Lt. Commander) upon his rescue by the Enterprise?

Discuss.

 

Twins start off as the same person, then the cells divide one more time than they should, creating two people. That is all that happened with Will and Tom Riker through the transporter, albeit later in life and not inside the womb. Do all twin brothers deserve whatever their twins earn? No. They may have shared memories, but once they were created, they were two distinct individuals.

 

Tom Riker was just as responsible for what happened on Nervala IV as Will Riker was. If Will received a commendation and a promotion for his actions there, Tom should have, too.

 

Is Tom still in prison?

 

Had he done something to merit a promotion? If not, then no he shouldn't just be promoted cos he's Will's transporter twin

 

GOOD POINT

 

Non sequitur

 

This.

The acts of valor that Will was promoted for occured before the second pattern was created and reflected.

 

^ That's what I'm thinking. Those 'acts of valor' happened when, as Beverly clumsily put it, they were "the same person," so Tom has as much right to the promotion as Will does. I also found myself grimacing when Will gave him the trombone... really, man, you should give him like half the stuff in your quarters, they're as much his as yours.

The other thing that bothered me, watching this with with my girlfriend (her first viewing) was the idea of Deanna pulling away because "Tom would have made the same decision (not to meet on Risa) as Will did, had he gotten off the planet." Similar to Marty McFly not thinking 'fourth-dimensionally,' that's juvenile circular logic. The very point is that he did NOT get off the planet, and so instead of having a soaring career (his Priority A), he had NO career and eight years to mourn an unrequited lost love (Priority B). Since we are as much defined by our losses as our gains, I would venture that Tom Riker would NEVER be capable of putting his career before his relationship, after Nervala.

And a closing note on this episode, I find it interesting (on repeat viewings) how, in an attempt to make two equally balanced halves of a psyche, the show made Tom the completely sympathetic character, and made Will a big ol' bag of dicks.

Thoughts?

 

OK I misunderstood. Yes, I agree, any act of valor conducted during the mission on that planet prior to the transport split should be applied equally to both Will and Tom.

Tom Riker should have got the same commendation, but not sure about promotion (commendation does not = promotion, they are 2 separate things). Yes, if he was fit for duty, he "deserved" to be promoted from Lieutenant to Lieutenant Commander, and probably did actually receive the same commendation (we don't know, just have to speculate),as well as another commendation for living on Nervala 4 alone for 8 years! But that doesn't mean Riker gets an automatic promotion and gets to bump the current first officer of the USS Hood.

In Second Chances he gets a new post on the Ghandi. They never said if Tom Riker was promoted or not, but how would the military handle some soldier or sailor found alone on a deserted island for 8 years. They would make sure he didn't go crazy and was fit for duty. So with Tom Riker, Starfleet was probably waiting the mental evaluation and on paper work or something, before promoting Tom Riker. Tom Riker himself even said he needed to be acclimated after living alone for 8 years.

But as we know, Tom Riker wasn't mentally fit for duty, and he quickly got bored, joined the Maquis, and stole the Defiant. So whatever rank he may have or may not have had, doesn't matter because Starfleet would have stripped him of his rank (probably busted him to crewman), drummed him out with a dishonorable discharge, and imprisoned him anyway, if the Cardassians hadn't captured him first.

Any act of valor on Will Riker's part after the split, is Will Riker's alone, though. Likewise, Tom Riker would have owned both any valorous acts (8 years alone on Nervala 4 qualifies!) after the split, and also owns his disobeying orders, joining the Maquis, and theft of the Defiant.

 

According to the DS9 "DEFIANT" episode & Trek Lit, Thomas Riker was sentenced to a Cardassian gulag on Lazon II for his role in the theft of the Defiant, kidnap of Major Kira & subsequent exposure of an illicit Cardassian fleet/task force under construction, almost ready to launch. Once Sisko and Dukat caught up to him, Thomas was promised that he wouldn't be executed and Sisko was allowed to return the Defiant and any crew on-duty at the time, unharmed to DS9.

In Peter David's novel Imzadi II: Triangle, he is sprung from a Cardassian prison camp on Layzon 2 by Romulans led by Sela and forced to attempt to assassinate Klingon Emperor Kahless and Chancellor Gowron.


In the Malibu Comics Deep Space Nine title, two stories were published extending Riker's story. "Sole Asylum, Part One" and "Part Two", set at the end of 2371, showed that Riker had been taken to Cardassia Prime and that Cardassian scientists were trying to discover the secret of his duplication in order to create an army of duplicates. It was also revealed that Riker's cells were only nine years old, suggesting their complete creation at the time of the accident. Unable to rationalize the accident against the Law of Conservation of Mass and proven transporter theory, one of the scientists, a Dr. Nol, told the Cardassian High Council that he must be from an alternate dimension. Because of this, the Council decided to send him back to a labor camp.




In the game Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Dominion Wars, Tom is rescued in the mission during the Dominion War and appointed to command an advanced battleship, the Achilles-class USS Imperius. A later mission in the Dominion campaign requires the player to destroy the Imperius before Riker can take command and, if possible, destroy Riker's current ship (a Galaxy class starship).




In Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens' novel series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - Millennium, Riker is freed from the camp by a species called the Grigari and joins them in an attack on the Alpha Quadrant.




In the MMORPG Star Trek Online, the player encounters Riker's son on a mission in which the player must rescue some Federation prisoners held captive in Cardassian space close to the border with the Federation, not far from Deep Space Nine.

 

Unfortunately, most of those fates contradict each other, and they are all little more than "fanon" to me. I like the Dominion Wars fate the best, out of all of those.

But I think the unresolved fate of Tom Riker by the end of DS9 and\or Voyager, or even the movies, is one of the things that bugged me. I always thought Tom Riker could have been a great semi-regular character for DS9, maybe one episode a season, sort of like Q's appearances. I certainly would have rather seen a Tom Riker episode over any of the Mirror Universe DS9 episodes, which never did anything to advance the DS9 series arc, anyway.

I mean his fate being left open-ended bugged me so much I would have even been happy with a "throw away" line, as an update\resolution of Tom Riker's ultimate fate.

 

Agreed. I always regretted that Will Riker apparently got grumpier / more serious by degrees throughout the series (at least my perception), since I loved the character (to a young kid at the time, he was TNG's Kirk), and I was really taken with a younger, happier and friendlier version. Plus the fact that Tom's story is that of a tragedy happening to a really nice guy, and it was all kinda glossed over because it was a story of the week.

I mean, really, if you look at it Tom gets the shaft time and time again, and nobody even cares that he's there (or isn't). I also like the Dominion War idea where he gets command of the Imperius.... in fact, I'd love to see a story treatment where Tom meets Will aboard the Titan at some future date. Seeing the two (one?) men reconcile after years of leading separate lives would be really neat. Plus, Will has a ton of being an ass to apologize for.

Also, do we ever know what happens to Riker's father? (Kyle is it?). If he's still alive, knowing how he feels about Tom / how Tom feels about him down the road would be interesting.

 

I think the DS9 producers overdid things by grabbing Michael Dorn to save the ratings. The better choice would have been Jonathan Frakes, but not just for what you suggested. He should have directed more DS9 episodes.

 

Well, I didn't mind Worf being on DS9, per se, but his character changed compared to TNG, and I found him less likable, and felt he was thrust to the forefront a little too much. That said, I think the Klingon arc dded a lot to DS9 for the better, and without Worf, we wouldn't have had Martok, who is probably my favorite Klingon character, ever.

That said, I think they could have worked both Tom Riker and Worf in, but maybe you are partially right: maybe it was a money thing? But if Frakes directed more as you say, I think he could have worked Tom Riker in somehow.

I think the thing that bothered me about Tom Riker's story being left incomplete is that even though evil twins and doppelgangers of main characters are almost common place in Trek, Tom Riker was one of the few that I found interesting, and kind of felt it was sort of a reversal of the "evil twin scenario." In some ways, Will Riker sort of comes off as the "evil twin." In Second chances, Tom Riker didn't do anything to anybody. He got screwed by being stranded on a planet by himself for 8 years. Will Riker lives the life he wishes he did. Tom Riker finally gets back to civilization, only to find the one woman that kept him going all those years (Troi), rejects him to stay on the enterprise, the very same thing Will Riker did to Troi, when he left to serve on the Hood. Either, Will Riker indirectly ruined Troi's outlook on relationships and made her want to put career before personal life, or she was still pining for Will, thus Tom lost her through no fault of his own. All Tom is left with is a trombone and a firm handshake! Then in Defiant, Tom almost seems subconsciously suicidal.I think it is hard not to feel sorry for Tom Riker.

 

Yes. I HATE Riker, cos he acts like a dick to his subordinates. I was not much surprised he acts like a bag of dicks even to his duplicated self.

 

When does he act that way toward his subordinates?

 

When Deanna Troi wanted to pass the holodeck test to become a bridge officer. He was right, that not everyone can lead a starship, but he told it in a very degrading way. Or in Lower decks, when one crewman wanted to start a conversation in Ten Forward. Spock was something like older brother to his crew, but Riker is only a superior officer. If he suddenly disappeared from the show, I wouldnt notice it or miss him.

 

Prison would explain why we don't see Thomas at Will and Deanna's wedding in ST:Nemesis. Either that, or he's pissed at his brother for getting married to Deanna.

 

I thought the idea of Tom Riker was really great... a kind of "revisit" to the Riker character, in a way that many fans would appreciate.

I was a bit ticked off that they turned him rogue in that DS9 episode. To me, Riker's core personality wouldn't have gone that route. It would've been intriguing if he had joined the DS9 team, forcing a revisit to his relationships with Worf and O'Brien in a different light. But I suspect Frakes was more interested in directing than acting by that point.