Commander William T. Riker is an epic command officer in the TNG crew in Star Trek Fleet Command. He’s an officer that’s going to make a big difference when you’re attacking armadas, and in particular, when you’re attacking Federation armadas.
Unlocking Riker
It will take 100 shards to unlock Riker. Initially, you’ll get this officer through a solo leaderboard, similar to the way the last Picard auction was run, which is very good news, giving more players a chance to earn shards. There’s also a week of Riker events coming up this month, and a Riker event store. (July 2021.)
Captain’s Maneuver
Vibrant Authority – Increases damage against armada targets by 100% per round (cumulative.)
This has the potential to be big. The synergy on this ability maxes out at 20% per officer, so the total damage per round will max out at 140%. And this is cumulative, so think Khan‘s critical chance level impact. This should make the G4 armadas much more doable. Combined with his own officer ability (below) against Federation armadas, this will make a big impact on the way you play the game.
That Epic 39 armada that might have challenged you before should be less dramatic with Riker at the conn. I can’t wait to try using this officer on bigger armadas, to see if it’s as impactful as I think it’s going to be.
Lastly for this bit, while canon says that the Riker Maneuver is scooping and detonating Metreon gas, we all know what the real Riker Maneuver is:
Frakes came up with the move, “I step over chairs like Riker if the chair back is below the danger zone. That started in 10 Forward because the chairs are so low. It was such a cocky, cowboy move. And no one stopped me.”
Riker Officer Ability
The Icarus Factor – (+100%, 150%, 200%, 250%, 300%) to weapon damage against Federation Armadas / Hostiles.
Like Geordi against Klingons, Riker is going to give you a massive damage bonus against Federation armadas and hostiles.
Against hostiles, Picard as captain, and Riker as an officer will give you a bigger boost. But against Fed armadas, Captain Riker is likely your best bet.
The ability is named for the TNG episode The Icarus Factor. To be fair, it’s a rather lackluster episode, but it does have a couple of memorable scenes; Worf getting hit with “pain sticks” by John Tesh, and of course, the ultimate evolution of martial arts…
But for Riker firing on a Federation ship, he didn’t fire on the Enterprise-D in A Matter of Honor, but he did force her to surrender.
But he did lower the Enterprise’s shields before Picard fired on the ship in Gambit.
Jonathan Frakes
Frakes was born on August 19th, 1952 in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, the son of Doris and Dr. James Frakes. James Frakes was an English professor at Lehigh University and book critic for the New York Times. Jonathan Frakes grew up in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. There he attended Liberty High School, where he ran track and played in the band.
He went to college at Penn State, where he joined the Thespians group.
One of his first acting jobs came working for Marvel Comics, for whom he would make public appearances as Captain America.
Later, he moved to New York, where he joined The Impossible Ragtime Theater and got his first professional stage experience. He also spent a couple of summers studying drama at Harvard.
His first TV work came on the soap opera, The Doctors.
After the Doctors, Frakes moved to Los Angeles and started making the rounds as a guest star on an amazing list of late 70s, early 80s TV series.
He showed up on the Dukes of Hazzard, where he played Boss Hogg’s nephew Jamie Lee and developed a crush on Daisy Duke. Because who wouldn’t.
He appeared on The Waltons, Eight Is Enough, Hart to Hart, Quincy, M.E., and Hill Street Blues. His big break may have come when he was cast as Stanley Hazard in the Civil War miniseries North and South.
This miniseries was on a little after my bedtime in the 80s, so I’ve never seen it – but man, the cast list is incredible. It starred Patrick Swayze before Dirty Dancing, had old Hollywood stars like Jimmy Stewart, Olivia de Havilland, and Peter O’Toole. It had musical legend Johnny Cash. It even had Wayne Newton.
But the Trek connections in North and South go on for a while, with Kirstie Allie from Star Trek II. From TOS, Mariette Hartley and William Schallert. From TNG, David Ogden Stiers from Half a Life, Admiral Satie herself, Jean Simmons, and Anthony Zerbe from Insurrection.
From Voyager, James Read, and from DS9 Jim Metzler and Denise’s aunt, Mary Crosby.
Plus it had Kurtwood Smith from just about everything, and Lloyd Bridges, one of Gene Roddenberry’s first choices to play Pike.
And most getting back to Frakes, it featured his future wife, Genie Francis.
Creating Will Riker
A good deal of the genesis of Star Trek: The Next Generation came from Star Trek: Phase II, which ultimately evolved into Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Some of the Phase II episodes were adapted for TNG, and some of the original characters were developed into TNG characters. So elements of the character of Xon were included in Data. And the characters and relationship of Will Decker and Ilia were used as the basis for Will Riker and Troi. Riker was also designed with a touch of Kirk thrown in.
The auditions for Riker were contentious, and many of them later made appearances on Trek properties. James Horan, William O. Campbell, Jeffrey Combs, Christopher McDonald, Eric Pierpoint, Erich Anderson, and Vaughn Armstrong were all up for the part. Campbell was Roddenberry’s first choice.
Campbell would go on to play “The Outrageous Okona.”
Frakes was chosen because he had a sense of command that Campbell lacked.
“[John] Pike didn’t like him,” recalled Rick Berman. “He didn’t feel he had a sense of command. He wouldn’t follow this guy into battle. I think it was really more that he didn’t audition that well for the part, and that’s when we went to our second choice, who was Jonathan Frakes.
Needed to Share This
In doing my research for Riker, I came across this. It’s so early 90s. It’s a commercial for a computer automation software company, Boole and Babbage.