Geordi La Forge

Geordi La Forge was a noted Starfleet officer and engineer who served in the 24th century. He was most famous for serving as chief engineer aboard the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D) and USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-E).

History
Geordi La Forge, the son of Edward M. and Silva La Forge, was born in the African Confederation, Earth on February 16, 2335. He was born completely blind. The blindness was caused by an "incurable optical nerve defect." 

In 2340, at the age of five, La Forge was briefly caught in a fire, and unable to escape, due to his blindness. He was rescued by his father, and shortly after was given his first VISOR from Dr. Lenske. Geordi met the designer of his visor, Doctor George Tarmud, in 2370 during the Universal TechnoFair that was held on the Enterprise-D. After receiving his VISOR, Geordi was taught to suppress the pain by a Vulcan Healer. 

Around this time, Geordi visited Cambridge University on a family outing. 

''Many novels contradict each other regarding Geordi's VISOR. One of them is'' Spartacus.

In 2343, Geordi was given his first pet, a Circassian cat named Alexi. 

In his early years, Geordi traveled around a lot with his parents, as they were both Starfleet officers. In his formative years he saw many fascinating sights, including the remnants of the Achorii civilization. By the age of 12, in 2347, Geordi was living with his mother aboard a Starfleet science ship. 

Also in his early years, La Forge had a mentor, Nassa Coleridge. 

Starfleet Academy
In 2353, Geordi decided to follow in his parents' footsteps and entered Starfleet Academy. 

Between February 16, 2353 and February 16, 2354, Geordi was taught an archaeology course by his former mentor, Nassa Coleridge. 

In his final year at the Academy, Geordi spent five-months rewriting a dissertation for Dr. Zorka, after Zorka initially rejected it. Geordi struggled through the class and eventually passed. 

Early Starfleet Career
Ensign La Forge graduated from the Academy in 2357 and was assigned as conn officer aboard the USS Victory (NCC-9754) under the command of Captain Zimbata. 

In 2363 (Stardate 40164.7), the Victory was conducting a survey of Tarchannen III, to determine the whereabouts of 49 missing Starfleet personnel assigned to the planet. An away team, commanded by Lieutenant Susanna Leijten, failed to locate the personnel, and the Victory left the planet. 

During a stopover at Starbase 324, the Victory underwent an inspection by Captain Jean-Luc Picard, then the head of Starfleet Tactical's Long-range Threat Assessment and Response Division. While being shuttled back to the starbase by Ensign La Forge, Picard made an offhand comment about a minor power inefficiency in the shuttle. La Forge took it upon himself to spend the entire night refitting the shuttle's fusion initiators, finally not only eliminating the inefficiency but obtaining an efficiency rating slightly above that rated for the shuttle.

Shortly after, Geordi transferred to the USS Hood (NCC-42296), under the command of Captain Robert DeSoto. During his year aboard the Hood, he became close friends with first officer William T. Riker. 

Aboard the Enterprise-D
In 2364, La Forge transferred to the Enterprise-D along with Commander Riker, to serve as conn officer under Captain Jean-Luc Picard. He spent his first year aboard the Enterprise in the position of navigator (at the rank of Lieutenant J.G.), before transferring to engineering and becoming the ship's new chief engineer with the rank of full Lieutenant. 

In late-2365, the Enterprise responded to a distress call from the Pakled freighter, Mondor. La Forge beamed aboard to assist them with repairs, when he was taken hostage and held for ransom, until he upgraded their systems and provided them with hand phasers and photon torpedoes. La Forge managed to engineer his escape by bluffing the slow-witted Pakleds, with help from the Enterprise. 

In early-2369 Geordi, Worf and Ro Laren took the shuttlecraft Goddard to receive Starfleet briefings. On their return journey the shuttle was forced to drop out of warp due to solar flare activity and crash landed on the planet Riat. On the planet the solar flare activity also interfered with Geardi's VISOR from time to time. The shuttle damaged beyond immediate repair and the planet inhospitably cold the away team sought shelter in a nearby Dracon monastery. Unfortunately the order of monks in the monastery had become violent and cannibalistic due to radiation from the solar flares causing a mutation in an algae in their water supply. The team were forced to fight the monks off several times before another shuttle from the Enterprise arrived to rescue them. 

Aboard the Enterprise-E
Following the destruction of the Enterprise-D at Veridian III, La Forge was assigned as chief engineer of the Enterprise-E. By 2373 La Forge had replaced his VISOR with full spectrum synthetic eyes.

When the Enterprise was transported back to the year 2063, La Forge was instrumental in helping to repair the Borg-inflicted damage to Earth's first warp ship, Phoenix, and in convincing Zefram Cochrane to complete his historic flight. 

Early in 2374, Geordi accompanied Captain Picard and Ro Laren on a secret mission into Cardassian territory to destroy an artificial wormhole being built by the Dominion. 

In 2375, La Forge took advantage of the Ba'ku planet's rejuvenating properties. Having never seen a rainbow or sunset, he watched the sun rise with Picard, on the surface. 

In 2379 he commanded the Piper team mission to infiltrate the nadion-pulse cannon firebase located on the summit of Mount Ranakar on Tezwa. 

Later that year, after Riker accepted command of the USS Titan, La Forge was offered the position of first officer of that ship. La Forge declined the offer. 

During the same year, Geordi was also partially assimilated by a Borg tachyon pulse from the future; ironically, only his existing cybernetic implantation allowed him to survive the process. Using the access that this gave him to Borg hive mind, he was instrumental in defeating the collective's plans to "assimilate the past." 

In 2380, Geordi was briefly away from the Enterprise and Reginald Barclay served as interim chief engineer. 

In early 2381, Geordi received a promotion to Commander sometime prior to the beginnings of the Borg Collective's invasion. The Enterprise became heavily involved in a number of stellar battles, as the only ship equipped with transphasic torpedoes. With the Starfleet Command admiralty unwilling to risk overuse of the torpedoes, second officer Miranda Kadohata summoned Geordi, Commander Beverly Crusher, and deputy security chief Rennan Konya to a midnight planning and brainstorming session. La Forge had previously developed a nanobot sabotage, but reports indicated the Borg already had obtained a sample. Although La Forge's and Crusher's previous technological and biological weapons against the Borg were adapted to, the quartet worked on applying the technology from the transphasic torpedoes to their shields and other weapons, but the phasers weren't designed to handle the load.

La Forge was the one to detect traces of sirillium on hull fragments from the Borg cube destroyed at Korvat. Although Tellarites and Andorians used to arm their torpedoes with sirillium, it seemed far too primitive a weapon; additionally, the traces were only found on the hull and not any of the weapon systems. La Forge postulated that the vessel picked it up during their transit, and determined that the only locations with sufficient concentrations of the element were the Rolor Nebula and the Azure Nebula, with the former being too far away from their current location.

Crusher was the only one to witness the effects the Borg invasion was having on her husband, who claimed that their war with the Borg would not end without one side being completely obliterated. Crusher became worried at Picard's obsession with eradicating the Borg, including advocating otherwise banned strategies, and sought the counsel of La Forge. Unable to realize where the line between the Captain's personalities, they feared they would not realize which Picard was in charge until it was too late. 

After the Enterprise was joined by the USS Aventine in the Azure Nebula, La Forge worked with Aventine chief engineer Mikaela Leishman to interface their sensor grids; La Forge miffed Miranda Kadohata with suggestions from Leishman on how to free up additional computing power to gain the necessary four megaquads. After the discovery of the subspace tunnels within the nebula and the inability to disrupt or destroy them, La Forge again worked with Leishman to upgrade the Aventine for safe passage, during which the two flirted. Captain Picard insisted La Forge was not working quick enough to repair the Enterprise, but was able to get the ship in shape to make their own passages. After one particular tunnel that placed both vessels near the Carina Arm where they came under attack by Hirogen forces, La Forge needed to take their main reactors offline for repairs. 

Later during the Borg invasion, he was instrumental in convincing Captain Picard not to use thalaron-based weapons, even refusing a direct order. 

After the discovery of the adrift Intrepid in 2383 by the USS Enterprise, La Forge was briefly reassigned to the USS Challenger (NCC-71099) as the vessel's Chief of operations under Captain Montgomery Scott. He, along with his repair crew, were taken captive by Berlinghoff Rasmussen and his partner, the Ferengi Bok who planned to use the Intrepid to travel to 2162 in order to alter history. La Forge was able to prevent this from happening and was, due to Scotty's injuries, promoted to Captain of the Challenger. On his first mission as Captain of the Challenger, La Forge led an investigation into Trans-slipstream, a new form of propulsion that caused the loss of the Intrepid's crew. While rescuing the crew of the, the Challenger was transported to NGC 4414 where it also encountered the derelict USS Hera (NCC-62006), the ship which had been lost while under the command of his mother. Teaming up with the crew of the and the survivors of the Hera, La Forge and his team were able to seal the rift and return to their own galaxy, but at the cost of the Challenger and Captain Scott. Upon his return to the Milky Way, La Forge returned to the position of Chief Engineer of the Enterprise, but retained his new rank. He had also entered into a relationship with Leah Brahms, who had been a mission specialist on the Challenger, and she had agreed to live with him onboard the Enterprise for a time. 


 * It is presumable that the Challenger eventually returned from the rift due to La Forge's later captaincy of the vessel (It was suggested by Spock that Scotty was a person who could find a way for the ship to survive such an extreme circumstance), or it is possible that his command of the Challenger remained in another timeline.

Shortly after his return to the Enterprise, Geordi was offered command of the USS Musgrave due to his position of Captain of Engineering. Rather than leave the Enterprise, Geordi opted to accept demotion to the rank of Commander and accepted the position of Second officer on the Enterprise. 

Online timeline
In 2385, La Forge takes a "long-term leave of absence" from Starfleet. He starts this period by working with the Soong Foundation in studying the android known as B-4. La Forge also takes the leave of absence in order to work on starship design builds and testing. 


 * At some point between Generations and First Contact, La Forge had his VISOR replaced with artificial ocular implants. The story behind this change was told in the eBook miniseries Slings and Arrows. 

After Starfleet
At some point between 2385 and 2387, Geordi La Forge retired from Starfleet and continued starship design as a private citizen. One of the ships he invented was the Jellyfish, whose unique design allowed it to be used by Spock in order to contain the Hobus supernova (TOS/TNG Comic: Countdown, Number Three).

Return to Starfleet
At some point in the early 25th century, La Forge returned to Starfleet and was promoted to captain. He was given command of the USS Challenger (NCC-71099)). 

Alternate timelines
In an alternate timeline where Montgomery Scott rescued James T. Kirk before he could be absorbed into the Nexus and the Enterprise-D followed them into the past, La Forge helped Scott modify the ship's deflector shield grid to block sensor scans rather than weapons fire and routed a holographic projection through the grid to confuse the sensors of a pursing Borg fleet; the Enterprise was able to project the image of a Borg cube and then an asteroid long enough to confuse the fleet and allow them to complete their goal to return the timeline to normal. 

In an alternate reality created by Q, Geordi La Forge last served with the crew of the Enterprise around 2370. Eventually, he left Starfleet, like Captain Picard before him. He married Leah, and the couple had three children: Bret, Alandra, and Sidney. Geordi retired to Rigel III, and became a novelist; one of his novels featured a protagonist named Patrick. He saw Picard in 2387; the next time the two met was in 2395, when Geordi visited Picard on Earth after hearing of his former captain's case of Irumodic Syndrome. He traveled with Picard and several of his other former Enterprise crewmates to the Devron system, to locate and repair an anti-time anomaly. 

In another alternate timeline, Geordi La Forge continued to serve upon the Enterprise-D into 2378. He had been promoted to Commander and had been named first officer following Riker's acceptance of command of the USS Excalibur (NCC-26517). 

In 2390, Captain La Forge of the USS Challenger (NCC-71099) pursued Chakotay and Harry Kim, intent on changing their timeline. The attempt to stop the former USS Voyager officers was unsuccessful, leading to a new reality where Voyager was not destroyed. 

Alternate realities
In an alternate reality visited by Lieutenant Worf in 2370, La Forge was severely injured during an attack on the Enterprise-D by the Cardassians and he later died of his injuries. In another alternate reality, he died under similar circumstances, though the Enterprise had been attacked by the Bajorans rather than the Cardassians. 

In another reality, Geordi was the operations officer of the FSS in 2380.

In another reality, Geordi served aboard the United Earth Space Probe Agency vessel Enterprise before it was captured by the Klingon Empire and became the. He was gutted by the Klingons. By 2380, Captain Picard was the only surviving member of the original crew. 

Background
In 's final conversation with Ambassador Spock, Geordi mentions that Captain James T. Kirk was remembered as dying on Veridian III, even though has La Forge witnessing Kirk's return to Starfleet. This contradiction is not explained in the sources, but might indicate a change of premises between the two sources. Possible in-universe explanations include some sort of timeline alteration or a memory aberration that prevented La Forge from remembering his part in Kirk's return.