The noble king in the children's story The Elysian Kingdom, the role Joseph M'Benga finds himself playing in 2259 when a nebula entity turns the Enterprise into the book's setting.
King Ridley is the central figure of the storybook that Dr. M'Benga reads to his ill daughter Rukiya. In the first-season Strange New Worlds episode The Elysian Kingdom, an intelligence living in the Jonisian Nebula reshapes the ship and its crew to match the tale, and M'Benga wakes dressed as the king.
Only he and Hemmer keep their own minds. Everyone else addresses him as Ridley and expects him to act the part: to guard the Mercury Stone, defy the wicked Queen Neve and lead his loyal companions.
M'Benga comes to see that the story is unfolding the way Rukiya always wished it would and that the entity is doing it for her. As king and as father he must then decide whether to let her leave her failing body and stay with the being in the nebula.