PERSONALITY_
Childish
Due to spending most of his life alone or being indulged by those older than him, Decker never really matured. His social skills are shot, and he rarely realizes when he's crossing the line or if something he's said is inappropriate for the situation. On the upside, he's an optimistic individual who possesses the gutsy never-give-up attitude of someone who's yet to be hardened by life.
Spoiled
Another side-effect of his lonely childhood is expecting that he gets what he wants most of the time. While he isn't going to throw a tantrum (he's at least outgrown that), he'll usually be at a loss on what to do afterwards. He figures it out after a bit of stewing, but there's always that pause and feeling of helplessness. Simply put, he isn't used to rejection on a non-personal level.
Open-minded
With his inquisitive brain comes an open-minded attitude. He's never brushed off aliens, and he's always been open to the idea that anything that dies can leave something behind. Decker has an insatiable need to understand and rejecting an idea just because it's 'woowoo' won't help him quench his thirst.
Devoted
Anything that interests Decker means it has him hook, line and sinker. He either knows nothing about a subject, or knows everything there is to know about it. There is no in-between. The same goes for people; he either treats you like a distant acquaintance or clings to you like you're his mother.
HISTORY_
Decker's a trustfund baby. His parents were both from well-off families and their marriage only generated more income as both knew how to use money to make even more. That said, while they both had a head for business, neither knew how to deal with a child.
So they turned to tutors and advanced studies, honing his brain while forgetting his heart.
As expected, a child with Decker's background and brain quickly won the favor of his teachers, which in turn brought the opposite effect from the other kids in his class. But they didn't interest him. He was much more interested in the Lego Mindstorm that his parents got him to play with, and fully devoted his time to understanding his introduction into engineering and programming.
That didn't stop said kids from putting him down, and he fancied using his little robots to kick their asses. Unfortunately, they could barely push a ball of paper, much less beat up someone his size. So he simply bided his time until he was accelerated into older classes. He wasn't bullied anymore, but he found difficulty in relating to them and so spent most of his time alone.
His interest in engineering only grew until his parents redid the pool house on their estate into his personal think tank. He spent days at a time there if he could, and quite frankly, his school was happy to give their resident genius some leeway if it meant they'd gain some prestige for his accomplishments. Decker choked his loneliness down with his work, the praises from his parents a bigger reward than the trophies and certificates that lined his walls.
When Decker graduated with a degree in Mechanical Engineering from MIT at 17 , no one was surprised. And no one balked when he spent most of his time at home, fully moving into the renovated poolhouse and using his family's money to fund his personal projects. Thankfully, many of those projects wound up with patents and buyers were eager to take his inventions off his hands for a neat sum.
They were all practice though, for a machine much more complicated than anything else that currently existed in our known world, for a purpose much simpler than one would expect.
It was a machine designed to be a friend.
But nothing worked. No computer was powerful enough, even with the help he got from people at his alma mater. Sure, there were machines that could interpret facial expressions, but Decker sought companionship and not a simple feedback loop.
His search brought him to some rather sketchy sites on the internet, but because money was no object to him, he bought anything that might aid in his quest. Little did he know that one of his impulse purchases would be the key to his machine.
But of course, to use it, he had to understand it and that involved breaking it apart. By trying to dismantle it, he activated some sort internal self-defense mechanism and next thing he knew, he was ducking from laser fire and screaming back into the main house. Of course, the people within called the authorities to handle the threat which they did... at the expense of Decker's freedom.
He knew he'd get into a few sticky situations for his project, especially if it became public knowledge, but getting arrested? When it was finally explained to him why he was in trouble, Decker blanched, but immediately accepted the terms set to him. And as he learned more about BOO, he grew to like them, the threat of solitary confinement not withstanding. So he's eager to prove himself as a useful individual, attempting to make up for a mistake born of ignorance. Now if only they'd let him mess with the guns... he's sure he can make it at least three times better if he was given the chance.
FAMILY_
Leon Decker
A proud businessman who takes better care of Decker Industries than he does his own son. He's not a bad person, just a bad parent.
Rowena Decker
The same could be said about Rowena, though she does score additional points for being the one to introduce him to engineering.
