Re: OOC
For what it's worth, here's a short character bio I created for Dale based on the character creation process. I imagine it would all be in his Starfleet personnel record.
Christopher was a Starfleet brat, whose parents spent most of his childhood on Vulcan. His father is a diplomat and his mother a computer scientist. While he'd never claim or aspire to Vulcan levels of emotional suppression, he did adopt a strong respect for discipline and logical thought. He also inherited more than a little of his mother's scientific talent.
He barely had a second thought about joining Starfleet, and naturally gravitated towards the Science division. While he had learned much of the universe from a theoretical perspective, he found himself strongly driven to see and experience for himself, and he focused on fields critical to a starship crew. His notable weakness was a lack of strong leadership drive, but he worked hard to develop the minimal skills Starfleet required and his strong and varied scientific aptitudes more than made up for that deficiency, especially for someone who wasn't pursuing the command track. Instead he developed an appreciation for teamwork and the strength of the group.
His immediate and distant family connections prevented him from being sidelined to a planetary or Starbase assignment and he's served two tours on starships. While on the USS Exeter, he played a key role during first contact with a race of metamorphs who freely transferred personalities between themselves as easily as they reshaped their bodies, and received a commendation for his performance. During his second assignment, the research ship USS Copernicus was redirected to a frontier colony planet that was being ravaged by a completely unknown and viciously infectious plague. With limited medical staff available (the Copernicus was fitted and staffed for stellar observation), and the nearest appropriate medical vessel almost two weeks away, Decker stepped up and organized the ship's available staff to combat and ultimately defeat the disease before it could consume the colony.
Newly promoted Lieutenant Commander Decker finds his new posting as the Chief Science Officer to a front-line starship to be more than a little intimidating. He's developed a real love for deep space exploration, but also an awareness of just how dangerous it can be. He's not a particularly brave man nor a leader of sentient beings, but his talents and a bit of luck have put him front and center (well, a bit off to the right of the command chair) on one of Starfleet's most capable vessels and he hopes he's up to the task.
