Joshua Joyce

Joshua Joyce is the head of KSI from the move Transformers: Age of Extinction

Bio
The technologies industry attracts, and indeed would not exist in the first place without, brilliant and determined inventors. However, the cutthroat forces of the modern world economy often push these geniuses into a state of narrow focus, trying to develop the next big thing without properly considering consequences or moral and ethical ramifications. Joshua Joyce, head of Kinetic Solutions Incorporated, is one of those who fell into this trap in his quest to create a line of human-made remote-controlled Transformers. But underneath, there may still be some good in him.

Age of Extinction
To fulfill his childhood dream of making the world a better place, Joyce partnered his KSI with Harold Attinger's Cemetery Wind CIA unit to create a line of man-made Transformers to serve the United States and the rest of the world. Following the Battle of Chicago, Cemetery Wind began hunting down all Earth-bound Transformers, donating their remains to Joyce for his company to melt down and use as raw materials to make their own drones. However, Joyce was unaware that Cemetery Wind was slaughtering the heroic Autobots, being told the remains they received were those of the evil Decepticons. To further aid in the operation, Joyce came to rely on Brains to help with the construction of the drones, treating the diminutive Autobot as a slave, and callously torturing him whenever he spoke out against his captor.

It was during this time that Joyce "cracked the code" of the Transformers' primal metals, dubbing it "Transformium". However, with Earth's limited supplies of the element running low and the demand for Transformium in the labs outgrowing the input from Cemetery Wind's hunts, Joyce and Attinger entered a deal with the non-aligned Cybertronian bounty hunter Lockdown, who in exchange for Attinger's help finding Optimus Prime, would hand over a Seed, which upon detonation would produce enough Transformium to last Joyce a century. Among Joyce's smaller operations were attempts to build improved counterparts of Optimus and Bumblebee, though to his dismay, the intended doppelgänger of Optimus, a military prototype, kept resembling Megatron with each iteration.

However, Joyce's plans began to fall through, as did his alliance with Attinger, when Cade Yeager, an ally of the Autobots, infiltrated KSI's headquarters in Chicago. Yeager was apprehended and delivered to Attinger for interrogation, but Yeager was soon rescued when the Autobots stormed the facility, having learned of the demise of Ratchet, and the desecration of not only his corpse but of all other Cybertronian victims of Cemetery Wind. Joyce personally confronted Optimus, and despite being intimidated by the Autobots' rage and firepower (much to the freed Brains' pleasure), kept his composure and smugly informed the Autobots that the world would approve of what he had done for the sake of technology. Joyce further explained that humanity could now produce their own Transformers, rendering the Autobots obsolete. A disgusted Optimus led the Autobots in a retreat, and it was at that moment Attinger ordered Joyce to send Galvatron and Stinger after the Autobot leader, declaring the raid a terrorist attack and worthy of a CIA op in retaliation. Joyce reluctantly consented, and his reluctance proved well-founded, as Galvatron not only opened fire on civilians without an order, but he spoke, a function he was never programmed to do. To his immense disgust, Joyce found opposition from Attinger when he declared Galvatron a failure and scrambled paramedics to the prototype's casualties, who dismissed the damage since innocents died every day. To Joyce's surprise, Lockdown arrived on the scene and apprehended Prime before Galvatron could finish the fight.

In the wake of the destructive Autobot raid and Galvatron's unsuccessful field test, Joyce ordered all prototypes moved to their facilities in China. Drift intercepted this information and provided Cade with Joyce's phone number. Cade warned Joyce that his prototypes had minds of their own, and tried to appeal to his conscience as an inventor. Though Joyce put up a facade, he heeded Cade's warning and ordered additional security around Galvatron. Attinger soon delivered the Seed to Joyce, but Joyce, disillusioned with his ally for his callousness during the field test and remembering Cade's warning, tried to decline the Seed. Attinger aggressively warned him to not back out, but it was at that moment that Galvatron activated on his own and breathed life into the other fifty KSI drones, taking them as his own Decepticon army. As the drones destroyed the lab, Joyce evacuated the scene with his associates Darcy Tirrel and Su Yueming and the Seed in tow.

The next day, he and Su found themselves hunted by Cemetery Wind through Hong Kong, which was when Joyce learned, much to his dismay, that the Seed had the blast radius of a tactical nuclear weapon (LOL!). Joyce called in Cade and the Autobots to deliver the Seed to, but Galvatron's army attacked, trapping Joyce with them in the streets of Hong Kong. As they came under attack from the Decepticons and James Savoy (who Cade ended up killing), Joyce became openly critical of the group's chances for survival, even with Hound, Cade and Bumblebee's efforts to fend off their assailants. Luckily, Optimus arrived with the Dinobots as reinforcements, saving them in the nick of time. However, Joyce found himself berated by Optimus once again, now riding the colossal Grimlock. Despite his terror at apparently nearly being eaten, Joyce joined in the attempt to move the Seed to safety. Lockdown appeared and wreaked havoc upon Hong Kong with his ship's colossal magnet, but luckily Shane Dyson's exemplary driving and Optimus' intervention saved them from the bounty hunter. Joyce and the Seed were escorted by the majority of the Autobot forces over a nearby bridge until Optimus killed Lockdown and the remainder of the KSI drones. With the battle over, Joyce found himself redeemed and accepted into Cade's family, and in exchange, promised to provide them with a new home, and subsequently watched Optimus Prime depart Earth with the Seed.