Backstory
Katie Cohen is an original character who is affiliated with the TV series The Unit. The introduction and backstory detailed herein takes place between Season Three and Season Four, and with the exception of necessary alterations to fit roleplay, Katie will be canon at the beginning of Season Four when it airs in September.
Pre-Military
Childhood
Katie was born Katherine Jean Cohen on February 2, 1965. She was born and raised in Gainesville, Florida. Katie is the oldest of two children; her brother Matt, born Matthew Baker Cohen, was six years younger. Little is known about her childhood; Katie and her brother are both tight-lipped about it, dissatisfied about several aspects of it that they prefer not to discuss.
Katie's parents were both Naval officers; her father was a Navy SEAL. While her parents weren't overly cruel or otherwise objectionable, they were tough on both their children and not particularly interested in getting to know who they wanted to be. The fact that Katie often was cold and distant didn't help their relationship either, and her parents simply didn't know how to handle her. One thing that she will say is that her father often called her Katherine, usually as a sign of disapproval; to this day, calling her by her full first name will immediately put her on the defensive.
Yet as acrimonious as her relationship with her parents was, Katie was equally as bonded with her brother. The two are pretty much polar opposites; while Katie was clinical, distant and antisocial, Matt was known for his love of life and his laid-back, relaxed attitude. But he also applied that same love to his sister, and was the one person in her life that she felt she could be herself with; he always treated her as a person despite everything else she became. As a result, she returned that affection, becoming equally as protective and proud of him. The only times she truly felt happy were when she was spending quality time with her brother.
By middle school, Katie was already a problem child, becoming involved in several fights and with her cold demeanor being mistaken for insubordination on numerous occasions. This earned her a juvenile criminal record for assault, and a poor reputation amongst the adults in her life. If anyone had been paying close attention, they would have noted that she was often fighting other people's battles, stepping in to retaliate against bullies and protect weaker classmates. She had no interest in anything except her own already stringent moral code, and the fighting was only doing what she perceived was right, as well as an attempt at trying to feel some other sort of connection with the rest of society. No one noticed the problem, however, only the symptoms, and Katie was pulled from middle school and shipped to military school.
Military school was intended as a punishment for her but it turned out to be just what Katie needed. Already familiar with military life due to her parents, she found that military school treated her differently. Instead of making her an outcast, the drill instructors gave her a focus for her acting out as well as her sharp mind. They pushed her to reach real potential instead of just acting on undirected impulse. It was there that Katie first began to consider military service as an option, and she returned to attend regular high school a more "reformed," or at least controlled, individual. She joined her high school's JROTC and found success there, as one of the top students. While in high school, she sat down with her brother (then a freshman when she was a senior), and the two of them found their thoughts leaning the same way. They decided they both wanted to enter the Army. This was not a popular decision with their parents, both of whom made their disapproval known, but the Cohen siblings had their oft-stubborn minds made up.
While Matt would eventually decide to enlist straight from high school as a non-commissioned officer (NCO), Katie wanted a fallback plan in case the Army didn't work out. She was also playing to her advantage: due to her mathematical genius - she scored a perfect 800 on her math SATs - Boston College offered her a full-ride academic scholarship. Feeling it might also prepare her for military service, Katie elected to enroll at Boston College after she graduated Gainesville High.
As far as is known, Katie's parents remained in Gainesville until they passed on. It's worth noting that neither Katie nor Matt ever made mention of returning to Gainesville after leaving it to pursue their respective paths to the Army.
Higher Education
While at Boston College, Katie continued her trend of being both antisocial and being the responsible one. With her not having many friends, she was also impartial and that made her able to be trusted with responsibility by her seniors if ostracized by her peers.
She was a member of the swim team, and tried playing lacrosse, except she says they wouldn't let her hit hard enough so she became disinterested with it. She was also a resident assistant (RA) in the dorms, breaking up fights and supervising other students, which she says did not help her already nonexistent romantic life.
Katie graduated Boston College in 1987 with a Bachelor's degree in Mathematics and a minor in Corporate Reporting and Analysis. She then was accepted at the prestigious United States Military Academy, better known as West Point.
She narrowly missed making Cadet Captain there, which would have made her the first woman to do so, and demonstrated the fact that she holds herself to an equally high standard as she holds everyone else; she was not happy with the failure and apparently had a rare destructive fit after the fact.
Upon graduation from West Point in 1991, Katie obtained a second Bachelor's degree in Mathematical Studies. She then prepared to enter Army service, only three years behind her brother, who had started in 1988.
Military Service
1991-1994: 1st Information Operations Command
Due to her double math degrees and obvious statistical aptitude, upon arriving in the Army, Katie was assigned to the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM). Her first assignment was with the 1st Information Operations Command, where she worked as a cryptographer and intelligence analyst.
While with the 1st, Katie learned to hone her gift with numbers into a talent for cryptography, and by the middle of the year she had decided to make that her specialty. She then switched tracks and, after managing to annihilate the required test scores and pass the training course, became a Warrant Officer, specializing in cryptography. As a result of this advanced promotion, her workload increased and her superiors began relying on her to do things out of her usual comfort zone. She demonstrated that she was willing to work harder to prove that letting her advance so quickly was justified and not because she just looked good on paper. In fact, to this day she will only mention her academic qualifications if they are relevant or just to give attitude to someone, but never to prove herself superior. In her eyes, the degrees are merely statistics which mark life experience and not a reflection of the person holding them.
As Katie's extended workload brought her more involvement with human intelligence, her superiors noted that her detachment from society and cold demeanor were in fact permanent and could make her a useful asset in dealing with sources, since she would be unaffected by emotional appeals or bias. As such, the decision was made to move her more into the field. In her final year with the 1st, Katie was sent through the Army's SOCAD program to Cochise College in Arizona, where she trained for and received her Associate of Applied Sciences degree in Intelligence Operations. She was then transferred out.
1994-2000: 902nd Military Intelligence Group
Now officially assigned as a Human Intelligence Collection Technician, Katie began a new assignment with the 902nd Military Intelligence Group as an in-the-field agent. Due to her thick skin, she was often dispatched to (or, if necessary, willing to) handle adverse situations in "all the wrong places." This is another period in her life she is tight-lipped about, namely because she didn't like it very much, both because it forced her to be more involved with people and because it was a very trying time in her career.
While in the field, Katie worked occasionally with British freelance operative Stephen Brennan. She and Brennan were both fairly distant people with their fair share of enemies and made an effective pair; on occasion they let their relationship become sexual, though never emotionally intimate. Most notably, in November 1999, they were working together in Cairo, Egypt to infiltrate a corporation that was a suspected corporate front, and were almost killed when their car exploded. Katie credits Brennan with saving her life and making sure she received proper medical care for her grievous injuries, including a torn rotator cuff, several pinched nerves, a concussion and temporary hearing loss. She spent months in a Stateside hospital, meaning she never saw the very data she had almost died for; she would years later discover the terrorist group the company was fronting for was a deadly Middle Eastern sect known as Fourth Dawn.
After her near-death experience in Cairo, Katie decided field work was no longer for her, and made it clear she wanted out. She finished out the year before being granted a transfer.
In 1996, Katie also earned her first promotion, to Chief Warrant Officer-2 (CWO-2). Upon her departure in 2000, she was promoted to her current rank of Chief Warrant Officer-3 (CWO-3).
2000-2006: 704th Military Intelligence Brigade
Having acquitted herself well in the field (to everyone but herself, mirroring her early West Point disappointment), Katie was given a fairly prestigious posting, as part of the 704th Military Intelligence Brigade, out of Fort Meade in Maryland. The INSCOM staff there was headed by reputable Captain Trevor Turner, known for training an exemplary staff. His relationship with Katie was no exception.
Turner understood Katie's distaste for field work and introduced her to the world of intelligence supervising. While he was sometimes tough on her, it was only to make her better, and he remained a friend and confidante that she would need. His lengthy service record earned her respect. Working for him, she began to want to emulate him and hopefully succeed him one day. Though working at Fort Meade meant buckling down - she lived in a small off-base apartment and often kept strange hours - Katie had obviously found something she loved. Turner rewarded her disclipline and focus with opportunities for her to grow; when his pregnant sister went into labor, he let Katie command the shift for that evening. Though it went badly (as far as she says, which may again be relative), the second time was much improved and her career continued to both challenge her and impress those around her. They didn't know her, but they knew of her, and knew she could be trusted to get them home even if they would never invite her out for drinks.
Working at Fort Meade also introduced Katie to Sergeant Michaela Adams, a co-worker who would introduce Katie to someone else who would become important in her life. Katie met then-Los Angeles based magician David Hardaway through Adams in 2000, and the two eventually began dating for the next three years. Their relationship, however, was almost more platonic than anything else; though they were romantically involved, they both understood that it could not be anything serious due to their demanding jobs and her emotional difficulties. David, nonetheless, became someone she could talk to, even on one occasion getting stabbed when he went to defend her in a bar fight. That shook Katie, who stayed by his bedside through his long recovery process, even canceling a planned trip to see her brother. However, David had his own career to pursue and with Katie dedicated to the Army, they parted amicably in 2003. They would not speak again for the next four years.
2000 was also an important year for Katie's brother, Matt. He had become a munitions expert with a talent for explosives, and found himself transferred to the 303rd Logistics Group out of Fort Griffith in Missouri. When he learned from his new CO, Colonel Tom Ryan, that the 303rd was really a front for the 1st Special Actions Group, Matt balked, not sure he could take the heat. However, he forced himself to rise to the occasion under Ryan's firm hand, and not only did he become a disciplined soldier but he also earned instructor's credentials and helped to train other operators. Matt matured a great deal and was a solid member of his team.
His sister was incredibly proud of him, and in some ways envious of the man he'd become. On January 4, she flew down from barely settling in at Fort Meade (where she had arrived just three days earlier) to help him move in on base. This was her introduction to Colonel Ryan, and she knew a like mind when she saw one. On May 17, after a game of pool and maybe a few too many drinks, despite being in a relationship, Katie kissed her brother's CO. Fortunately for her, the feelings were reciprocated and they slept together. Realizing her mistake, she attempted to swear him off, but couldn't when he pursued her again just days later. The two agreed to keep things quiet for the sake of everyone involved, and began an on-again, off-again affair over the next six years. Katie was surprised that he seemed to be developing real feelings for her, something she tried desperately to avoid given her own inability to return them and a fear of destroying her brother's career. That last part no longer was a problem: in January 2006, Katie received a devastating phone call from Ryan, telling her that Matt had died.
A Death In The Family
Aftermath
The loss of her brother, someone she had come to deeply respect as a fellow soldier and who had provided a balance to her flaws and defects, crushed Katie. It also forced her to retreat further into herself, and she never was the same person.
Due to her lack of security clearance she received the same official story as everyone else: that Matt had been instructing squad members in explosives use when there had been an accident and he had been killed. In reality, he had been killed in an explosion in Afghanistan, by members of the terrorist group known as Fourth Dawn, while serving alongside fellow Alpha Team member and good friend Mack Gerhardt.
Katie knew her brother to be meticulous about his work even if he was laid-back in life, and that he always had steady hands. A training accident was just impossible and she didn't buy it for a second, as people on the inside had feared. She started asking questions about what really happened, and was warned by numerous people - including Colonel Ryan and Matt's squad leader Jonas Blane - to drop the issue lest she face repercussions.
Katie's career was a thing of pride to her. But her brother had been the one person she'd really loved, and the idea of whomever had killed him being at large and killing someone else's loved ones just because of a cover story bothered her too much. She continued to press, and eventually she was deemed a threat to operational security. A planned promotion to CWO-4 was denied, as was Ryan's attempt to have her put on his team, and she was instead transferred overseas. Katie got the message loud and clear: she was being punished. Yet it also confirmed for her the truth: there was something to hide, and she knew just who to blame for hiding it.
2006-2007: Defense Intelligence Agency
Transferred to Alconbury Air Force Base in England, Katie was posted as an Army representative to an intelligence joint task force located there. It was at Alconbury that she met Agent Scott Chastain. Chastain was the representative for the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the two formed a working partnership. He also became her post-Ryan rebound, although she admits to having at least once called him by the wrong name during sex. Chastain would later return to her life by supervising Alpha Team's strike against Fourth Dawn from Alconbury.
Katie used the year she was overseas to further hone her skills, using her anger at her brother's death and the cover-up as a motivator. She even forced herself to be on her best behavior in order to further that goal. In reality, she wanted revenge, specifically on her brother's former team and his former CO. She blamed them for his death and for lying to her, and she would do anything to get back at them. Having convinced the Army she was a good soldier once again, Katie was transferred back to the States, but her plan was already laid.
2007-2008: 513th Miliary Intelligence Brigade
Katie rejoined INSCOM as part of the 513th Military Intelligence Brigade out of Fort Gordon in Georgia. With her experience and training, she became a Senior Human Intelligence Collection Technician, one of the senior intelligence supervisors on the base.
This also partnered her with Sergeant Major Brian Falkenborg, an in-house veteran supervisor. They had vastly different backgrounds; Falkenborg had never seen a day of combat duty, a former intelligence instructor with the SOCAD program himself. Despite his huge stature (he stands at six foot four), he preferred to speak softly and carry a big stick. However, he and Katie made a decent team and soon found themselves working on some of the most crucial cases on the base while learning how to disagree with one another. Falkenborg understood something was wrong with Katie but didn't push; he did, however, become momentarily frightened when she once covered their office with intelligence charts in an obsessive fit. Still, she grew to rely on him, asking him to run the office in her absence, and getting used to him looking at her weird.
Despite her being content with the situation at Fort Gordon, Katie still had her goal in mind. She continued to work hard and gather information until she had a case. Sneakily, she realized that no one had audited the Fort Griffith intelligence staff in years, pulled together all of said data and wrote a very convincing proposal. She had the authorization of the chief of INSCOM, and in 2008 she returned to Fort Griffith with a chip on her shoulder and a taste for blood.
Return To Fort Griffith
Investigation
As she expected, Ryan tried to block her transfer before she even arrived but she had a legitimate professional case, and the General wouldn't hear of it. Intending to play it straight and let Colonel Ryan hang himself, that plan failed almost immediately when their very first argument erupted in his office as soon as she reported. She commented on his impending divorce, he brought up her juvenile criminal record, and lines were drawn in the sand. He consigned her to the base's smallest office and kept a close watch on her as she did what she had been assigned to do, ignoring the changed attitudes of people who had once been friends.
While she had a legitimate job to do, she wasn't aware that she was doing a job into a void. Without the proper security clearance, all she was investigating was the false front that didn't really exist. Still she was doing a thorough job, even if she was in fights with Ryan and anyone else on a daily basis. Things got even more complicated when an Alpha Team mission going down in North Korea needed someone who could decipher an intelligence code in a hurry. Against his better instincts, Ryan knew Katie would be able to get the job done, and called her in to assist. She always put aside her personal issues when work was required and that was no different; she assisted from the TOC, getting the code cracked and the information sent back to the people on the ground. The whole situation proved to the entire team that she was a professional and that she had only gotten better at her job since the last time they'd seen her. Not only that, but she begrudgingly began to respect Ryan even though she hated him for getting her brother killed.
This sent mixed signals between the two of them, neither of them knowing how to react. Both of them were convinced that the rare nice moments between them were just another level to the game they were playing, and yet were too stubborn so they kept playing nice just to screw with each other. Things finally came to a head when he turned up on her doorstep, calling her out and telling her that if she thought she could seduce him and then destroy him, she was wasting her time. She found this laughable and fired right back at him that she had no interest in him and he was obviously hung up on their past together. The two were in a massive argument when he kissed her, leading to a one-night stand of angry and destructive sex that further confused them both. Katie knew she was still attracted to him but she still loathed him, and was further disappointed when her audit turned up nothing she could use to destroy him. Unwilling to lie for her own benefit and break her own strict moral code, she gave Ryan her final report and prepared to head back to Georgia with nothing else that she could do, at least not from that angle. She might be able to break him, but it would mean betraying herself and she couldn't justify that.
Joining Alpha Team
Yet there was a final development even she couldn't see coming. Because she had been called in on that North Korea mission, she was now "in the know" and that was a problem. But Ryan also knew that she had proven herself to be a professional and had actually found some legitimate improvements. He called her into his office, telling her that they had decided she deserved the appropriate security clearance. As such, he then told her what had actually happened to her brother, a complete blow-by-blow account. He gave her a choice then: she could go after the terrorists guns blazing in Afghanistan, and get killed on her own, or she could stay in Missouri and fix the problems she'd pointed out. Not liking the idea of having to work for him, but also knowing that it was the best opportunity for her (and admittedly, not wanting to leave him either, though she'll deny that), Katie agreed to leave Fort Gordon and took a position running the Tactical Operations Center, leaving her at Ryan's whim and at his right hand. Her official classified title is Special Forces Warrant Officer (though she is publicly known as a Chief Intelligence Technician), and it's her job to keep the TOC running and in working order, while continuing to supervise intelligence coming into and out of the building. At any moment, if Ryan asks her what's going on with something, she has to be able to tell him every single detail. Thankfully her mind is more than up to the task.
However she had another issue and that was her attraction to her new commanding officer, which was only complicated by the fact that she knew now he wasn't responsible for her brother's death. She was still trying to screw with him, which came to a head when she let herself get picked up by a man she hardly knew, specifically to irritate him. She knew he'd find out about it and when he called her out on it, he knew immediately she had done it to make him jealous. After yet another argument about that, they ended up having angry sex on her desk, and that was when she realized that she couldn't stop seeing him. She needed him. Against every instinct in her body and her mind, she found herself falling in love with him eight years after they had first met, and the tempestuous affair only got more complicated. After just days of being reunited, they made the impulse decision to elope and marry, realizing that this had been eight years in the making.
The choice exposed Katie's personal life to public view, something that set her on edge because she disliked ever speaking of her personal life, not that she ever had much of one. Suddenly, she had a husband who was her own boss, and a friend who had adopted her as a sister to the point of relocating to Missouri. The domestic implications cut on Katie's nerves, and she went looking for conflict and chaos. She got it when a meeting with Brennan to find out who had really transferred her to England almost got them both killed; the shooter was connected to Fourth Dawn, and to the company in Cairo that they had destroyed. The more she dug, the more she realized Fourth Dawn had been out to kill them both since that day; only her taking the classified assignment at Fort Meade had made her disappear and now that they knew she was alive, they were going to finish the job. They even employed her new husband's ex-wife to help them do it, an act which ended in failure when Ryan killed her.
Realizing the same group that wanted her dead had also coincidentally killed her brother was too much for Katie and she asked for the team's help in avenging his death. Together with some of her former contacts and allies, the team pinpointed Fourth Dawn's headquarters and advanced on it with intent to eliminate as many as they could. In an ensuing massive firefight, Katie confronted the man who had killed her brother, and the two fought. While she was fairly injured, he didn't escape alive. Now licking her wounds, Katie has to decide what to do next with her life. The fact that she's avenged her brother is a huge weight off her shoulders but she's also now lost the one thing that was her sense of direction in life for the last two years. There's the possibility that it is both a blessing and a curse.
Personality
Psychology
Many things in life have stemmed from Katie's schizoid personality disorder coupled with her genius. Namely, that she's been treated more like an object than a person and has internalized this belief, if only for her professional benefit. She has detached herself from reality and from the world at large, channeling her intense anger, frustration and conflict into a fierce determination toward her work. She will spend hours locked in her office with paperwork everywhere if it gets the job done.
Despite her personality defect however, Katie has a very strict code of ethics. She will put aside any and all personal baggage in order to do her job. Though she still fights with her new team members, she has forged somewhat of a truce with them as they all learn to work together and eventually earns their friendship back once she proves that she is legitimately back on their side. She respects their talent, even working on more than one occasion with Bob Brown, who replaced her brother on the team. She even admits to missing Brian Falkenborg, who eventually joins the Fort Griffith intelligence staff in order to help her with the new demands of her job (even though he has no idea what he's getting into).
Everything about her is usually very intense and to the point. Katie is bluntly honest, once smoked somewhere between 1996-2000 but quit at that point (though she's twice relapsed), tends to swear like any good military officer, and doesn't care if she hurts someone's feelings. While she has nowhere near the combat experience of her colleagues she can still put up a good fight, being that she keeps in shape (and has the sex drive of someone half her age). Unfortunately, she also has no idea how to act like a normal human being; even when she's alone and vulnerable with someone she trusts, half her brain is still thinking about work and numbers and how to kill someone with a hotel pen. She can't just let it go and function normally, because she never really has. Now that she has people in her life that personality flaw is becoming more apparent and it begins to trouble her, which of course only pisses her off further that she has feelings.
Two things drive Katie: ambition and competition. She has no tolerance for people that bore her or are beneath her, and she can't even really remember their names once they quickly disappear from her memory. But when someone can compete with her she finds that interesting and likes the challenge. Katie wants to be the best there is at what she does. Her ambition was to attain the maximum Warrant Officer rank of CWO-5, but since her getting into trouble after her brother's death, she probably will never be promoted, something she's still bitter about. In everything she does she has to be the best, and she doesn't like giving up control.
Preferences
Katie drives a massive black Nissan Titan that she spends a good deal of time personally maintaining. Some of the books on her shelves include ones on Nobel Prize winner John Nash (whom she is fascinated by), the Cuban Missile Crisis, and Werner Heisenberg's meeting with Niels Bohr at Copenhagen. Obviously she's not much of a fiction person. She does own a gun, a Desert Eagle normally found in her bedroom nightstand.
Her hobbies include pool (which she is actually fairly talented at), sudoku, and chess (though she doesn't play that much). Anything which lets her use her brain and outsmart or manipulate people tends to hold her interest. She could care less about her wardrobe, her makeup, or anything domestic. It's all transparent to her and doesn't truly matter in the grand scheme of things. She admits she's more comfortable in uniform than in civilian clothes.
Among other things she is a Gordon Ramsay fan (unsurprisingly), who owns several of his cookbooks. She watches Hell's Kitchen and Kitchen Nightmares, along with her now-ex-boyfriend David Hardaway. While in New York to be with him, she also took a cooking class at the Culinary Institutes of America (the other CIA), not that she'll admit it because that would make her look too domestic.
She admits that she and her brother were fans of the throwback sitcoms such as Cheers, and that no matter where they were they would watch Cheers and discuss the episodes over the phone while they were on, usually with her providing the more cynical viewpoint to everything. She says that her brother, who was into music more than she was, can actually play the theme from Cheers on the piano and knows all the words. He forced her to sing it with him once. Matt also insisted on a week-long trip to California every year for his birthday, which included a stop at Disneyland, much to her chagrin. And breakfast with Mickey Mouse.
Katie is a Sophie B. Hawkins fan. Her brother, for whatever reason, enjoyed pop music which she loathes. Yet she has all of his belongings that were on the base and finds herself listening to his music from time to time. The Mandy Moore albums make her insane, but the memory of her brother is comforting. She obviously misses him and the normal presence he brought into her life, though she admits she didn't even cry when he died -- she just isn't capable of that kind of emotion. A sign that she is changing is that she finally sheds tears for him once she has killed the man that killed him. She's still trying to figure out the idea of actually enjoying life, like her brother did.
Don't ever go into her office if the door is closed; she's most likely working in some sort of codebreaking trance. If that's not enough, she'll be down in the basement, writing on the walls. At least the markers wash off and it's quiet.
Contacts
Specialist Matt Cohen - Katie's brother, six years her junior, with whom she was bonded. Earnest and fairly laid-back, the man known for his impulse ideas and love of life (and pop music) eventually matured into a solid soldier and field instructor. Katie calls him her "balance" and says he had the steadiest hands she had ever seen. The munitions and demolitions expert, he was killed in 2006 by members of the terrorist group Fourth Dawn while serving in Afghanistan alongside his colleague and friend Mack Gerhardt.
Sergeant Major Brian Falkenborg - Currently a Senior Human Intelligence Collection Technician at Fort Gordon in Georgia, Falkenborg was Katie's assigned work partner when she was posted to Fort Gordon. He has never seen combat duty, and has spent most of his career as an intelligence instructor, part of it with the University of Maryland's SOCAD program. Still, she values his opinion and his "speak softly yet carry a big stick" approach and has said on more than one occasion she feels he could be an asset to her work.
Stephen Brennan - A British freelance operative who worked with Katie on a few occasions when she worked field intelligence (1996-2000). Most notably, he was working with her when both were nearly killed in a car bomb in Cairo, Egypt. She says that he stayed until she could get medical attention. Recently she looked him up again to get access to her sealed DSA file. They may or may not have slept together.
David Hardaway - Katie's boyfriend from 2000 to 2003, more of a friend than anything else. They were together for just a few months before she got posted to Fort Meade and her brother got his job at Fort Griffith. David has no idea that Katie was cheating on him with Tom Ryan and is probably better off not knowing, despite the fact that he admits he knew they weren't headed for marriage due to their busy careers and her emotional difficulties. David is now a professional magician in Connecticut, while living in New York.
Captain Trevor Turner - Chief of INSCOM Operations at Fort Meade in Maryland, which makes him Katie's boss from 2000-2006. He delegated all the assignments and groomed her to be one of his senior case agents, which she was up until her rebellion over her brother's death. It was Turner's example that inspired Katie to want to become a commander of her own team, something that she has yet to achieve for more than a mission or two at a time. She still speaks highly of him and considers him her favorite supervisor.
Agent Scott Chastain - An agent with the Defense Intelligence Agency, whom Katie met while serving as a representative during her "punishment" year at Alconbury AFB in England. Along with her and various other officers from other agencies, Chastain served as part of an intelligence 'think tank.' The two became friends and were briefly romantically involved while serving together, though she admits to having once called him by the wrong name during sex.
Sergeant Michaela Adams - A colleague of Katie's at Fort Meade and one of her only female friends. It's Michaela who introduced Katie to David Hardaway and inadvertantly set them up. According to Katie, Michaela is much more feminine, including an interest in personal gossip that kept her poking about Katie's personal life.
Out of Character
Having read spoilers for Season Four, I'm not sure how well the new character is going to fit into my canon; namely it seems like she might fill Katie's job description. As of right now my plan is to ignore that character, make the expected alterations to fit roleplay canon, and otherwise try to keep Katie as canon as possible.
Katie is affiliated with specific muses as indicated on her profile, however she is open to playing with other canonmates that may appear. This biography includes established roleplay canon worked out with affiliated muses, and is not considered binding on any other muses that may wish to interact with her.
Pre-Military
Childhood
Katie was born Katherine Jean Cohen on February 2, 1965. She was born and raised in Gainesville, Florida. Katie is the oldest of two children; her brother Matt, born Matthew Baker Cohen, was six years younger. Little is known about her childhood; Katie and her brother are both tight-lipped about it, dissatisfied about several aspects of it that they prefer not to discuss.
Katie's parents were both Naval officers; her father was a Navy SEAL. While her parents weren't overly cruel or otherwise objectionable, they were tough on both their children and not particularly interested in getting to know who they wanted to be. The fact that Katie often was cold and distant didn't help their relationship either, and her parents simply didn't know how to handle her. One thing that she will say is that her father often called her Katherine, usually as a sign of disapproval; to this day, calling her by her full first name will immediately put her on the defensive.
Yet as acrimonious as her relationship with her parents was, Katie was equally as bonded with her brother. The two are pretty much polar opposites; while Katie was clinical, distant and antisocial, Matt was known for his love of life and his laid-back, relaxed attitude. But he also applied that same love to his sister, and was the one person in her life that she felt she could be herself with; he always treated her as a person despite everything else she became. As a result, she returned that affection, becoming equally as protective and proud of him. The only times she truly felt happy were when she was spending quality time with her brother.
By middle school, Katie was already a problem child, becoming involved in several fights and with her cold demeanor being mistaken for insubordination on numerous occasions. This earned her a juvenile criminal record for assault, and a poor reputation amongst the adults in her life. If anyone had been paying close attention, they would have noted that she was often fighting other people's battles, stepping in to retaliate against bullies and protect weaker classmates. She had no interest in anything except her own already stringent moral code, and the fighting was only doing what she perceived was right, as well as an attempt at trying to feel some other sort of connection with the rest of society. No one noticed the problem, however, only the symptoms, and Katie was pulled from middle school and shipped to military school.
Military school was intended as a punishment for her but it turned out to be just what Katie needed. Already familiar with military life due to her parents, she found that military school treated her differently. Instead of making her an outcast, the drill instructors gave her a focus for her acting out as well as her sharp mind. They pushed her to reach real potential instead of just acting on undirected impulse. It was there that Katie first began to consider military service as an option, and she returned to attend regular high school a more "reformed," or at least controlled, individual. She joined her high school's JROTC and found success there, as one of the top students. While in high school, she sat down with her brother (then a freshman when she was a senior), and the two of them found their thoughts leaning the same way. They decided they both wanted to enter the Army. This was not a popular decision with their parents, both of whom made their disapproval known, but the Cohen siblings had their oft-stubborn minds made up.
While Matt would eventually decide to enlist straight from high school as a non-commissioned officer (NCO), Katie wanted a fallback plan in case the Army didn't work out. She was also playing to her advantage: due to her mathematical genius - she scored a perfect 800 on her math SATs - Boston College offered her a full-ride academic scholarship. Feeling it might also prepare her for military service, Katie elected to enroll at Boston College after she graduated Gainesville High.
As far as is known, Katie's parents remained in Gainesville until they passed on. It's worth noting that neither Katie nor Matt ever made mention of returning to Gainesville after leaving it to pursue their respective paths to the Army.
Higher Education
While at Boston College, Katie continued her trend of being both antisocial and being the responsible one. With her not having many friends, she was also impartial and that made her able to be trusted with responsibility by her seniors if ostracized by her peers.
She was a member of the swim team, and tried playing lacrosse, except she says they wouldn't let her hit hard enough so she became disinterested with it. She was also a resident assistant (RA) in the dorms, breaking up fights and supervising other students, which she says did not help her already nonexistent romantic life.
Katie graduated Boston College in 1987 with a Bachelor's degree in Mathematics and a minor in Corporate Reporting and Analysis. She then was accepted at the prestigious United States Military Academy, better known as West Point.
She narrowly missed making Cadet Captain there, which would have made her the first woman to do so, and demonstrated the fact that she holds herself to an equally high standard as she holds everyone else; she was not happy with the failure and apparently had a rare destructive fit after the fact.
Upon graduation from West Point in 1991, Katie obtained a second Bachelor's degree in Mathematical Studies. She then prepared to enter Army service, only three years behind her brother, who had started in 1988.
Military Service
1991-1994: 1st Information Operations Command
Due to her double math degrees and obvious statistical aptitude, upon arriving in the Army, Katie was assigned to the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM). Her first assignment was with the 1st Information Operations Command, where she worked as a cryptographer and intelligence analyst.
While with the 1st, Katie learned to hone her gift with numbers into a talent for cryptography, and by the middle of the year she had decided to make that her specialty. She then switched tracks and, after managing to annihilate the required test scores and pass the training course, became a Warrant Officer, specializing in cryptography. As a result of this advanced promotion, her workload increased and her superiors began relying on her to do things out of her usual comfort zone. She demonstrated that she was willing to work harder to prove that letting her advance so quickly was justified and not because she just looked good on paper. In fact, to this day she will only mention her academic qualifications if they are relevant or just to give attitude to someone, but never to prove herself superior. In her eyes, the degrees are merely statistics which mark life experience and not a reflection of the person holding them.
As Katie's extended workload brought her more involvement with human intelligence, her superiors noted that her detachment from society and cold demeanor were in fact permanent and could make her a useful asset in dealing with sources, since she would be unaffected by emotional appeals or bias. As such, the decision was made to move her more into the field. In her final year with the 1st, Katie was sent through the Army's SOCAD program to Cochise College in Arizona, where she trained for and received her Associate of Applied Sciences degree in Intelligence Operations. She was then transferred out.
1994-2000: 902nd Military Intelligence Group
Now officially assigned as a Human Intelligence Collection Technician, Katie began a new assignment with the 902nd Military Intelligence Group as an in-the-field agent. Due to her thick skin, she was often dispatched to (or, if necessary, willing to) handle adverse situations in "all the wrong places." This is another period in her life she is tight-lipped about, namely because she didn't like it very much, both because it forced her to be more involved with people and because it was a very trying time in her career.
While in the field, Katie worked occasionally with British freelance operative Stephen Brennan. She and Brennan were both fairly distant people with their fair share of enemies and made an effective pair; on occasion they let their relationship become sexual, though never emotionally intimate. Most notably, in November 1999, they were working together in Cairo, Egypt to infiltrate a corporation that was a suspected corporate front, and were almost killed when their car exploded. Katie credits Brennan with saving her life and making sure she received proper medical care for her grievous injuries, including a torn rotator cuff, several pinched nerves, a concussion and temporary hearing loss. She spent months in a Stateside hospital, meaning she never saw the very data she had almost died for; she would years later discover the terrorist group the company was fronting for was a deadly Middle Eastern sect known as Fourth Dawn.
After her near-death experience in Cairo, Katie decided field work was no longer for her, and made it clear she wanted out. She finished out the year before being granted a transfer.
In 1996, Katie also earned her first promotion, to Chief Warrant Officer-2 (CWO-2). Upon her departure in 2000, she was promoted to her current rank of Chief Warrant Officer-3 (CWO-3).
2000-2006: 704th Military Intelligence Brigade
Having acquitted herself well in the field (to everyone but herself, mirroring her early West Point disappointment), Katie was given a fairly prestigious posting, as part of the 704th Military Intelligence Brigade, out of Fort Meade in Maryland. The INSCOM staff there was headed by reputable Captain Trevor Turner, known for training an exemplary staff. His relationship with Katie was no exception.
Turner understood Katie's distaste for field work and introduced her to the world of intelligence supervising. While he was sometimes tough on her, it was only to make her better, and he remained a friend and confidante that she would need. His lengthy service record earned her respect. Working for him, she began to want to emulate him and hopefully succeed him one day. Though working at Fort Meade meant buckling down - she lived in a small off-base apartment and often kept strange hours - Katie had obviously found something she loved. Turner rewarded her disclipline and focus with opportunities for her to grow; when his pregnant sister went into labor, he let Katie command the shift for that evening. Though it went badly (as far as she says, which may again be relative), the second time was much improved and her career continued to both challenge her and impress those around her. They didn't know her, but they knew of her, and knew she could be trusted to get them home even if they would never invite her out for drinks.
Working at Fort Meade also introduced Katie to Sergeant Michaela Adams, a co-worker who would introduce Katie to someone else who would become important in her life. Katie met then-Los Angeles based magician David Hardaway through Adams in 2000, and the two eventually began dating for the next three years. Their relationship, however, was almost more platonic than anything else; though they were romantically involved, they both understood that it could not be anything serious due to their demanding jobs and her emotional difficulties. David, nonetheless, became someone she could talk to, even on one occasion getting stabbed when he went to defend her in a bar fight. That shook Katie, who stayed by his bedside through his long recovery process, even canceling a planned trip to see her brother. However, David had his own career to pursue and with Katie dedicated to the Army, they parted amicably in 2003. They would not speak again for the next four years.
2000 was also an important year for Katie's brother, Matt. He had become a munitions expert with a talent for explosives, and found himself transferred to the 303rd Logistics Group out of Fort Griffith in Missouri. When he learned from his new CO, Colonel Tom Ryan, that the 303rd was really a front for the 1st Special Actions Group, Matt balked, not sure he could take the heat. However, he forced himself to rise to the occasion under Ryan's firm hand, and not only did he become a disciplined soldier but he also earned instructor's credentials and helped to train other operators. Matt matured a great deal and was a solid member of his team.
His sister was incredibly proud of him, and in some ways envious of the man he'd become. On January 4, she flew down from barely settling in at Fort Meade (where she had arrived just three days earlier) to help him move in on base. This was her introduction to Colonel Ryan, and she knew a like mind when she saw one. On May 17, after a game of pool and maybe a few too many drinks, despite being in a relationship, Katie kissed her brother's CO. Fortunately for her, the feelings were reciprocated and they slept together. Realizing her mistake, she attempted to swear him off, but couldn't when he pursued her again just days later. The two agreed to keep things quiet for the sake of everyone involved, and began an on-again, off-again affair over the next six years. Katie was surprised that he seemed to be developing real feelings for her, something she tried desperately to avoid given her own inability to return them and a fear of destroying her brother's career. That last part no longer was a problem: in January 2006, Katie received a devastating phone call from Ryan, telling her that Matt had died.
A Death In The Family
Aftermath
The loss of her brother, someone she had come to deeply respect as a fellow soldier and who had provided a balance to her flaws and defects, crushed Katie. It also forced her to retreat further into herself, and she never was the same person.
Due to her lack of security clearance she received the same official story as everyone else: that Matt had been instructing squad members in explosives use when there had been an accident and he had been killed. In reality, he had been killed in an explosion in Afghanistan, by members of the terrorist group known as Fourth Dawn, while serving alongside fellow Alpha Team member and good friend Mack Gerhardt.
Katie knew her brother to be meticulous about his work even if he was laid-back in life, and that he always had steady hands. A training accident was just impossible and she didn't buy it for a second, as people on the inside had feared. She started asking questions about what really happened, and was warned by numerous people - including Colonel Ryan and Matt's squad leader Jonas Blane - to drop the issue lest she face repercussions.
Katie's career was a thing of pride to her. But her brother had been the one person she'd really loved, and the idea of whomever had killed him being at large and killing someone else's loved ones just because of a cover story bothered her too much. She continued to press, and eventually she was deemed a threat to operational security. A planned promotion to CWO-4 was denied, as was Ryan's attempt to have her put on his team, and she was instead transferred overseas. Katie got the message loud and clear: she was being punished. Yet it also confirmed for her the truth: there was something to hide, and she knew just who to blame for hiding it.
2006-2007: Defense Intelligence Agency
Transferred to Alconbury Air Force Base in England, Katie was posted as an Army representative to an intelligence joint task force located there. It was at Alconbury that she met Agent Scott Chastain. Chastain was the representative for the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the two formed a working partnership. He also became her post-Ryan rebound, although she admits to having at least once called him by the wrong name during sex. Chastain would later return to her life by supervising Alpha Team's strike against Fourth Dawn from Alconbury.
Katie used the year she was overseas to further hone her skills, using her anger at her brother's death and the cover-up as a motivator. She even forced herself to be on her best behavior in order to further that goal. In reality, she wanted revenge, specifically on her brother's former team and his former CO. She blamed them for his death and for lying to her, and she would do anything to get back at them. Having convinced the Army she was a good soldier once again, Katie was transferred back to the States, but her plan was already laid.
2007-2008: 513th Miliary Intelligence Brigade
Katie rejoined INSCOM as part of the 513th Military Intelligence Brigade out of Fort Gordon in Georgia. With her experience and training, she became a Senior Human Intelligence Collection Technician, one of the senior intelligence supervisors on the base.
This also partnered her with Sergeant Major Brian Falkenborg, an in-house veteran supervisor. They had vastly different backgrounds; Falkenborg had never seen a day of combat duty, a former intelligence instructor with the SOCAD program himself. Despite his huge stature (he stands at six foot four), he preferred to speak softly and carry a big stick. However, he and Katie made a decent team and soon found themselves working on some of the most crucial cases on the base while learning how to disagree with one another. Falkenborg understood something was wrong with Katie but didn't push; he did, however, become momentarily frightened when she once covered their office with intelligence charts in an obsessive fit. Still, she grew to rely on him, asking him to run the office in her absence, and getting used to him looking at her weird.
Despite her being content with the situation at Fort Gordon, Katie still had her goal in mind. She continued to work hard and gather information until she had a case. Sneakily, she realized that no one had audited the Fort Griffith intelligence staff in years, pulled together all of said data and wrote a very convincing proposal. She had the authorization of the chief of INSCOM, and in 2008 she returned to Fort Griffith with a chip on her shoulder and a taste for blood.
Return To Fort Griffith
Investigation
As she expected, Ryan tried to block her transfer before she even arrived but she had a legitimate professional case, and the General wouldn't hear of it. Intending to play it straight and let Colonel Ryan hang himself, that plan failed almost immediately when their very first argument erupted in his office as soon as she reported. She commented on his impending divorce, he brought up her juvenile criminal record, and lines were drawn in the sand. He consigned her to the base's smallest office and kept a close watch on her as she did what she had been assigned to do, ignoring the changed attitudes of people who had once been friends.
While she had a legitimate job to do, she wasn't aware that she was doing a job into a void. Without the proper security clearance, all she was investigating was the false front that didn't really exist. Still she was doing a thorough job, even if she was in fights with Ryan and anyone else on a daily basis. Things got even more complicated when an Alpha Team mission going down in North Korea needed someone who could decipher an intelligence code in a hurry. Against his better instincts, Ryan knew Katie would be able to get the job done, and called her in to assist. She always put aside her personal issues when work was required and that was no different; she assisted from the TOC, getting the code cracked and the information sent back to the people on the ground. The whole situation proved to the entire team that she was a professional and that she had only gotten better at her job since the last time they'd seen her. Not only that, but she begrudgingly began to respect Ryan even though she hated him for getting her brother killed.
This sent mixed signals between the two of them, neither of them knowing how to react. Both of them were convinced that the rare nice moments between them were just another level to the game they were playing, and yet were too stubborn so they kept playing nice just to screw with each other. Things finally came to a head when he turned up on her doorstep, calling her out and telling her that if she thought she could seduce him and then destroy him, she was wasting her time. She found this laughable and fired right back at him that she had no interest in him and he was obviously hung up on their past together. The two were in a massive argument when he kissed her, leading to a one-night stand of angry and destructive sex that further confused them both. Katie knew she was still attracted to him but she still loathed him, and was further disappointed when her audit turned up nothing she could use to destroy him. Unwilling to lie for her own benefit and break her own strict moral code, she gave Ryan her final report and prepared to head back to Georgia with nothing else that she could do, at least not from that angle. She might be able to break him, but it would mean betraying herself and she couldn't justify that.
Joining Alpha Team
Yet there was a final development even she couldn't see coming. Because she had been called in on that North Korea mission, she was now "in the know" and that was a problem. But Ryan also knew that she had proven herself to be a professional and had actually found some legitimate improvements. He called her into his office, telling her that they had decided she deserved the appropriate security clearance. As such, he then told her what had actually happened to her brother, a complete blow-by-blow account. He gave her a choice then: she could go after the terrorists guns blazing in Afghanistan, and get killed on her own, or she could stay in Missouri and fix the problems she'd pointed out. Not liking the idea of having to work for him, but also knowing that it was the best opportunity for her (and admittedly, not wanting to leave him either, though she'll deny that), Katie agreed to leave Fort Gordon and took a position running the Tactical Operations Center, leaving her at Ryan's whim and at his right hand. Her official classified title is Special Forces Warrant Officer (though she is publicly known as a Chief Intelligence Technician), and it's her job to keep the TOC running and in working order, while continuing to supervise intelligence coming into and out of the building. At any moment, if Ryan asks her what's going on with something, she has to be able to tell him every single detail. Thankfully her mind is more than up to the task.
However she had another issue and that was her attraction to her new commanding officer, which was only complicated by the fact that she knew now he wasn't responsible for her brother's death. She was still trying to screw with him, which came to a head when she let herself get picked up by a man she hardly knew, specifically to irritate him. She knew he'd find out about it and when he called her out on it, he knew immediately she had done it to make him jealous. After yet another argument about that, they ended up having angry sex on her desk, and that was when she realized that she couldn't stop seeing him. She needed him. Against every instinct in her body and her mind, she found herself falling in love with him eight years after they had first met, and the tempestuous affair only got more complicated. After just days of being reunited, they made the impulse decision to elope and marry, realizing that this had been eight years in the making.
The choice exposed Katie's personal life to public view, something that set her on edge because she disliked ever speaking of her personal life, not that she ever had much of one. Suddenly, she had a husband who was her own boss, and a friend who had adopted her as a sister to the point of relocating to Missouri. The domestic implications cut on Katie's nerves, and she went looking for conflict and chaos. She got it when a meeting with Brennan to find out who had really transferred her to England almost got them both killed; the shooter was connected to Fourth Dawn, and to the company in Cairo that they had destroyed. The more she dug, the more she realized Fourth Dawn had been out to kill them both since that day; only her taking the classified assignment at Fort Meade had made her disappear and now that they knew she was alive, they were going to finish the job. They even employed her new husband's ex-wife to help them do it, an act which ended in failure when Ryan killed her.
Realizing the same group that wanted her dead had also coincidentally killed her brother was too much for Katie and she asked for the team's help in avenging his death. Together with some of her former contacts and allies, the team pinpointed Fourth Dawn's headquarters and advanced on it with intent to eliminate as many as they could. In an ensuing massive firefight, Katie confronted the man who had killed her brother, and the two fought. While she was fairly injured, he didn't escape alive. Now licking her wounds, Katie has to decide what to do next with her life. The fact that she's avenged her brother is a huge weight off her shoulders but she's also now lost the one thing that was her sense of direction in life for the last two years. There's the possibility that it is both a blessing and a curse.
Personality
Psychology
Many things in life have stemmed from Katie's schizoid personality disorder coupled with her genius. Namely, that she's been treated more like an object than a person and has internalized this belief, if only for her professional benefit. She has detached herself from reality and from the world at large, channeling her intense anger, frustration and conflict into a fierce determination toward her work. She will spend hours locked in her office with paperwork everywhere if it gets the job done.
Despite her personality defect however, Katie has a very strict code of ethics. She will put aside any and all personal baggage in order to do her job. Though she still fights with her new team members, she has forged somewhat of a truce with them as they all learn to work together and eventually earns their friendship back once she proves that she is legitimately back on their side. She respects their talent, even working on more than one occasion with Bob Brown, who replaced her brother on the team. She even admits to missing Brian Falkenborg, who eventually joins the Fort Griffith intelligence staff in order to help her with the new demands of her job (even though he has no idea what he's getting into).
Everything about her is usually very intense and to the point. Katie is bluntly honest, once smoked somewhere between 1996-2000 but quit at that point (though she's twice relapsed), tends to swear like any good military officer, and doesn't care if she hurts someone's feelings. While she has nowhere near the combat experience of her colleagues she can still put up a good fight, being that she keeps in shape (and has the sex drive of someone half her age). Unfortunately, she also has no idea how to act like a normal human being; even when she's alone and vulnerable with someone she trusts, half her brain is still thinking about work and numbers and how to kill someone with a hotel pen. She can't just let it go and function normally, because she never really has. Now that she has people in her life that personality flaw is becoming more apparent and it begins to trouble her, which of course only pisses her off further that she has feelings.
Two things drive Katie: ambition and competition. She has no tolerance for people that bore her or are beneath her, and she can't even really remember their names once they quickly disappear from her memory. But when someone can compete with her she finds that interesting and likes the challenge. Katie wants to be the best there is at what she does. Her ambition was to attain the maximum Warrant Officer rank of CWO-5, but since her getting into trouble after her brother's death, she probably will never be promoted, something she's still bitter about. In everything she does she has to be the best, and she doesn't like giving up control.
Preferences
Katie drives a massive black Nissan Titan that she spends a good deal of time personally maintaining. Some of the books on her shelves include ones on Nobel Prize winner John Nash (whom she is fascinated by), the Cuban Missile Crisis, and Werner Heisenberg's meeting with Niels Bohr at Copenhagen. Obviously she's not much of a fiction person. She does own a gun, a Desert Eagle normally found in her bedroom nightstand.
Her hobbies include pool (which she is actually fairly talented at), sudoku, and chess (though she doesn't play that much). Anything which lets her use her brain and outsmart or manipulate people tends to hold her interest. She could care less about her wardrobe, her makeup, or anything domestic. It's all transparent to her and doesn't truly matter in the grand scheme of things. She admits she's more comfortable in uniform than in civilian clothes.
Among other things she is a Gordon Ramsay fan (unsurprisingly), who owns several of his cookbooks. She watches Hell's Kitchen and Kitchen Nightmares, along with her now-ex-boyfriend David Hardaway. While in New York to be with him, she also took a cooking class at the Culinary Institutes of America (the other CIA), not that she'll admit it because that would make her look too domestic.
She admits that she and her brother were fans of the throwback sitcoms such as Cheers, and that no matter where they were they would watch Cheers and discuss the episodes over the phone while they were on, usually with her providing the more cynical viewpoint to everything. She says that her brother, who was into music more than she was, can actually play the theme from Cheers on the piano and knows all the words. He forced her to sing it with him once. Matt also insisted on a week-long trip to California every year for his birthday, which included a stop at Disneyland, much to her chagrin. And breakfast with Mickey Mouse.
Katie is a Sophie B. Hawkins fan. Her brother, for whatever reason, enjoyed pop music which she loathes. Yet she has all of his belongings that were on the base and finds herself listening to his music from time to time. The Mandy Moore albums make her insane, but the memory of her brother is comforting. She obviously misses him and the normal presence he brought into her life, though she admits she didn't even cry when he died -- she just isn't capable of that kind of emotion. A sign that she is changing is that she finally sheds tears for him once she has killed the man that killed him. She's still trying to figure out the idea of actually enjoying life, like her brother did.
Don't ever go into her office if the door is closed; she's most likely working in some sort of codebreaking trance. If that's not enough, she'll be down in the basement, writing on the walls. At least the markers wash off and it's quiet.
Contacts
Specialist Matt Cohen - Katie's brother, six years her junior, with whom she was bonded. Earnest and fairly laid-back, the man known for his impulse ideas and love of life (and pop music) eventually matured into a solid soldier and field instructor. Katie calls him her "balance" and says he had the steadiest hands she had ever seen. The munitions and demolitions expert, he was killed in 2006 by members of the terrorist group Fourth Dawn while serving in Afghanistan alongside his colleague and friend Mack Gerhardt.
Sergeant Major Brian Falkenborg - Currently a Senior Human Intelligence Collection Technician at Fort Gordon in Georgia, Falkenborg was Katie's assigned work partner when she was posted to Fort Gordon. He has never seen combat duty, and has spent most of his career as an intelligence instructor, part of it with the University of Maryland's SOCAD program. Still, she values his opinion and his "speak softly yet carry a big stick" approach and has said on more than one occasion she feels he could be an asset to her work.
Stephen Brennan - A British freelance operative who worked with Katie on a few occasions when she worked field intelligence (1996-2000). Most notably, he was working with her when both were nearly killed in a car bomb in Cairo, Egypt. She says that he stayed until she could get medical attention. Recently she looked him up again to get access to her sealed DSA file. They may or may not have slept together.
David Hardaway - Katie's boyfriend from 2000 to 2003, more of a friend than anything else. They were together for just a few months before she got posted to Fort Meade and her brother got his job at Fort Griffith. David has no idea that Katie was cheating on him with Tom Ryan and is probably better off not knowing, despite the fact that he admits he knew they weren't headed for marriage due to their busy careers and her emotional difficulties. David is now a professional magician in Connecticut, while living in New York.
Captain Trevor Turner - Chief of INSCOM Operations at Fort Meade in Maryland, which makes him Katie's boss from 2000-2006. He delegated all the assignments and groomed her to be one of his senior case agents, which she was up until her rebellion over her brother's death. It was Turner's example that inspired Katie to want to become a commander of her own team, something that she has yet to achieve for more than a mission or two at a time. She still speaks highly of him and considers him her favorite supervisor.
Agent Scott Chastain - An agent with the Defense Intelligence Agency, whom Katie met while serving as a representative during her "punishment" year at Alconbury AFB in England. Along with her and various other officers from other agencies, Chastain served as part of an intelligence 'think tank.' The two became friends and were briefly romantically involved while serving together, though she admits to having once called him by the wrong name during sex.
Sergeant Michaela Adams - A colleague of Katie's at Fort Meade and one of her only female friends. It's Michaela who introduced Katie to David Hardaway and inadvertantly set them up. According to Katie, Michaela is much more feminine, including an interest in personal gossip that kept her poking about Katie's personal life.
Out of Character
Having read spoilers for Season Four, I'm not sure how well the new character is going to fit into my canon; namely it seems like she might fill Katie's job description. As of right now my plan is to ignore that character, make the expected alterations to fit roleplay canon, and otherwise try to keep Katie as canon as possible.
Katie is affiliated with specific muses as indicated on her profile, however she is open to playing with other canonmates that may appear. This biography includes established roleplay canon worked out with affiliated muses, and is not considered binding on any other muses that may wish to interact with her.