Name: Sterling Atherton Kincaid, Team Leader
Badge: 96714-KSA
Rank: Special Agent, Level 1
Team: ECHO
Gender: Female
Born: June 22, 1968
Height: 5'2" inches tall
Hair: Brown, light streaks
Eyes: Lavender-grey
Build: Slight
Appearance: Neat, but not fanatically so. Often has small wisps
of hair curling around her ears.
Unusual Features/Habits:
Eye-color -- Lavender/grey
Hair -- Golden Brown with silver-white streaks that do not darken
in winter
Scar -- Upper left arm, from a knife fight she broke up while at
Quantico
Mole -- tiny, just below left temple, close to corner of eye
Wears -- small, silver, 5 pointed star (pendant)
Action -- twirls pencil/pen in left hand, even though she's right
handed
Description:
Sterling Atherton Kincaid seems atypical as an FBI agent. At 5'2"
tall, Agent Kincaid barely meets the height requirements for the Bureau.
Her delicate, almost elfin features further the illusion given by her
slight build -- many are likely to underestimate both her determination and her skill. Agent Kincaid is a black-belt in Tae Kwon Do and an
excellent marksman. However it is her observational and analytical skills that make her an asset to the Bureau.
Timeline:
1981 -- Enters public school after home-schooling by parents.
Speaks and/or Reads: English, French, Latin, and German
1982 -- Becomes interested in physics and biology
1983 -- June: Graduates from High School
Sept.: Enters Harvey Mudd College
1987 -- Jan.: Applies to Mt. St. Christopher University, History
dept.
Feb.: Is accepted for graduate study
May: Graduates with a double major, Biology and Physics,
HMC
1988 -- Oct.: Passes exams to be accepted into the Ph.D. program
June: Takes summer classes to catch up with those with a
B. A. in History.
1989 -- May: Finishes thesis for Master's program:
"Science, Technology and the Knowledge of Forbidden
Things: When Does Science Take the Place of Magic?"
June: Begins research on dissertation topic.
1993 -- May: Finishes Research and begins writing in earnest on
dissertation.
1994 -- May: Turns in dissertation.
June: Partial re-writes completed.
Oral defense.
Graduates with Ph.D. in History, Dissertation:
"Extra-terrestrial or Divine Intervention:
Questioning the Technological Development of Human
Societies"
July: Applies to FBI Academy. Is accepted.
Sept.: Begins training at Quantico
1996 -- June: Graduates from Quantico
Joins Field Office in Seattle
Aug.: Solves a string of rapes/murders, gaining a
half-joking sobriquet 'the Silver Seeress' for her name and her uncanny intuition. Her rookie status brings some tensions into the field office after the case and she requests reassignment.
Sept.: Reassignment granted, moving her to the Washington,
D. C. office.
Moves to Washington, D. C.
Oct.: Reports for duty, Washington, D. C.
Personality:
Sterling Atherton Kincaid tends toward being very quiet, always observing everything around her with little comment. She will answer to the name 'Silver' -- a familiar nickname for one who's first name is
Sterling, but any reference to 'Seeress' causes her to blush a brilliant red and stammer slightly. She is aware that her ability to collate information in blinding flashes of intuition is somewhat unusual, but finds it distressing for people to discuss it. To Sterling, it seems ridiculous that others don't see the connections she does, because it's something that both of her parents are capable of as well. Often her manner is somewhat distant and distracted -- which some mistake for aloofness, though it's really her gathering and processing data. Usually anyone who makes a friendly overture is greeted with a brilliant, welcoming smile and a warm personality. On the other hand, Sterling rarely makes overtures to others, an unfortunate side effect of entering public school at the age of thirteen and always being younger than her schoolmates.
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The following section is more or less classified -- it explains in greater detail her history and thus gives light on her motivations, which should help players deal with writing about her, but PCs themselves wouldn't know unless Sterling brought it up.
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Background:
On April 17, 1961 Royce Alistair Kincaid married Maeve Kirstie MacDonald. Both had recently received Ph.D.'s -- Royce in Medieval History and Folklore, Maeve in Linguistics. Two years later, the happy couple moved to the United States to teach at a relatively small private college on the west coast. After three miscarriages in the following four years, Maeve and Royce were both worried and overjoyed when when once again Maeve became pregnant. Soon, during a normal normal checkup, the doctor revealed that Maeve was pregnant with twins -- a circumstance that elated the couple. The news that the doctor brought was also dire -- it was his belief that if Maeve did manage to carry to term, it was likely that she, and one or both twins might not survive the birth.
Maeve took this news with shadowed eyes and a determined smile. After so many losses, this news was a devastating blow, but she refused to
give up hope. Despite the admonitions of the doctor, she decided that she would, if she was able, carry her children to term. The following months were a terrible strain, but Maeve MacDonald-Kincaid was determined. In the end, she was the one to be proven right -- and wrong. The birth was long and difficult. Two children were born -- one a girl and one a boy. Despite the doubts of her caretakers and a massive loss of blood, Maeve survived as well, long enough to give names to the tiny infants she had brought forth. The boy they named Roderick Andrew Kincaid, who, smaller and weaker than his sister, died a few hours after birth. The girl they named Sterling Atherton Kincaid, in the memory of friends who had died in a car crash weeks before. Despite her tiny size, Sterling thrived and became strong enough to
be taken home.
During the next few years Sterling grew strong and energetic, though her
growth always seemed to be a little behind that of her few friends. When it came time for Sterling to start school, Royce and Maeve decided that they could do better for their little girl than the local public or
private schools -- at least until their daughter reached an age to go to
middle school or high school. When informed of their decision to home school their daughter instead of her taking classes with other children, Sterling was not terribly affected. It disturbed Royce and Maeve to some degree that their child was so solitary in her nature, apparently lacking the need for other children.
When she turned seven, they discovered the reason behind her lack of interest. They had decided that Sterling was both old enough and smart enough -- for she was a very precocious child -- to understand that she was a twin. When informed that she had a brother who had not survived,
Sterling focused very solemn lavender eyes on them and announced: "He prefers to be called Andy. Andy hates the name Roderick."
Royce and Maeve were understandably disturbed by this announcement. Roderick had died a little over two hours after birth. When Sterling went on to describe two brothers and a sister -- complete with the names
that Royce and Maeve had chosen -- Royce and Maeve were shocked. Sterling gave them a winsome smile and said that she knew her siblings and that it was a pity that they weren't alive so she couldn't introduce them to the other children in the neighborhood, but that was okay -- she had friends she could count on being with, even when the 'real' kids were at school.
As the years went by, Sterling mentioned her siblings less and less, and her parents grew to believe that the childhood instances had come from their daughter overhearing conversations and somehow coming up with
imaginary friends with the names and relationships out of a desire to be like other children.
Whether this assumption is correct or not, Sterling hasn't bothered to inform her parents. If asked directly, she will admit to sometimes feeling the 'presence' of her brother, particularly in times of stress or danger, giving her a warning that something is not quite right. Usually she ascribes it to an overworked analytical function that can't describe the danger it senses in any other way, but those who have seen her working around murder scenes have sometimes wondered if Sterling Kincaid is capable of communicating with the dead.
Education:
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An intelligent, energetic child, Sterling Kincaid was home schooled until she was thirteen and then was placed in an ordinary public school. Due to her intelligence, and the quality of education her parents had
already given her, she was skipped immediately to the eleventh grade. Isolated by her youth and her drive to excel at everything she did, Sterling Kincaid graduated from high school with a slightly aloof, abstracted manner that would dissolve into a warm, welcoming smile for anyone that she considered her friend.
Despite the fact that she had a grounding in history and languages that no few baccelauriates would have envied, Sterling chose to attend a small, private engineering school in California, where she double majored in astrophysics and biology. However, she found that she had an
abiding love for history and the dynamics of human change. With the help of her parents, Sterling applied for a graduate program in history, and specialized in the study of the intense interactions of technology and society. Pulling on her scientific background, she was uniquely suited to this study, but it was when Sterling began combining the love of myth, folklore and the occult that she had learned from her father with the theories she was developing about perceptions of technological and scientific advancement that she found the topic of her dissertation and the calling of her history career.
Her dissertation was:
"Extra-terrestrial or Divine Intervention: Questioning the Technological Development of Human Societies"
In it she explored a semi-anthropological, extremely historical, partially scientific view of the rumors and beliefs about how technology came about and developed in human societies in several ages. It took her four years to do the research and one more to write. She found some trends that disturbed her -- things that she discussed with her father. Sometimes it seemed as though someone was deliberately spreading mis-information about both technology and science. The clues were both baffling and vague. Royce told her not to worry about it. Shrugging, she agreed to leave it alone.
Four days later she received an anonymous call from a man telling her that if she was interested in the mystery of mythologies surrounding science and technology, she might be better off working for the FBI. Before she could question the person on the phone, it disconnected, leaving her staring at the handset, wondering.
Though she had enjoyed school, she *was* getting tired of it. Sterling was far from a flabby home-body, though she'd spent most of her time
doing research. She had achieved a black belt in Tae Kwon Do – a leftover from a failed relationship with a young man who had taught the martial art – and was a decent shot with a pistol, due to her father's love of gun collecting. Royce Kincaid had made certain, when Sterling was very young, that she knew how to use the weapons that were around the house and knew how dangerous they were, just in case she decided to 'play' with one.
Once she'd seen a watermelon disintegrate, Sterling had had no desire to play with her father's guns.
On a whim, Sterling decided to apply to the FBI academy, and, to her shock, she was accepted. "Your background is interesting," said one recruiter who called her. "Not everyone has your... um... spread of skills."
She had laughed shakily. "Jack of many trades, that's me. The only thing I'm really good at is history."
"No." he said. "What you're really good at is analysis. That's one of the things we need. The ability to analyze people in the aggregate as
well as in the singular. And I'm told that you've got the uncanny ability to put things together when no one else can."
Smiling ruefully at his comment, she'd shrugged, forgetting that the man on the line couldn't see the gesture. "I suppose so. I'd never really thought of it that way."
He'd laughed. "Probably not, my dear, but I've been told that you've an
incredibly intuitive yet extraordinarily analytical mind. That's what we like to see. We'll give it more training and turn it loose on the bad guys. I'd like to see someone like Gotti get away from your instincts my girl."
And just like that, she entered the FBI Academy. Passing through her classes with flying colors, it was that intuition combined with razor
analysis that most impressed her instructors, that and the willingness to go back and either discard an idea in the face of new information, or identify red herrings that had tripped up other investigators. Though she was not at the very top of her class, she graduated comfortably in the top 15% and there were many people who believed that she might have scored higher, were it not for a seeming desire to be underestimated by others. None were sure if that was because she wanted the power represented by being better than they thought, or if she simply delighted in surprising everyone.
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