Stargate

Caroline Stokes

• Name: Caroline Stokes Gender: Female Age: 49 Species: Human (Tau'ri) Rank/Position: Colonel / Leader of SG-8 Specialty: Communications (Radio Technology)

• Biography

  Caroline was born to Marie Weterings and Phillip Stokes. She had one sister, the future Senior Airman Carol Weterings. When their parents divorced, while Caroline was only 16, Carol (age 12) went with Marie and Caroline went with Phillip. Although the two sisters had been close, they were unable to speak to each other again for years.
  
  Caroline followed her paternal family's tradition and entered the military at the age of 18. After a year of training, she was promoted to active service. Because of her French heritage and bilingual English-French ability, by 1978, she'd been sent to assist the French military in Zaire, Africa, where she participated in the Battle of Kolwezi. Although her individual accomplishments weren't particularly noteworthy, she helped as her CO's translator. During a sudden and unexpected raid of the building she was in by FNLC militants, she took up a weapon and helped push them back, killing three in the process.
  
  In 1980, she'd been accepted into the Defense Intelligence Agency. Intelligent, cunning and capable, Caroline quickly developed a reputation for ruthless efficiency. Although brutal, her methods ultimately worked. She studied at least two other languages: Spanish (mainly of the American varieties used in Mexico & the Caribbean) and Kikongo (with slight difficulty).
  
  She has a poor view of most people, seeing them as hypocrites. Her attitude toward many civilians from rural populations is particularly scathing, as she believes the lack of education in these areas - and the frequency of which many rural populations tend to reject or outright deny this education, often due to cultural or religious beliefs - causes them to be more susceptible to being manipulated into serving tyrants. Her experiences in Zaire proved that much, and she ultimately began to feel somewhat guilty for having fought the rebels, who were launching a coup against a tyrant of their own.
  
  Ever since, she began to view herself and her beliefs with more care. She grew to become especially outspoken against the government's support of military dictatorships. This earned her few friends or allies in the military. Regardless, she'd been sent to act as an interrogation specialist during the invasion of Grenada.
  
  During the initial invasion, she'd been charged with interrogating a Cuban civilian named Juanito Puerta. Although it appeared he'd escaped at one point, Caroline had it calculated. Puerta inadvertently had a small transmitter on him that allowed a team of Rangers to infiltrate a hanger and force the surrender of over a hundred armed Cuban workers. This incident led to her later promotion and advanced tactical training.
  
  It wasn't until the invasion of Panama in '89 that she had a chance to unite her lessons in both tactics and negotiation. She helped organize several of the "Category Thee" military excercises meant to provoke the Panamanian troops into a confrontation. At least one of the U.S. military leaders, Colonel Frank Cromwell, opposed her being there at all, and even went so far as to ignore her advice and publically ridicule her. Caroline later convinced his superiors to send them together on the assault against the central headquarters of the PDF, where fighting was heaviest. Their helicopter was downed and forced to crash land in the Panama Canal, where Caroline went out of her way to drag Cromwell's unconscious body out of the water. Her actions there earned her a friend, despite their continued rivalry. She later went on to help plan the extraction of the dictator Noriega from the Vatican embassy, suggesting they use rock music blared over the city speakers to demoralize and intimidate him into surrendering.
  
  Finally, her last major operation had been to Angola, where she served alongside the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Intelligence Division. She encountered Colonel Harold Maybourne in 1995, and he attempted to coerce her into supporting his plans to hault weapons shipments in the country. With a team dressed up to look like Cuban soldiers, Caroline - leading one team consisting of Captain Mercedes Wynter, First Lieutenant Alicia Vega, and First Lieutenant Radner - and Lt. Colonel Frank Simmons - leading a second team consisting of Captain Jonas Hanson, First Lieutenant Gerald Jennings, and First Lieutenant Matthew Kinsey - ambushed a convoy carrying six helicopters from the Ukraine. They were forced to withdraw at the last minute before the attack could take place, but Simmons led his team in the attack anyway. Caroline barely managed to stop Simmons and get his team out alive before Angolan reinforcements arrived, but not without knocking him unconscious. Although she didn't report Simmons' behavior, he would hold this against her.
  
  In 1997, she'd been assigned to command SG-8, one of the first nine teams put together to travel through the stargate at Stargate Command. She'd been notified of the Stargate program by Colonel Cromwell, who recommended she be brought into the fold. It was also Cromwell who told her about the attack by Apophis that ended with the capture of Caroline's sister, Carol Weterings. Caroline requested the assignment and was granted the position after some back-room negotiations by Harold Maybourne. Her first assignment involved working together with Sergeant Fryatt, the sole survivor of Apophis' attack on Stargate Command, who had called for reinforcements as soon as the gate began to move [OOC: This is a break from canon, since in the episode, he doesn't call for reinforcements until later and is shot in the back for his trouble]. Because Sergeant Fryatt stayed behind cover while her sister was being taken, Caroline continued to hold him partly responsible for letting Apophis get away with her.