Jalian
Commodore Jalian is the current commanding officer of Starbase 72, with authority over the base itself and ships operating in the surrounding sector that aren't attached directly to Task Force 72. She has had a long career spent both as an officer in the Judge-Advocate General's Corps, as well as on Starbase 72 itself. Friendly and gregarious, she's known for allowing meetings to go far too long when she finds something interesting or appealing about the conversation. She's partial to spending a large part of her day strolling through the station's public areas, getting to know the crew and residents when she's not attending to paperwork in her office.
History
Early Life (2340-2358)
Jalian was born on Sauria in 2340, one of many daughters in a large family. She was friendly and curious as a child, enjoying learning about the many cultures of the Federation in school. She knew she wanted to leave Sauria as soon as she was able to see the wider galaxy, if only just to talk to new and interesting species.
Starfleet Academy (2358-2366)
At Starfleet Academy, Jailan decided to concentrate in interstellar relations, for a career as either a diplomatic specialist or a commander, but while there she found herself fascinated by the Federation’s legal system, given that it was the synthesis of many, many cultures’ beliefs about the law and justice. She saw how important it was to have strong voices within the legal system to continue to advocate for equity and equality, as well as to give the accused a proper defense. As such, she decided to enter the Judge Advocate General’s Corps, spending an extra four years at Starfleet Academy to earn her law degree.
Early JAG Career (2366-2373)
As a junior Judge-Advocate, Jailan was posted to the JAG office on Starbase 21 as a Lieutenant Junior Grade. A large and well-established base, Jailan was excited to be able to get to interact with even more races than she was able to at Starfleet Academy. She was seen as an effective litigator, with her skill really becoming evident in cross-examinations, when she was able to elicit honest and accurate testimony both through her own powers of observation but also because of the way she was able to put other people at ease through her friendly nature. After four years, she was promoted to Lieutenant and transferred to the still-under-construction Starbase 72 as one of its first crew members, where she helped to set up the brand-new JAG office for the area of space near to the Demilitarized Zone.
Even with the base still under construction, Jailan found herself involved in dozens of cases where former Starfleet Officers who joined the Maquis were prosecuted for various offenses, ranging from theft of Federation property to murder. She served on both sides of these cases as they went on, serving equally well as a defense attorney and as a prosecutor. These cases would shape her psyche, though, as she developed a strong distaste for anything that could be seen as betraying the Federation, an institution that she believed so strongly in, but she also recognized that the Federation had betrayed the colonists of the DMZ in many ways as well.
Dominion War (2373-2376)
The Dominion War came as a shock to Starbase 72, as even though most of their defenses were operational already, the base was still years away from being finished. It was understaffed and vulnerable. As such, Jailan was pressed into service as an Officer of the Watch, taking many shifts in Station Operations, as the few senior crew who had already been assigned there were shifted to crewing starships. Though she was trained like any other Starfleet officer for such duties, it had been over a decade since she’d gone through her academy training before specializing in the law.
Starbase 72 was the subject of numerous assaults and was a refuge for damaged Klingon, Starfleet, and eventually Romulan starships, some of which were venting plasma as they limped into the base, which was a major test of Jailan’s abilities to manage. She learned early on to trust the more junior officers who were specialized in tasks like docking starships, and career enlisted servicemembers who had decades more experience than she did in such matters. Delegation and a recognition of her own limits served her well during the war.
USS Athabasca (2376-2380)
Following the war, Jailan continued in her temporary role for another year before the fleet stabilized enough for her to be offered her old role back, now that other officers were available to take over running the station. She declined this opportunity, though, as she’d enjoyed the challenge of doing something new. She managed to secure a posting to the New Orleans-class USS Athabasca, a frigate that had just gone through a post-war refit before being sent to aid colonies in the now-Former Demilitarized Zone. Her experience as a watch officer translated imperfectly to life aboard a starship at first, if only for the drastic change in scale of her surroundings, but she rose to the challenge, as her captain valued her ability to connect with the crew on a personal level, seeing their strengths and weaknesses and assigning them appropriately to different tasks.
The Athabasca was largely spared from major combat during her time aboard, but it was involved with a number of skirmishes with the early grumbles of what would later become the renewed True Way in the 2390s, an organization that she would become intimately familiar in time. While on Starbase 72, she’d participated in the defense of the station against large Cardassian and Dominion forces, but the more intimate nature of ship-to-ship combat felt more personal. She found it inconceivable that any Cardassians wouldn’t want to be part of the Federation; her deep belief in the IDIC philosophy made it hard for her to understand why someone would choose independence at the cost of prosperity.
Return to JAG (2380-2388)
Though she enjoyed her time on a starship, Jailan knew that her real passions weren’t ones that she could really pursue in that environment. She applied to take the newly-vacant Sector Judge-Advocate position based on Starbase 72, which she took over as a Captain in 2380. While the Maquis situation was long resolved (by simply being destroyed by the Dominion), the legal situation near the Former Demilitarized Zone was complex: agreements made between colonies based on Cardassian law had to be arbitrated under Federation law, and some former-Cardassian colonies struggled to adapt to the Federation criminal justice system as well. While there were civilian courts on Minos Korva, Jailan was the senior Federation judicial official in the region and ended up sitting as a judge for hundreds of minor cases in her eight years in the position, as well as a prosecutor for high-profile cases that required a flag officer to preside.
Jailan had spent the majority of her career on and near Starbase 72, and she developed a positive reputation among starship captains and colonial officials in the area, which allowed her to take the relationship-building skills she’d developed on a one-to-one basis and apply that to a larger scale with chains of relationships that stretched across the entire sector.
Starbase 72 Command (2388 to Present)
Jailan’s abilities as a relationship builder and communicator combined with her wartime experience made her a perfect candidate to become Starbase 72’s executive officer. Technically, it was a step down in terms of her authority, but she welcomed yet another new challenge. Starbase 72 had finally reached its full population of 25,000 Starfleet officers and 50,000 civilians, so the role was somewhere between XO and Deputy Mayor. She held this role for eleven years, before being promoted to Commodore in 2396 and assuming command of the station itself and the surrounding sector.
Service Record
| Date | Position | Posting | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2358-2359 | Interstellar Relations Cadet | Starfleet Academy | Cadet Fourth Class |
| 2359-2360 | Interstellar Relations Cadet | Starfleet Academy | Cadet Third Class |
| 2360-2361 | Interstellar Relations Cadet | Starfleet Academy | Cadet Second Class |
| 2361-2362 | Interstellar Relations Cadet | Starfleet Academy | Cadet First Class |
| 2362-2366 | Law Student | Starfleet Legal Academy | Ensign |
| 2366-2370 | Judge-Advocate | Starbase 21 | Lieutenant Junior Grade |
| 2370-2373 | Judge-Advocate | Starbase 72 | Lieutenant |
| 2373-2376 | Officer of the Watch | Starbase 72 | Lieutenant Commander |
| 2376-2380 | Executive Officer | USS Athabasca | Commander |
| 2380-2388 | Sector Judge-Advocate General | Starbase 72 | Captain |
| 2388-2396 | Executive Officer | Starbase 72 | Captain |
| 2396-Present | Commanding Officer | Starbase 72 | Commodore |
Commodore Jailan In-Play
- As a Task Force 72 NPC, you are free to use Commodore Jailan in your own fiction writing or if your game (RPG) visits Starbase 72 during a mission. The information here is meant as a guide for folks to use this character consistently across different stories, but feel free to take some liberties with her exact characterization. Her rank, position, gender, species, and other mundane details shouldn’t be changed, though. Also, don’t kill her; that wouldn’t be nice.
- Jailan is not a stuffy desk warrior; she’s friendly, gregarious, and likes to mingle with the crew and residents. You’re just as likely to find her in the arboretum or strolling between the shops and restaurants in the common areas as in her office or in Station Operations. So, even as an Ensign or Lieutenant, you might meet the head honcho herself, while just out and about rather than formally reporting in.
- As a Saurian, Jailan’s natural voice uses lingual clicks and pops, so she uses a universal translator to speak to other species, as her vocal cords can’t produce the sounds that make up the English language. She is approximately two meters tall, but with a slender build, as Sauria has lower gravity than Earth does.
- If you have a thirty-minute meeting scheduled with the commodore, it will last an hour. She’s very curious, and easily fixates on small details which lead to personal questions, questions about family, hobbies, interests, etc., but this is how she gets to know people. This can be a little intimidating to junior officers.
- As the commodore of a starbase, Jailan has a lot of staff around her to handle the day-to-day operations, but she’s still someone who you might interact with if running missions on a runabout off of the starbase to get your orders and instructions. As someone who enjoys talking to people, it’s not unusual for her to personally be in Station Operations to answer docking requests. The starships in the area that don’t report to Task Force 72 (i.e. your basic border patrol ships, utility ships, and science vessels) report to her.
- Jailan has a lot of experience not only with Starbase 72, but with the True Way and the Former Demilitarized Zone. She’s always happy to share advice to young officers looking for insight on the situation. She also built her early career on the legal aftermath of the Maquis situation, so she has a good understanding of insurgency groups in general, even though she’s not strictly speaking a diplomat.