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J'ula's actual civilian bodycount?
spiritborn
Member Posts: 4,367 Arc User
I've heard a lot of people calling J'Ula a mass murderer, so this got me wondering how many people she actually did kill excluding any military personal under combat conditions (and yes Starfleet personal count as military for this).
While it's not atypical for military personal to rack up body counts that outside of combat would cause them to be locked up for millennia (or sent to death row) those don't really count due to special circumstances. It's actually the same reason why Starfleet captains aren't locked up for the body counts they gained, all those were during combat.
I doubt UFP would blame her for fighting a war that as far as J'Ula knew never ended, especially since J'mpok didn't really give her a chance to adapt either.
While it's not atypical for military personal to rack up body counts that outside of combat would cause them to be locked up for millennia (or sent to death row) those don't really count due to special circumstances. It's actually the same reason why Starfleet captains aren't locked up for the body counts they gained, all those were during combat.
I doubt UFP would blame her for fighting a war that as far as J'Ula knew never ended, especially since J'mpok didn't really give her a chance to adapt either.
Post edited by baddmoonrizin on
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They're close enough.
When the Federation goes to war, Starfleet fights. I know they say they're not a military, but people say all kinds of self-deluded garbage.
Lol that's rich, Mass Murderer, you people must be joking... J'Ula's kill count is in the rookie numbers compared to our own, She really needs to git gud if she ever has a chance at getting the high score, maybe she would have a better chance if she went all out with attack pattern alpha, beam overload, photon torpedoes, gravity wells, mushroom cannon, ect.
Considering how easy it is to resist stun settings on phasers (not mention it not being harmless either) using it on ground combat is not really a viable option, also disabling ships without reducing them to lifeless hulks is also hard enough that it's not really an option in most combat scenarios.
She destroyed a fully populated Starbase at Seedea. That wasn't Akar. That was her. And no, Starfleet personnel do not count as "active combatants". She did this at a time of peace between the Federation and the Empire. She was and remains a terrorist. Further the Attack on Andoria was not staged by Akar. She brought her superweapon there with intent to use it.
Exactly, Starfleet and the Klingon Empire were not at war, J'ula's kills against Starfleet personnel are all acts of murder including everyone that died at Sedea Base.
But yes, it's a fair point that her 'kill count' pales in comparison to our Starfleet Officers, my characters kill more people before breakfast that J'ula could in a year.
Starfleet is absolutely military, but J'ula was acting on her own, was not a recognized authority in the Klingon Empire and attacked targets during peace time. She's a terrorist, plain and simple.
But then again, so is Odo, he put a lure on Bajor for the Hurq' but since we casually excuse that little war crime, I guess it fits with the theme. You can pretty much do whatever you want as long as you just claim to be a 'good guy' when it's done. As long as you had 'good intentions' or some plan to keep things from 'going too far' all is forgiven.
I would point you to Apendix Q.038-099.a of the Prime Directive otherwise known as "The Janeway Clause".
"We're the Federation! It's Not Evil if WE do it! (Mr Tuvok load those really juicy radiation torpedo's we stole from the Vaaduarr)"
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
Technically J'Ula was acting in wartime. When she was thrown forward Burnham's war was still in full swing, and when she arrived in the 24th century who would be the one to rightfully tell her to stand down? The honorless petaQ who claimed to be chancellor while the legal chancellor was still walking around? Or Martok, the chancellor who apparently chose to ignore his duty and let J'mpok stay on the throne?
Since the Empire was effectively leaderless from an honor standpoint (at least by 2250s Klingon standards) her head of house could have ordered her to stand down... except it turns out that she was now head of house Mokai by default.
As for Seedea, it was a fleet HQ, that makes it a military target regardless of whether it has civilians on it or not. Starbase One probably had civilians on it too despite trying to get everyone but essential personnel evacuated. For that matter all Galaxy class (and presumably some other ultra-long range explorers) ships have civillians, (in the case of the Galaxy class more civilians than "military") on board too unless they are in full troop carrier mode.
And traders. Diplomats. And probably all sorts of support personnel.
There is no reason she should not have known she wasn't in the past when she attacked Andoria. Having to navigate there after 150 years of the star moving through space, means she has to know the star isn't where it should be, neither is any other system where it should be relative to each other or absolute positioning. She definitely knew full well that things changed by the time she blew up Seedea starbase not the least of which because that is when she starts trying to oust J'mpok.
Murdering Starfleet personnel is still murder, even if you're pretending to be ignorant that there is no war on, but she did know at that point. People are still dead.
For our part, there's a lot of death in our own wake, but we do have to go with the realities of the game. We don't get a stun setting that works without the devs specifically coding it in for the mission. We don't get to disable a ship with careful aiming unless its a plot point.
J'ula, however, is a plot point, and destroying and murdering as opposed to disabling is written into her story. J'ula showed no remorse.
This isn't a new practice. Civilians have been found alongside militaries forever, from prostitutes to technicians to various businesses catering to soldiers' needs. General Hooker was known for the eponymous entourage, 49 civilians died at Pearl Harbor, some from direct attacks on sugar refineries that were not even at the base itself. This is still very true today where civilian contractors do a lot of the repair work and logistics.
It would be even more necessary in space where it isn't even practical to open up a civilian starbase right next to the Starfleet one. No they are going to open shops and the like inside the existing base, and then don't need to worry about military protection they would absolutely need from things like pirates and raiders.
Most of the stuff J'Ula does as a "villain" IS in the 2250s when the Klingon empire and the Federation were actively at war.
It is not until Beneath the Skin that she attacks any Federation targets specifically, and in that particular case she actually attacked an unknown alien squadron (Kumarke's science squadron) that used flying saucers and flat wedge ships (very) vaguely reminiscent of the Elachi frigates that kept attacking her forces, and then duked it out with Andorian system defense forces when they responded before she could finish off the "aliens".
What she was after was in the Andorian system was unclear at the time, but it seems that it was a good spot to open a rift to send probes into. If she was not surprised by the Lukari presence at the target location she would probably have done a quick rift-then-split incursion and been gone before the Andorian ships got there similar to her Terrh system incursion.
Most of her "modern times" operations were against Klingon forces, with only a few others scattered around having to do with her mycelial research/spore gathering. In fact, more often than not when player characters encounter her in the "modern" timeframe up until Khitomer we are the aggressors, attacking her forces on behalf of J'mpok. And she was at that point at war with what she saw as a corrupt, illegitimate government (J'mpok's), and by extension J'mpok's allies.
Even then, the starbase attack was one of Aakar's schemes to refine his virus that he maneuvered J'Ula into carrying out.
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
She also spent a year there before attacking anyone. It is not about whether she knew she was in the 2400s or not, she was at war with the Federation for about half of the scenarios she was in because they happened during Burnham's war, and after the time shift she was at war again, with J'mpok and his supporters (which by association includes the player characters since J'mpok kept sending them after her).
She did not go to Andoria to rekindle Burnham's war, she went there to send probes into mycelial space (why exactly there was never explained, but apparently that was were she had to do it) and was not going to let the fact that it was in Federation space stop her from doing what she needed.
The way it was all dribbled out makes it less obvious to see what is going on because of the cycle of repetition and gaps from events so I got the past stuff and the modern blurred together at first, it wasn't until the plot twist at Khitomer that I started looking at the J'Ula stuff in a story plot analysis way so I thought she was a typical cardboard villain for quite a while too, it is only relatively recently that it became clear she was more complex than that and always had been.
Misnomer yes but IIRC a misnomer that was used in canon (in the 2250s at the very least) with characters calling it "Burnham's war" or blaming her for starting it.
there's also the matter that most of 2409 UPF and the Klingon Empire were officially at war with each other, with their co-operation being of the "we got bigger fish to fry" style, fact it isn't until 2410 that the war is officially over (at end of "Surface Tension") with the Iconian War following soon after so it's not impossible to think that J'Ula was unaware of the peace treaty and as it's pointed out she really didn't go out of her way to attack Starfleet targets either Seedae being the exception and I could see Akaar convincing her it would make good distraction as the virus thing seems more his MO rather then J'Ula's.
EDIT: As for Andoria it could be a case it the "veil" between real space and the Mycelial realm being weak there.
That's because - more serious comment than my previous one - Starfleet isn't just a military.
Of course they have traders, diplomats and so on on bases that aren't merely military outposts. Can't blame them for that, it's what these bases are meant to do: serve as trade hubs, centres of scientific inquiry or places where negotiations can take place.
To suggest that they are purely military installations and use that as proof that it's Starfleet stupidity or their own fault that there were civilian casualties when J'Ula was doing her terrorist thing, is using circular reasoning.
The presence of non-military personnel proves that her targets were not (and never were, not in our time, not in hers) purely military installations - as ships sent out to patrol or attack Klingon installations could reasonably assumed to be. The latter could have been legitimate targets if we were still at war. Which we aren't, and which she indeed knew.
We've got J'Ula and a clone...I'm officially pining for Spock to turn up, the Klingon home world being zapped and only Worf surviving.
I don't count anything she did in 2250s, because as we know there was a war on.
The problem with theorizing on her motives is that we can only guess. All we know is that someone is using a stolen Starfleet weapon to cause problems at Andoria, a weapon with potential to destroy every universe (as utterly ludicrous and stupid as the concept is, it is sadly something we have to take at face value) using probes to corrupt the mushroom kingdom and hasten that possibility. She continues using the weapon after her 'research' expedition. She doesn't try to learn what we know. Or does she?
This is house Mokai, supposedly majorly involved in intelligence, and J'ula is built up as being one step ahead all the time, due to planning and intelligence. J'ula has modern resources of her house, and is in contact with them. If she doesn't know these things, the problems she is causing, then what is wrong with her?
And the problem with her underling manipulating her is that she was still in charge and gets the final say. She approved the attack on the starbase; their blood is on her hands. If Aakar's manipuation goes much deeper to the point of not telling her important details about the weapons she uses, we don't know anything about it. We do know she continues to use the shroom weapon, doesn't care about the Elachi, and has killed an indeterminate amount of people who were no part of her conflict.
Look back on it all and calculate out how many lives would have been saved by letting the idiot Ellen Landry die on the Buran? Little Miss "I am Starfleet! We can't let mass murderers die! So I must rescue A'kar to show how much better we are!" uh huh... And that somewhat pales in the face of Michael Burnham in The Measure of Morality. "No Obisek (or Rommie Player Character) You must not kill Hakeev, because WE'RE STARFLEET! And it's much better to unleash time traveling Borg Iconians on the Universe that it is to kill one pyschotic mass murdering nutcase. Because killing is wrong!" Actually looking back at those missions I suddenly understand why J'ula wants to kill everybody. To meet those morons is to want them and anything connected to them dead.