In terms of a long time coming, here’s a long one. Jaylah first appeared in the game in 2019. There were some events, and if you were playing the game at the time, you might have picked up some Jaylah shards. But not all of them, so as a result, you’ve probably had something like this in your officer inventory for a while. Some Jaylah shards, and ??? for officer abilities.
And then for almost two years, nothing.
We had an enormous tease of this officer, with a mystery ability.
Then we had the Borg arc, and we got Borg Jaylah (Five of Ten.) And Five of Ten is a good officer, and most players were able to get her… eventually.
But still not Jaylah. Until Now. She’s finally here.
Captain’s Manuever
Scavenger – Jaylah increases the amount of resources you get from killing hostiles by 100% while on the Franklin or the Franklin -A.
So it’s no longer???, but rather an increase to the resources you’ll get while hunting with your Franklin. It’s a specialized version of what you’ll get from Five of Ten.
The only rub here is that since there’s other officers in her crew, you can’t get a synergy bonus.
Officer Ability
The Beats and Shouting! – When Jaylah is on the Franklin or the Franklin-A, Jaylah increases the number of shots on the Franklin and Franklin-A by (1, 2, 3. 4, 5)
While most officers you’ve used on your Franklin thus far have been defensive, Jaylah is an offensive officer. She’ll give you extra shots in each round either your Franklin or your Franklin-A. That’s one extra shot, per weapon, per round.
This will lead to shorter battles, the longer you have her, but hunting swarm is buying in bulk, so you want to avoid damage as much as possible. This means you’ll still want to pair her with officers who reduce damage. So your T’Laan and Moreau would be options.
You could also go with officers to increase the bang for your buck against interceptors, so Kang and Uhura become options. Especially if you’re grinding out swarm with multiple ships.
Jaylah Background
Since I covered Jaylah actress Sofia Boutella in my article on Five of Ten, today I’ll be going over the character of Jaylah.
When it came time to write Star Trek: Beyond, Simon Pegg and Doug Jung decided that they wanted to add a strong female character on the Altamid surface. The character was inspired by Ree Dolly, the character played by Jennifer Lawrence in the 2010 film, Winter’s Bone. Ree Dolly was a character protecting her family from eviction in the Ozarks.
But coming up for a name for the character was a struggle for the writers. They were referring to the character as, “Jennifer Lawrence in Winter’s Bone.”
“It started to get tiring, always saying, ‘Jennifer Lawrence in Winter’s Bone,‘” said Pegg. “It’s a long name! So then we started calling her ‘J-Law’.”
Eventually “J-Law” evolved into “Jaylah.”
The rest of the characterization came from the idea that she would be someone with no idea what the Federation was, or what it meant. They wanted her to be a “blank slate” with no understanding of her own people, and a character who would look at the Enterprise crew with fresh eyes.
This concept art, from TrekCore.com shows how the character was designed to look. It also calls the character Jeylah, giving a hint as to the name’s origins.
