What if Garrett Wang had left Voyager instead of Jennifer Lien?

It fits in well with Kim's Holodeck Lifestyle, sir ...

 

Yes, finally........to some degree.

 

I think we should all calm down until we are nothing but a dry, sedate little subforum discussing what kind of metal the rank pips are made of.

 

It's got to be Gold pressed latinum right? Because the Federation doesn't care for wealth, and it'd properly screw with the Ferengi.

 

Federation citizens don't care for wealth. The Federation as a government has to pretend it has money to trade with neighbouring governments, something individual little citizens don't have to think about.

 

I've come to the conclusion that it's Starfleet citizens who don't care about wealth. Why should they - everything they need is provided for them. They get their food, clothing, shelter, entertainment (via holodecks), and it's obvious that they must be paid somehow, or Beverly couldn't have bought that cloth from the merchant on Farpoint.

But your average Federation citizen needs to earn whatever kind of currency is being used on their planet - whether it's local or Federation credits. No society can exist without some kind of economy, not even the communal ones, since they too have rules about acquiring and sharing stuff. Even Voyager set up an internal ship's economy, where the currency was replicator rations.

While Ben Sisko's father probably doesn't care if he gets rich from running his restaurant, I'm sure he does run it with the intention of making a profit. After all, it's a business, not a non-profit charity.

 

I've thought about that too. Perhaps the government provides the bare-essentials needed to keep people fed and off the streets, but luxuries must be earned somehow.

 

Shit, I meant it as a joke, not to start anything.

 

Maybe they just replicate the currency of the planet. It's not like anyone is going to replicate a trillion dollars and screw with the economy by dumping it into the system.

No no, he fry cooks to better himself!!

 

Federation Credits are for dealing with foreigners. How UFP citizens get stuff off foreigners, and how the UFP restricts Foreigners from taking everything in one fell swoop.

Replicating currency is fraud and probably an act of war.

Latinum is unreplicatable, and one would assume that means untransportable, but we've probably seen latinum transported every time we've seen Quark transport.

It's a free society.

They work towards bettering themselves.

 

Replicating currency for an away team mission would be fine. But replicators would certainly have screwed over any economy using non-latinum currency that had anything anyone would ever want. Maybe fed credits have a latinum watermark on them to prevent their replication.

 

Maybe that 1980s-esque businessman bloke they rescued in "The Neutral Zone" reintroduced commerce to the 24th century.

After centuries of having no money, he swooped in and said "Well pish, this ain't no way to run a Federation! Lemme see that formation document there, see if I can make a few adjustments..."

(And maybe the bloke with the guitar reintroduced Earth to the lost art that was/is country n' western music?)

Maybe Douglas Adams was right after all: you should never invite your ancestors over to dinner.

 

Besides committing the crimes of forgery and counterfeiting, that's not what happened on Farpoint. Beverly told the merchant to charge it to her account on the ship. She didn't pay cash of any kind. The transaction was handled electronically.

It would have been easier on Kirk et. al to just create some 20th-century cash (assuming the Klingon ship they were using had the necessary equipment to copy stuff) so they wouldn't need to worry about "splurging." But they didn't do that.

I maintain that when Kirk said they don't use money in the 23rd century, he meant that they don't use cash - at least not on the core Federation worlds, and definitely not in Starfleet. We've seen that on the fringes, 80 years later, cash is very much in use.

Federation credits very likely don't exist as actual physical cash. Otherwise, as you say, replicators would have been used by every criminal around (and probably were in the early days of their use). The only way to get around that would be to simply go to a 100% cashless society.

 

Indeed, this is my take on it too. IMO they have money in the 23rd century, but not 'physical' cash. I reckon Kirk is confused by the antique dealer in TVH ("Is that a lot?") mainly because he doesn't understand how a dollar translates into the Fed-Creds/whatever currency he knows from back home, not necesssarily because he doesn't understand money at all. And he and Spock don't get what the phrase "exact change" means, but that could be because neither are used to actually handling money as a physical item. In San Fran 1986, they don't have two nickels to rub together, literally.

 

I don't think that federation credits are physical either.

The only place we would have seen them is in the Trouble with Tribbles when Uhura Bought the tribble off Cyrano Jones for 10 credits.... (viewed the moment.) the bartender bought a numberber for 6 credits, was willing to sell them for ten, but Cyrano only had a free sample on him at that itme which he gave to Uhura, which he gave to Uhura.

Seriously: No pockets.

Quatloo's also seem to be traded easily be individuals who donot even have physical bodies.

 

We never actually saw a physical exchange of currency in The Trouble With Tribbles. And Uhura received hers free, as a way for Cyrano to advertise.

 

2takesfrakes is providing comedy gold in this thread.

Bad luck chunkalinas, he's not interested! I'm sure you must be devastated.

 

... Women Love Money, like Bees to Honey. There is no way Humanity is ever getting rid of it. What would they brag about to their girlfriends, if they didn't buy the latest fashions at the cheapest prices? What will become of the Time Honoured Sugar Daddy/Gold Digger dynamic? And then, there's the Perennial Solution of Throwing Money at a moody mistress ... to keep her calm ... and happy. How will Politicians get anything done without bribery? And besides, look at those who mooch off of the Government, already ... now ... they're all foot-dragging, spiritless wretches who can't even find the motivation to practice personal hygene! Whilst I love Gene Roddenberry's BOLD vision for The Future of Humanity, there's no real way that aspect can ever be anything but Science Fantasy ... a Fairy Tale!

 

Are you for real?

 

That's why he needs a second take.