Oh boy...IDW just brought up the money thing again.

[The Wormhole]

Picard said virtually the same thing in Allegiance. He ordered ales for everybody in Ten Forward. And everyone thanked him with gratitude.

Which made little sense if it's all free to begin with

I've since tried to rationalize that as ships having "replicator rations" like they talk about on Voyager. Granted, on the Enterprise D it isn't as strictly enforced as necessity required it to be on Voyager, but there probably is some sort of system in place as a means of maintaining discipline or motivating the crew to work their hardest.

 

[C.E. Evans]

I don't know why IDW is being singled out for bringing up the no money thing again. Someone here at trekbbs starts a new thread about it every two weeks or so...

 

[Nightdiamond]

^ The issue will never be really solved unless Trek, in a new show, makes a consistent statement about it. Like repeatedly showing humans paying for something.

Or flatly saying something like replicator use isn't free. That's why people work--to use the replicators.

So what the hell was Kirk saying "her drinks on me" for then? Figure of speech?

You bet your ass.

(I don't expect you to bet your ass now)

This is what it looks like in reverse, for people who don't use money:

JAKE:--I sold my first book today.

QUARK: Really? How much did you get for it?

JAKE: It's just a figure of speech. The Federation News Service is going to publish a book of my stories about life on the station under Dominion rule.

QUARK: And they're not paying you?
JAKE: No.

QUARK: Well then, you have my sympathies and the first round of drinks is on the house.
JAKE: Really?

QUARK: No. It's a figure of speech.

I've since tried to rationalize that as ships having "replicator rations" like they talk about on Voyager. Granted, on the Enterprise D it isn't as strictly enforced as necessity required it to be on Voyager, but there probably is some sort of system in place as a means of maintaining discipline or motivating the crew to work their hardest.

Makes sense, because it's hard to see the motivation when you can enjoy luxury at the push of a button.

But the show gives notion that the replicators are free for all to use.

Usually they go and speak and the replicator makes what they want, no ID, code or deduction from the person's 'account' or rations.

 

[Pauln6]

Replicators are converting energy to matter. Since energy cannot be created or destroyed, it has to come from somewhere and the energy required is massive. So no, 23rd century citizens do not have unlimited resources to replicate whatever they like. There must be some sort of credit rationing. The line is very fuzzy though.

 

[Kor]

In ST:FC, Picard said the following: "The economics of the future are somewhat different. You see, money doesn't exist in the 24th century. The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives. We work to better ourselves and the rest of Humanity."

So if there's no pay, what's the motivation for people in service jobs like janitorial/maintenance (assuming everything isn't automated yet)? Who would do that out of the goodness of their hearts?

I also think of Ben Sisko's father running a restaurant (and all the servers, busboys and dishwashers)... Is it just a hobby?

In the 23rd century, Pike was thinking of leaving Starfleet to go into business on Regulus or the Orion colonies (imagine any other of our virtuous Starfleet captains wanting to become an Orion trader! ) Perhaps certain Earth people worked on building personal fortunes outside of the framework of Earth economics, in case they wanted to retire someday to a place that did have a currency-based economy.

Kor

 

[T'Girl]

So what the hell was Kirk saying "her drinks on me" for then? Figure of speech?

You bet your ass.

nuKirk is so used to women throwing their drinks in his face that he just automatically says that.

In ST:FC, Picard said the following: "The economics of the future are somewhat different. You see, money doesn't exist in the 24th century. The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives. We work to better ourselves and the rest of Humanity."

Lily: "I asked if you got paid."

Picard: "Oh, umm ... yes."

Lily: "Was that so hard?"

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

This is hardly the first major continuity gaffe in the comics. Just check out what the recent Khan miniseries said about the Eugenics Wars if you don't believe me.

 

[Trekkin]

How were there continuity gaffs with the Eugenics wars? I found some with STID, but not that tiny amount of info the series gave us about the 1990's.

Unless your talking about non-canon stuff like Reign in Hell.

 

[CorporalClegg]

Are we sure he wasn't singing AC/DC karaoke?

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

How were there continuity gaffs with the Eugenics wars?

Spoiler: comics

The Khan miniseries represented them as a nuclear conflict that destroyed much of the US, whereas we know that the US wasn't even *involved* in the Eugenics Wars. Remember "Future's End"?

 

[BillJ]

How were there continuity gaffs with the Eugenics wars?

Spoiler: comics

The Khan miniseries represented them as a nuclear conflict that destroyed much of the US, whereas we know that the US wasn't even *involved* in the Eugenics Wars. Remember "Future's End"?

I like the comics version of the Eugenics Wars better.

 

[Unicron]

^ The issue will never be really solved unless Trek, in a new show, makes a consistent statement about it. Like repeatedly showing humans paying for something.

Or flatly saying something like replicator use isn't free. That's why people work--to use the replicators.

Perhaps I should use the Guardian of Forever to simply change things to my personal canon. Problem solved.

 

[The Wormhole]

But the show gives notion that the replicators are free for all to use.

Usually they go and speak and the replicator makes what they want, no ID, code or deduction from the person's 'account' or rations.

Yeah, but it was like that on Voyager too, despite the fact they really were using replicator rations.

 

[Trekkin]

How were there continuity gaffs with the Eugenics wars?

Spoiler: comics

The Khan miniseries represented them as a nuclear conflict that destroyed much of the US, whereas we know that the US wasn't even *involved* in the Eugenics Wars. Remember "Future's End"?

I like the comics version of the Eugenics Wars better.

Spoiler: comics

Maybe Futures End was a few days before the bombs dropped. The book doesn't actually tell us what happened there, only that North America ended up a wasteland and the Augments controlled South America. It might have been a Cold War that suddenly turned hot, it could have been unprovoked, maybe Alaska had gone to war with Mexico and the U.S. was collateral damage...

Seriously though, I think they were just tying it into the nuclear wasteland from FC. We know the U.S. got nuked at some point, and the show goes back and forth with whether the Eugenics Wars counted as part of WW3.

 

[Ithekro]

Remember the Future's End takes place in 1996. The only reference to the Eugenics Wars in that episode is the model of a DY-100 on top of a modified booster set from a Space Shuttle. Nothing else that I recall.

The fallout from World War III, by Data's observation of the radioactives in the Earth atmosphere in First Contact, place the Enterprise at being their ten years after the war. The date of First Contact is specific in 2063.

Based on Enterprise and Deep Sapce Nine, I'd place the Eugenics Wars at after First Contact. That way you'd have a stock of Augments embryo on a deep space outpost rather than on Earth (or just nuked out of existance). Khan being from 1996 is the consistant, but having it as 2096 fits everything else. Even the Post Atomic Horror seen in TNG.

 

[Trekkin]

You know, I never even questioned how those embryos gotwhere they were. I guess I just assumed the Feds transferred them there after they'd sat on earth for a century or so.

I accidentally cut off the last part of my prior post. I was going to say that I thought the writers of Future's End either forgot about the supposed date of the Eugenics Wars, or just decided to use DS9's mistake of '200 years ago' as a retcon.

 

[Lance]

*headdesk* it's just a throwaway line in a comic.

Well, yes and no. It's very easy to ignore, because like you say it's a single throwaway line. But it's still irritating, because it indicates that we're all 'supposed' to be on the same page re: Star Trek's economy.

I'd rather they avoided these things altogether and just left it up to us to decide.

 

[Ithekro]

Simply, the Federation economy is suppose to be an extremely advanced post-scarcity system. We cannot fathom it because we can't picture how that is suppose to work. Doesn't mean it doesn't work, just that it is beyond our understanding. Like most things in science fiction. Just with tech and aliens we try to make something up. With the economy, we tend to ignore it as it is a concept that tends to bore people when talked about in detail.

Can you imagine if they started writing a large number of scene using econobabble instead of technobabble? Because that is basically what we'd get.

 

[Kor]

^ It depends. Would the econobabble actually be based on real economic principles? The technobabble sure isn't based on real science!

Kor

 

[Ithekro]

That's why it be econobabble.