Starfleet at Quarks

[Treker]

Since this is a Niner thread I can hang some examples out there for us to ponder.

Remember the episode with the little ball that would buzz and light up to see if you "won" and the dude turns it into a gambling hall?

That didn't even use latinum, they had some magic 1 episode only currency "Issics or something"

Also remember the episode where Julian tries to beat Quark at Tongo?

He needs to buy in and Miles produces a case with real latinum in it. Where did that come from I ask? Did he steal it??? lol

Also when bringing the romulans into the war Sisko must pay quark off and he offers latinum to cover the bill for the trouble the holo programmer causes.

There are just tons of times that money gets used.

But when Jake wants to buy the baseball card for his dad he asks Nog for the cash stating that the Feds don't have money.

Well why not have money if you are living on a space station with shops all down a "promenade" like a mall??

It really is totally confusing.

I think the comments about it being one big lie might be on the money here.

The feds do have cash.

 

[MikeS]

The thing with the baseball card really highlights my point about rare items having value to collectors.

 

[hyzmarca]

Ah. Bartering, then.

I like it.

But that still begs the question of what the incentive is for folks to produce within the Federation. Or...does everyone become lazy except Starfleet Officers and folks at recreational facilities?

Boredome.

Sitting at home and masturbating all day becomes tedious after a while. Most people want something to do. The advantage of the post-scarcity society and hypothetical communist utopias is that everyone can do what they're good at and what they enjoy, rather than being forced to work a demeaning job that they hate just for money.

Hypothetically, this might mean much less manual labor and much more really bad art. That's okay when you have extreme labor-saving devices Of course, there are also people who like manual labor, and the use of automation appears to be very rare in the Federation for this reason.

Think of the guy who has a garden in his back yard and loves tending it. Lets say that he wishes that he had a bigger garden, maybe even a whole farm. Buying a farm would be fairly expensive in the real world, but the Federation, being post-scarcity, can just give him one on planet Epislon 4 or wherever. It's not like there is a shortage of sparsely-inhabited worlds.

Wholly ignoring the issue of how the UFP economy works, we could simply accept that it does, and then jump to answering the original question.

Let's say the UFP economy does not feature anything that could be used as Ferengi-accepted money. No problem: the Feds are wealthy in every practical respect - they can make Ferengi money. They don't need any part of their economy for that, they only need a moneymaker.

From the UFP viewpoint, the Ferengi could be ignorant savages. You keep ignorant savages happy by giving them glass baubles. The UFP should have no shortage of glass baubles, so it's likely that every Starfleet officer can requisition a pouchful of those if they think they are going to end up interacting with savages. And everybody assigned to DS9 would think exactly that...

It's not as if our heroes use their Quark-bribing-baubles as money in any other respect. When Dax wins some of that stuff in Tongo, we observe that she simply leaves her winnings on the table instead of collecting them. We don't see latinum moving between the Feds and, say, the Bajorans; it only flows when the Ferengi or their direct associates are involved. It's funny money to the Feds, to be made or unmade at a whim. But of course the Feds are good people, and don't make or unmake Ferengi money in such quantities or manner that it would disrupt the Ferengi economy - nor do they rub it on Quark's face that they are merely humoring him.

Timo Saloniemi

Actually, the Feds can't make it. The Ferengi use latinum as a standard because it is impossible to replicate.

 

[Treker]

There's no special rule of the universe that say we weren't created just to lay around in the sun all day.

Money is evil and creates its own problems, like poor people needing to commit crimes just to eat.

 

[Neutral Zone]

I also remember that Janeway in Voyager was using some form of cash to buy supplies on a planet. If they don't get hard cash in the Federation there must be some form of credit system or what would be the point of having shops and bars?

 

[PorthosShadow]

I've always assumed that whole money issue in the 24th century is one the writers prefer to sidestep. Not because it's in conflict with Gene Roddenberry's vision but because it brings up to many questions. I take the same approach to how they use their computers, it works for them. Just because I don't have the slightest idea how a Federation starship works doesn't mean that it doesn't for them.

That being said I've always figured that when it come to the station and Bajor the Federation has a bank account set up and every Starfleet officer has a certain alotment each so they can purchase goods and services from people who still use currency.

 

[Timo]

That didn't even use latinum, they had some magic 1 episode only currency "Issics or something"

Why magic? It was obviously the currency of the guy doing the trading, the El-Aurian Martus. Why would he use Ferengi currency? He's not on Ferenginar, he's in Bajoran territory in the middle of neutral space.

There's also e.g. Klingon money (darseks), Bajoran money (litas) and Cardassian money (leks) in the shows. These are seldom mentioned in comparison with latinum, since the Ferengi are seen trading stuff more often than any of those competing species.

Actually, the Feds can't make it. The Ferengi use latinum as a standard because it is impossible to replicate.

A common fallacy. Yet nowhere is it stated that latinum (or gold-pressed latinum) would be impossible to replicate. Nothing has ever been stated to be impossible to replicate, not categorically. At the very best, certain types of equipment, or certain damaged states of equipment, fail to produce certain things to the required perfection.

Perhaps it's difficult to replicate GPL, so most forgers don't bother. But the Federation might think it a good idea to have a supply of these glass baubles around, and would dedicate a minor fraction of its mighty industries to creating a few thousand tons of the stuff, to be given out to personnel who need to interact with the Ferengi.

After all, somebody must be able to produce genuine GPL. And if somebody can, the Feds probably can, too - they're simply that good.

Probably GPL isn't even particularly difficult to do, because that would be so unlikely in the Trek universe. More likely, it's like paper money: moderately difficult to do, but furthermore coded so that only properly coded money is of any worth. In this case, the code could be chemical for the smaller quantities (Quark is seen biting his latinum strips and slips at times, so the taste or the bending strength could be telltale), and the more complicated the larger the quantity (bars and bullions could have hundreds of codes, some readable by the everyday user, some better hidden).

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mr. Scott]

The whole money, not money thing has always bugged me about Trek. Rule of thumb about Trek is not to ask to many questions and enjoy the show. Trek is sort of like the Bible, it was written by many different people over long stretches of time (more or less 42 years.) It is difficult to reconcile these matters with all the different writers and subplots and whatnot.

-----------------------

In my mind, Latinum is one of the most valuable substances in the Universe, sort of like gold is here on Earth. It seems a lot that the people do a lot of bargaining.

There is a lot of barter and trading in the Universe. For example, some planets might have vegetation and abundant crops, while other planets, like Vulcan are more or less deserts and needed water. Maybe Vulcan has something of value that the Fernegi want and vice versa. Many of the planets in the Trek universe were basically singular industry planets, or planets where something is famous for.

Starfleet basically drank and ate for free in exchange of free rent on the Prominade. Things beyond that (like the holosuite, Vulcan Love Slave) were basically billed to the Federation, who themselves have to keep a bunch of latinum at hand to trade and negotiate with other planets and so on.

The replicator is something that should be better defined. If I wrote for Trek, the replicator could only recreate certain things. The one thing it could replicate well was food, but the food is substandard next to the real thing. (according to that butthead Eddington at least) The replicator is the one thing that saved Mankind, that everyone could be fed for nothing and their basic needs taken care of.

What about suppily and demand? If I wanted to book a trip to Raisa for holiday, what happens if all the hotels were booked? Who gets the room first?

 

[Rush Limborg]

In my mind, Latinum is one of the most valuable substances in the Universe, sort of like gold is here on Earth. It seems a lot that the people do a lot of bargaining.

There is a lot of barter and trading in the Universe. For example, some planets might have vegetation and abundant crops, while other planets, like Vulcan are more or less deserts and needed water. Maybe Vulcan has something of value that the Fernegi want and vice versa. Many of the planets in the Trek universe were basically singular industry planets, or planets where something is famous for.

Starfleet basically drank and ate for free in exchange of free rent on the Prominade. Things beyond that (like the holosuite, Vulcan Love Slave) were basically billed to the Federation, who themselves have to keep a bunch of latinum at hand to trade and negotiate with other planets and so on.

The replicator is something that should be better defined. If I wrote for Trek, the replicator could only recreate certain things. The one thing it could replicate well was food, but the food is substandard next to the real thing. (according to that butthead Eddington at least) The replicator is the one thing that saved Mankind, that everyone could be fed for nothing and their basic needs taken care of.

What about suppily and demand? If I wanted to book a trip to Raisa for holiday, what happens if all the hotels were booked? Who gets the room first?

Exactly. Like it or not, the laws of the market will NOT be denied. You try to disobey the laws, your business/society gets, for lack of a better term, screwed up.


As for the replicator, I'd say it replicates carbon-based objects, such as food and drinks--using the carbon from the air as supply. Nanotech basically works that way, in a primitive form, so that's not really a stretch.

The cups and plates I'd imagine to be "carbon constructs" of some kind.

 

[SoM]

Wholly ignoring the issue of how the UFP economy works, we could simply accept that it does, and then jump to answering the original question.

Let's say the UFP economy does not feature anything that could be used as Ferengi-accepted money. No problem: the Feds are wealthy in every practical respect - they can make Ferengi money. They don't need any part of their economy for that, they only need a moneymaker.

From the UFP viewpoint, the Ferengi could be ignorant savages. You keep ignorant savages happy by giving them glass baubles. The UFP should have no shortage of glass baubles, so it's likely that every Starfleet officer can requisition a pouchful of those if they think they are going to end up interacting with savages. And everybody assigned to DS9 would think exactly that...

It's not as if our heroes use their Quark-bribing-baubles as money in any other respect. When Dax wins some of that stuff in Tongo, we observe that she simply leaves her winnings on the table instead of collecting them. We don't see latinum moving between the Feds and, say, the Bajorans; it only flows when the Ferengi or their direct associates are involved. It's funny money to the Feds, to be made or unmade at a whim. But of course the Feds are good people, and don't make or unmake Ferengi money in such quantities or manner that it would disrupt the Ferengi economy - nor do they rub it on Quark's face that they are merely humoring him.

From "The Darkness and the Light":

Jadzia: "You've been smirking ever since we left the starbase."
Worf: "I do not smirk. But if I did, this would be a good opportunity."
Jadzia: "How was I supposed to know that Captain Ramirez was a three-time tongo champion?"
Worf: "You may have asked, before mocking him and then allowing him to up the stakes to a no-limit game."
Jadzia: "I didn't lose that much."
Worf: "Two bars of latinum. I hope you have it."
Jadzia: "I have it... most of it... Worf--?"
Worf: "No."
Jadzia: "Fine. I'll borrow it from Quark. He likes me."

 

[Marten]

I vaguely remember one of the producers talking about this in either the extras on TNG, or in an interview I read somewhere, saying that even he thought it was strange not to have money, but since it was Roddenberry's rules, he tried to follow them as much as possible.

 

[snakespeare]

This thread is proof that our minds are still in the 21st century.

Trek was created to convey humanist ideas. Roddenberry was attempting to convey what life COULD be like, not what it is. If we insist on applying our experience to someone else's allegory, we will simply fail to understand. And what kind of fans are we if we don't even try to understand the creator of the story? If we don't even try to get the message? That's like saying you're a Lennon fan but you hate his words. Yikes!

 

[Rush Limborg]

But HOW IS IT EVEN POSSIBLE, a society without money?

If Roddenberry's ideas make no sene, it should be changed.

He constantly asserted that humans in the 24th century are free of conflict. Of course, that's impossible--so eventually, Rick and Co. changed that nonsense.

 

[snakespeare]

RL, You are merely admitting that you can't imagine it. That is simply because you have already made up your mind. It would be impossible for me to convey an idea that is not welcomed.

 

[Rush Limborg]

Try me.

How do you see it happening?

 

[snakespeare]

You'll have to do your own trying, RL. I can't imagine for you. The concept has already been offered to you. Pretend you are someone else and try to imagine it. Suspend argument for a while and allow yourself to think about it. No harm will come to you.

 

[Rush Limborg]

So...you cannot explain how it works?

 

[snakespeare]

See? You're busy coming up with the next comeback. How can you possibly imagine something someone else thinks when you are so busy thinking about how to reply?

I am saying, I can lead you right up to it, lay it all out before you, and all you will do is tell me why it can't happen.

I submit that others already have attempted to explain it, but it was rejected. I can't change that. You will never understand until you try to understand, which means to accept the idea without criticism and mull it over. Instead of being defeatist and assuming we will always kill each other, try to imagine that maybe someday, we won't.

It up to you.

And that IS the explanation. You just can't see it.

 

[Rush Limborg]

You mean I'd have to already believe it could work, in order for you to convince me it could work?

And that somehow, I'm just too close-minded for that line of reasoning to make sense?

 

[snakespeare]

That is not what I mean. It's not about faith. It's not about open- or closed-mindedness.

I said:

Trek was created to convey humanist ideas. Roddenberry was attempting to convey what life COULD be like, not what it is. If we insist on applying our experience to someone else's allegory, we will simply fail to understand. And what kind of fans are we if we don't even try to understand the creator of the story? If we don't even try to get the message?