Also Jake seems lost with the concept of money in a couple of episodes.
"The Apple" - The TOS Mythbuster Episode!
- Thread starter JonnyQuest037
- Start date
Not as lost as he is when he tries to explain to Nog how the Federation's "moneyless economy" works.
If it was easy we’d already have it!
"Look, it just works!!!!!!"
In his defense, many 15 years olds would have issues explaining *our* economic system to an alien. Thinking of it, not only 15 year olds.
But Jake was probably around 20 at the time.
possibly...I think he was 14 in season one, but don’t remember when this episode was.
I just looked it up. It was "In The Cards," towards the end of S5. So Jake would be about 18.
Memory Alpha has this cool piece of trivia about the episode:
- Jake quotes Captain Picard from Star Trek: First Contact when he says "we work to better ourselves and the rest of Humanity." [Ron] Moore commented, "I take great glee at mocking my own work." (AOL chat, 1999)
The (mostly) post scarcity state of the Federation being a 24th century development makes a lot of sense when you consider that one thing TNG definitely did introduce was the idea of replicators (not just the automats of the TOS). Which narratively maybe wasn't the best idea ( "Devil in the Dark" and that circulator pump come to mind as a time Scotty could have really used a replicator...) but is a really interesting bit of futurism.
Here's a thought, though: maybe a "moneyless" economy doesn't mean a currency less economy, but one without capital? We've had "moneyless" economies before, with barter based economies, but those had the obvious disadvantage of unstable exchange rates, which is why currency in the form of coinage (which had a material value backing it) and later paper currency (backed by the government or a bank) became a thing. I feel like, whatever economic system you wind up with, you'd have to have some sort of currency just to simplify exchanges and transactions. You'd still use some kind of number based system to track exchanges, to make sure everything is a "fair trade" (otherwise, just taking everything for nothing is "fair", and that definitely doesn't seem to be Trek's can't on commerce). It would also make trading with other, less enlightened galactic powers possible (although in the show, often that sort of thing actually get taken care with barter).
It seems to me that the kind of "money" the show is talking about is more like the idea of wealth\capital: nobody would, or could, accumulate a disproportionate amount of wealth.
But much like we all now have contactless cards and numbers in our bank account, and that would be hard to explain to someone from 1960, it's probably not easy to translate the inner workings of the Federation economy to someone like a Frenegi who really can't (or perhaps won't) understand the idea of a society that just doesn't care about accumulating disproportionate amounts of wealth.
Here's a thought, though: maybe a "moneyless" economy doesn't mean a currency less economy, but one without capital? We've had "moneyless" economies before, with barter based economies, but those had the obvious disadvantage of unstable exchange rates, which is why currency in the form of coinage (which had a material value backing it) and later paper currency (backed by the government or a bank) became a thing. I feel like, whatever economic system you wind up with, you'd have to have some sort of currency just to simplify exchanges and transactions. You'd still use some kind of number based system to track exchanges, to make sure everything is a "fair trade" (otherwise, just taking everything for nothing is "fair", and that definitely doesn't seem to be Trek's can't on commerce). It would also make trading with other, less enlightened galactic powers possible (although in the show, often that sort of thing actually get taken care with barter).
It seems to me that the kind of "money" the show is talking about is more like the idea of wealth\capital: nobody would, or could, accumulate a disproportionate amount of wealth.
But much like we all now have contactless cards and numbers in our bank account, and that would be hard to explain to someone from 1960, it's probably not easy to translate the inner workings of the Federation economy to someone like a Frenegi who really can't (or perhaps won't) understand the idea of a society that just doesn't care about accumulating disproportionate amounts of wealth.
I only ever saw that episode in first run, but to this day I have a vivid memory of the dialogue when Jake is trying to mooch money from Nog, with no intention of ever repaying it. The lines went something like this:
NOG: I thought you said humans don't need money.
JAKE: We don't!
NOG: Well then, you certainly don't need mine.
That to me was the greatest single moment of the series. But then came more wheedling and cajoling, and the mooch got his way, which I found infuriating.
Still, just about every thrifty person has had to play that scene with a friend or relative holding their hand out, and it resonated like crazy.
@Redshirt214 I think Picard explicitly states that in First Contact.
@ZapBrannigan I agree with you on that one scene being a pinnacle moment in the series.
@ZapBrannigan I agree with you on that one scene being a pinnacle moment in the series.
FYI, the original idea was that it took a while for the "eater" to destroy a planet:
The story outline and early scripts for "The Doomsday Machine" reveals a lot of details on things which are only sketched in the aired episode, notably Decker gives a rather detailed account of what happened to his ship.
In short, they went in to study the thing, figuring they could warp off if necessary, but didn't anticipate the "eater" weaponry, which slammed through their "screens" and knocked out the "screen generators", and without the screens the antimatter in the warp pods collapsed into neutronium (don't ask how) and in a later draft, were drained of energy, which is why they could not escape on warp drive. After the ship was hammered into a wreck he says the thing ignored them once they powered down everything but life support, but he thinks the transporter use to beam the crew down to the third planet caught its attention and it came back and took another shot at the ship, stranding him. Then it spent several days blowing the third planet apart while he watched.
Still no explanation of why he thought beaming his crew down to a planet in a system with something that et planets was a good idea.
interesting, thanks.
As noted above, a lot of the maneuvering doesn’t really add up, unfortunately. But I’m willing to overlook this acknowledging that it’s a 60s episode and that it is still an issue secondary to the (great) story.
Myth #4
Kirk does get annoyed when someone else gets the girl. Spock -Leila/ Droxine, Scotty-Mira, McCoy-Natira.
I was going to say that when Kirk gets interested in a girl he doesn't let it interfere with the mission but thats not true - Lenore, Rayna, Gideon girl, Rayna even Edith all affected kirk's judgement.
Kirk does get annoyed when someone else gets the girl. Spock -Leila/ Droxine, Scotty-Mira, McCoy-Natira.
I was going to say that when Kirk gets interested in a girl he doesn't let it interfere with the mission but thats not true - Lenore, Rayna, Gideon girl, Rayna even Edith all affected kirk's judgement.
I think that's misstating what's going on in those episodes. Kirk's not annoyed that someone else is getting the girl, he's annoyed that his ship is in danger.
agreed: my Facebook feed is full of people that seem convinced they can solve all the problems of your country by printing more money.
I'm sure the real-world explanation for Decker beaming down his crew is that the script called for Decker to be alone on the Constellation so that Kirk could later ram it down the planet eater's throat. They had to get rid of the crew somehow.
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