this post was submitted on 09 Jan 2024
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As far as I am aware, the lack of money is specific to Earth. Not the entire federation. Starfleet personnel get per diems as mentioned in DS9 when stationed somewhere other than Earth. You think Quark is letting everyone use the holosuites and eat and drink for free? If they want free food, they have the replimat. Even that isn't "free;" you have rations because even replicated food costs energy (the idea being very prevenlent in Voyager).
What gets me is that they have also mentioned that putting things back in the replicator to be broken down somehow replenishes a bit of that energy... Wouldn't it take a shitton of power simply to turn the material back into elemental particles? ๐ค
I have mostly chalked that up to DS9 being pretty bad at being a Star Trek show. Seriously, if they wanted to make Babylon 5 they should have just made Babylon 5.
Voyager dealing with scarcity makes sense for their premise, but the point is Trek society is supposed to be post-scarcity, at least on the Federation side. If they can use matter/energy conversion to cook and travel then it just doesn't make sense to assume any limits to consumption. Trek society isn't just not capitalist, it simply can't be capitalist. They had to come up with some reeeal stretchy garbage to justify DS9 having a currency and people paying it for stuff like drinks and entertainment in a world where they are still beaming themselves around.
I mean, they have a perfectly good planet right there, let alone a wormhole that is supposed to make them a commerce hub. And they aren't going anywhere, they literally just need to keep the lights and replicators going to be self-sustainable indefinitely, as opposed to flying around at faster than light speeds by warping the fabric of spacetime. Somebody explain to me how come Quark gets to charge people for a cup of tea in that context.
Simple.
He's a greedy Ferengi and not part of the Federation.
Also: The Bajorans down on the planet you speak of exchange currency. The planet doesn't have the infrastructure to be post-scarcity... That's, like, the entire premise for the show. They're getting assistance from the Federation to help rebuild after the Cardassian occupation while also petitioning to join the Federation.
The most flimsy explanations are actually just how Earth operates a currency-less society. They trade. They barter. They simply don't have money. Most every race that isn't capable of producing a resource they want trades. And some of those races also happen to value currency in the form of liquid metal wrapped in gold. ๐คท๐ปโโ๏ธ
No, that's not simple. He has replicators. He owns replicators. We see him use them. Alright, so we know some stuff like food or latinum doesn't replicate well and you can tell the difference, and presumably post-scarcity you put a huge premium on that because what else are you gonna do, but how doess that sustain an entire species of greedy interstellar traders? What are they greedy for, even? Everybody can still talk to their wall and get new pants and a sandwich.
And why does Bajor not have the infrastructure? What weird-ass priorities does the Federation have that in seven years they somehow manage to keep around a warship with transporters, replicators a FTL warp engine and a cloaking device but can't get the planet set up for post-scarcity? They have transporters and replicators, what's taking so long? None of it makes sense.
The answer is somebody wanted to do Casablanca in spaaaaace and they weren't going to let the rules of the setting get in the way. DS9 should not be canon. People get mad at nuTrek's tone changes, but DS9 breaks the lore completely.