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DS9: Currency and the Federation
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this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2023
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To my knowledge the federation is completely post monetary. But, we do see individual people who in it that use money. Riker mentioned a few times owing debts or being owed debts from card games and the like, iirc. I think it's largely a personal choice, as money is unnecessary in their society. Nothing that matters has a monetary cost, like shelter, food, etc. And luxuries within the federation itself seem to also be free at the point of use, but I think there is some kind of credit system in use. Sisko mentions using up a months worth of transporter credits to come home for dinner during his time at the academy, if I'm remembering right.
Given the whole schtick of being a post capitalist, but not quite fully communist, society that the franchise has, combined with my personal knowledge of various socialist ideas around transitionary societies, my best guess is that they function off a form of labor voucher. Non transferable credits to be used for whatever goods are restricted or scarce. But with some kind of loophole around the transferability when it comes to dealing with non federation members who still use money.
Hmm I wonder even more how this works for Grandpa Sisko. How does his restaurant get allocated the food he needs to make his famous jambalaya? He makes it very clear the food he uses is NOT replicated.
@valek879
Look at all the gardening videos on YouTube. People love producing food. Even a rather small patch produces more of something than you can eat. (If you want to eat other things too)
The only thing non industrial local gardening won't you give is consistency. When certain produce is ripe there suddenly is a lot, and then not. They might solve this with people grade transporters.
@DharmaCurious
Whats the difference between a transporter and a replicator? Once you've gotten the pattern of a tomato why can't you just keep copying it? Presumably a human is too complicated to do that regularly but why not a tomato?
A transporter is a device which takes matter, shifts it into subspace, and can do some manipulation of that matter in the process, but can't reconstruct it arbitrary. Once the transported object has been rematerialized, all the transporter has left is a record of what that matter was at a far lesser precision than what would be needed to replicate it.
A replicator is a transporter designed to shift inert matter into subspace and modify it extensively from that state. A typical replicator is less precise than a transporter and is simultaneously limited by the complexity of its recipes. It cannot produce functional living things, for example.
Transporters and replicators are frequently referred to as matter-energy conversion devices. This is technically true but somewhat deceptive. It's also a common misconception that a transporter is an advanced replicator, instead of the other way round, but we know this isn't true: a safe-for-humans Transporter was invented and used in the 22nd century, while the contemporary replicator equivalents were primitive protein resequencers.
Haven't they had multiple episodes where something is in the 'buffer' of the ship? What is the buffer? Why can't you just copy the buffer and put whatever you want into it?
First off, it's clear that the metaphor the writers initially had in mind was a computer storing data. The TNG tech manual is just vague enough to be ambiguous on this point, but very heavily implies a "scan and save a pattern -> destroy the original -> rebuild from the pattern" process. Terminology like "pattern buffer" no doubt comes out of that conception.
It's also clear that by the end of 90s Trek at least some people with decision making power felt it was really important to explicitly shoot down a lot of the "kill and clone machine" theories about how transporters work, which is why Enterprise in particular is full of counter-evidence. Of course, TNG Realm of Fear was clearly not written by someone with "kill and clone" in mind, and stands as another very strong bit of evidence against that theory. The conflicting intentions make things confusing, but they are not irreconcilable.
My preferred explanation is as follows: When they shift something into subspace, they still need to keep an accurate track of exactly where in subspace everything is (the "pattern"), in addition to preventing whatever extradimensional subspace interference whosamawhatsit from damaging the matter itself. (If you're familiar with computer programming, the pattern is functionally a huge set of "pointers", not pointing to a specific piece of computer memory, but a specific point within the non-euclidian topology of subspace.) This pattern is stored in the "pattern buffer", a computer memory storage unit with an extremely high capacity but which only retains data for a limited time. The transporter then uses this pattern to find the dematerialized transportee in subspace and rematerialize them at the target coordinates, taking great care to ensure that all these trillions of pieces are moved to the correct locations in realspace. These steps can be (and often are) accelerated, with a person beginning to materialize at the target coordinates while still dematerializing on the transporter pad (see TNG Darmok for an example off the top of my head).
The reason you can't just tell the transporter to make another copy of what's in the buffer is that although you have a lot of information about whatever you just dematerialized, you only have one copy of the matter in the buffer. If you try to materialize another one you'll be trying to pull matter from subspace where none exists: the transporter equivalent of a Segmentation Fault, to use another computer science term. If you tried to use that pattern to convert an appropriate quantity of base matter into a copy of whatever was in the buffer, you'll still be missing any information about the transported material which can't be gleamed exclusively from a mapping of where each piece was: you won't necessarily know exactly what every piece was, at a precision necessary to recreate it. Especially if the diffusion of material into subspace is sufficiently predictable that the pattern doesn't need a pointer for every individual subatomic particle, but can capture a a cluster of particles with each one.
We know from the existence of "transporter traces" that the transport process does leave behind some persistent information about a person who was transported. We also know that it is possible for the transporter operator to identify and deactivate weapons mid-transport. It makes sense that a mapping of pointers could be extrapolated out to get a lot of data about the matter being transported (such as detailed information on a subject's cellular makeup, or if there's a device capable of discharging a dangerous amount of energy) while still falling far short of the data required to make an exact copy.
I mean, on a molecular level there is no difference. I feel like they even did the whole ship of Theseus thing several times. And the obvious one is the 2nd Riker. Enterprise (the series, not the ship) saw the addition of transporters to starships and they talked about it a lot in that episode. Bones in the original refused to use them because he understood the science of it and knew people were essentially being killed and reassembled every time they were transported.
I always got the impressions that people who said non-replicated food tasted better were either deluding themselves or that extra flavor they attribute to the food is like, non food things in it. Leftover dirt, mold starting to grow.... Kind of like how completely filtered water is tasteless when the minerals and other fine particulates are removed. Transporters, as a side effect of how they work, remove illnesses from the body (Except when it needs to not for plot reasons. And don't get me started on the billions of bacteria that exist in our body all the time that are necessary for life that wouldn't count as "you"). So presumably, they would remove all those tiny things in food if transported, and obviously wouldn't create them in the first place if replicated.
That's something I hadn't considered about replicated food. As a gardener, I can attest that the dirt it's grown in can have a pretty big impact on taste. It could be that.
Could also be, like, you order your replicated tomato, and they're giving you Tomato variety number 7, as is standard for replicators, and you just don't care for that variety. Kinda like how banana candy doesn't taste like bananas, because it actually tastes like a variety of banana you can't get anymore, so no one thinks it tastes real anymore.
Doctor McCoy used the transporter very frequently with minimal complaining; the only complaint I can recall is from TMP and followed a horrific and unexpected transporter accident.
As for transporters in Enterprise, two things are especially noteworthy: one, they explicitly refuted the idea that the transporter creates a "some sort of weird copy" of the person or object transported, and two, those human-safe transporters were contemporary with very primitive replicator equivalents called protein resequencers. Clearly transporters aren't building humans atom-by-atom from data alone if they can't figure out how to do more than resequence protein molecules in any other context.
Transporters don't do anything to affect the matter they are transporting unless explicitly intended to: by the 24th century they are programmed to filter out recognizeable pathogens, and can be used to deactivate weapons or occasionally monkey with the genes of a person in mid-transport, but things routinely pass through the transporter without issue which are either totally unknown or explicitly non-replicatable. None of this makes sense if the sequence is scan -> destroy -> rebuild, but makes total sense if the transporter is shifting the transportee into subspace (with some tweaks to allow them to exist there) and then back out of subspace at the destination.
Thomas Riker (and now William Boimler) is the one big exception. Both occured under a very specific and extremely rare weather condition, and the first time this happened the Chief Engineer on the flagship of the Enterprise was shocked that such a thing was even possible. I'm much more inclined to believe that the "transporter duplicates" are actually the result of the phenomenon that duplicated Voyager in Deadlock, not the transporter actually constructing two people from the pattern and matter of only one.
@Lem453 There are cargo transporters and people transporters. The people transporters are more faithful. The replicators are more like cargo transporters. See "Heisenberg Compensator" https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Heisenberg_compensator
Good point! Also, don't they use stasis to keep food fresh for longer?
From what we've seen of how good his cooking is, it may well be his customers bringing him the food they grow specifically for his restaurant.
I have a large write up on this from the Daystrom Institute on that other site. I don't think there are rules against linking there, so here you are: federation citizen's migration guide I know this is only tangentially related, but it does have the idea of locals deciding how to allocate resources. And a summary of another daystrom discussion that I remember: Sisko's restaurant might have significant cultural value, so the city council allows him to operate his restaurant as long as he has patrons to his restaurant. Hence why he's concerned about turnover, even though money doesn't exist.
I can't find the saved link to the second discussion about why sisko cares about turnover, sorry
Thank you! I'll read your other post!
Oh I didn't write it, I meant to say I had it saved.
@DharmaCurious
Bolarus has an operational bank (which Morn robbed) and Crusher pasys with Federation Credits in Mission Farpoint.
Also note that it's called New Earth Economy. It's earth that has no money.
Is bolarus federation? I'm not great at knowing which planets are and aren't. The federation credits beverly uses at far point could still be in line with my labor voucher theory, but I think you're right about it being earth, not the federation, that's entirely post monetary. Now that you mention that, I've seen episodes where they say you have to be a unified planet to join the federation, no caste system, etc. But never have they mentioned on screen you have to be post monetary. Also, as up thread it was mentioned, quark is paying rent on a bajoran station, so probably bajor has money, and they were all set to join on a few occasions, so yeah. You're right. The moneyless folks are Earthicans, not federation members.
@DharmaCurious There is a DS9 episode where Lwaxana and a Bolian do what seems like parliamentary oversight. So I suppose they are.
I'm very unclear on what exactly makes "transporter credits" or "labor vouchers" different from "money."
Edit: I am sorry for this wall of text. I understand if you don't read it. Lol..I have COVID right now, and for someone reason I'm either wired like a coke head, or exhausted like a coke head on Monday. You caught me wired.
Transporter credits I can't speak to, but labor vouchers are something that has been tried in limited fashion in the past.
Basically, the idea is that they are not accunulatable by anyone but the person doing labor to earn them.
Let's say you work, doing some kind of worky type work. You earn 1 labor voucher per hour. You live in a society in which housing, electricity, water, transportations, and food are free at the point of use. Your labor voucher provides proof that you are, indeed, laboring. You have your eye on a nice luxury item or an item that is genuinely scarce and not strictly necessary for life, and thus not provided free to everyone (I have COVID right now, and can't think of an example. Game system? Aren't computers made with rare elements? See footnote). You could spend your labor vouchers for this item. Let's say it costs 20 labor vouchers. You work 20 hours, give the shopkeep those 20 vouchers. The vouchers aren't money, though. They're either digital credits, or little pieces of paper with "DrChaotica's proof of labor" on it. The shopkeep would be unable to spend them anywhere, as she is not DrChaotica. They are either destroyed outright, or given back to the local governing body to be re-given to you upon completion of more laboring.
It's an idea for socialism by people who are socialist, and also think we'd have the whole bUt nObOdY WiLl WoRk problem. We incentivize work through the voucher system, while preventing the accumulation of wealth by making them non transferable and no accunulatable by anyone other than the worker. In theory, you could be "rich," but only by working a shit ton, and your wealth couldn't come at the expense of making someone else poor. You wouldn't be able to extract the value of other workers, and you wouldn't be able to hoarde mass amounts of wealth, only modest wealth, as you'd have to be doing the work yourself.
Footnote:
So, among socialists, this is still a fairly controversial topic. Labor vouchers are often seen as a way of preventing the Socialist Billionaire problem that China faces, while also preventing the common critique thrown at left wing communists and anarchists, that none would actively work in their communities, especially in less hobby-like jobs like wood working or fuggin sculpting or whatever. No one wants to be a plumber after the glorious revolution. This allows for the community to have things that are entirely free, and provide a base level of life that is pretty high, while also ensuring that things get done, and no one is rigging the system in their favor. It's not a system supported by all socialists, and it's not always clear which group would or would not support that type of system.
Footnote the second, because COVID brain and I couldn't figure out where else to slot it in. Labor vouchers could also be used on food, depending on the system. A ration system is often a scary concept, because people think the ration is the most the food you can have. But there's also the type of rationing where the ration is the minimum amount of food anyone can have. You are provided with a base level of calories, staple items, and whatever is locally produced. You will always have access to that, and will never go hungry. But let's say your community is trying to increase the amount of plant based food and decrease animal farming. Dairy may be on the ration, but meat is not. Labor vouchers could be used to buy meat, increasing the number of people willing to do work for the vouchers, while decreasing the amount of meat produced, and simultaneously ensuring no one goes hungry, and no one is forced to go veg if they don't want to.