The Federation Economy

[Wazer]

Jounin your example is a poor one even though a surgeon has to train many more years for his profession than a garbage collector the job satifaction of saving lives than cleaning up other peoples rubbish.

The problem you have highlighted is a problem in traditonal communism where the cleaner gets paid as much as the highly trained engineer. It means that no one wants to be an engineer unless there are other benefits than pay which of course lead to corruption.

 

All this is a social problem since in the star trek universe there is no reason to work at all they seem to have integrated the will to work into their social fabric.

 

I would also like to meantion an idea my brother had in that transporter could be used to replicate anything. I will start a new topic on this idea as it is a side issue to this topic.

[Palantas]

All right, let’s go through this.

 

3. Being able to construct virtually anything…replicators can create every good that a person needs to function in a 24th century society.

 

3. Essentially' date=' yes. Except that I would add in that the replicators cannot build things that large only because of technical difficulties preventing the building of a large enough replicator, rather than an inability of replication technology to make that sort of thing.[/quote']

 

Let me rehash: I am disputing the idea that replicators can make all the goods Federation society needs. I am basing this claim on replicator’s inability to produce key products in a number of episodes.

 

I brought up…

1. The existence of vital materials that could not be replicated.

a. Romulan ribosomes.

b. Federation medical supplies.

c. Ketracel

2. Ferengi commerce.

 

Your rebuttal to 1a:

For one thing, we have no idea how simple or complex Romulan protein and RNA are. You are making assumptions based on Terran genomes, which are entirely invalid when dealing with extraterrestrial lifeforms.

 

I am making assumptions based on Terran genomes. We’re not talking about “extraterrestrial lifeforms†like ET or Jabba the Hutt here. We’re talking about Romulans. Are you aware that many of major races of the galaxy share genetic material (TNG: “The Chaseâ€ÂÂ)? The genes of humans, Vulcans, Romulans, and Klingons are so similar that they can mate and bear offspring (ST:IV, TNG: “The Emissaryâ€ÂÂ, TNG: “Redemption, Part IIâ€ÂÂ). Yes, I am making assumptions. I’m making assumptions after analyzing the available evidence, which indicates that replicators can’t make something as simple as strand of protein.

 

This is of course entirely academic. Romulans and Vulcans are the same species, although they separated over philosophical issues some centuries ago. (TNG: “Unification, Part IIâ€ÂÂ) This is not long enough for speciation to occur. We can conclude that Federation replicators are unable to produce a basic medical element for one of the founding races of the Federation.

 

Your rebuttal to 1b:

As for “medical substancesâ€ÂÂ, is it so hard to accept that the computers in Star Trek have limitations? Sure, they are light-years ahead of our own, but perhaps there are some things even too complex for them to handle, such as the replication of certain things.

 

This is a red herring at best, and actually supports my argument at the worst.

So the replicators can make anything, but the computers controlling the replicator’s systems aren’t up to the task? How does this not help support my notion that there’s lots of things replicators can’t make? Who cares if it’s the replicator itself, the computer running it, or Data’s inability to program good cat food that makes the replicator unable to produce a commodity? Do I have to spell it out that when I say “replicators†I mean the “entire replicators system including all relevant equipment necessary for the replication function� Are we going to have to start speaking in legalese here?

 

1c:

Ketracel. You can have the Ketracel thing. Following Jounin’s post, I obviously don’t know enough about this era of DS9 to effectively debate this in a public forum. It’s not like it was the center-piece of my argument.

 

And finally 2:

Well, replicators do not make alcohol, by design.

Quark’s replicators don’t make alcohol, by design? Is that what you’re saying? I hope not, because that’s just silly. I used booze as an example. Let’s expand that to include the “sum of all goods that the Ferengi trade with other races.â€ÂÂ

 

I have always assumed that they have figured out a way of processing deuterium into antideuterium with little or no energy cost, thus making the gains outweigh the costs. Otherwise, why the hell would they use it?

 

What do you base this on? I proposed a theory of why they use antimatter energy sources. “Antimatter reactors are used onboard starships, which need sudden, large spikes of power for warp travel and space combat. However, for steady state power generation, as on a planetary installation (or orbital mining station), fusion reactors are often used.â€ÂÂ

 

To which you replied:

However, as we have seen, the ships don't just use the antimatter reactors for Warp speed and phaser fire, they are on constantly. This is another thing that leads me to believe that the process, from creation of the antimatter to the gathering of released energy, is extremely efficient.

 

Do you know that words like “always†and “never†are ones you generally want to avoid in a debate? This includes things like “constantly.†There are several episodes of TNG where the antimatter drive is offline. I’m not going to list them, as that will take some digging (and you’ve not yet felt it necessary to source a single one of your claims).

 

And it gets better:

DS9 is powered by six fusion reactors, yes. Most likely because it is a Cardassian station, and they did not feel like (for whatever reason) putting in a matter/anti-matter reactor.

 

Are you being serious here? Is this your idea of a legitimate counter-argument? I propose a theory, and then list some facts that would seem to support it. Your response is “they did not feel like it...for whatever reason.†I’m assuming this was meant for humor.

 

All this leads conclude that replicators do not function on a subatomic level. If they did, then they should be able to make anything. As they demonstrably cannot make anything and everything, then they obviously don’t work at a subatomic level, and more to the point, they are unable to produce all the goods and services the Federation needs. Replicators do not form the basis of the Federation’s moneyless society.

 

There’s been some new material on this thread regarding the actual Federation economy, so I’m going to respond to that and the remaining issues in your last post later.

[rjfoster]

Dilithium cannot be replicated' date=' and takes a very long time to manufacture. They will run out of it, eventually, unless they figure out a way to better maufacture it.[/quote']

 

Ok, so let's start at the beginning. In TOS: "Mudd's Women" and "The Alternative Factor", we see that the Enterprise is powered by four dilithium crystals, each "about the size of a man's fist" (JT Kirk -Mudd's Women).

By ST:IV, when re-crystallising the dilithium, we can see on Scotty's screen that the reactor only requires a single crystal. Here I'd like to point out that I realise they are using a small Klingon ship, and so a large ship, ie: Enterprise-A, may require more crystals, however I would like to think that the Federation is at least as advanced as the Klingon empire in terms of its warp engine design.

Ok, then we fast forward to TNG. Here we get no mention of the crystals per say, rather it is described as the dilithium matrix. This, I am conjecturing, refers to a single crystal, and the various times we see the array being pulled out by Geordi seem to also suggest that the amount of Dilithium required by the Enterprise-D is much less than that used by the Enterprise in TOS. Therefore, as would be expected the matter/antimatter reaction has become much more efficient, and more power can be generated by less crystals.

One would also assume that the actual reaction is also better controlled than in TOS, and thus the crystals can be made to last a long time.

So, assuming that each starship in the fleet only requires maybe 2kg of material, that's not a lot to power the fleet. Even the some of the rarest elements on earth are in quite large deposits (100s of tonnes or more), so I would assume that even if dilithium is scarce (and from the various mines and refineries etc we see, and the number of planets it is found upon, it can't be that scarce), there should still be enough out there to enable enough warp reactors.

In addition to this, they could recrystallise the dilthium by using Fission reactors, as they did in ST:IV.

It was a very specific circumstance. The crystals' date=' as has been said, do not last forever[/quote']

I don't understand why this was a very specific circumstance by the way, surely any dilithium crystal could be recrystallised by using high energy neutrons, there was nothing special about the crystals or the fission reactor.

You could just put the reactors on a barren moon somewhere in the middle of nowhere, beam down a collector, beam it back up and hey presto re-energised crystal matrix.

Thus assuming that the Federation economy is limited by the amount of dilithium it can obtain, then there should be no problems.