“The Dogs of War”
Written by Peter Allan Fields and Rene Echevarria & Ronald D. Moore
Directed by Avery Brooks
Season 7, Episode 24
Production episode 40510-574
Original air date: May 26, 1999
Stardate: 52861.3
Station log: Ross delivers DS9’s new ship: another Defiant-class ship, the U.S.S. Sao Paulo. After the change-of-command ceremony, Ross hands Sisko his orders, which includes a special dispensation to rename the ship Defiant, which makes everyone happy. The ship’s been outfitted with shields that make it resistant to the Breen energy-dampening weapon, as well. O’Brien and Worf check out the shields, Bashir checks out sickbay, and Dax leaves Sisko alone on the bridge to sit and get acquainted.
Damar, Kira, Garak, and Seskal take their stolen Jem’Hadar ship to Cardassia Prime. Damar has been promised two, possibly three fleets who will pledge their loyalty to the resistance, and that’s worth the risk of going to Cardassia. Leaving Seskal in charge, Kira, Garak, and Damar beam down to rendezvous with Gul Revok—only to find the Jem’Hadar massacreing the Cardassians in the caves. Standing alongside a Vorta is Revok, saying how he promised he could lure them here.
Realizing they’ve been betrayed, but not having yet been sighted, Kira calls for Seskal to beam them out—but the Jem’Hadar ship is also under attack and is quickly destroyed. Garak takes them to the house he grew up in, where Mila, the late Enabran Tain’s housekeeper, gives them sanctuary in the basement, and also gets them a comm unit so they can contact the other resistance cells to warn them about Revok.
Bashir discharges Odo, also finally revealing to him that Section 31 gave him the disease to pass on to the Founders. Odo is not happy about that, and is less happy that the Federation Council refuses to give the cure to the Founders given, y’know, the whole war thing.
M’Pella and Leeta—encouraged by Rom—ask Quark if they can only give him 10% of their tips instead of 20%. Quark says he’ll think about it (which is more than they were expecting), and then takes a call from Zek. The call is filled with static, and Quark can only understand every third word, while Zek says he can barely see who he’s talking to. But apparently Zek is retiring and he and Ishka are going to live out their lives on Risa, and he’s naming Quark his successor.
Quark is beyond giddy; then it gets even better when Brunt shows up and kneels before Quark to get his sucking-up in early. He gives Quark a pedicure and bribes him to become part of his administration—and then Brunt shocks Quark with the news that there are now taxes on Ferenginar. One of Zek’s reforms is a progressive income tax, which Quark says goes against the very spirit of free enterprise. And that’s the least of it: There are social programs, helping the poor and the aged and the environment, and so on. Quark is appalled, and his plans to reverse those reforms might be stymied by a new Congress of Economic Advisors, who have to ratify anything the nagus does.
On Cardassia, Weyoun gives a propaganda speech that is full of some depressing facts. The good news is that they think Damar’s dead. The bad news is that, thanks to Revok’s treachery, all eighteen resistance bases have been destroyed. But as they’re feeling sorry for themselves, Mila informs them that everyone on the streets is talking about Damar. They think he’s not really dead, that he faked his death and is plotting a new offensive from his secret mountain hideaway. (Garak looks at Damar and says, “You never told me you had a secret mountain hideaway.” Damar chuckles bitterly and replies, “I was going to surprise you.”)
Kira, however, grabs onto that—the talk, not the mountain hideaway. If Damar’s become a folk hero, a legend, if the people are so fed up with the Dominion that they don’t even believe the reports of his death, then that may be their way to keep the rebellion going. The organized resistance is done, but the people may rise up, especially if Damar tells them to.
Weyoun introduces Legate Broca to the female changeling as Damar’s replacement as leader of the Cardassian people. The female changeling responds to the Federation’s developing a countermeasure for the Breen weapon by ordering a retreat to consolidate their position, defend less territory, and redouble their production of ships and Jem’Hadar. The Federation’s lack of aggression will keep them from pressing the advantage. (Broca asks about the Klingons and Romulans, but Weyoun dismisses them as no threat without the Federation.)
Quark is ranting and raving about the disease spreading through Ferengi society. As he rants, Rom gets him to sell the bar to him for 5,000 bars of latinum. To Rom’s surprise, he goes for it without even haggling, at which point Quark realizes that he’s been infected with these reforms as well—he hasn’t raised prices, he didn’t haggle with Rom, and he was considering M’Pella and Leeta’s request. This has to stop…
On Cardassia, Kira, Damar, and Garak set a bomb—but Garak is delayed by Jem’Hadar checking his papers. Damar distracts the Jem’Hadar long enough for Kira to shoot one, and Garak stabs the other. After the bomb goes off, Damar gives a rousing speech, saying the rebellion is not crushed, but they need the people to continue to fight and be their army. Garak then cries, “Freedom!” from the crowd, and everyone cries “Freedom!” and the citizenry is rallied.
Zek arrives and explains that it’s Rom he wants to appoint Grand Nagus, not Quark. Quark is devastated, and Rom is overwhelmed. Quark announces that his bar will be the last remnant of the Ferenginar he knew. Rom gives him the bar back (he even lets him keep the 5,000 bars). He orders Broik to water the drinks and M’Pella to rig the dabo table, and then congratulates his brother and goes back to work, refusing Rom’s offer to make him his economic advisor. Brunt volunteers for the job, which Rom refuses quickly, though Quark says not to be so hasty and at least let him give Rom a pedicure first.
Ross meets with Sisko, Velal, and Martok. If they let the Dominion sit behind the Cardassian border and regroup, they could wait for years before going on the offensive. Martok feels they should hit them before they can settle, and Sisko agrees—Ross reluctantly goes along with it, and so does Velal. They’ll do a major offensive to break through the lines.
Sisko returns to his quarters to see that Yates is still awake and she has news: She’s pregnant. Yates is worried about what the Prophets said about him knowing only sorrow if he married her, and now she’s worried that something will happen to their baby. But Sisko assures her that everything will be okay.
The Sisko is of Bajor: We learn how birth control works in the 24th century: Both parties get monthly injections of, uh, something. Sisko forgot his, which is how Yates winds up pregnant.
Don’t ask my opinion next time: Kira refuses to give up at any point in the story. When they first get to Mila’s basement, Garak and Damar are ready to give up, while Kira’s the one formulating strategies. When Mila reveals that the people still believe in Damar, she’s the first one to come up with a plan of attack.
Preservation of mass and energy is for wimps: Odo is disgusted that the Federation will, on the one hand, condemn Section 31’s actions, but on the other hand allow their genocide to go forward. “Tidy little arrangement,” he calls it, with trademark Odo sarcasm.
Plain, simple: The one person left in all of Cardassian space that Garak can trust is Mila, who has a convenient basement for them all to hide in.
For Cardassia! To the surprise of Damar, Garak, and Kira, the Cardassian rebellion has had a profound impact on the Cardassian people, which they’re able to use to their benefit.
Victory is life: With the Breen weapon no longer a factor, the Dominion’s strategy is to pull back and regroup, showing patience.
Tough little ship: Hey look, it’s a new Defiant! And it has the same NX designation, even though that’s for an experimental ship and the Sao Paulo isn’t experimental! (This is what happens when you keep using the same model…)
No sex, please, we’re Starfleet: Bashir and Dax are incredibly awkward around each other, making stupid small talk and being ridiculous. And then when they finally do come out and talk, they agree to remain friends, as a relationship might spoil their friendship—but then they wind up smooching in the turbolift. (As Worf points out to O’Brien, he’s an overgrown child and she is very confused.)
Keep your ears open: “Whatever happened to the survival of the fittest? Whatever happened to the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer? Whatever happened to pure, unadultered greed?”
Quark, lamenting what Ferenginar has become in the wake of Zek’s reforms, as proposed by Ishka.
Welcome aboard: Mel Johnson, Jr. appears as Broca, and he’s the only new guest. Vaughn Armstrong returns as Seskal for a second and final time, ditto Stephen Yoakam as Velal (both last seen in “When It Rains…”). Julianna McCarthy is back as Mila, last seen in “Improbable Cause.” Also, David B. Levinson and Cathy DeBuono make their final apperances as the background characters of Broik and M’Pella (a waiter and dabo girl, respectively, in Quark’s), and both get lines for the first (and last) time.
Several recurring characters are here for their last hurrah: Cecily Adams as Ishka, Max Grodénchik as Rom, Chase Masterson as Leeta, Wallace Shawn as Zek, and Tiny Ron as Maihar’du.
Other recurring regulars back for more: Casey Biggs (Damar), Aron Eisenberg (Nog), J.G. Hertzler (Martok), Barry Jenner (Ross), Salome Jens (the female changeling), Penny Johnson (Yates), and Andrew J. Robinson (Garak).
But the exacta of awesome is that this episode has Jeffrey Combs playing both Weyoun and Brunt. The only thing that would’ve made it more awesome is if he’d appeared as both in the same scene but alas, that was not to be…
Trivial matters: The episode’s title is from the same passage from William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar quoted by Chang in The Undiscovered Country.
Kira, Garak, and Damar’s time on Cardassia is expanded in the short story “Face Value” by Una McCormack in the Prophecy and Change anthology.
Quark makes two TNG references in his speech after Rom’s appointment: saying, “the line must be drawn here,” a riff on Picard’s speech about the Borg to Lily Sloan in First Contact, the other calling his bar “the last outpost of what made Ferenginar great,” a riff on the title of the first episode to feature the Ferengi, “The Last Outpost” (in which Shimerman also played a Ferengi). In addition, Sisko makes a reference of his own, his “This is what happens when you miss staff meetings” line to Dax an echo of Kirk’s line to McCoy in The Search for Spock.
Rom’s trials and tribulations as Grand Nagus are the focus of your humble rewatcher’s “Satisfaction is Not Guaranteed,” the Ferenginar portion of Worlds of DS9 Volume 3. In general, Rom has continued to be Grand Nagus in the 24th-century fiction, appearing in several novels and stories and such.
Zek says that Rom needs to be a “kinder, gentler” nagus, a riff on President George H.W. Bush’s campaign in 1988.
The new Defiant’s original name, the Sao Paulo, was named after the San Pablo in the Robert Wise movie The Sand Pebbles, with Sisko’s “Hello, ship” an echo of what Steve McQueen said to the ship in the film.
Walk with the Prophets: “Freedom is ours for the taking!” Back in the third season of TNG, Michael Piller was hastily hired to run the writers’ room when Michael Wagner’s tenure ended prematurely after only a handful of episodes. One of the ways he got scripts was to look through the slushpile, and he picked up two spec scripts over the course of that first season on the job: “The Bonding” by Ronald D. Moore and “The Offspring” by Rene Echevarria. They were both added to the writing staff; when TNG ended, the two of them went over to the spinoff, and remained on DS9 until the end as well.
Those two additions by Piller in 1990 have had a profound impact on genre television in the 25 years since. Moore and Echevarria have served as high-ranking writers and/or showrunners on The 4400, Battlestar Galactica, Caprica, Carnivale, Castle, Dark Angel, Helix, Medium, Now and Again, Outlander, Roswell, Teen Wolf, and Terra Nova.
This episode, co-written by the pair of them (one of three collaborations, the other two being “Rejoined” and “Trials and Tribble-ations”), showcases why they’ve been so justifiably influential and sought-after. Just as “Extreme Measures” was a rhapsody in how not to do one episode in a multipart storyline, “The Dogs of War” is a perfect example of getting it right.
The balance in this episode is perfect, juggling Damar’s rebellion, the revelations about the Founders disease, the arrival of the new Defiant, the Dominion’s new defensive strategy, Dax and Bashir’s stumbling toward the world’s most chemistry-free relationship, Yates’ pregnancy, and the future of the Ferengi Alliance magnificently. Almost everything works: the pacing, the acting, the writing. Plus, we get an episode that actually has a beginning, a middle, and an end unto itself, even as it services the larger story. Indeed, if not for the tiresome, irritating, utterly uninteresting Bashir-Dax subplot, it might be perfect. (You know something’s wrong with your romance plot when O’Brien and Worf talking about it is more interesting than the actual thing they’re talking about.)
So many great moments here: Quark’s speech to Rom and his later one to the crowded bar, Damar’s speech to the Cardassian crowd, Kira’s unwillingness to give up, Odo’s bitterness, Mila’s sarcasm, Brunt’s sucking-up to Quark while making sure he’ll roll back the reforms if he’s in office, and so on. The scene where Quark is ranting while Rom’s trying desperately to buy the bar from him is a great final hurrah for the Quark-Rom double-act, and Armin Shimerman and Max Grodénchik are at the top of their game for it. But the best part is Rom’s “wow” at the end as he stares at the nagal staff. Making Rom the Grand Nagus is the perfect ending for the character whom everyone has underestimated, plus it leaves Quark right where he belongs: at the station’s spiritual center, the bar.
All of that is totally topped by the superlative job Casey Biggs does delivering his rabblerousing speech. It’s especially fun to compare Biggs’s stilted, awkward line readings when Damar gave his first speech as legate back in “Statistical Probabilities” with the barnburner he provides us here.
The episode begins and ends with Sisko, first getting his ship back (kind of), then ending with him finding out he’s going to be a father again. It’s a nice bookend to the series’ penultimate episode and helps put everything in place for the grand finale…
Warp factor rating: 8
Keith R.A. DeCandido is just around the corner to the light of day.
It was quite amazing to see the arc of Damar expand to this level from his first introduction as one of Dukat’s one-off minions. He goes from almost a nameless background extra to one of the most tragic characters on the series, and it totally works.
I’m also supremely enticed by how a lot of the social commentary goes through Quark. I’m going through my own rewatch with my girlfriend who’s never seen DS9 before, and it’s very interesting to note the number of times that Quark takes on the topic that no one wants to talk about, but what common everyday humans (even at that, Americans) think about status, wealth, and customs, and how even though DS9 is in the future, that some of the same prejudices and theories exist but sometimes just disguised slightly differently. If you’re looking for that social commentary, always look to Quark. And the play on Picard’s speech has always been one of my favorite moments of his and of this series.
As for the Dax/Bashir relationship, I do feel like it was a bit tacked on (though score one for Bashir actually getting into a long overdue relationship, for a change) and I’m kind of glad that the books killed it off by Ezri changing to the command track and eventually captaining the Aventine.
All in all, I love these last few episodes and the conclusion. Some of the best written television ever, in my humble opinion.
I loved the Defiant, but I didn’t like that they just renamed another ship with the name and called it good. It should have been the Defiant II. Or did they add a “-A” to the registration number? Enterprise always kept the “NCC-1701” number over the centuries after all. Either way would be fine.
I’m glad they didn’t take the time to try and make chemistry with Bashir and Dax. They would have had to squeeze that in too and it was already rushed enough.
Color me rather unimpressed with 24th century birth control – I get that it’s meant to be kind of egalatarian in that both the man and the woman are responsible (which in its way is a good thing), but a system which can now have TWO points of failure instead of one isn’t really the greastest from an engineering standpoint. Also, who the eff wants to take an injection every day?
All that aside, that scene did give me all the feels, in a good way :)
It’s kind of hard to cheer for Quark when all he wants is to go back to the good old days where the poor stay poor…although I feel sorry for Rom too, as I’d hate that job!
I’ll have to rewatch again, but I was sure that all three of them had given up when Mila came in to smack them in the back of the head.
One thing I enjoyed about Bashir/Dax was they played their roles well. He really did come off as an overgrown child and she as confused (and childish). It reminded me of being an awkward 5th grader (only I ended up alone instead of happy).
I generally enjoyed the rest of the episode, although I didn’t care for how quickly Odo could get back to work (then again, with only this and the two-parter left, I understand why he did). I did think that walking away from Sisko felt like the moment that decided that Odo would rejoin the link. When even the solids he most trusts are comfortable with letting his people be eradicated, he knows that its time to go home.
The Ferengi plotline of this episode gets a bit spoiled by the captions, I’m afraid – when the Nagus signs off, the captions clearly say “Rom” at the end, so it’s obvious there was a mix-up. Ah well, doesn’t make Quark’s silliness any less fun. His line about sexual harassment of those in your employ is a bit less fun, though – guess he forgot “Profit and Lace.”
I personally wonder if Kasidy should be enthused about having a baby, prophets aside. I realize it’s awfully late in the game to start the discussion, but I would expect her to be concerned about going through pregnancy and becoming a mother given her job. Perhaps that isn’t as interesting as the “but the prophets said I will bring you sorrow” version, but it’s something mothers do face in today’s society. I would put forth, though, that the injections are presumably only one form of birth control – it would be unwise for women to not have full control over the situation. This version works for a committed relationship like Yates and Sisko, but single women would want more assurance, I’d think. And Lisamarie @3 – the injection is monthly, which is still more often than the currently-available injection, Depo-Provera (every 3 months).
And all the love for Joan Jett.
I didn’t notice the “lack of chemistry” mentioned — the relationship was sudden, yes. But then I don’t think I had ever noticed how little the two characters had appeared on screen together. Eh.
As much as I love Rom, and as much as I love the idea of his being the surprising new Nagus, I always found it a little … unconvincing. Remember how Quark had rivals gunning for his hide immediately in The Nagus? I don’t see Rom as being cut out for such a job. I’m able to enjoy this storyline anyway by just writing off its problems as Ferengi-episode-style tongue-in-cheek humor, but … I wouldn’t want to be the author who had to write a convincing novel about Rom’s successful administration over the Alliance.
Damar’s speech was awesome, but the actual bombing/uprising that surrounded it seemed dreadfully anticlimactic. I guess they were just being careful to make sure they weren’t upstaging the finale.
Poor Odo … I wonder what grade, on a scale of 1-10, his opinions toward humanity ended up as? Obviously he has a lot of respect for Sisko personally, and possibly other main characters from DS9, but beyond that … probably bleak. This episode was kind of humanity’s last chance to impress him before he returns to the Link as the solids’ unofficial ambassador, and they flubbed it. Miserably.
This episode does make me realize how little we really know about Kasidy’s life before she met Sisko. Has she ever been married before? Does she want to be a mother? How did she end up being a captain, a Maquis smuggler? Alas, although she’s portrayed as willful and independent, she still mostly exists to be a part of Sisko’s character.
Whatever else one says about it, this episode wins MAJOR points from me for the scene of Rom buying the bar from distracted Quark. Now that’s something we’ve been waiting to see for 7 years.
@3: So true (about poor logistical design of their birth control). Is that really the best they could imagine in almost 400 years of technological progress? “One-time, then it stays until you take an antidote to reverse it” technology is well on its way, for males. Surely in 400 years they could have a similarly low-maintainence treatment for females?
Mostly great stuff, with the Ferengi plot being particularly fun; but bringing back the Defiant was silly. Or maybe destroying it in the first place was silly if they were going to bring it back two episodes later anyway.
I could live with the silly reuse of the ship’s name and registry if it had been presented as disinformation directed at the enemy, to make them think the reports of the Defiant‘s destruction had been greatly exaggerated.
And you’re right, Keith — the impact that Michael Piller has had on genre television cannot be overstated. He himself didn’t do that much post-Trek — basically the brilliant but short-lived Legend and the TV version of The Dead Zone (with Nicole de Boer), as well as a non-genre series called Wildfire on ABC Family. But he cultivated a whole generation of writers who’ve gone on to dominate genre TV — not just Moore and Echevarria but Ira Behr, Robert Hewitt Wolfe, Hans Beimler, Weddle & Thompson, Naren Shankar, Brannon Braga, Joe Menosky, Bryan Fuller, Michael Taylor. He was the champion of Star Trek‘s open submission policy designed to encourage new writers, and he always pushed his writers to think about character first, to ground a story in what it meant to the characters personally and emotionally rather than just focusing on plot mechanics and high-concept ideas.
@5: Now that you remind me, I think you can almost hear Zek saying “Rom” even without the captions, so I was spoiled too.
And I think we’ve all tried to forget “Profit and Lace.”
@6: “I wouldn’t want to be the author who had to write a convincing novel about Rom’s successful administration over the Alliance.”
Luckily, you don’t have to be. That author is the guy who wrote this rewatch.
I don’t buy that the birth control failed. I think the Prophets played some games, much like when they played games to get Sisko born.
For the curious, this is Satisfaction is Not Guaranteed, the Ferenginar portion of Worlds of Star Trek Deep Space Nine: Volume III.
For something to complement this, I’d recommend the epilogue from Una McCormack’s beautiful The Crimson Shadow. I’m not sure if it is set during this episode or its successor, but is very good.
In any case, I’d highly recommend it, as well as Robinson’s own A Stitch in Time and McCormack’s various lovely books. Possibly the most brutal look at what happens to Cardassia in these episodes is to be found in The Never-Ending Sacrifice.
“Never Ending Sacrifice” is a brilliant book. Taking it from Rugal’s perspective and seeing what actually happened on Cardassia (outside of Garak’s perspective of his hovel he lives in through “Stitch in Time”), was quite brutal, and very well done.
@6: I found it a *lot* unconvincing. It’s like… putting Scooby-Doo in charge of the FBI because he’s a crime-solver, and funny, and nice, so why not? Or, perhaps with a little more relevance: putting Jar-Jar Binks in the Imperial Senate… Throughout the seasons of DS9 Rom might’ve shown a technical aptitude and a few flashes of gumption, but *blimey!* You’ve got to wonder how exactly Zek got the idea to put Ishka’s wide-eyed son in charge of the entire Ferengi Alliance… Hmm…
It’s the biggest misstep, IMO, of a tremendous closing arc. If loose ends are being tied off, this one wasn’t so much neatly knotted as it was stuck in a tangle.
I firmly believe that if we ever come back to the real Star Trek universe, Ferenginar will be nothing more than a shattered asteroid belt, and the Ferengi all but extinct thanks to Rom. I can only assume Zek’s senility was infectious in some way (or that Ishka just wanted one more opportunity to be cruel to Quark) for anyone to think that was in any way a sane decision.
As for the rest of it. The Sisko stuff was dull, the Cardassian stuff was good, the Bashir and Dax bit was….in the script
There were some great things in this episode, and more to the point, knowing it is the second last it sets things up enticingly and gets you wanting to see what happens next.
I would, on the other hand, point out that while Damar’s speech and the two Quark scenes mentioned were brilliantly written, almost the entire pre-credits was some of the clunkiest exposition I have ever seen. Especially Worf telling O’Brien “the shield generators have been completely reconfigured,” which, in the real world should have been answered with “yes, I know, I’m the chief engineer, I’d have to be completely incompetent at my job not to be aware of that!”
@12 & 13: But hasn’t Rom’s whole arc throughout the series been about showing that he was smarter and more capable than he seemed? He may act like an incompetent fool, but he’s often risen to the occasion when he had to. The main thing he’s bad at is being a traditional Ferengi businessman, because a kinder, fairer way of living comes more naturally to him. Which makes him just about the only Ferengi that Zek and Ishka could trust to carry forward their reforms — no doubt with lots of advice from Ishka.
Although the fact that he has strong ties to the Federation was probably a factor in their decision as well. Putting someone sympathetic to the Federation in the Nagus’s seat makes it more likely that the Federation will be a willing ally and trading partner, which is a good idea in an uncertain, dangerous era.
I will admit this is a not so pleasant side of me, but it’s kind of hard for me to get really up in arms over the genocide emotionally. Intellectually, I can tell you why it’s bad and horrible, but emotionally…eh.
At what point is it defense against an attacking enemy? Would it have been less objectionable had the virus only been given to the Founders that they know are directing the war effort? Are any of the Founders innocent, given the nature of the link and the way they aren’t really individuals? Is there any other recourse aside from something like this against an enemy that is inexorably going to try and destroy you?
That said, the finale obviously does resolve it in a different way, which, despite what people say about DS9, seems to me a very idealistic Trek-ish kind of resolution. I’m not complaining about that!
“I need you to be my army!”
That speech always gives me goosebumps. The growth of both Damar as an actor and Casey Biggs as an actor over the run of a few seasons was amazing. Also, let me kick in my opinion about The Never Ending Sacrfice: it is, without a doubt, one of the greatest novels (not ST novels, novels period) that I’ve ever read, and I’d recomend it to any Star Trek fan, especially if (like myself) you’re a fan of the Cardassians.
Some Nagus had not put in a progressive income tax before? That is surprising, it is such a great vehicle for rank cronyism and political corruption in our world. Which the other Feringee may have realized and that’s why they had not drawn and quartered Zek.
Kasidy gets pregnant because Sisko did not take his birth control? Maybe she’s immune to hers, because it should not work that way unless as the Son of the Prophets Sisko has potency nigh unto that of a Greek god.
I am sure everyone is happy with the new Defiant except the people of Sao Paulo.
As to Federation’s “tidy little arrangement”, I guess Section 31 is also known as the Impossible Missions Team.
@18: Wouldn’t that be a regressive income tax? A progressive tax is one that taxes the rich more than the poor — the very thing that rich businessmen and the rich politicians in their pockets want to avoid.
@17, Yeah, I do love the final resolution of the War for the same reason I loved how David Mack dealt with the Borg.
We’ve had superweapons, genocide, and fleets at work throughout DS9. We’ve had a challenging of the most basic assumptions
And at the end of the day, what ends the War is an act of compassion.
I meant @16, sorry.
@19 – I meant what I wrote. A progressive income tax gives the political class favors to hand out in form of protections from the tax and the ability to cripple the opposition by denying such, and the ability to pry into the private lives of the entire population. It is a treasure trove for the power hungry and corrupt.
A progressive income tax is custom-built for strongly favoring old money over new, even without deliberate mis-mangement. (And yes, the idea that governments have any business knowing everyone’s incomes would be outrageous if the apochryphal frog hadn’t already been boiled generations ago.)
The Ferengi are on about the same technological level as the Federation. And they have replicators, don’t they? So how does a capitalist system still work with seemingly endless resources? I know it’s essentially their religion, but I’m a little fuzzy on how their economic system works. Is it simply to get as much latinum as possible? Bragging rights? Social status? Is that it?
@24 The Federation seems pretty loose with IP rights, and only things like narratives such as holodeck novels seem to be protected, so presumably the Ferengi have great IP protection for things like replicator pattern programs. Doesn’t matter how avaiable replicators are if you have to pay a lot of latinum for the software license fees.
@24,
Never look for anything resembling economic sense, logic or rationality in Star Trek. The TNG writers took a throwaway line in ST IV (Kirk doesn’t have any cash on him) and made the Federation into a socialist utopia.
This is hogwash, of course, which even they acknowledged even though they probably didn’t understand what they were doing. Latinum, for example, or the Siskos having a quota on their transporter use on Earth.
There will always be scarece things even with replicators, and some medium of exchange even if it is in the form of transporter credits or replicator rations. Such as, who creates new replicator patterns? Who programs new holonovels? Who repairs them? Who maintains the massive infrastructure that keep its all going? And what motivates an engineer to spend the day up to his armpits in filth repairing the waste reclimation system if there isn’t some medium of exchange with which he can acquire something that is not replicable.
I wonder if anyone in ST lit has ever done a competent treatment on what a replicator society would look like, economically?
@26 Well, there IP rights for holonovel authors, Voyager did a whole episode on that. The right is to decide who gets your work and who can fanfic it. Money isn’t mentioned (AFAIR, BICBW).
Actually fanfic is a good point to bring up here. Did you know that most people write fanfic, and draw fanart for free. People even put on performance pieces for free, even in these money driven times. All the other stuff, like that engineer fixing the waste pipe (assuming there is not a technological fix that lets it be done remotely, and we are getting close to that being available even at today’s tech level), well they could be doing it for the exact same reason that people do charity, volunteer, or community works today. Because they like it. Because it makes them feel good. Because it gives them social status (goodwill, one of the few things that money struggles to buy). Because it is something they always wanted to try.
You ever wonder why so many people doing that are older folks? It is because they have to save up for decades until they are financially able to stand concentrating on the thing they want to do. Now imagine a world where the problem with anti-matter reactors is not generating enough power, but putting out so much energy that they can barely use it fast enough. A world where you don’t need to pay for power, so that you can run your holodeck (writers gotta write man, and freed from having to write commercial pieces they could really bust loose) programs and replicators to your heart’s content. A world where you don’t need to pay rent, because well, once money starts being phased out then there is no way to run a property empire. A world where food is free. Freed from the constraints of maslow’s lowest level, you can do pretty much anything.
Now some folks would stay at home and vegetate, true, and some would go full Barclay and live in a holodeck fantasy. However, most people want to feel useful. People genuinely do feel the need to work and to stay active. That would mean that whatever the job, if it existed, someone would volunteer to do it. Of course they’d be free to quit at anytime (and so it is even in Starfleet in wartime) so management techniques would have to change quite a bit. They’d be politer for a start. But that is what would drive the post scarcity economy, and what would be a fiat currency. Politeness and goodwill.
On that note, of course, there are levels of post scarcity. The only true post scarcity society we’ve seen is the Q. There will always be specific items, or specific housing locations, or even specific jobs that are over subscribed. Or rush hour traffic that exceeds even transporter availability. However those are fairly minor things that can be solved by simply loosening one’s preferred criteria. A house by the sea, on a colony world that looks like Ibiza rather than Ibiza itself (or a smaller apartment, and going on a wait list for a larger one), more future-skyping instead of transporting directly, going on a career progresion plan to get that ideal job. All governed by the coin of goodwill and politeness, with you base needs covered by the inexhaustable power output of those anti-matter reactors.
As for Sisko’s transporter credits, IIRC, that was more to do with his being a cadet at the time. So that was a manufactured scarcity issue, not a naturally arising one.
The final question on economics of a replicator based society, well I think it has been touched on the novels, but I cannot for the life of me remember the name. However, I do know an analogue to it has been explored and described in Iain M Bank’s “Culture” novels. The Culture being what the Federation wants to be when it finishes growing up.
Yes a post-scarcity (or a post daily daily-concerns scarcity)environment would be radically different, and much more polite and honest, but it is not unimaginable or unworkable. You just have to get your head around the idea that not everyone does things solely for money, and there are plenty examples of people doing just that even today.
@26
I would assume, though they didn’t have the budget to show us, the Federation has robots or machines like them performing maintenance and other grunt work. And yeah, TNG ran with the Star Trek IV line, but there was more than one scene where Kirk was confused with how money works. A little more than a throwaway line.
@26: You will never find the word “socialist” spoken anywhere in the entire Star Trek franchise (except to refer to the Ekosian “National Socialist Party” in “Patterns of Force”). It’s a common mistake to assume that just because the Federation is a moneyless system, that makes it socialist or communist. Which makes no sense, because those systems, like capitalism, are theories based on the assumption of scarcity and the need for labor in manufacturing. The economic model in a replicator-based, post-scarcity society would have to be something different from any past model.
@29
Exactly. A society with transporters and replicators and dilithium power would require a whole new -ism.
Lisamarie @3
A friend of mine, a physicist, had three simultaneous failures of birth control (two hers, one his), and now she’s pregnant. Haven’t tried to calculate how many sigma out that is, but I’ve never personally met anyone with more than a dual failure. So I wouldn’t be too surprised to see something like that happen in the 24th century. Even rarer, but still occasional.
Ezri/Bashir would have worked if they’d had a B-plot earlier in the season. As it was we them hanging out with other work friends in random scenes which wasn’t enough for the audience to hang a connection on. That said I think pairing them was required for the finale. Next episode everyone except for Jake and Quark start a new something, even if it is just a love affair. Having Ezri and Bashir share a new thing saved on screentime and reduced an audience sadness for O’Brien and Bashir breaking up the double act. Maybe pairing them wasn’t the best storytelling, but when you have nine plus characters and limited screentime something needs to give.
@30. One of things I like about Enterprise (few enough of them there are) is that it helped with the money-less narrative. The money problem starts in modern Trek in DS9’s Past Tense, where we can see capitalism has all but failed with increasing automation leaving large amounts of peoples unemployed and herded into “sanctuary districts” where they are basically left to rot. Shortly after that, from TNG’s First Contact Movie, WW3 begins most nation states are destroyed hundreds of millions die (and that is just the officiall figure) leaving large tracts of the country empty and money basically a fond memory of old guys like Cochrane. Then the Vulcans show up.
We see in Enterprise that the Vulcans both help with the rebuilding, and the reestablishment of functioning society, and that in Enterprise’s Carbon Creek that Vulcans consider money illogical (yeah, Vulcan logic, but they are holding the reins of reconstruction). Money is still used, but it is of less and less value. Then the big exodus happens between Enterprise and TOS, lots of peoples leave Earth in the newer higher warp vessels for the (final) frontier. Lots and lots and lots of real estate becomes Vacant. Whole towns pack up and go. If you want a fresh house, just look for one with an open bible and a handful of oats on the kitchen table, and move straight in. Basically what property value there was left after WW3 is gone.
TOS. Money still used, but more on the fronteir planets where scarcity still strongly exists. Still in use on Earth for people who deal in the fronteir trading (Federation credits mentioned throughout TOS TV series, and also in TOS Movie Search For Spock, last mention of money is Search For Spock and McCoy’s attempt to negotiate with a proto-Ferengi:-it is clearly a not a day-to-day thing even there), but lots of automation means that employment for pay is declining. This is the bit which needs examination. They haven’t got replicators yet (but we can assume that perhaps vat grown meats, and automated farming equipment have lowered the price of food) so food scarcity could technically exist. This is the only part where “communism” might be a fair charge, but it is a transitional process.
Sometime between TOS movies and TNG: The replicator revolution arrives. Money is rendered all but obsolete and a niche interest in and of itself. The economics of Star Trek is a process. Each step lowers the value of money, and each increased level of automation and cheaper energy makes it harder to get. The Earth Government would have to change, even if gradually. It is a long slow haul though; one that starts in early 21stC in response to a crisis then and takes until the end of the 23rdC at the earliest to resolve.
@27: Sadly, more than “a few” would get holo-addicted and “go full Barclay,” including myself. A good indicator of whether you’d get holo-addicted (at least for a little while) is whether you’ve ever binge-watched a series on Netflix.
And that’s even if holoprograms were kept mostly porn-free somehow. If they’re not, then you’d have to add modern Netflix addiction and modern porn addiction together to get an estimate of how common holo-addiction would be.
On the whole, I have to say I’m (sadly) glad our society doesn’t have holodeck tech yet.
@5: Which captions did you use? The DVD captioning, or your tv closed captions? Because I don’t remember the captions spoiling it–in fact, I think they left words out or put “garbled” or something in there. I do remember being able to tell by looking at Zek that he was saying “Rom,” but I also knew that was the twist. If I were watching it fresh I don’t know if I would’ve caught it or not.
As for the birth control, I don’t remember what the exact line was, but I thought it was something like “One of us forgot to take our injection this month…” which, given current usage of the language, could leave room for the interpretation that Sisko was the only one on the birth control. Because yeah, requiring both parties to take a non-compensatory birth control doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
As for the monthly injection thing, Lisamarie, by “injection” they probably mean hypospray rather than a needle, so probably not so bad as you are thinking. However, it does seem rather silly to have to go to your doctor every month to get it, rather than having something at home you can take yourself.
@33
Interesting. I like your breakdown of the process. But weren’t Federation credits mentioned in TNG or DS9? I could’ve sworn I heard Riker or someone making a deal with them. Maybe with Quark.
@24 Resources are not infinite just because they have replicators.
Consider Josephs Siskos restaurant premises. Replicators or not, there is only so much New Orleans for it to go in. So how did he acquire those premises? He could not have bought or rented them, becuase there is no money on Earth. Why would anyone wait tables for him, since he can’t pay them money?
Similar issues apply to Maurice Picards family farm.
Why should anyone work in an old people’s home , or as a hotel maid, or in garbage disposal, or any number of other service industries?
The point is: replicators would revolutionise manufacturing, but that is only ~ 10% of the economy. The rest of the economy would still have to be run the old fashioned way, and the Federation seems to have no way to do that. Unless they do it the Soviet way, and everyone ultimately works for some level of the government.
@31, well, what I meant was not that it’s unbelievable that both of their BC failed (assuming that her statement does in fact imply they both had to take it), but that the system seems designed such that as long as ONE party forgets their injection, the other can’t make up for it. So, that means there are now two use cases that could fail (not to mention that there are now two people that could get a defective injection, some crazy reason it just doesn’t take, etc).
@37: That doesn’t follow. Just because they don’t do things the American way, that doesn’t mean “the Soviet way” is the only alternative that can possibly exist. Economic theories aren’t laws of physics. They’re approaches that people made up. There’s no reason people in the future couldn’t make up new economic theories that haven’t been tried yet.
@37
Again, all the menial tasks you listed. One word. Robots. It’s just a shame Star Trek has never had the budget to show us these machines at work. Maybe in the next series…
As for how Sisko acquired his restaurant, I don’t know. Maybe it’s been handed down through generations of his family. Or maybe he proposed it to the local council and, once approved, he simply set up shop there. If Random22’s short history of Star Trek @33 is accurate, there was a lot of empty space on post-First Contact Earth, and I would assume people still living there would like a connection to the distant past with some good old-fashioned cookin. Why a Sisko restaurant? Why not?
Long time reader, first time poster.
Really have enjoyed the Cardassian arc in DS9. For me, they’re really the only alien race that isn’t one note in Star Trek. I was thinking I’d rather see the Dukat of after ‘Sacrifice of Angels’ and before “Waltz’ as the leader of the Cardassian rebellion but Damar has made the story his own. Garak’s ‘Freedom!’ shout was a series high point for me.
Before the last ep I just wanted to thank krad for all the content over the past few years. I found these rewatches a couple of years ago when I realized that while I loved and watched TNG religiously while growing up that I remembered almost nothing about it and by the time DS9 came around my interests had shifted…for a time at least.
I also want to thank the commenters as they added a lot of information and interesting opinions and most of all were sane and respectful. :)
So, what’s next???
@39 I would love to see a “holodeck-time”-based economy at work. Because, sure, all of that energy available could make a holodeck cheap to run, but we don’t know how expensive it would be to _build_ one. So maybe everyone can enjoy some commercial holodeck time now and again, but there aren’t enough holodecks available for all of the people, all of the time.
So… want to earn some time in a ‘deck? You can either wait for a month to get a few hours, like the rest of the “unemployed” people, or you can “earn” holodeck time by doing activities that a society requires but that not many people want to do (like volunteering at an hospice or cleaning toilets or whatever). 5 hours of cleaning toilets a month equals 5 hours of holodeck time that you can use to take your family out on a virtual vacation.
@35: Netflix subtitles, actually, which pulls from the TV captions rather than the DVD subtitles. (This is made clear in “Penumbra” when the Netflix subtitles say “Ganges” rather than “Ganda.”)
@38
The first posibility implies that property on Earth can only be acquired by inheritance. What will happen when Joseph dies? If, say, Jake inherits the property, it won’t be useful to him, and he won’t be able to rent it out or sell it.
The second option is that some layer of government gave him the property to use. And could presumably take it from him, as they must have taken it from someone to give it to him. Which takes us back to some form of socialism.
The one thing we can be reasonably sure of is that the person who controlled the property before did not give access to Joseph in exchange for a freely agreed payment.
And we still have the issue: why does anyone wait tables for him, since he has no way to pay anyone to do so?
If your answer involves robots that we have never seen in perhaps two dozen seasons, then I have to say you are getting desperate. Occams razor says that the theory which requires no such invented assumption should be taken to be correct.
@44
No robots needed to wait tables (though that’s probably something we’ll see in our lifetimes—quite a bit actually). But there are any number of reasons someone would want to do that. The most obvious being people wanting to learn how to cook from Joseph (a rare skill it seems in the future) and helping the old man run the restaurant in return. And again, there’s volunteerism, locals wanting to help their community. And then there’s the odd overworked, overstressed space messiah looking to get away from it all. Happens more often than you think.
By the way, your razor is getting a little dull. Missed a spot. ;-)
@Ad: Dude, you do know that people do things like wait tables for charities and trusts and various community projects all the time. And they do it for nothing? Because they like being part of the experience. Or they are also gaining experience in cafe running themselves while doing it. or just to even get out of the house? People do that right now. At this very moment in time, thousands of people across the globe will be doing that.
There is an old joke around these parts “if no one else bothered about money, I wouldn’t either”. Only it isn’t a joke. Even here, in the heart of a first world economy, there are people who still run on a barter and goodwill system with their friends and neighbors. Time and goods are exchanged for nothing other than goodwill and the desire to feel useful. Saying that no one would do anything if there weren’t not money is not just disingenuous, it is an outright falsehood.
As for the restraunt? Old Man Sisko might well have wandered into a property centre to see if there were any buildings available, saw one, and called dibs. It is then allocated to his name for as long as he wants it, and if Jake decides he doesn’t want it after gramps death, it can go back on the list for the next person. Maybe it’ll be an art gallery next time, or a Vulcan sex dungeon (only opens once every seven years). Sure there is no profit to be made, but who cares, it is tenure that matters. As long as the transfer is first come first served, and tenured for as long as the recipient wants, then what is the problem? No, seriously, specifically, what would be the problem with that?
@42: How expensive is a holodeck to build? Well I guess that depends on how “expensive” a replicator is. Now I’m sure the first couple of replicators and holodecks, and everything, were expensive in terms of time. But the tenth trillion one? The first replicator turns out two other replicators per day, those two also turn out two each per day, then those… Well, it is rice on a chessboard time. You see how it works. Once they hit a certain level (pretty damn quickly too) then it is basically peanuts. You don’t have to climb the mountain for the first time, everytime.
@@@@@ 45 Patches
Tell me about it. The amount of “chosen one”s and messiahs in SF&F is just getting out of hand. How do you find a messianic chosen one these days? Lob half a brick in the air and you are bound to hit one, or at least their comedy sidekick. They must flock like pigeons, the world’s most common resource! :)
@39 You could say the same about evolution by natural selection, yet it must happen on Cardassia as it does on earth. Logic is the same whereever and whenever you are.
Money is something with which to reward people who have rended you gifts or services. It allows you to settle obligations with strangers.
Anything which will serve that purpose is money. If the Federation has no money, there is no way people inside the federation can do that.
You cannot have a society of free individuals with no such method. Well, I suppose they could take by force, but I doubt you will tell me that theft is the only way things can happen in the Federation.
So individuals cannot reward people for helping them in the Federation, or force them to help. They could perhaps appeal to the people who do have a monopoly of force in the Federation; and that entity is the government by definition. Which takes us back to socialism. Democratic socialism perhaps, but still socialism.
I don’t think that would be a good idea, but Gene Roddenberry invented the Federation, not me.
@46 and 47
Hey, the perfect name for a restaurant: The Chosen One.
Sure there is no profit to be made, but who cares, it is tenure that matters. As long as the transfer is first come first served, and tenured for as long as the recipient wants, then what is the problem? No, seriously, specifically, what would be the problem with that?
My grandmother has told me stories of growing up in Oklahoma during the Great Depression. There were, of course, many abandoned homes and cabins then, and people would move into them, stay awhile, and pretty much no one would care—there were few people around to tell you otherwise anyway. And there was even a home set aside by her community for young couples to start their families. No papers to sign. A handshake would do, if anything was needed at all.
I’m not saying this was some socialist utopia they were building. These were simply poor farmers trying to get by in very hard times. The point is people aren’t always selfish and can work things out. And the post-scarcity, super techno society of Star Trek could especially make it work.
Okay, ad, your attempt at refutation is just to chant “socialism” over and over again rather than try to formulate examples. You even ignore that doing without money still happens even in current society, whatever you want to call it, and insist it does not work even though it does. So that pretty much means we are done here.
@44: “The first posibility implies that property on Earth can only be acquired by inheritance.”
Where do you get that? Just saying that property can be acquired that way doesn’t mean it’s the only possibility.
What? Of course evolution is governed by the laws of physics. Physics determines how molecules combine and interact, and it determines the interaction between organisms and their environment.
Besides, if you want to use evolution as an analogy for economics, you merely prove my position. Evolution has produced many different types of organism, many different behaviors and survival strategies. And over time, it can innovate new ones.
If there were only one way for economics to work, there would be only one economic theory. But over the centuries, human beings have invented multiple different economic theories. Capitalism as we define it today was only formulated a few hundred years ago and has been modified in various ways since then; Marxism came along even more recently. In the grand sweep of history going back 6000 years, both economic systems are still quite young. It makes no sense to assume that they’re the last economic theories that anybody will ever devise.
And despite what the occasional Trek character has claimed, it’s clear that there is money and capitalism within the Federation, that people can open businesses in pursuit of profit. Kasidy Yates alone is proof of that. I see the Federation as a system where money is simply not essential, where the basic needs of survival are guaranteed to all, but where capitalism still exists as a peripheral activity. Money exists, but it’s an option, not a basic necessity for staying alive. You don’t have to work to avoid starving to death, but you can choose to invest in a business out of love of the work, and can make a profit not as an ultimate goal in life, but merely as a means to help the business thrive.
41) What next? As a Cardassian fan, I’d say, start cracking at A Stitch in Time, Andrew Robinson’s Garak novel. You can read a preview of it on Googlebooks here and here. Then The Never-Ending Sacrifice…which as several have said, is an amazing novel, again previewable on Googlebooks.
Then (eventually), after the DS9 Relaunch and Brinkmanship, you might read The Crimson Shadow. Which is astoundingly good – perhaps the most profound portrait of Garak and Cardassia with/after Stitch and TNES.
@51 (and all the others)
This discussion started off with me replying to @24, where I said that the Ferengi do have reason to continue with trade and money. No one has questioned that, so I assume that everyone agrees on that at least.
I agree that it would be perfectly sensible to have “the Federation as a system where money is simply not essential, where the basic needs of survival are guaranteed to all, but where capitalism still exists as a peripheral activity.”
Except that we are explicitly and repeatedly told that there is no money in the Federation by Jean-Luc Picard, Jake Sisko, Tom Paris and so on. Casidy Yates, after all, was operating from Bajor, outside the Federation, when she was acting as a trader. Do we ever see money change hands inside the Federation? And if we do, why were all those characters lying?
If there is no money in the Federation, trade would not be impossible. Barter would still be possible, and exchanges of favours among friends and neighbours. Still, money would make trade a lot easier. So if they do not have money, trade must be rare. Otherwise, money would make their lives a lot easier, and they would not have abolished it.
But trade is just a matter of people voluntarily agreeing to do things or give things to each other.
So this must be rare, at least among strangers. So people make these exchanges involuntarily, or as acts of charity where one person gives to another for little or no return.
But money makes charity easier, too. It would be a lot harder to tip a waiter, or give a gift to the Red Cross without money. This too, must be so rare that the extra difficulty does not bother people. Apparently people in the Federation are not as charitable as all that.
So we are left with a society in which people either rarely deal with strangers – hard to imagine in a large city – or in which people do things for others in a manner they are told to.
Free exchanges are made harder without money, so a society which has abandoned it must be one in which they are rare. Otherwise why would they abandon something that made their lives easier?
Or of course, you could be right, and money and trade do exist within the Federation, and we are repeatedly told otherwise only to appease the ghost of Gene Roddenberry.
But I think it entertaining to consider the implications of what the characters do, after all, tell us.
@53: I don’t believe they were lying, just speaking imprecisely. Just because a character says something, that doesn’t make it an absolute, indisputable fact, because people make mistakes and are wrong about things and choose their words poorly all the time. I’m not going to weigh a character’s word choices over more objective evidence.
Particularly since those word choices are really the writers’, and sometimes different writers make different, conflicting assumptions. Sometimes you have to be willing to fudge things a little to make sense of the continuity, rather than legalistically dwelling on exact verbiage. It makes more sense to assume that money is merely optional in the Federation than to assume that the very concept of it has somehow been eradicated.
Maybe they just don’t think of the electronic credit system they use as “money” because it’s different somehow, or more intangible. Maybe it operates so invisibly that they rarely bother to think about it. Or maybe we just have to take the dialogue we hear with a grain of salt, the same way we do with cheesy special effects or with different actors playing the same character. Sometimes it doesn’t pay to take fiction too literally.
Did Roddenberry even come up with the no-money idea? And did he like the idea in the first place? As Alexander Courage could attest, Gene wasn’t a guy who didn’t like making a buck.
Star Trek IV is the earliest use of “no money” I know, and that was written by a few different people, Nick Meyer among them. So maybe it’s all his fault! Hehe.
@55: There were definite references to money in TOS, like the mention of credits in “The Trouble With Tribbles,” Spock talking about the money invested in his training in “The Apple” (IIRC), and Kirk telling Scotty “You’ve earned your pay for the week” a couple of times.
Still, it was first-season TNG, particularly “The Neutral Zone,” that really codified the “We’re beyond money” idea (I always took Kirk’s line in ST IV to mean simply that they no longer used physical currency). So that probably came from Roddenberry, who by that stage in his life was really caught up in his utopian “vision of the future.”
@56
Ah, thanks for clearing that up.
I’m with you on most of the examples in TOS, but Kirk telling Scotty he’s earned his pay for the week has always struck me as one of those old sayings that for whatever reason outlives its era. Horsepower, anyone? Or “on the wagon.” Yeah, there are lots of those.
@57: Sure, it’s a figure of speech, but there are enough other references that we know Starfleet officers in TOS do, in fact, get paid.
@58
True, and I’ve just thought of another example. Scotty in Star Trek VI: “I just bought a boat.” So apparently he was saving up with every week he earned it.
@54
There is this quote on Memory Alpha:
The trouble is, of course, that if you try to make sense of this divine edict, you get the problems I mentioned above!
A lot of people seemed to dislike my describing the Federation as socialist. But I am pretty sure Roddenberry thought of it as a democratic socialist utopia, and wanted everyone to write it that way.
BTW – I have always thought it perfectly plausible that the people of the 24th century be better people than us. I just think it silly, if not arrogant, to conclude that means they can’t have mutually contradictory desires, or winners and losers. If the future can have admirals and enlisted men, it can certainly have rich and poor.
I suppose someone was happier with the idea of captains ordering underlings around, than businessmen trying to make a quick buck.
@60
I don’t think Starfleet having a command structure means there must be rich and poor. Obviously their society would have a high standard of living across the board for anyone who would want it. Starfleet itself seems to operate by meritocracy where the best and brightest rise through the ranks. At least that’s the hope.
@60: Again, you’re making the false assumption that “socialism” means “no money” and nothing beyond that. Or else that it’s the only possible non-monetary system that can exist. I’ve tried to explain to you why that’s unreasonable. Socialism is not the only conceivable alternative to capitalism. The world is not so binary.
Gene Roddenberry was not a socialist. He was a humanist. He didn’t revere a god or an economic system or a political ideology, he revered people. He envisioned a moneyless society because he didn’t like the way our society reveres money at the expense of human life and dignity. He wanted a world where everyone was free to achieve personal betterment and enrichment. You can slap the label “socialism” on that if it fits your prejudices, but I can’t recall Roddenberry himself ever using that term for what he believed.
@62 Would you prefer it if I said I thought he saw the Federation as a moneyless liberal (in the American sense) democratic utopia in which almost every trace of capitalism had been swept away?
“Utopian” is the right word to describe the Federation, not “socialist.” Calling it “socialist” either misunderstands what Star Trek portrays or misunderstands what socialism is — or both. :)
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Ironically, “socialist” doesn’t actually even mean no-money — originally, when Marx invented the term, it was an intermediate step on the way to communism, when money would supposedly be obsolete. And if you’re using modern vernacular rather than Marxist … well, a number of European countries are pretty much socialist states, and they still have money.
@16: You make a great point–when stripped down to brass tacks, isn’t this really just a re-tread of I, Borg, only this time, they made the not-so-Trek-ish decision?
@35 et al: I distinctly remember the first time this episode aired, my brother and I were watching it together, and at the end of the teaser, we both said “He thought he was talking to Rom, not Quark…this is going to be funny!” It was obvious to us he was saying “Rom”.
RE: Kasidy making her money on Bajor, and Bajor being outside the Federation.
Presumably, Bajor joined the Federation sometime after DS9 ended (even if not officially on-screen). Would they have to give up their pre-existing currency/economic system? Would anyone joining the Federation?
From TNG and DS9, joining seems like an ongoing and not quick or immediate process, so maybe some level of Federation economics are instituted, if only for nation/planet-to-nation/planet trading.
Any further info on this aspect? This has been a very interesting discussion.
@31 My only child is the result of a triple birth control failure. I have always assumed that is why he is so strong willed – he had to be to be born at all.
not just Moore and Echevarria but Ira Behr, Robert Hewitt Wolfe, Hans Beimler, Weddle & Thompson, Naren Shankar, Brannon Braga, Joe Menosky, Bryan Fuller, Michael Taylor.
@7: I would also include Kenneth Biller, Robert Doherty and Mike Sussman along with those.
Given the discussion in several of the comments, those of you who haven’t seen this might find it interesting:
https://medium.com/@RickWebb/the-economics-of-star-trek-29bab88d50
The scene where Damar gives his speech and people start yelling “freedom” is soooo cheesy. Probably obvious at this point, but I’m not a fan of DS9’s ending arc…it could have been so much better.
As a damn dirty Tankie (which is apparently what we in the Actual Left call all anti-imperialist commies these days, regardless of how they feel about Stalinism) I will never cease to LOL at liberal nerds clutching their pearls about something as socioeconomically neutral in a scifi setting as the implication that perhaps the future pan-human meta-civilization doesn’t require citizens to be wage slaves in order to earn the right to food/shelter/medical care, or that (gasperoonies) progressive taxation is better for a capitalist civilization than none/regressive taxation. If you want a picture of an actual communist space utopia then you should read one of Iain M. Banks’ Culture novels.
About the episode:
I’ve just finished my own DS9 rewatch (I’ve actually been watching episodes of DS9 and Voyager back-to-back based on air date, so I’ve been getting some serious quality whiplash) and dang was the person who mentioned Damar’s speech in this episode right on.
Popular revolutions are almost unheard of in most mainstream science fiction and fantasy (well, ones that aren’t either flat out Bad, or quote Just As Bad As The Other Side are rare anyway), and that’s tragic because, even leaving aside my own political view on the subject, the emotions that bring rise to them are pretty universal, and (obviously, since participating in one is dangerous) incredibly powerful. So it’s nice to see here, in the last several episodes, the Cardassian people, who, for the entire series up to this point, have been oppressed by one group or another, being told by the character who’d once been the viewer’s cipher for all Cardassia that it’s not a Great Army led by A Great Man who’ll win the day, not a perfect king who’ll ascend to a throne and rule justly forever, but the people themselves who must act to effect change. It’s at once a radical change from the hierarchical, authoritarian, and monolithic entity we once knew as Cardassia, and oddly natural given the emphasis we’ve seen Cardassian culture places on civic and social duty over the course of the series.
@69: Yeah, I thought about Biller, Doherty, and Sussman, but they didn’t become Trek staffers until after Piller left. I guess they were the second generation of his proteges, as it were, the people who were influenced by the people he influenced. (Grand-proteges?)
In regards to money and general economy, I agree with the (several) posters who have pointed out that our current economic systems wouldn’t work. The way I figure is that housing/food are fundamental rights codified somewhere in the Federation charter, but that anything above and beyond still comes with a price. Your income (adjusting for 400 years of inflation) is probably less than current, since you don’t have to pay for the necessities of life, but that if you want above and beyond the basic level you need to pay for it. So if you want to rent a holodeck (remember, we are exposed primarily to Starfleet personnel who have free holodeck access as part of morale, fitness and training), or buy a nice suit, or purchase a piece of art, etc. you need to pay for it. I assume that in the ensuing 400 years that things like intellectual properties still exist, and there are probably statutes regulating what a replicator can legally make, so you can’t just replicate a perfect copy of the Mona Lisa and hang it on the wall. You could however pay 10 credits for a poster of it and hang that on your wall. How do you get that 10 credits? You go work as a waiter in Sisko’s restaurant, or you work as a miner, or you weld in Utopia Planitia or whatever else.
So if you expand Picard’s statement that they are beyond money into that they are beyond money for basic subsistence, and that money is just used for plusses in life, than it’s an accurate statement.
The other thing is that Earth is probably not representative of the entire Federation population, ideals or not. We know that there are failed colonies (Tarkana IV), and colonies where people don’t have all of the same luxuries as then main planets. It’s probably an instance where despite the ideals, the reality is probably different in the less bright corners of the Federation.
@73: I’m pretty sure Michael had a hand in pushing those writers. Biller was the first writer hired on Voyager’s first season, when Michael was still very much in charge.
Doherty was a writer’s assistant during the show’s early seasons as well. Sussman sold the story for Meld, and Piller ended up writing the final draft for that episode.
Biller was already there, but you could say Michael influenced Braga in hiring the other two.
@73: Actually, scratch the Doherty part. Just noticed he only became a writer’s assistant during the fourth season. By this time, Piller was busy with Insurrection.
I should point out that Ron Moore’s name was not supposed to be on this episode at all. Supposedly, Tacking into the Wind was to be his final effort, and it was Echevarria who decided to share his credit with Ron, who helped polish the final draft. The real question is what exactly did Peter Allan Fields do to earn a story credit?
I always felt Quark’s use of Picard’s speech to be extremely bizarre and out of place. Regardless, this was one of the better Ferengi stories, especially after coming on the heels of Profit and Lace. Naming Rom is the natural conclusion to the Ferengi social revolution.
Overall, I can’t think of a family that has prospered on this show as much as Rom’s. Back in the pilot, Nog was a petty thief about to be incarcerated. Rom was a lobeless dimwit who traded an engineering career to live under the shadow of his brother. And Leeta was an underpaid, over-explored Dabo Girl, coming from a brutal occupation. Look at them now. This is a subtle, but clear example of character driven storytelling.
As for the Cardassian revolution, it makes sense to use the rollercoaster analogy in order to describe the way this particular plot is full of ups and downs for these characters. Feels a little jarring sometimes, but it makes sense that there would be ambitious Cardassians willing to throw Damar under a bus for self-serving needs of their own.
Dogs of War (superb title BTW) is one of DS9’s better efforts. A shining example of a mature writing team, finally mastering the art of long-form storytelling on a serial level, rather than an episodic one.
As for the socialism debate, I always felt Trek depicted an utopia at its basic core. Socialism isn’t really about money or lack thereof. It’s about the state micromanaging aspects of society some people feel would be better left unregulated, which includes the financial market. What Trek depicts is a marriage of both socialism and capitalism, eliminating money from the equation. As Ron Moore wrote, it’s about striving to better ourselves.
This is a future I always had hopes in seeing. The idea of a moneyless society is one I’ve always admired. It would mean the end of poverty, and social inequality. Detractors argue that if you don’t make money, you don’t have the drive to work, and it would encourage many people to slack off at the expense of others, which I strongly disagree. I feel people have a pressing need to make something worthwhile in their lives, whatever that is. It took me 10 minutes to write this comment, and I’m not getting paid for it. In fact, I’m losing money by not focusing on my short film’s current draft, but I feel analyzing this rewatch has a certain degree of importance to me, which can’t be quantified.
@76: Still, it shows how pervasive Piller’s influence was, how many of our current top TV producers emerged from his writers’ rooms. Probably he and Joss Whedon are the two writer-producers who’ve launched the careers of the largest number of big names in genre TV today, with J.J. Abrams perhaps coming in third.
Quoth Eduardo: “The real question is what exactly did Peter Allan Fields do to earn a story credit?”
Probably they hired Fields to write a story outline to base the script on as a time-saver because everyone was running around like a headless chicken to get everything done that they needed a freelancer to do that part, and they threw the work at ex-staffer Fields as his last hurrah for the show.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
In a way, that also would explain Spike Steingasser, who also outlined TNG’s Homeward.
We know that Quark charges for things. Obviously Jadzia cleans up at the Tongo wheel, but where do the likes of O’Brien and Bashir get money to pay Quark? A means of Starfleet officers earning money has to exist somewhere.
@81: I always figured that Starfleet provided their frontier personnel with some kind of stipend they could use for commerce with non-Federation businesses or individuals.
Not because I find the money discussion fascinating, because I don’t, but there was an episode where Sisko is telling Jake how homesick he was when he first went to the Academy and transported home every night for dinner. Jake says something like Sisko must have used up a months’ worth of transporter credits in that week or few days or whatever.
So there is obviously some kind of currency around, even if it’s not loose-change-in-(non-existent)-pockets. (Seriously, just think how bunchy those uniforms would look with wallets in back pockets.)
We saw people pay for things with thumb prints on retailer ATM thingies, so it’s probably all done with bank transfers.
@83: I don’t know if transporter credits would be currency per se — more like a free bus pass giving you a finite number of rides per month. Only so many people can go through a transporter at a time, so transporter pads would be a finite resource and there’d have to be some way of controlling access. Basically, it’s a bandwidth issue. So any citizen might be assigned a set number of transporter trips they can take per month. It’d probably be like usage limits on a mobile device’s data plan, though — if you exceed the allotment, you’d be charged for the excess, or maybe it’d be taken out of your next month’s allotment. (Although unused transporter credits might roll over to the next month.)
I can believe in the Federation’s moneylessness based on what they apn’t have: passenger starships of any kind. If you want to travel from one planet to another (other than a new colony), you’re pretty much limited to exchanging favors with someone in Starfleet (or the extremely limited non-military cargo ships, which really don’t have anything to carry other than Replicators and their replacement parts.) For that matter, there doesn’t seem to be a way to send packages to other planets other than by the same patronage/petty corruption system.
Shuttles capable of short/slow warp travel appear to be pretty cheap to make, too.
How they make it work is another question. I expect that a lot of it is petty corruption/favor trading behind the scenes. In the case of the restaurant, ‘competent people willing to be waiters as their hobby at your place’ is probably standing in as a prestige marker if not a currency…
And “Holosuite rations” as an informal currency also works as a tax designed to keep most people in the real world most of the time with a completely artificial scarcity.
What were the stakes at the Enterprise’s poker night? I can’t believe they were playing for nothing but chips. Shift-scheduling priority?
@85: Where are you getting that they don’t have passenger ships?
@85: We have heard of civilian passenger ships in the Federation. For instance, in “The Conscience of the King,” the Astral Queen was scheduled to transport the Karidian company to Benecia Colony before Kirk called in a favor from its captain. There’s also the SS Santa Maria from DS9: “Paradise,” a civilian colony ship.
Nobody every uses them; whenever someone comes to the station they’ve gotten a ride on a military ship or a non-Federation race’s vessel; whenever someone’s needed to travel, even on personal business, they’ve needed to borrow a ship rather than simply arranging passage.
@87: Kirk’s time predates the end of money in the Federation, so that doesn’t count. And I’m not sure how civilian a colony ship can really be, but I’m talking about individual travel between populated worlds, not the establishment of new colonies.
@88: Again, you have to consider the selection bias of the shows. Since they focus on Starfleet characters and facilities, naturally the transports we see are usually connected with Starfleet, because those are the kind of transports that would interact with Starfleet crews. That doesn’t mean they’re the only kind that exist anywhere at all.
Imagine if all your knowledge of the United States came from watching Hogan’s Heroes, M*A*S*H, and JAG. You’d probably come away thinking that the US was a society completely dominated by its military. We’ve never seen a Trek series set in the civilian Federation, so we haven’t gotten a clear picture of what it’s like. All we know is filtered through Starfleet, and that distorts it.
@85,Picard in “The Ensigns of Command” mentioned that it would be three weeks before a colony transport equipped with dedicated personnel shuttles would arrive at a planet the Enterprise had to evacuate. And civilians arrived all the time to DS9 on civilian transports. So no civilian had to bargain with Starfleet for transport anywhere in the Federation.
I’m going to miss these very interesting debates. Like Ohma, I’ve been doing what started as a TNG, then TNG/DS9 rewatch that eventually became a DS9/VGR rewatch (Ohma @72, boy do I know what you mean about quality whiplash there.) So, in a sense, this rewatch will continue, for me, for a while longer, as I still have Voyager‘s final two seasons left. I just won’t have krad, CLB, and all you wonderful folks to keep me company.
@91: I’m pretty sure Tor.com will be doing a Voyager rewatch, just not by KRAD.
@92, oh thats’s great news, CLB.
Also, I forgot to mention that Kasidy Yates started out on the series as being captain of a Federation freighter, and didn’t start working for the Bajorans until she and Sisko were seriously dating. It’s likely Yates lost her first ship, the Xhosa, after she was imprisoned for aiding the Maquis. So, as CLB says, the Federation clearly has a currency system, just not one every person is dependent on for survival.
@94: Right. Also, there’s the Bank of Bolias, mentioned in “Who Mourns for Morn?” and “Honor Among Thieves.” It’s a little ambiguous whether the Bolian system is a Federation member, but there are certainly plenty of Bolians in the Federation, so it seems likely that the Bank of Bolias is a Federation institution.
I’d be very interested in following a Voyager rewatch. Not only to be reminded of its flaws, but also its strenghts (I remember there were a few memorable moments; certainly not as many as TNG, DS9 or even Enterprise). And besides, I’ve missed more Voyager episodes than any other show. For one, I’ve never seen the infamous season 4 episode known as Demon.
@96, Voyager may not be on the level of Deep Space Nine as far as storytelling and character development, but when its good, its really good. “Year of Hell”, anyone? “The Killing Game”? Plus there’s great early gems like “Heroes and Demons”, “Dreadnought”, and “Death Wish.” So its definitely worth a watch, despite its flaws IMO.
Hey folks! Between a crushing deadline and the sheer enormity of doing the DS9 grand finale, the rewatch for “What You Leave Behind” won’t be up until Tuesday, with the seventh-season overview on Friday. It’ll be worth the wait. :)
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
I’m happy to hear that there’re plans to do a Voyager rewatch. I’ve genuinely enjoyed reading Keith and others’ opinions on, reactions to, and insider knowlege of Trek episodes and series here; and while I personally don’t hold Voyager as a whole in high regard, it’s not because I think there’s nothing to redeem it, rather, I think there’s so much potential in it, both in the premise, as well as in a great deal of the stories that make up the series, and so little of that potential was ever realised.
Back on Federation Economy Chat for a sec:
I’ve always rationalized the Federation Credit as something that exists because not every member civilization of the Federation does without money. Sure, being a member of the Federation might mean you’re required to provide your citizens with access to adequate medical care, food, and shelter, but whether you accomplish this through Space Communism, some sort of mincome system, or a comprehensive social-safety net probably isn’t stipulated because otherwise the Federation really would be a “humans only club”.
@98 – this makes me kind of glad, as it means the re-watch isn’t ending quite yet ;)
To me, the Federation in New Generation onwards always seemed communist, not socialist. Just read the wikipedia entry on communism:
A communist economic system is characterized by advanced productive technology that enables material abundance, which in turn enables the free distribution of most or all economic output and the holding of the means of producing this output in common. In this respect communism is differentiated from socialism, which, out of economic necessity, restricts access to articles of consumption and services based on one’s contribution.
In further contrast to previous economic systems, communism would be characterized by the holding of natural resources and the means of production in common as opposed to them being privately owned (as in the case of capitalism) or owned by public or cooperative organizations that similarly restrict access (as in the case of socialism). In this sense, communism involves the “negation of property” insofar as there would be little economic rationale for exclusive control over production assets in an environment of material abundance
Communist society would free individuals from long work hours by first eliminating exploitation and the division between workers and owners, and secondly by advanced technology and automated production that would free individuals from alienation in the sense of having one’s life structured around survival (making a wage or salary in a capitalist system). As a result, a communist society would be characterized by an intellectually-inclined population with the time and resources to pursue their interests and hobbies and contribute to social and creative wealth in that manner. Karl Marx considered “true richness” to be the amount of time one has at his or her disposal to pursue one’s creative passions.
This goes hand-in-hand with Marx’s idea of the ending of the division of labor, which would not be required in a society with highly automated production and limited work roles.
Sounds very similar to what some people were describing here. In communism, Sisko’s restaurant and Picard’s wineyard would not be seem as anathema, something to be forbidden because it’d destroy the whole system, but as quirks. Something people had just because they wanted it, and if someone else wanted something similar, it’d be easy to replicate. People work there because they want to, not because they need to. These two things (restaurant and wineyard) aren’t actually important means of production (those are replicators and antimatter generators, which can produce almost anything combined), they’re just quirks.
I’d be glad to see a Voyager, and after that presumably an Enterprise rewatch. Voyager certainly had some very good moments, although it also had some very bad ones. My rule of thumb is, stay away from any episodes focussed on Harry Kim, any episodes where Captain Janeway in any way interacts with a handsome man in the holodeck, and anything where cast members turn into lizards and have crazy lizard sex, and you should be okay.
@102 Brannon Braga and his obsession with “involution” or “reverse evolution”, or also thinking that the apex of humanity is becoming some kind of lizard. I always laugh when I think about that episode. Sometimes there’s bad ST science, and sometimes there are things that just don’t make sense! Also, poor baby lizards, they were retconned out of existence.
“anything where cast members turn into lizards and have crazy lizard sex” – whaaaaaaaaat?
If they do a VOY rewatch, I might read along silently (I don’t really have the motivation to do another seven season long re-watch; we have limited time for TV so in a way, we’re kind of looking forward to seeking out other things we want to see) just out of interest to see what happens in the universe and to read the comments, but that takes the cake :)
@104 AFAIK, it did only happen once.
OTOH, once was at least one time too many…
@104, 105,
Tasha Yar put it best:
“I’m only going to say this once: it never happened.”
Actually, I think even the writers agree with that sentiment. I believe there’s a line in a later episode implying that even the show agrees that the lizard sex episode never happened.
@90: Add F Troop in there and you’d have a damn strange picture of the U.S. as a military-dominated entity.
@105: “Threshold” was more than enough lizard sex for one lifetime, unless we’re talking about Madame Vastra.
@103: It’s hardly fair to call Braga “obsessed” with any of that. He was a storyteller looking for ideas; it doesn’t mean he actually believed in them, just that he thought he could get an hour of television out of them. And he’s come out and admitted that “Threshold” was a bad episode built around a bad idea; he’s even declared it apocryphal. He tried something out, it turned out badly, and he admitted his mistake. That’s hardly an “obsession.” It’s just the normal trial and error of series television.
@88: Wasn’t there a reference in “Doctor Bashir, I Presume?” to Bashir’s father having worked as a steward for a passenger service.
@92 – While I’d glad for plans for a Voyager rewatch, I’m a little wary. If Keith isn’t handling it, I expect Tor to shower lots of latinum your way – otherwise I’m out. The series demands someone who can acknowledge its flaws from an insideStarTrek perspective and provide more depth than I can get reading Memory Alpha, and I don’t have a lot of faith in the Tor regulars to do so (for multiple reasons). It’s been the reason I come to the site for six articles a week.
@104 – I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’d encourage you to give Voyager a shot. While the show is more than bad, I think the way it touches on religion and spirituality would benefit from your perspective (not as much as DS9 does, as there isn’t as much ritualism as seems to carry from Bajor to the RCC). I play a lot of personal cards very close, but I think you often express what I am thinking (and are also more prolific in commenting, which means I don’t have to post as much). Also, I do enjoy Robert Picardo’s Doctor. Frankly, I would more enjoy watching him play all the roles on the show as a one man production than the cast as assembled. Besides, I’ve been trying to work my way through the show for the year or so and if I can do it, you can do it.
While the series itself is bad, I’ve absolutely loved Kirsten Beyer’s Relaunch novels. She’s managed to finally help VOY realize its potential and make it far more interest on page than it was on-screen. Consequences are finally explored and the characters are more three-dimensional.
Did Braga also do ‘Genesis’? Were there lizards in that one? Troi ‘devolved’ into something reptilian or fish like, right? Not that I think that proves an obsession, either, nor am I trying to disprove your point ;)
@110 – The main issue is time, as I said. There are a few other things we want to watch; we get maybe a few hours a week to really relax and watch movies/DVDs so we kind of miss having the freedom to watch other stuff, as much as we’ve loved following along with the rewatch and partipating in the reads.
As I said, I will probably just read along out of curiosity and maybe one day we’ll watch it. I’d probably end up enjoying it…I’ve noticed that there are certain things I don’t seem to notice (acting, for example) that other people get really wound up on. There are definitely areas where I can be super critical, but as long as a show engages me and I find it interesting and it isn’t completely offensive to me, I can usually forgive a lot.
@110: I’m afraid I won’t be doing the Voyager rewatch. I would’ve liked to, but it wasn’t in the cards. I’ll still be here in the comments, though.
@112: Sure, Braga did a couple of evolution-themed episodes, but they were just one of the many high-concept ideas he played around with. He liked concepts that involved distorting reality or identity — sometimes body-horror stuff like “Identity Crisis” or “Genesis,” sometimes straight-up horror like “Schisms” or “Phantasms” or “Macrocosm,” sometimes more psychological mindbenders like “Frame of Mind,” often time-travel and alternate-reality antics like “Cause and Effect” and “Parallels” and “Year of Hell” — really a pretty broad selection. If there’s a common thread, it’s that he embraced wild and experimental ideas. Sometimes that gamble turned out poorly, as in “Genesis” or “Threshold,” but sometimes it paid off very well, as in “Frame of Mind.”
I actually really enjoyed Braga’s episodes for the most part (although it’s hard for me, emotionally, to get past the horrible biology in Genesis. I can appreciate the mood/atmosphere of i tthough).
Also, re-reading my comment, for some reason I ended the last sentence in that paragraph with a question mark, which was not my intent. No, I was not trying to disprove your point!
@113: Bummer. Ah well, I can still dream of you doing an Enterprise rewatch down the line. :p
@71, I love the whole ending arc except for the Bajor subplot. Hated it 15 years ago and nothing’s changed.
I don’t believe Voyager is in the cards, either, but why will be clear next week when I announce what I’m doing next.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Yes, “The Dogs of War” has now surpassed “Darmok” to become the most-commented-upon episode of the TNG/DS9 rewatches.
@52
Thank you.
I agree with most of the others – not a fan of the Bashir/Ezri relationship. He’s a player and always has been and without knowing what the books etc. have done with those characters after this series ends, I would be predicting it ends relatively soon, and badly. And also as has been noted – where’s the buildup to this? They have spent relatively little time together; I’ve not noticed any sparks or anything – oh, he’s cute; oh’s she’s pretty – let’s be in love. Between this and the Kira/Odo thing and the Winn/Dukat thing…. blecch. DS9’s writers have some really questionable matchmaking skills. (With the exception of Jadzia/Worf. I know there was some fan backlash to that as well, but I thought they were great together. She respected his Klingon heritage without taking any of his Klingon shit.)
@12 – I think Rom’s ascendence makes some sense if you look at it in the context of the Nagus’s reforms. Rom has always been the most non-Ferengi Ferengi out there, and although Rom’s not the “leader” type by force of personality, he does have the progressive sense of ethics that is required. And besides, Mom’s sleeping with the Nagus and whispering in his ear, so of course it was going to be one of her boys.
For once, I’m not too upset about Odo getting all defensive about “his people”. I do see his point. I also see the opposite point. If Section 31 is operating as a truly autonomous agency because the brass is playing Sergeant Schultz and wants to “know nothing” about what it’s up to, then Starfleet command is guilty of attempted genocide by gross negligence. That being said, given the circumstance I don’t blame Starfleet at all for refusing to give up the cure to the Founders. It’s not like we’re aware of any innocent gooey Founder women and children out there suffering and waiting to die. With the exception of Odo and that detestable jerk who killed the Klingon a couple episodes ago, the Founders seem to be united in their goal of taking control over the Alpha Quandrant and killing as many as possible in the process. If a US secret agency had developed a disease that killed all Germans in WWII and we withheld a cure because it was just going to kill only those who were perpetrating the holocaust – I damn well would not have objected.
If, many episodes ago, you had told me that the Cardassian who killed Dukat’s daughter was going to turn into one of the more inspiring characters of DS9’s closing arc, I would have laughed. But hey – Damar’s getting it done. even if he’s flirting with overloading the cheesiness meter with his impression of Mel Gibson as William Wallace.
I don’t see why people struggle so mightly with it. I have plenty of relationships with people where we neither exchange money nor barter goods/time, but nonetheless interact plenty. My friends show up at my house, I feed ’em. I show up at their house, they feed me. But we don’t keep score. My dad needs to reshingle his roof, I show up to help. I get some food (and once we’re off the roof, drink) of him, but there’s no real exchange.
Or rather, since replicators make an infinite amount of stuff, so supply and demand makes the price of everything zero. So, how can you tip your waiter? You can’t, except by letting them be a valued member of society. So we’re all doing our part, but no one is really keeping score. In life, that’s how I interact with my family, my friends. We’re too poor now to run the whole of society that way, but by DS9’s time, Earth is so unbelievably rich, and everything is so unbelievably cheap, it doesn’t matter.
@121/Brian: If anything, we probably have more than enough resources today to give everyone a universal basic income. It’s just that the rich insist on hoarding the wealth for themselves.
Some cities have found that it’s actually cheaper for a city to give homeless people free housing than it is to deal with the multiple costs of homelessness, such as unemployment, medical treatment for all the health problems they have, and the expense of arresting, prosecuting, and punishing homeless people for “crimes” that only happen because they’re homeless, like loitering or public indecency. Our problem today isn’t scarcity, it’s the wastefulness of economic inequality.
So many comments in this thread (dated 2015) about the economics of the Federation. I wonder how many of you have since read Manu Saadia’s book, Trekonomics, which came out the following year?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trekonomics
I think it’s a very well thought out surmise about how things would work in the Federation’s post-scarcity future. It doesn’t fully gibe with what we’ve seen in-canon, as of course it can’t, since canon itself isn’t consistent. But generally, Saadia posits that the Federation operates on a reputational economy: architects design buildings to become respected and famous designers of buildings, and their successful career trajectories are based on that ever-rising profile.
He doesn’t touch on real estate, which I think is a real missed opportunity, since it’s the only remaining scarce resource in a replicator-based future. I’d love to know good reasons why, for example, Joseph Sisko gets to own a French Quarter restaurant, or Jean-Luc Picard a French vineyard, while Raffi Musiker has to live in a trailer at the Vasquez Rocks.
@123/terracinque: “He doesn’t touch on real estate, which I think is a real missed opportunity, since it’s the only remaining scarce resource in a replicator-based future.”
Why else would the Federation be so eager to expand and colonize new planets?
“I’d love to know good reasons why, for example, Joseph Sisko gets to own a French Quarter restaurant, or Jean-Luc Picard a French vineyard, while Raffi Musiker has to live in a trailer at the Vasquez Rocks.”
Okay, first off, it’s very annoying that they actually identified it as Vasquez Rocks in a screen caption, because that undermines the implicit intent that she’s a hermit in a remote wilderness. Vasquez Rocks is a state park and a tourist attraction, popular with hikers, climbers, cyclists, and the like as well as film buffs. The famous cliff is literally just half a mile from Agua Dulce, a community with a population of over 3,000 people, and only 10 miles or so from Santa Clarita, the third-largest city in Los Angeles County. The whole reason it’s used so often as a shooting location is because it isn’t remote. And the spot where Raffi’s trailer was located is the most heavily frequented part of the park. I’ve been there myself, when I went out to LA in the ’90s to pitch for DS9. If anything, the fact that Raffi is able to squat in such a public place without getting evicted implies that she has a lot of privilege, not a total lack of it.
Setting that aside, though, and accepting the intended premise, I’ve assumed that her “poverty” is not a matter of necessity so much as choice, or the consequence of her choices. As you said, the Federation probably has a reputational economy, and Raffi blew up her reputation through her bad attitude, alienating or rejecting anyone who could’ve helped or supported her. To some extent she’s punishing herself for the things she feels guilty about.
@123- “I’d love to know good reasons why, for example, Joseph Sisko gets to own a French Quarter restaurant, or Jean-Luc Picard a French vineyard, while Raffi Musiker has to live in a trailer at the Vasquez Rocks.”
Clearly her mistake was not thinking to request a French chateaux. There’s plenty of real estate on Trek-Earth, it’s just most of it’s French now.
I thought it was lazy to have Raffi living in a trailer, too. Really? How about something futuristic? How about a holographic chateaux? Picard lives in a real one and hers is fake. Maybe even a fake happy family to go with it. All of which would illustrate the Star Trek world we know and her character’s station in life.
@126/Reddy: As I said, I think Raffi lives that way more or less by choice because she’s punishing herself. She screwed things up so much with her real family that she doesn’t feel entitled to happiness with a fake one. Or something like that.
@127/CLB: Raffi’s living situation may be because of her own actions, but they’re not (consciously) by choice, because the fact that she lives in a hovel while Picard has a manor house is one of the things she angrily threw in his face when he came to enlist her help.
@127
Uh, yeah, they really overdid the self-loathing in those characters. Subtle that series was not.
@128/terracinque: I take that as more an expression of the “reputational economy” thing. It’s not that she’s financially destitute, it’s that she came through things badly and had more damage to her reputation and allegiances. Partly through her own screwups and bad behavior alienating people, but also partly because Picard, the legendary starship captain and savior of civilization, had a hell of a lot more reputation points racked up than Raffi did, so he was able to weather the setback better. Also he had his family ties and the winery to fall back on, while she was more on her own.
#130/CLB Well argued.
If not a holographic fantasy, then they should’ve had her living out of a shuttlecraft. And not one of those fancy runabouts, a TOS shuttle that gets bad mileage.
Casey Briggs’ finest moment in the series and one of many great turns he put in during season 6 and 7, his double act with Jeffrey Combs was one of the consistently good things through the final somewhat uneven run of the show from ‘The Reckoning’ up to the closing arc and then when Damar’s rebellion started the character becomes even better and is polar opposite to the way Duckat’s character went.
Also farewell Rom one of the funniest and most endearing characters in all of Trek maybe all of Sci Fi TV. it is rather ridiculous that he becomes leader of the Ferengi but to see him get his happy ending always made me smile.