Nicolas Meyer Joins New Trek Series

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Nicolas Meyer Joins New Trek Series

Post by Mike DiCenso » Mon Jun 27, 2016 10:37 pm

It's an official thing, Nicolas Meyer who wrote and directed Wrath of Khan and The Undiscovered Country, is now on the Star Trek 2017 TV series as a writer and consultant.

This gives me a great deal of hope that we'll be getting some good and even great stories as well as direction for this series.
-Mike

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Re: Nicolas Meyer Joins New Trek Series

Post by Praeothmin » Sat Jul 09, 2016 5:00 pm

Oooooooooh, shiny!

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Re: Nicolas Meyer Joins New Trek Series

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Tue Jul 12, 2016 3:36 pm

Do we have any information on the timeline this show abides by?
nuTrek has established strong and gorgeous standards for visuals but the third movie is already showing the weakness of this timeline, characterized by incomprehensible plots, cheap recycling and no sense of subtlety whatsoever.
I'm worried though. From wikipedia, regarding the casting, I've read this:
By June 2016, Fuller had "met with a few actors, and it's an interesting process. There's a few people that we like and we want to carry on what Star Trek does best, which is being progressive. So it's fascinating to look at all of these roles through a colorblind prism and a gender-blind prism". Fuller also implied that, unlike previous Star Trek series, this one would feature LGBTQ characters.
ST was progressive in relation to ideas and views which were in need of a shakedown many would say, but I don't believe you can be eternally progressive without crossing the line to the point anything that should be conserved is also being destroyed in the process.

For one, the intrusion of LGVYZ characters is most puzzling. Basically, ST science should have sufficiently evolved to have found an explanation and perhaps a solution to the causes of those personallity or severe mental disorders. I fail to see how, as a sexual species which survival solely hinges on the heterosexual bond between male and female, we could talk of any progress here. The real progress would actually require courage to rely on the science fiction part of the show to claim that homosexuality is a thing of the past, so men and women don't suffer anymore and can use – and want to use – their bodies the way it's meant to be, as part of their identity, having the will to create and harbour life within a sane cell.
We also read that the show will be colour-blind, which was one of its staples so no surprise here, ok. The issue here is that by colour we must understand race and, to a broader degree, ethnics. Does it mean loosing any sense of identity? Will it even be acceptable in this new batch of Trek material to be proud of your creole heritage for example?
As for gender-blindness, I dread what this may imply. Trek has done a strong job in showing women occupying positions of responsibility, but one cannot ignore that in the process, these female characters saw their feminity largely supressed, to the point of having a nearly and already "neutral" female character in the convenient shape of an emotionless Vulcan, their only feminity summarized down to their hips and breasts. And what of Janeway? It seems she was so sex-neutral that her character could have been swapped with a male character at any time and that wouldn't have made a difference, wig aside.
Anyone man who has dealt with women in real life knows the differences between men and women, down to the divide found in physiological, psychological and emotionnal approaches between both genders.
I'm weary of being forced a spoonfull of politically super-correct stuff painted as progressive but actually being... err... "erasive" more than anything else. That would be terrible and a sign of Trek gone too far.

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Re: Nicolas Meyer Joins New Trek Series

Post by Cocytus » Wed Jul 13, 2016 12:08 am

Oh, God.

If by "progressive" they mean the far-left shitshow progressivism has degenerated into, then one can readily forecast the results as little more than masturbatory wish-fulfillment fantasies.

There will be a refugee plot, akin to the Skreeans from DS9, only with the refugees integrating seamlessly and bringing invaluable new technology in the form of some miraculous cure or somesuch, with the obvious stand-ins for right-wingers being thoroughly humiliated. There will be none of the real-world complexity of "Sanctuary," with the ravaged and depleted Bajor being unable to accommodate the refugees, or the tensions with so many simply being unbridgeable.

There will be a misunderstood and unfairly stigmatized alien race, a member of whom is suspected of a terrible crime for no reason other than being different. A hate-fueled white, old admiral will lead a kangaroo court, only to be revealed as the criminal himself. Unlike "The Drumhead," where Admiral Satie's bigotry and fear were the product of the very real conflict with the Romulans and the attendant insecurity of being in the long shadow of her father, making it understandable and turning her into a sort of tragic figure upon which the audience can reflect (as explicitly called out by Picard in the final scene) this admiral will be a strawman caricature of right-wingers intended solely for the audience to hate. Expect a cameo by Gary Sinise, John Voigt, James Woods or Clint Eastwood just to make the point clear.

There will be a terrible crime committed with a certain kind of weapon, like a TR-116 or similar. Unlike the investigative process used in "Field of Fire," or Sisko's refusal to stigmatize the officer mentioned in passing as a collector of such weapons, collectors and users will be broadly vilified and subjected to the terrible "argumentation" frequently employed by leftists. People who hunt with such weapons will be told as condescendingly as possible that there are replicators, people who collect them will be asked why they need them and unable to deliver an answer, and eventually the characters will institute a ban on such things that will magically see a vast reduction in crime. Expect no shortage of leftist self-congratulation.

As often as possible, a cartoonish caricature of Science will be extolled and a similar strawman of religion and belief of any kind will be endlessly mocked and excoriated. Expect Picard's out-of-character rant in "Who Watches the Watchers" multiplied a thousand-fold, even as tone-deaf and utterly unreflective writers create stories about neural energies being removed from brains and other such. Expect none of the interesting dichotomies present in DS9's treatment of the Prophets, or the quasi-religion of the Founders (which seems to have no formal ritual practice beyond simply venerating the Founders). Expect Reddit-tier argumentation and probably one of the prominent New Atheists to be mentioned as a founding figure of the new age of supreme rationalism, even though many of the technologies and races in Trek would explicitly require abandoning many New Atheist precepts.

In short, expect no subtlety, no complexity, no nuance, no intelligence. Expect exactly what you would get from reading a Tumblr blog. I fear this going the way of the new Ghostbusters movie. Rather than revitalize Trek I rather expect, given the quote above, that this series will bury it.

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Re: Nicolas Meyer Joins New Trek Series

Post by 2046 » Sat Jul 16, 2016 5:05 am

My good man, that was epic. Let's do warp ten and have salamander babies.

Seriously, though, I don't think they'll go all the way to caricature of themselves, though it does seem they threatened it well.

More worrisome, however, is that they don't understand Star Trek at all. It may have seemed progressive at different points (and certainly there was that one stupid DS9 episode that featured O'Brien and Worf actually fighting over 500 year old union disputes), but almost invariably any leftist tendencies were actually presented from the basis of Roddenberry WW2-inspired humanism, which rather closely resembles 19th Century classical liberalism, which is what is now considered Constitutional conservative right-wing extremism a la Ted Cruz (minus all the Jesus).

Be it 1930's nationalist "Worker's Party" quasi-socialist nonsense a la fascist Trump (Cardassia and the Dominion) or full-fledged Marxist international socialism a la "Progressive" socialist Clinton (the Borg), the Federation -- a post-scarcity, liberty-minded society that promotes individualism --pretty much goes around kicking the ass of today's assorted variations of authoritarian leftism. "But they were against the Ferengi, too!" Yeah, nobody likes a thief, and that was a state-run economy, too.

I'm actually working in fits and starts on a rather large blog post entitled "The Star Trek Conservative" that goes into such things in depth, with examples suitable to the modern day. I should probably just give up on the blog post and go right to making it a book . . . might as well make a buck on this stuff, for a change.

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Re: Nicolas Meyer Joins New Trek Series

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Mon Jul 18, 2016 1:57 pm

2046 wrote:My good man, that was epic. Let's do warp ten and have salamander babies.

Seriously, though, I don't think they'll go all the way to caricature of themselves, though it does seem they threatened it well.

More worrisome, however, is that they don't understand Star Trek at all. It may have seemed progressive at different points (and certainly there was that one stupid DS9 episode that featured O'Brien and Worf actually fighting over 500 year old union disputes), but almost invariably any leftist tendencies were actually presented from the basis of Roddenberry WW2-inspired humanism, which rather closely resembles 19th Century classical liberalism, which is what is now considered Constitutional conservative right-wing extremism a la Ted Cruz (minus all the Jesus).

Be it 1930's nationalist "Worker's Party" quasi-socialist nonsense a la fascist Trump (Cardassia and the Dominion) or full-fledged Marxist international socialism a la "Progressive" socialist Clinton (the Borg), the Federation -- a post-scarcity, liberty-minded society that promotes individualism --pretty much goes around kicking the ass of today's assorted variations of authoritarian leftism. "But they were against the Ferengi, too!" Yeah, nobody likes a thief, and that was a state-run economy, too.

I'm actually working in fits and starts on a rather large blog post entitled "The Star Trek Conservative" that goes into such things in depth, with examples suitable to the modern day. I should probably just give up on the blog post and go right to making it a book . . . might as well make a buck on this stuff, for a change.
Indeed, the cursor for the average political weight in the whole Occidental world has dramatically shifted towards the super-left, so much that rational and debated leftism of yestercentury is now hateful-bigoted-right-wing stuff, like all the brains are only to be found on the "left".

Imagine... Femen vs. Buck Rogers.

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Re: Nicolas Meyer Joins New Trek Series

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Mon Jul 18, 2016 1:57 pm

Btw, TSTC sounds like a promising blog!

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Re: Nicolas Meyer Joins New Trek Series

Post by sonofccn » Tue Jul 19, 2016 2:57 am

2046 wrote:I'm actually working in fits and starts on a rather large blog post entitled "The Star Trek Conservative" that goes into such things in depth, with examples suitable to the modern day. I should probably just give up on the blog post and go right to making it a book . . . might as well make a buck on this stuff, for a change.
I'd certainly read it. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the matter.

Through, in full disclosure, I would probably have to say I'm less optimistic the United Federation of Planets is "liberty-minded society that promotes individualism" as opposed to an idealized society that is Socialistic* in broad orientation and which has rubbed out the ungood Crimethink so to speak. At the very least I have a hard time imagining Ted Cruz or James Kirk arguing on matter of principal not to save the Boraalans people in Homeward {TNG-07}. Through, as in all cases, that's merely how I see things.

-Always respectfully, Sonofccn

* Admittedly more in mindset and worldview sense rather than strictly economic.

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Re: Nicolas Meyer Joins New Trek Series

Post by Jedi Master Spock » Mon Aug 01, 2016 5:11 pm

Mr. Oragahn wrote:For one, the intrusion of LGVYZ characters is most puzzling. Basically, ST science should have sufficiently evolved to have found an explanation and perhaps a solution to the causes of those personallity or severe mental disorders. I fail to see how, as a sexual species which survival solely hinges on the heterosexual bond between male and female, we could talk of any progress here. The real progress would actually require courage to rely on the science fiction part of the show to claim that homosexuality is a thing of the past, so men and women don't suffer anymore and can use – and want to use – their bodies the way it's meant to be, as part of their identity, having the will to create and harbour life within a sane cell.
At a Star Trek science level, the species is completely independent of heterosexual bonds between male and female. Think Forever War by Haldeman. Reproduction is no longer dependent on having an actual womb handy.

If you want to think about population trouble, the trouble is socioeconomic. When having children is a luxury rather than a necessity, people don't have many children. How do you convince people to want to have children? You can't rely on accidental reproduction by heterosexuals when medical technology permits perfect birth control. You have to rely on people wanting to have kids (no more difficult with same-sex couples); or to start producing them institutionally.

Unless you specifically engineer things otherwise, there are people who are heterosexual, homosexual, or some variety of bisexual in between, and it doesn't present a social problem in and of itself. This is why psychiatrists have taken homosexuality off the list of mental disorders: Because just being gay doesn't mean you have any problems other than the problems other people make for you. (And trying to fix the "problem" of homosexuality seems to be a very good recipe for producing mental illness.)

Star Trek has a history of exploring alternate norms of sexuality through alien species. E.g.:

http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/The_ ... _(episode)
http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Cogenitor_(episode)

Or think about Dax. Trills have allowed for some fairly adventurous plotlines.

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Re: Nicolas Meyer Joins New Trek Series

Post by Jedi Master Spock » Mon Aug 01, 2016 5:31 pm

2046 wrote:My good man, that was epic. Let's do warp ten and have salamander babies.

Seriously, though, I don't think they'll go all the way to caricature of themselves, though it does seem they threatened it well.

More worrisome, however, is that they don't understand Star Trek at all. It may have seemed progressive at different points (and certainly there was that one stupid DS9 episode that featured O'Brien and Worf actually fighting over 500 year old union disputes), but almost invariably any leftist tendencies were actually presented from the basis of Roddenberry WW2-inspired humanism, which rather closely resembles 19th Century classical liberalism, which is what is now considered Constitutional conservative right-wing extremism a la Ted Cruz (minus all the Jesus).

Be it 1930's nationalist "Worker's Party" quasi-socialist nonsense a la fascist Trump (Cardassia and the Dominion) or full-fledged Marxist international socialism a la "Progressive" socialist Clinton (the Borg), the Federation -- a post-scarcity, liberty-minded society that promotes individualism --pretty much goes around kicking the ass of today's assorted variations of authoritarian leftism. "But they were against the Ferengi, too!" Yeah, nobody likes a thief, and that was a state-run economy, too.

I'm actually working in fits and starts on a rather large blog post entitled "The Star Trek Conservative" that goes into such things in depth, with examples suitable to the modern day. I should probably just give up on the blog post and go right to making it a book . . . might as well make a buck on this stuff, for a change.
The amount of Jesus involved with Ted Cruz makes it a pretty tough match.

The Federation is an individualist and liberty minded society in the sense of being one which guarantees a list of freedoms; but it is one where the list of guaranteed individual freedoms includes freedom from want. Which is not to be found on the agenda of most of those identified as conservative at present. I see it as a clear left-libertarian society. Right-libertarians might be able to see themselves living happily in such a society, but the presence of a social safety net and the fact that business is relegated to frontier settings (ala Mudd) or seen as recreational hobbies (ala Sisko) makes this different from an idealized right-libertarian society.

The profit motive is pretty much entirely absent. Capitalism - the use of ownership as a method of earning income - is conspicuously absent as well.

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Re: Nicolas Meyer Joins New Trek Series

Post by Cocytus » Tue Aug 02, 2016 12:13 am

Jedi Master Spock wrote:The amount of Jesus involved with Ted Cruz makes it a pretty tough match.

The Federation is an individualist and liberty minded society in the sense of being one which guarantees a list of freedoms; but it is one where the list of guaranteed individual freedoms includes freedom from want. Which is not to be found on the agenda of most of those identified as conservative at present. I see it as a clear left-libertarian society. Right-libertarians might be able to see themselves living happily in such a society, but the presence of a social safety net and the fact that business is relegated to frontier settings (ala Mudd) or seen as recreational hobbies (ala Sisko) makes this different from an idealized right-libertarian society.

The profit motive is pretty much entirely absent. Capitalism - the use of ownership as a method of earning income - is conspicuously absent as well.
Most conservatives take issue with "freedom from" much of anything without rigid and rigidly enforced definitions. The "freedom from offense" that has taken hold on the political left at the moment leads to absurdities like safe spaces and produces coddled, infantilized children largely incapable of navigating a world that isn't obligated to care about their feelings. It empowers the most thin-skinned and emotionally fragile members of society to run roughshod over the rest.

The freedom from want that the Federation affords most of its citizens is the freedom from the most basic material wants, with such needs met via the replicators. References abound to Federation credits, which means that the "money-free" society Picard likes to brag about isn't really accurate. It's noteworthy that the two examples of him doing so that pop right into my mind are the rescued cryonics from "The Neutral Zone" and Lily Sloane from ST:FC, both of which involve Picard bragging about his society to someone whose society is inferior, the way a Westerner might brag to, say, someone from a third-world country. It's a feeling of superiority and not necessarily an accurate reflection of the truth. I've always thought that the paradise of Earth was sort of the idealized showroom of the Federation, with the reality being rather less than that elsewhere. The Federation obviously employs a money system to deal with races that use it (like the Ferengi) and reimburses the members of other races with whom its members do business (Dr. Crusher charges a bolt of cloth in Farpoint Station.) When far removed from the Federation, simple barter takes over, as happened many times on Voyager. The replicators afford post-scarcity as far as raw materials go, but there is still plenty of room for sourcing food and materials traditionally, or preparing finished items from replicated raw materials. Off the top of my head, Data makes Troi a traditional Samarian sunset in "Conundrum" Guinan offers Geordi and Data "something new from Forcas III," in ST:G, Kira complains about replicated food (though she was using a Cardassian replicator) the Promenade on DS9 is full of various themed restaurants and Quark is seen to both replicate finished drinks and prepare them, the Enterprise had a galley in ST:TUC, and it is known that replicators leave indicative patterns in the materials they make. It is also obvious, as well as outright stated in "Night Terrors" that more complex materials need more energy which is not illimitable given that Voyager nearly ran out in "Demon." All this means that "want" in the sense of something beyond pure survival needs is still there in the Federation, with the post-scarcity aspect extending only to those basic necessities.

We also know that, from the time of Kirk all the way through Voyager, the concept of and protection of intellectual property are very much present. One of the obvious implications of the Doctor's being granted rights of personhood in "Author Author" was the power to control his IP, and both he and the elder Jake Sisko had publishers for their work. Taken with what I consider the well-demonstrated fact that replicators cannot produce perfect facsimiles of many things, a formal market structure still exists in the Federation. It just no longer applies to survival necessities like basic food, water and medicine. It would still apply to energy though, and we hear in Voyager of replicator rations. This gets even more apparent when you consider collectibles markets. Antiquities are dealt with frequently in the Federation and its environs. Quark presides over auctions, Vash finds rarities to sell, Picard expresses his admiration for the artistry of the Kurlans (at least until he carelessly discards the naiskos at the end of Generations. In universe, I like to think he replicated a copy and sent the real one for safekeeping elsewhere, given his reverence for antiquities and the frequent danger the E-D finds herself in.) None of this would be possible if the replicator were good enough to produce perfect copies of such items. The entire concept of a collectibles market would be vitiated if authenticity and provenance could not be established. Jake and Nog have to try and buy the Willie Mays card from the doctor in "In the Cards." Jake repeatedly says he has no money because he's human, and brags to Nog rather like Picard brags to Lily. It simply isn't true that humans have no money of any kind. Rather, the case seems to be that there's nothing in the way of physical currency. The Federation simply reimburses other races for expenditures its members make based on its credit as a major power with significant resources. Jake, being a kid, would probably have some sort of small credit account for buying Jumja sticks or whatever, but he had nowhere near enough to afford the card, Quark deals in physical currency anyway and likely none of the officers would have had enough credit to afford it either.

The major paradigm shift between the Federation and our current society I see as something along the lines of basic income. With the bare necessities met, work becomes something people do more for pleasure and self-fulfillment than profit, though that motive does still exist in one form or another. The basic income would establish a floor, but not a ceiling.

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Re: Nicolas Meyer Joins New Trek Series

Post by Jedi Master Spock » Tue Aug 02, 2016 7:07 am

Cocytus wrote:
Jedi Master Spock wrote:The amount of Jesus involved with Ted Cruz makes it a pretty tough match.

The Federation is an individualist and liberty minded society in the sense of being one which guarantees a list of freedoms; but it is one where the list of guaranteed individual freedoms includes freedom from want. Which is not to be found on the agenda of most of those identified as conservative at present. I see it as a clear left-libertarian society. Right-libertarians might be able to see themselves living happily in such a society, but the presence of a social safety net and the fact that business is relegated to frontier settings (ala Mudd) or seen as recreational hobbies (ala Sisko) makes this different from an idealized right-libertarian society.

The profit motive is pretty much entirely absent. Capitalism - the use of ownership as a method of earning income - is conspicuously absent as well.
Most conservatives take issue with "freedom from" much of anything without rigid and rigidly enforced definitions. The "freedom from offense" that has taken hold on the political left at the moment leads to absurdities like safe spaces and produces coddled, infantilized children largely incapable of navigating a world that isn't obligated to care about their feelings. It empowers the most thin-skinned and emotionally fragile members of society to run roughshod over the rest.
"Freedom from offense," or "freedom from insult," isn't a phenomenon of the left. Not exclusively.

Pope Benedict pronounced much the same in response to the Denmark cartoon controversy. Muslims themselves are, globally, conservative, and similarly have endorsed "freedom from insult."

Conservative students also issue complaints about being offended, and making similar complaints about being "traumatized" by content they find politically disagreeable.

Censorship is an issue that cuts across traditional political lines. It's a fairly complex issue in that way; a lot of people want to see censorship of the things they disapprove of. This may be insults aimed at religion. This may be sexual content. It might even be a political position.
The freedom from want that the Federation affords most of its citizens is the freedom from the most basic material wants, with such needs met via the replicators.
Point of order, by the way: Marx had an idea of what the future involved in a socialist society: Machines producing things for people with virtually no input of human labor. Modern Marxist thinkers often label these devices "replicators," because it fits very neatly.
References abound to Federation credits, which means that the "money-free" society Picard likes to brag about isn't really accurate. It's noteworthy that the two examples of him doing so that pop right into my mind are the rescued cryonics from "The Neutral Zone" and Lily Sloane from ST:FC, both of which involve Picard bragging about his society to someone whose society is inferior, the way a Westerner might brag to, say, someone from a third-world country. It's a feeling of superiority and not necessarily an accurate reflection of the truth. I've always thought that the paradise of Earth was sort of the idealized showroom of the Federation, with the reality being rather less than that elsewhere. The Federation obviously employs a money system to deal with races that use it (like the Ferengi) and reimburses the members of other races with whom its members do business (Dr. Crusher charges a bolt of cloth in Farpoint Station.) When far removed from the Federation, simple barter takes over, as happened many times on Voyager.
There is a money system, but ordinary Federation citizens don't have much cause for dealing with it directly... unless they're dealing with external entities.

Communist societies almost inevitably still used some form of currency system in some fashion, in practice.
The replicators afford post-scarcity as far as raw materials go, but there is still plenty of room for sourcing food and materials traditionally, or preparing finished items from replicated raw materials. Off the top of my head, Data makes Troi a traditional Samarian sunset in "Conundrum" Guinan offers Geordi and Data "something new from Forcas III," in ST:G, Kira complains about replicated food (though she was using a Cardassian replicator) the Promenade on DS9 is full of various themed restaurants and Quark is seen to both replicate finished drinks and prepare them, the Enterprise had a galley in ST:TUC, and it is known that replicators leave indicative patterns in the materials they make. It is also obvious, as well as outright stated in "Night Terrors" that more complex materials need more energy which is not illimitable given that Voyager nearly ran out in "Demon." All this means that "want" in the sense of something beyond pure survival needs is still there in the Federation, with the post-scarcity aspect extending only to those basic necessities.
I should clarify that "freedom from want," in context, means "freedom from lack," not "freedom from desire." He's not talking about everybody having beluga caviar; he's talking about them not going hungry.

What's left of an internal economy is about services and luxuries.
We also know that, from the time of Kirk all the way through Voyager, the concept of and protection of intellectual property are very much present. One of the obvious implications of the Doctor's being granted rights of personhood in "Author Author" was the power to control his IP, and both he and the elder Jake Sisko had publishers for their work. Taken with what I consider the well-demonstrated fact that replicators cannot produce perfect facsimiles of many things, a formal market structure still exists in the Federation. It just no longer applies to survival necessities like basic food, water and medicine. It would still apply to energy though, and we hear in Voyager of replicator rations. This gets even more apparent when you consider collectibles markets. Antiquities are dealt with frequently in the Federation and its environs. Quark presides over auctions, Vash finds rarities to sell, Picard expresses his admiration for the artistry of the Kurlans (at least until he carelessly discards the naiskos at the end of Generations. In universe, I like to think he replicated a copy and sent the real one for safekeeping elsewhere, given his reverence for antiquities and the frequent danger the E-D finds herself in.) None of this would be possible if the replicator were good enough to produce perfect copies of such items. The entire concept of a collectibles market would be vitiated if authenticity and provenance could not be established. Jake and Nog have to try and buy the Willie Mays card from the doctor in "In the Cards." Jake repeatedly says he has no money because he's human, and brags to Nog rather like Picard brags to Lily. It simply isn't true that humans have no money of any kind. Rather, the case seems to be that there's nothing in the way of physical currency. The Federation simply reimburses other races for expenditures its members make based on its credit as a major power with significant resources. Jake, being a kid, would probably have some sort of small credit account for buying Jumja sticks or whatever, but he had nowhere near enough to afford the card, Quark deals in physical currency anyway and likely none of the officers would have had enough credit to afford it either.

The major paradigm shift between the Federation and our current society I see as something along the lines of basic income. With the bare necessities met, work becomes something people do more for pleasure and self-fulfillment than profit, though that motive does still exist in one form or another. The basic income would establish a floor, but not a ceiling.
Support for a basic income is very much a left-wing phenomenon, rather than a right-wing one. Basic income is a step past where modern European welfare states are.

I wouldn't say that Star Trek is doctrinaire Marxist, but if we think of Federation credit being issued by the Federation to its citizens, the Federation operates to the economic left of virtually every developed nation on the face of the modern-day Earth.

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Re: Nicolas Meyer Joins New Trek Series

Post by sonofccn » Tue Aug 02, 2016 6:34 pm

Jedi Master Spock wrote:There is a money system, but ordinary Federation citizens don't have much cause for dealing with it directly... unless they're dealing with external entities.
Not to dogpile sir, but do we know ordinary Federation citizens don't have to deal with money?

In the Gift{Voy-04) Janeway mentioned that Tuvok bought his meditation lamp from a "Vulcan Master", that indeed said master doubled the price when he realized Tuvok was in Starfleet. That should be as internal a transaction between two Federation citizens as possible and it required the exchange of some kind of currency. Presumably other interactions within the Federation, like Sisko father's restaurant, are similarly facilitated with people paying for the privilege of "owning" an authentic meditation lamp made by a master or an exquisite meal made by hand the old fashion way or as for compensation for mining (di)lithium crystals which, per Mudd, makes one rich enough to buy "a whole planet".

Or at least, those are my thoughts on the subject at hand. Obviously yours may differ.

-Respectfully, Sonofccn

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Re: Nicolas Meyer Joins New Trek Series

Post by Jedi Master Spock » Wed Aug 03, 2016 6:03 am

sonofccn wrote:
Jedi Master Spock wrote:There is a money system, but ordinary Federation citizens don't have much cause for dealing with it directly... unless they're dealing with external entities.
Not to dogpile sir, but do we know ordinary Federation citizens don't have to deal with money?
I think the fact that people like Picard can, with a straight face, claim that the Federation doesn't use money when there is some form of currency points to the fact that dealing with it is non-essential. It's for luxury goods and services.

I will backpedal a little and say that ordinary Federation citizens may very well commonly use the credit system, as purchasing luxury goods and services is probably not that unusual. (Not essential, but not at all unusual.)
In the Gift{Voy-04) Janeway mentioned that Tuvok bought his meditation lamp from a "Vulcan Master", that indeed said master doubled the price when he realized Tuvok was in Starfleet. That should be as internal a transaction between two Federation citizens as possible and it required the exchange of some kind of currency. Presumably other interactions within the Federation, like Sisko father's restaurant, are similarly facilitated with people paying for the privilege of "owning" an authentic meditation lamp made by a master or an exquisite meal made by hand the old fashion way or as for compensation for mining (di)lithium crystals which, per Mudd, makes one rich enough to buy "a whole planet".

Or at least, those are my thoughts on the subject at hand. Obviously yours may differ.

-Respectfully, Sonofccn
There are a couple of things that come to mind with that part.

One is time; one is place. The Federation may have been changing some over time. It's also possible that some of the more autonomous, or recently joined, parts of the Federation use very different local rules. (As with the EU, it may also be that there is a large network of overlapping Federation-related agreements, not all members are party to all of them, and citizens from central members may not be in the habit of differentiating.)

Kirk does announce that the Federation doesn't use money (STIV), though, so at least as far as the Federation proper is concerned, we've already transitioned (at least rhetorically) to the "moneyless" system at that point.

Both of the planets involved in "Mudd's Women" are sparsely inhabited fringe worlds; it's not clear if they are really part of the Federation. Mudd himself has generally not operated on the correct side of the law; and purchasing a space vessel with counterfeit money is on his rap sheet. We could chalk that up to when the episode came out (maybe Roddenberry hadn't yet decided that the Federation was supposed to be "moneyless" quite yet) or we could assume it happened out in the frontier territories that weren't officially part of the Federation.

What we know is that from Roddenberry's perspective, "Federation credits" as a currency weren't supposed to exist. That interview also says that DS9 itself isn't part of the Federation - the base is Federation operated, but not actually Federation territory (and definitely on the periphery of the Federation's region of influence).

If you want to reconcile Roddenberry's creative direction of the Federation as moneyless with the way that money-like objects keep creeping in, it's very difficult. I think the best bet is to lean on some variation of the idea that the Federation credit is, while usable in the exchanges we've seen, distinct from "money" in some non-obvious way, probably from a banking perspective but possibly also in terms of transferability - have we seen any third party exchanges where two people who weren't Federation citizens used Federation credits to make a purchase?

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Mr. Oragahn
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Re: Nicolas Meyer Joins New Trek Series

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Thu Aug 04, 2016 5:37 pm

. . .
Any reason why JMS hasn't been banned yet? :|

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