Star Trek Spaceships?

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by Rowan

O.o Wow, that's.... sobering.

Try this.

[Randover]

Originally Posted by Agemegos

Details here.

Hmm, one way how to missinterpret Startrek Universe yes...

First what about federational credits...used meny times over...

Freedom of Flight...well there is one isue with it..piracy...Basicly you can fly everywhere you want and you can even own your own ship...But it is quite dangerous out there

I think autor got the idea wrong...Federation phylosophy is based on fact that Federation is so wealthy that no other "Empire" is. Based on the all Freedom concept and particualy saying that exactly that is why they are so good...because they value every citizen...compared to other cultures...who cumulate real wealth in few hands and do not invest it in there citizens...

Basicly I would call Federation a radical form of Capitalism, where each individual is unique recourse and anyone has the right to adress World Wide Database...and thus owns his own media. (And goverment is responsible for allowing that.)

[Shrale]

Originally Posted by Randover

Basicly I would call Federation a radical form of Capitalism, where each individual is unique recourse and anyone has the right to adress World Wide Database...and thus owns his own media. (And goverment is responsible for allowing that.)

Hard to say. I thought the Federation was a combine of planetary governments.

How did earth get into warp-space ? From that missile silo and a rag-tag union of technicians and survivors.

Segue to the 1st ep of ST:Enterprise -- suddenly a high-tech futuristic society with a minimal amount of alien visitors and advisors.

Segue to the last ep of ST:Enterprise -- the founding of the Federation

The need to unite seems to be defensive in nature, I suppose they saw an inkling of a threat in the Borg (ST:ENT Regeneration) more like a possibility that there were hostile races out there. ST:ENT logs should confirm the existence of all sorts of hostile races, civilizations, time travel and threats from these encounters.

In most of the ST stories it always seemed the Federation was dispensing help not in the form of money, but in the use of technology and the logic behind it. Sure there are money-grubbers but they don't form the basis of most of the Trek (and by extension) and Federation stories.

Are you saying the "radical captialism" is that process ? and the need to "get there" .

[cmdicely]

Originally Posted by Agemegos

Try this.

Eh. The one on Marxism in ST was better (though I think it makes some categorical statements that are false as stated, but I'd have to go back through the entire series to confirm that.)

But the one on racism is, though shorter (at least, the ST part), a lot more grasping. Both of the first two points miss that it is not assumed by the speaker in either case that all members of a particular species must adhere to a particular set of cultural values: in both cases, the speakers know the person that they are speaking of and know that that particular person takes pride in following a particular cultural path. It is perhaps misleading here that the cultural label is the same as the name for the biological group, but while that is widespread in Trek (for artistic reasons that are a whole different discussion), it is no different really than "Jewish" being both an ethnic and a religious label in the real world.

The point on mixed-race children is drastically exaggerated. I can't, for instance, remember a single "emotional speech" of the type described from Spock, the first and best known example of the class at issue. For that matter, I can't from Troi, either (I recall her being torn, often, between her family and her friends and loved ones outside of the family, but not between her biological heritages.) I don't think K'ehlar ever made such an "emotional speech". The only examples I can remember are from B'Elana Torres in Voyager. OTOH, its fairly common for people of mixed background (whether that corresponds to a mixed biological ancestry or merely a difference between how they are raised [or, in Data's case, designed] and their cultural milieu) in the series to both experience conflict and to be shown synthesizing the different cultures as they develope in the series. But, even aside from the fact that its not closely tied to race, that seems to directly contradict the negative message inferred.

On the last, "species", issue, I don't recall any clear example of easy mixed-species mating: the only example provided is K'eyhlar and Worf, but we don't know if that really qualifies; K'eyhlar had mixed-species background, but we don't know (AFAIK) know if that required some kind of intervention or not. If it did, her ability to breed easily with Worf is perhaps unsurprising, and I certainly don't know of any examples that are clear no-intervention mixed-species mating that produce offspring that are themselves fertile. So I think the objection here is unwarranted by the facts.

The only point here that stands up at all is the one about Worf himself as a character.

[jbalsle]

Originally Posted by Agemegos

Try this.

I wouldn't put much stock in the writings of this guy, frankly. He may be an engineer, but he's also firmly in a particular niche of the internet called the Star Trek vs. Star Wars debate group on Usenet, specifically, on the side of Star Wars in a big way.

There's been alot of discussion in the areas of the web that deal with Star Trek. The consensus is that we haven't gotten a close enough look at Star Trek to know exactly how wealth and resources are kept and tracked. Federation Economics would likely be as incomprehensible to us as a warp drive, as both are products of a time nearly 300 years in a possible future, after an advancement in the 21st and 22nd centuries that would be phenomenal if it happened in the real world. You could say that there's as much handwavium in the economy of Star Trek as there is in the technology of Star Trek...which irritates the likes of Mike Wong to no end (hard core Engineers who can't suspend disbelief will definitely find technology and society in Star Trek grating.)

To understand Star Trek economics, you must understand Star Trek's technology's effect on economics. Replicators from small scale home replicators to large scale industrial replicators. It seems the upper limit for these devices are sub-starship scale, but large enough to replicate a shuttlecraft, maybe within a starship (TNG Tech Manual: IF you could build a starship with the push of a button, you wouldn't need to...). These can take almost anything for raw material and turn it into a finished product, from foodstuffs through inanimate gear. Combine this with efficient fusion and even antimatter power production and one of the driving forces in all economies of today, scarcity, becomes a much less important factor. If I can push a button and a car/flitter/warp capible shuttle pops out, or food, or anything else I could want, subject to the requirements of this week's episode's plot, then suddenly the need to go out and give my labor to get that kind of stuff goes out the window.

Hard to understand. In fact, unless you suspend your disbelief, impossible.

That's why Mike Wong insists that the society is Communist in nature. After all, that's the system that gets closest to what is in Star Trek in his eyes...and it's real easy to disregard the things that run counter to traditional communism, such as freedom of movement (DS9 shows how society reacted when that freedom was denied by an attempted coup by Starfleet Admirals in light of 'the Changeling Threat'), the existence of free enterprise (Sisko's father running a creole restaurant in New Orleans, the first episode of Star Trek TNG where the federation crew was buying stuff from the locals, probably countless other episodes from TNG, DS9, and VOY), and the list continues (I could probably spend days going through eps of the last three series in the timeline). The point is that it's real easy to argue that this has to be communist when you don't really take into account what handwavium in technology will do to everything in society, especially if there appears to be handwavium in society as well (I think it was Riker who said that there is no pursuit of 'stuff' as since 'stuff' can be easily had with little effort, eventually 'stuff' becomes less important.) For a good example of how any of us would react to the world of Trek, look at that TNG episode where the frozen people from the early 21st Century, especially the wealthy business owner, find themselves completely out of their environment in the 24th.

Now that that's behind me, the other part of the equation. Money values for gear is a game-play thing. While Starfleet can replicate ship components, the ways still have a finite building capacity, the energy reserves required for something the size of a ship are significantly larger, you still have the labor to build such ships as Replicators can only build components; someone still has to actually place those components on the spaceframe, and ships in general require a significant amount of resources. Remember, these prices are in context of a TL12 economy, which has a starting average wealth in excess of 100k$, if I remember correctly.

Unless your campaign deals with large scale things like ship construction, society-scale economics, etc, you likely can ignore the dollars of the components and just go with what the Plot calls for.

[Randover]

Originally Posted by Shrale

How did earth get into warp-space ? From that missile silo and a rag-tag union of technicians and survivors.

Segue to the 1st ep of ST:Enterprise -- suddenly a high-tech futuristic society with a minimal amount of alien visitors and advisors.

Segue to the last ep of ST:Enterprise -- the founding of the Federation

The need to unite seems to be defensive in nature, I suppose they saw an inkling of a threat in the Borg (ST:ENT Regeneration) more like a possibility that there were hostile races out there. ST:ENT logs should confirm the existence of all sorts of hostile races, civilizations, time travel and threats from these encounters.

In most of the ST stories it always seemed the Federation was dispensing help not in the form of money, but in the use of technology and the logic behind it. Sure there are money-grubbers but they don't form the basis of most of the Trek (and by extension) and Federation stories.

Are you saying the "radical captialism" is that process ? and the need to "get there" .

Well as for Earth development it was quite hard. And Enterprise series are clear about it...at that time money were still one of reasons to go to Starfleet. And also technological grow with Vulcans supervision was quite good for preparation of super developed science culture...broadly because Humans were eager to learn and many races loved to trade with humans.

Formation of Starfleet is Idea of defence and research. Compared to klingon empire where scientist where second rate citizen and to romulan empire that suffered from feeling of superiority.

On the thought of Radical Capitalism...basic needs are covered in Federation. Replication allows to reate hoses nearly over night for example. And since every citizen doen't have to work...they will get bored and sooner or later will start to "work". Federation had large body of artists and scientist.

What does it say? Well if you can create gold, food, shelter...only thing that is hard to get is Human creative potencial. Everything else is a stimulation of that potencial. Institution of Concilors to lend aid in self-exploring leading to greater production on your part.

It is true paradise...as long as there si no War. That is only vurneability of Federation...loss of Human recourse in process could make it collapse...But thanks to Federation moto of preserving even the weak (Geordi la Forge would be killed both in Romulan Empire and Klingon Empire as defact cheild, and in "Communism" he might not be allowed to expensive technology as that would backfire on whole society.)

So radical capitalism is somewhat similar to communism except that it is based upon thought that you need strong individuals and that you can fullfill there needs.

For example Enterprise series Doctor...was an alien. Whom Earth citizens (Archer) respected as strong individual with unique value to society.


As for the Essey on rasism...
My interpretation is such that refering to someone else as to different species you recognized his own culture and had showed him, that even if you do not understand his values you respect them, and you do not judge him based on your own values.

[Shrale]

Originally Posted by Randover

So radical capitalism is somewhat similar to communism except that it is based upon thought that you need strong individuals and that you can fullfill there needs.

I see more as the age-old survival of the fittest, minus the "we resort to barbarism to mantain sophistication". Of course that's painted into the setting: dozens/thousands of inhabitable planets (either by nature or Fed-made). With the meaning: plenty of room for everyone.

In some ways the Federation is just: survival with a happy ending.

IIRC the Klingons in Janeway's future uni (Voyager: End Game) weren't too much different from their ancestors, something I think they enjoy. Of course it could be argued it was only a "possible future" and not the real thing.

When I think about ST:Enterprise and the fact of the knowledge that comes back with it, it would be extremely interesting for theoreticians as they take the path down the Time Travel route. That alone has shown them they can take Mulligans and still smooth bumps over. However the series seems to be written towards the point of "not going too far with things to make them our way."


So that life itself is fulfilling within the context we've created, so to speak.


>

[Randover]

As to speak of Klingons...they have other succesfull way how to rule stars. Constant battle made them into warrior race...and I could be finely tonned that 1 klingon warrior could take down few security officers...(of course show doesn't show that as they are basicaly fithing heroes.)

There is no need for fine medical and comfort facilities...it would make warriors weak. Every good Federation citizen has few cheildren every good kligon warrior has about dozen of chieldren. Losing some to "harsh" traing.

But I would say that kligon culture has fewer "family" isues...as the Federation "softies" always complain about. Don't like your brother? Kill him...or shut the hell up.

...

As for Romulans...They represent the Roman Empire of Star trek. Be inteligent, be great and love your land. But never put it into disgrace. If some lesser race does some problem...show them no mercy. If someone is aginst goverment show them no mercy...and better yet..abuse them till they die according to your plan.

Sorry about horrible English...I am somewhat sleepy...might come back later and fix it.

[YunusWesley]

Star Trek economics should be examined in as much detail as Star Trek science: none whatsoever. Every bit of it is bent toward telling an adventure story with a spacey background. It's not science fiction, it apes science fiction.

The Federation doesn't collect wealth? Fine, whatever. They also take people apart molecule by molecule, store a copy in a buffer, and reassemble them somewhere else. Watch out, ion storms can lead to adventures in wacky evil universes with evil goatees.

It can be a lot of fun, and there's an aesthetic cohesion to the elements, but the world building falls apart every single time you hold it up to examination.

Communist. Sheesh.

[David Johnston2]

[QUOTE=Randover]

On the thought of Radical Capitalism...basic needs are covered in Federation. Replication allows to reate hoses nearly over night for example. And since every citizen doen't have to work...they will get bored and sooner or later will start to "work"

.

While the idea that Starfleet is just a hobby does explain certain things about it, there are too many things that conflict with this model. People generally wouldn't work as waiters or shuttle stewards to alleviate boredom. Being a waiter is a really lousy hobby. Being an waiter is something actors do to support themselves while they pursue their fun job. Being an actor is not something waiters do to support themselves while they pursue their fun job. Bashir's dad didn't _like_ his job. It was just the only kind of job someone with his intellectual limitations could qualify for.

And while basic needs are covered on Earth, other things are still rationed. Transporter access (Wesley has only so many "transporter credits" at the Academy). Real estate. There's only so much prime land on Earth so how do do they decide who gets to operate the Picard vineyard or the Sisko restaurant? People aren't allowed to buy and sell anything so the would-be vineyard operater must instead prove to the government that he's more qualified to make good, socially useful use of the land as opposed to y'know, just buying it and finding out whether he'll go bust. Offworld travel. Vash didn't qualify for travel offworld so she swindled a Ferengi to get to go. Computer capacity. Scientists and crackpot wanna-be scientists have projects that could consume as much computing capacity as exists even if entire solar systems have been converted into computronium. Someone has to decide who is entitled to how big a slice of the computation pie. That someone is going to be the government based on how useful they have been and seem like to be (although everyone probably has a guaranteed minimum).

Star Trek economics should be examined in as much detail as Star Trek science: none whatsoever. Every bit of it is bent toward telling an adventure story with a spacey background.

No, it isn't. The whole "Starfleet isn't military" "money is obsolete" routine of TNG doesn't really serve that goal. They're expressions of Gene Roddenberry's fantasy of a utopian society. As such they actually to some extent get in the way of telling an adventure story with a spacey background because utopia really isn't optimal for putting people in danger or giving them big problems.

And that they never bothered to figure out how things work doesn't much help the aspiring GM looking to play in a version of the environment and just means he has to work it out for himself.