[Jmacq1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bmorr

those look wikid detailed. puts the MM's to shame.

Those are painted prototypes. The production models are nowhere near that detailed. About on par with the Micro Machines, and maybe even a little sloppier.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iceman

Like I said, they seem to purposely avoid a lot of logistical things. Have we even seen a shower either? I guess there is that scene, I think in Insurrection, with the whirlpool-like tub Riker and Troy are in.

I know they mentioned credits (at least early on) and things but especially in DS9 Quark often mentions how Federation citizens don't use money. These statements are often contradicted in the same episode as Federation officers are easily able to produce latinum. Plus the matter of trade and personal property. Clearly there is some system of wealth but maybe no one is allowed to have more than a certain amount. Recipe for disaster in my opinion. I think the writers wanted to portray certain ideas but don't know how they would actually work out. It makes sense because if we had the solution we'd probably be trying it now.

The thing is that we never really see the proletariat. When you exclude random alien encounters 90% of people we meet are doctors, scientists, starship captains, Starfleet officers, etc. Heck, other than Chief O'Brien I can't think of a single Starfleet NCO or enlisted crewman (TNG era), and O'Brien still mentions going to the Academy. It's like all the lowest ranking people on the ship are random ensigns, which are still officers. Rarely do we meet an adult that human that doesn't have something going for them career-wise.

The underlying aspect of the "Star Trek Economy" is that replicator technology means that nobody has to worry about "basic needs" (food, water, clothing, shelter, etc...). Because of this, "wealth" is no longer the objective measure of success for an individual, but rather how well you do your job and how much you "give back" to society. Dunno all the details but basically it sounds like after World War III and its' aftermath humanity realized that the pursuit of wealth was ultimately self-destructive. It may have continued if it weren't for the replicator technology solving some of the worlds' biggest problems.

There are inconsistencies where the idea of "money" is concerned, but quite frankly if humanity doesn't get over its' obsession with wealth somehow, we're pretty much doomed to kill ourselves off in the long run, or at the very least lock into an endless cycle of bloody revolution followed by another slow climb towards less than 1 percent of the population controlling 99 percent of the wealth, followed by another bloody revolution...wash, rinse, repeat.

Of course, it's also true that Star Trek writers have never fully explored this aspect of things and its' implications, but that's generally true of most fiction writers, particularly in the fantasy and sci-fi fields. Some do a better job than others, but there always seems to be something they dream up that a reader then later points out would be a "game breaker" (so to speak) if used in slightly different ways.

As for the whole "proletariat" thing...just like Star Wars, Star Trek is basically about the elite of the Federation. Presumably these people exist, but the story isn't really about them. I -think- we've seen a few one-off Star Trek enlisted guys on the security details and such, though.