# How did money work in the Star Trek universe? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** tv-shows-scripted, star-trek-paramount\ **Created:** [July 23, 2021, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-money-work-in-the-star-trek-universe/947164 "2021-07-23T23:10:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2021, 10:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-money-work-in-the-star-trek-universe/947164/41 "2021-07-24T10:43:33Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > Deep Space Nine is in Bajoran space that was recently Cardassian space, not the Federation, and the bar is run by Ferengi. Pretty sure that for economic purposes, at least within the bar, they’re outside the Federation economy. Sure. But when Star Fleet personnel visit where do they get the money to spend at Quark’s if they are not paid any money? > [@Broomstick](#): > > Not everyone wants a mansion or super-yacht? They’ll have something else instead. Maybe not but enough will. If only 1% want mansions and super yachts that’s 70 million super yachts and mansions. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2021, 10:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-money-work-in-the-star-trek-universe/947164/42 "2021-07-24T10:51:26Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > But when Star Fleet personnel visit where do they get the money to spend at Quark’s if they are not paid any money? Can probably request it just like they can request clothes or hair ribbons or rings or whatever else they want ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2021, 10:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-money-work-in-the-star-trek-universe/947164/43 "2021-07-24T10:52:27Z")
If gold-pressed latinum could be replicated it would be worthless. Anything that can be replicated is worthless. ---
**Author:** ![gdave](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gdave/32/3683_2.png) [@gdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gdave)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2021, 11:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-money-work-in-the-star-trek-universe/947164/44 "2021-07-24T11:32:15Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > Although I suspect there’s a group of people in the Federation who only eat replicated food for ethical reasons, or something of the sort. TNG was inconsistent about this, but early on, that would be _everyone_. There’s a pre-beard episode where the Enterprise is hosting diplomatic delegations for two feuding planets, and one brings livestock on board. There’s some confusion until someone points out that’s the delegation’s rations, and Riker and another crewmember exhibit visceral disgust that they still eat the meat of living creatures. In later episodes, though, after the beard, Riker is shown cooking and enjoying real eggs (and I think meat as well?) that he got on shore leave, which he prefers to to replicated food. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2021, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-money-work-in-the-star-trek-universe/947164/45 "2021-07-24T13:30:34Z")
There are several episodes featuring [Gagh](https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Gagh). Live worms food dish loved by Klingons. There is at least one episode where Riker digs in. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2021, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-money-work-in-the-star-trek-universe/947164/46 "2021-07-24T13:49:56Z")
“Post-scarcity” is a relative concept. Most of the things that 21st-century humans want, and which the rich use to distinguish themselves from the poor, are available in abundance to everyone in the 25th century. But that doesn’t mean that there’s no economy, or no distinction between rich or poor: It just means that there are more things that they want, and the rich are the ones who have more of those new things. And so everyone who wants those things has to work to earn money (of some sort, even if they don’t call it “money”) to be able to buy those desired things. ---
**Author:** ![GaryM](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garym/32/241_2.png) [@GaryM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GaryM)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2021, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-money-work-in-the-star-trek-universe/947164/47 "2021-07-24T14:27:01Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > Picard is shown to have enough money to hire an off-the-books ship and pilot, pay cash bribes, etc. If there’s no money, how do you pay cash bribes? ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2021, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-money-work-in-the-star-trek-universe/947164/48 "2021-07-24T14:59:05Z")
The bribe was for clearance to land (or just to get past the orbital killsats) somewhere—I think it was the Romulan refugee camp planet?— so digital funds transfer, obviously. Picard can’t very well hand over doubloons and other physical artefacts _before_ he touches down. Then again, it’s _Star Trek_ so I suppose he could have used the transporters to beam his bribe over 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2021, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-money-work-in-the-star-trek-universe/947164/49 "2021-07-24T15:06:33Z")
> [@Arcite](#): > > Scotty likes some single young lady who’s serving aboard the Enterprise, and Kirk comments that someday she’ll meet a man and get married, and that will be the end of her Starfleet career. It was just a given at the time the show was made that married women didn’t work. To be fair to the writers, did Kirk really say anything like that? Here is a careful transcript of the episode: [The Star Trek Transcripts - The Lights Of Zetar](http://chakoteya.net/StarTrek/73.htm) ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2021, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-money-work-in-the-star-trek-universe/947164/50 "2021-07-24T16:48:09Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > There are several episodes featuring [Gagh](https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Gagh). Live worms food dish loved by Klingons. > > There is at least one episode where Riker digs in. _snicker_ I have lived with/dated/been friends enough military who went through ours or their countrys version of [SERE](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survival,_Evasion,_Resistance_and_Escape) school that joke they will eat anything that doesn’t eat them first. ---
**Author:** ![Arcite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/67e7ee/32.png) [@Arcite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arcite)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2021, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-money-work-in-the-star-trek-universe/947164/51 "2021-07-24T17:03:16Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > > [@Arcite](#): > > > > Scotty likes some single young lady who’s serving aboard the Enterprise, and Kirk comments that someday she’ll meet a man and get married, and that will be the end of her Starfleet career. It was just a given at the time the show was made that married women didn’t work. > > To be fair to the writers, did Kirk really say anything like that? Here is a careful transcript of the episode: [The Star Trek Transcripts - The Lights Of Zetar](http://chakoteya.net/StarTrek/73.htm) That’s not the episode I was thinking of, this one is: > **[The Star Trek Transcripts - Who Mourns For Adonais?](http://chakoteya.net/StarTrek/33.htm)** > > Star Trek Enterprise episode transcripts Turns out it’s McCoy who makes the initial comment to that effect, but Kirk agrees. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2021, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-money-work-in-the-star-trek-universe/947164/52 "2021-07-24T17:30:53Z")
It’s one thing to eat gagh because it’s the only thing you have to eat, or because it would be undiplomatic to refuse and you’re in a situation where that’s important. But doesn’t Riker actually like gagh, and choose to eat it even outside the company of Klingons? ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2021, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-money-work-in-the-star-trek-universe/947164/53 "2021-07-24T17:43:44Z")
The last episode I remember seeing featuring Riker had him making pizza topped with home-made sausages (of animals they hunted and slaughtered themselves, no synth/replicated meat for him). If he was a vegetarian, he clearly flipped since then and _likes_ real meat now, Klingon food included. Maybe he found unreplicated Klingon food so delicious it expanded his palate; who knows? Not so unrealistic: I know at least one person who was a vegetarian at one time but later enjoyed chicken, meat, oysters, etc. after spending time in a foreign country. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2021, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-money-work-in-the-star-trek-universe/947164/54 "2021-07-24T20:44:24Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > Or everyone is guaranteed a certain base level of goods and energy but if you want more you have to earn it. So you don’t _need_ money (the base might be a pretty nice life by our standards) but those who are more productive get more on top of that. Although in reality the answer is 'whatever the writers needed for that episode" this makes the best sense. Everyone has a nice middle class income- a home, clothes, no food issues, etc. There is no want. Those who get into demanding occupations, those that have some danger, etc, can get a bonus for certain luxuries, like Scottie’s Scotch, and what not. Some don’t even bother with it. So, Kirk was kinda right- No one pays for meals with money. His answer was simplistic. > [@gdave](#): > > There’s some confusion until someone points out that’s the delegation’s rations, and Riker and another crewmember exhibit visceral disgust that they still eat the meat of living creatures. Well, even today a lot of people think their meat comes from the store in plastic wrap. They know that sure it comes from animals but seeing such up close and personal has turned people off meat. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2021, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-money-work-in-the-star-trek-universe/947164/55 "2021-07-24T21:26:26Z")
> [@gdave](#): > > In later episodes, though, after the beard, Riker is shown cooking and enjoying real eggs (and I think meat as well?) that he got on shore leave, which he prefers to to replicated food. Was that before or after Riker had the stint on a Klingon ship where he learned to eat live gagh and like it? If Riker had grown up eating just vegetarian/replicated food it might have been a cultural barrier he later broke. ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2021, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-money-work-in-the-star-trek-universe/947164/56 "2021-07-24T23:28:50Z")
As far as the DS9 folks go (and other Starfleeters going to places that still have cash-based economies) the service probably provides them with a stipend good only in such setting for your tab at Quark’s or buying alien cloth as Beverly did in the TNG pilot. ---
**Author:** ![mikecurtis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mikecurtis/32/3284_2.png) [@mikecurtis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mikecurtis)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2021, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-money-work-in-the-star-trek-universe/947164/57 "2021-07-25T01:10:33Z")
You cite the memory alpha entry for gagh, why not skip down a few letters to the entry for money? > **[Money](https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Money)** > > Money or currency, sometimes called legal tender, was a medium of exchange used to facilitate transactions for goods or services. (TNG: "Time's Arrow") Societies that used money were described as practicing currency-based economics. (DS9: "In the... ---
**Author:** ![gdave](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gdave/32/3683_2.png) [@gdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gdave)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2021, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-money-work-in-the-star-trek-universe/947164/58 "2021-07-26T01:40:57Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > Was that before or after Riker had the stint on a Klingon ship where he learned to eat live gagh and like it? > > If Riker had grown up eating just vegetarian/replicated food it might have been a cultural barrier he later broke. I apologize for the delay in responding. I want to say the cooking came after the Klingon exchange episode where he first eats gagh, but I’m not at all sure. It was a minor side scene, and I have no memory at all of which episode it occurred in. But I remember it being kind of jarring when I watched it. The gagh bit made sense in context. Riker was trying to immerse himself in Klingon culture, and the whole episode dealt with issues of cultural differences and conflict, and how far Riker was willing to go. But the early season episode with the livestock made it _very_ clear that Riker and the other crew members thought that eating the meat of living creatures was not just unpalatable, but horrific. And yet, there he was in a later season, salivating over the chance to eat the flesh of a living creature, with no indication that either he or anyone else on the crew would have any moral objection. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2021, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-money-work-in-the-star-trek-universe/947164/59 "2021-07-26T13:43:50Z")
I think Riker may have tried gagh in preparation for the officer exchange (at least he certainly knew it was a favorite Klingon dish). On the Enterprise he made a point of trying Klingon favorite foods and didn’t seem too fussed about any of it. Indeed, he seemed kinda in to it. The doctor told him that pretty much all Klingon foods were safe to eat. What would kill a human would kill them too so no need to fear any Klingon food. But he was surprised when on the Klingon ship that the gagh was served still living. He proceeded to eat it anyway. I’ve never met a vegan who would not complain loudly in that same situation. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2021, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-money-work-in-the-star-trek-universe/947164/60 "2021-07-26T14:34:52Z")
The difference might be that Riker was a Starfleet professional representing the Federation on what was at least in part a diplomatic mission. If he wasn’t willing to change his diet to what would be available he likely would not have been tapped for the mission. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-money-work-in-the-star-trek-universe/947164.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-money-work-in-the-star-trek-universe/947164.md?page=4)