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all true mate, then you have SF personnel (with access to a replicator) replicating presents (Worf on the Enterprise-D) and a Federation officer on DS-9 (? from memory) weapons collector replicating a TR-116 to round out his collection.
http://en.memory-alpha.wikia.com/wik...icating_center
http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/TR-116
The economics of the Federation seems to be as convoluted as it is today...LoL
The Eclipse Phase RPG had a supplement that actually went into a fair amount of detail on what a replicator like technology would have on a resource based economy. Money is merely a unit of measurement of assignation of value to be used when purchasing a valued item (food, clothing, medicine ,etc). Some places value one thing over another , so you get differences in prices depending on effort put into a item's creation.
But I digress. The Federation is what EP would define as a Mixed economy, with the inner core worlds having a 'money-free' economy as most if not all of what they need made by replicators. As one goes further out on the frontier and the area is less developed, you get a mix of prioritized replicator manufacturing and more traditional ways, which require money or at least resources not easily gotten by replicators. Let's not mention when it breaks and you have no means to fix it
basically you develop into an 'energy' based economy, with the currency being the watt/hour. Again replicators facilitate this sort of economic model. Replicators truly have the potential to redefine a society, and to be honest we are well on our way to producing such a device. IMHO 3D printing will progress to the point of becoming replicators in the future.
Sure, that's the macro-economics. What I'm concerned with is the man-on-the-street level. Even with "free" energy and replication technology, Picard's oh-so-smarmy assertion that everyone has "evolved" beyond a need for material things is poppycock. It ain't gonna happen in a mere 3 3/4 centuries Rodenberry tried to push that idea and it led to the unutterable blandness of the first two seasons of TNG.
On an earlier point, yes, Turkana IV is no longer a part of the Federation, but that's only been true for 15 or so years by the time of the episode, and even less when Yar was still on the planet. That level of social disintegration does not happen that quickly - even though the latter stages seem quite precipitous, the decay sets in decades earlier, at a minimum. The severing of ties with the Federation would merely have been a step taken late in the process. Rome may not have been built in a day, but neither did it fall in a day, either. Look at the former Soviet Union as an example. Even though things have degraded drastically since the Berlin Wall fell 25 years ago, the rot set in long before that - many decades before.
I think it is just another example of writers taking liberties, Picard was always portrayed as the exemplary Federation citizen, and a paragon captain. The ideal others aspired to be. There was always a level of arrogance and superiority to the character that one was supposed to accept.
The ubiquitous application of both fusion power (planetary based power installations seemed to be based on fusion in Star Trek AFAIK) and replicators would have a profound impact on all federation citizens (or any society), though the exact economics of such a system is hard to speculate on from our perspective.
I don't have too much of a problem with the way the technology progressed, and am of the view it was more or less reasonable, but I do think there were some glaring inaccuracies concerning certain types of technology. The biggest one for me is the almost complete absence of the Virtual Reality and human/computer interface (yes they did show the Data Port in DS-9 a couple of times). I am of the opinion that this sort of interface would be standard, with almost all persons taking advantage of the incredible benefits of interfacing your brain with a computer. I also think the Encephalon type device would be standard (grafting an expert system into the humaniod brain). They are working towards these technologies right now, and I think it will become a reality in the future. The Binars and the Borg were the only races seen to take advantage of this sort of technology.
http://en.memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Dataport
off all the things in Star Trek I would have thought the writers would have wanted to define warp speeds and do some research as to what distances are involved in interstellar travel.
All they had to do is make up a chart from the start and stick to it. Surely them they could have made the travel times realistic, it's as simple as cut scenes saying "one month in travel" or some such. While it may not have "improved" the stories in any significant way it would have added to the verisimilitude for the fans.
The writers may have liked to, and Sternbach, Okuda et alia actually did, in the STTNG TM, but Roddenberry was dead set against pinning this sort of thing down. He did not want to be tied down on warp speeds, computer memory sizes, oreven the actual date originally. Berman was even more set against it.
I wonder why, all it did is cause fan friction?
Because Star Trek was about creating a show which had the ability to comment on contemporary society. This is why I keep harping on the point about your intent when you're thinking of things as a continuity. Trek RPGs can flip between things that require 'speed of plot' warp (for stories which operate on the one-world-one-episode principle like TOS—or which are planet-hopping trips (not unlike contemporary thrillers) like "Gambit" or "The Chase"—and Traveller-like sandboxes which require some sort of consistency of travel times for the game to make sense. Knowing what you're doing is the key to knowing which to implement.
the basis for good writing is research and continuity. Every thing I have ever read about story telling is to start with a crap load of research and build a story based in real life science (if you are writing a science fiction story) so as you can build a believable story and create verisimilitude for the reader.
For me intent isn't as important as continuity, I suppose that's why I like every thing to be qualified and dislike "speed of plot" and other such trickery. But hey that's me, damn it would be boring if we were all the same...LoL
Aesthetic intent is still intent.Quote:
Originally Posted by WaveMan
I should have added, once you establish and define your story's environment, characters and character development is the focus, people need story's that have well developed and believable characters.
That all being said I understand TTK, intent is important, but for me just not as important as other aspects of the story.
Well, the want to have "continuity" and "verisimilitude" is an intent :)
too true mate.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cpt. Lundgren