How much money does a Starship Officer make?

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Originally posted by TookyG
You go out and eat for free to Sisko's restaurant or where ever. People do what they do because the LIKE it. "The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives."

People aren't stuck in kansas...they live there if they want to..if they don't they move.

And EARTH is populated by billions of people. It's not millions...that's just ridiculous...there wasn't that much of a mass exodus of the planet! It's described as a paradise. So from now till 2379 the current trek year...600 million people die in WWIII and 22 million people die in the breen assault on Earth (though i dispute that number because i don't recall hearing that ever being said [though i may have missed it]) Add in a few more million deaths from something or other and you still don't even have a billion people...

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I just don't see people waiting tables "because they like it". Being a chef - OK maybe so, being a Star Fleet officer - yeah, right up till the war starts a volunteer system is probally fine. But a lot of the unpleasant jobs are still going to be unpleasant - there has to be some motivator to get people to do them.

Granted if the Earth's population has dropped A LOT by ST times then perhaps people would be able to just live someplace they like. If not then there would certainly be squabbling over who got the free apartment with the bay view and who was stuck with a "garden view".

As for population - I think that we're supposed to figure that several billion still live on Earth and many more in the Terran system (Mars, stations, moons, etc.)

For my game there are "billions and billions" spread across the solar system.

As far as I know, the 23rd century economy was a lot like the 20th's. Stuff still cost money, people who broke laws had to pay fines. The replicator changed all that. Now you can have anything you could want by just asking. Of course we have to take into consideration that the people of the 24th century seem to be a little more advanced than us poor 20th century barbarians, until they go at the Borg with a Tommy Gun.
I suppose that there is a centralized support system for all Federation citizens. Free medical, food, and shelter. But this is just the basics. People are encouraged to better themselves, and therefore rate more services. People living in the core worlds have it the "easiest". People further out have it pretty good. People out on the frontier might have it OK or look like Nimbus III.
I believe that the further from the core worlds you are, the more likely you will find that you will need money. OK , there I said it.
I figure that Starfleet gets paid in credits, but if they are not spent, they are saved up. If the officer never "buys" anything on leave or whatever, they just store up. When that officer decides to leave Starfleet or retire. Those stored up credits can be used to settle down or buy whatever the officer wants. The pay scales I've seen look right. If a month of OK living is 1000cr then an Ensign would make it. A recruit about half that. A senior NCO can usually make as much as a senior officer or a captain if they have enough time. And don't forget dependants. You get a bonus for familiy.

Senior NCO's don't make as much as senior officer in the US system at least (present day). They might make more than a brand new officer - but even mid-grade officers make more.

Don't see the SF giving "dependent allowances" for family members. But the family members would get "welfare" money from the State.

How I do it (finer resolution than above):

Cost of living (i.e. basic living) = 1000/month (for example)

Basic citizen allowance = 1000/month

So, you don't have to *do* anything to just get by, you could even move in with someone else and swing a better place, etc.

From there, the job you have will impact additional credits that you get.

So, the SF type would get 1000+X where X is what they actually get for being in SF the 1000 is just for being in the UFP.

In addition their family members would be getting an allowance just for breathing as well (in addition to whatever else they do).

In my system kids probably make less. Education is basically free however - as it just takes some of your "credits" and pretty much everyone has excess.

With this system (IMHO) there isn't a real motivation for "the accumulation of wealth" especially for SF personnel. They already have access to pretty much everything they could really need.

Civilians just would need to save in order to pay for space travel between systems which I keep relatively expensive.

TK, well thought out IMO. I do see children earning credits, some place between 1/3 to 1/2 what an adult makes, they are expensive to rase after all...replicator I forgot about the replicator...then again maybe not?

So, one of the other thoughts that one of my players brought up, 'Does the use of the Replicator cost Credits?' i.e. the replicator rations based on credits.

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Originally posted by Phoenix
So, one of the other thoughts that one of my players brought up, 'Does the use of the Replicator cost Credits?' i.e. the replicator rations based on credits.

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IMO that would depend on how cheap replicators are to manufacture and run. If a replicator can be replicated itself and doesn't need much maintenance it would be free.
If OTOH building a new replicator uses rare materials that are not widely available and/or needs extensive maintenance things might look different.
IIRC on DS9 there was something about the Federation (?) providing the ??? with a few industrial replicators. From that I would guess that at least the larger replicators aren't easy to build, or the ??? would have done it themselves. (I think it was the Cardassians, but I am not sure.)

In this case I would assume that replicator use is free, up to a certain limit. Exceeding that limit would cost you credits, but it should be high enough to allow for at least basic needs replicated for free.

As using replicators still has a lot of advantages over more conventional manufacturing methods (less labor intensive, less storage space needed, etc.) at least a certain basic allowance should be free in almost any cases.

On a frontier world or new colony things might look different. What I would consider likely is that colonist are left with two choices: If you have the credits to spare you invest a certain lump sum so the colony can buy replicators and you get to use them for free. If you don't have enough credits for that you can still use the replicators (once the colony has them) but pay for the use, at least until everyone has made the same contribution to the initial purchase.

My replicators are not "free" nor are their products. In fact I try to have the cost of replicated things vs. "natural" products (be it food or materials) be a variable thing world to world. Likewise the relative value someone places on them varies.

For instance - On Earth "real" food that hasn't been replicated is somewhat more difficult to come by than the replicated stuff - there are alot of people, space is somewhat limited and it is cheaper to just replicate it rather than grow it. So real food is valuable.

On many colonies farmland/raw material is readily available so most people have lots of real food and materials. Replicators on the other hand are more rare than in the core worlds so replicated materials are valuable.

It isn't a hard and fast thing but rather something I try to use to make my NPC's from Earth different than my NPC from some colony. I've been ramping up the differences between the colonies and the core for quite awhile now for a UFP internal politics arc -BTW.

Another idea, a replicated item is only as good as the material used to supply the replicator.

I want a rug so I put dirt into the replicator, the replication will take longer since it has to turn the dirt into something resembling thread before it can make the rug. It would be faster and get better results if I'd put wool in.

With food you get better results by using material that has some nutritional value in the first place. A meal made of rocks will be worse than a meal made of plants, even if you couldn't haven eaten the plants in their natural state.

There have been some canon allusions that replicators are not 'free' or even cheap to operate. Worf's adoptive family came from an agricultural world before moving back to Earth. With widespread replicator technology, what's the need for an agricultural world? Why have mining companies? Why bother having Neelix cook food? TKL rations in "Yesterday's Enterprise"?

Something (fan-written, I think) I read suggested that the energy, (suitable) raw matter, and computer resources required to run a replicator are pretty substantial and normal manufacturing is far cheaper. We get an inflated sense of their presence because our heroes are always running around on Starfleet vessels and space stations where they are kept well-supplied with anti-matter fuel and the storage space and versatility gains from a replicator more than justifies the extra cost. Just because your economy is money-free doesn't mean you don't have to keep expenses down.

Besides, some stuff just can't be replicated. Latinum, dilithium, phaser emitter crystals, certain warp core parts, advanced medicines, anti-matter, and probably lots of other stuff too.

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somebody gets to live in Hawaii and somebody is stuck living in Kansas (I've lived, happily, in both places so I'm not picking).

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Currently living in Kansas. Hope to move to Hawaii in a couple of years! :D

(and find a PBG to boot!)

* PBG = Polynesian Breast goddess! :D ;)

I'm pretty sure that Starfleet officers are paid money, there is some canonical reference to cash.

In ST:VI the undiscovered country, at the very beginning when they are convocated to the meeting, Scotty says; "This better be important, I just bought a boat."

I'm pretty sure that boats wouldn't be available to just anyone, given their current value.

There is enough on-screen evidence both ways.

If you want to get a look at the evidence there is an article at www.ditl.org that list quite a few of the canon arguments pro and con the use of money in the Federation:
http://www.ditl.org/index.htm?daymai...s/hedmoney.htm

I always used the guides from the old FASA book, "Trader captains and merchant Princes."

The Federation rarely, if ever, uses hard currency by the late 23rd century, all your financial information being encoded on a personal transactor.

For illegal purposes, or where you just don't want someone prying into your financial affairs via computer, I'd imagine that some folk still use hard currency, rare as it might be.

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Though, I imagine the Federation could simply replicate a prefab house and plunk it down on the planet.

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Just make sure nobody's under it when you plunk it down.

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Originally posted by pesterfield
Just make sure nobody's under it when you plunk it down.

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And if someone is under it, make sure you grab their ruby slippers! :D