they explicitly use the term socialist to describe the Federation economy in SNW.
I'm going to need a source and context for this, apparently it flew by me in between all the parallel timeline nonsense required to shoehorn James Kirk into the series. Also, the "Gorn, but Xenomorphs" whiplash.
Generally speaking, I was fine with Socialism being a quiet part of Trek economics for 50+ years. I don't do a lot of mental gymnastics aligning the minutiae of a fictional future with contemporary concepts. Science fiction is a reflection of our real world, sure, but I have as little use for connecting the dots between 21st and 23rd economical concepts as I have for schematics for the replicators on Enterprise. A lot can happen in 2-300 years, especially when Trek concepts are metaphors and narrative shortcuts for telling stories about a future that recontextualise our own times.
But I get what you mean, it was always Socialism, wasn't it? Our real world has taken a weird polarised turn that makes Trek's space utopia seem more far fetched than it has for a long time. Even if "the culture wars" sounds like something the franchise might have introduced as a philosophically apt concept back in the '90s...
In that regard I too appreciate that the show's producers put their company scrip where Trek's mouth has been all those years. It seems that some very loud "culture warriors" never grokked that this was a deeply left (or at the very least humanist) leaning show. It's a little late in the day to spell it out for them that, yes — "Trekonomics" are frigging Socialist, but apparently that's the level of media illiteracy we're dealing with here.
So good on SNW for letting its red flag fly. It will probably piss off some people who still can't separate Socialism from whatever garbled idea of "Red scare" indoctrination has been passed down through generations. Whatever, they're pissed off no matter what.
It is ironic to me that this "Socialist" discourse is coming from a franchise(!) so ensconced in capitalist production and economic structures that it is gauged for marketability and profit. That's the big elephant in the room throughout all the "Trek so woke" outrage cycles: We'll never get to a post-scarcity future resembling Star trek by sitting around watching Star trek.
The same episode says private ownership of things like cars no longer exists in the future, so it's clearly a description of the economy. I agree its almost a dismissal though, which is why I prefer The Orville's treatment of the no money post scarcity economy more.
There is definitely still private ownership in Star Trek. Replicator programs and other software are regularly seen as being treated like intellectual property. Schematics as well. You think anyone can just go down to their local print shop and replicate the parts for an Enterprise class ship themselves?
I'm a bit shocked that nobody has pointed out the obvious:
The economics of Star Trek are super inconsistent and make no sense because multiple writers had a crack and they each liked and believed different things.
Sometimes it's a post-scarcity socialist utopia where money is obsolete. Other times, Picard invites someone out on a date and she answers "you buying?".
This is obvious enough that multiple people have tried to fix it, which as always in franchise worldbuilding only makes things less consistent and more complicated. So now some things just can't be properly replicated. Sometimes it's because of regulations and laws, other times it's because of technology limitations. Sometimes the Federation doesn't use money but they still have it for trade, other times they use money, just for random commodities.
The middle of the road for Trek seems to be some form of socialdemocracy where you're provided with anything you need and labor is largely vocational, but out in space there is enough variation over time and different areas that there is still a bit of a pseudo-capitalist economy even in regions where Federation-level post-scarcity tech is still available. Go into any more detail and the whole thing breaks down.
This goes for other political elements of the series, too. Picard gets super mad at the notion of endorsing religious beliefs in a prewarp society because he finds it barbaric. Meanwhile, Sisko is out there becoming Bajoran Space Jesus and everybody is just cool with that.
It's almost like Rick Berman's, Ronald D. Moore's and Gene Roddenberry's political beliefs were different from each other's, huh?
That and post-scarcity doesn't mean "zero scarcity". Like if someone wanted to create a picard funkpop the size of a planet, I don't think they'd be allowed the resource budget.
It's like how it doesn't matter where you live, if you want to buy on the silk road, you need bitcoin. Presumably even the federation can't just make latinum whenever they please, or we wouldn't see them haggle with it. Although, it would be fun to see that they could and just take the responsibility of not crashing non-federation cultures entire economies very seriously, either out of respect or treaty.
Damnit, I want a LD episode where the crew is frustrated and desperately wants to just "buy" their problem away but can't because an economist at command says it'll mean they have to rescue all these non-federation colonies that are currently self sufficient. Come to think of it it's right there with the "you break it you own it" concept of the prime directive.
Checking the CTV Sci-fi schedule on Thursday, July 5th at 9 pm - the usual slot for new Star Trek - Snowpiercer is shown. The rest of the evening has the usual Star Trek Voyager reruns.
I have been looking for a ‘special presentation’ on CTV linear as they have a track record of inserting those when they’re out of alignment with streaming releases.
Thank you for posting this! It is so frustrating to know nothing when almost everyone else is getting it in 7 days.
I'm going to have to unsub from all my Trek follows to avoid spoilers.
That Janeway sticker is melting my heart! If this isn't added as a default emoji in the new iOS, Tim Cook is going to get a sternly worded letter from me!
I spent a while reading through this, and I gotta say that this is a really good RPG book. It's very thorough, it's well written for suggesting ways to play, it's attractively formatted. This is a cool book.
It is a pretty gorgeous book - my biggest complaint is that it can be hard to quickly find and reference specific rules during gameplay. I'm hopeful that the Second Edition will have some imrpovements on that front.
I agree with that. Looking through, I find understanding the basic rules to be kind of a burden. It took me a while to realize that "Operations" is the rules section.
I think it makes sense to show players the character sheet early, because that's the nexus through which they really experience the game. I like the demo scene towards the beginning, but I think a quickstart guide to explain basic rules to the players very, VERY clearly is usually a good idea.
Still, I'm continuously impressed at how well this adapts Star Trek to an RPG. I was initially skeptical that an RPG could take all the nonsense we see in decades of different shows and create a cohesive basis for all of it, but this is really impressive. I'd have to play to see if the rules feel balanced and natural, but at a glance, they make far more sense than plenty of other RPGs I've seen. I think this looks like a really fun game.
I bought this when it originally launched, and unfortunately never really found the time to play a campaign.
We were workshopping a TMP-era story based around a crew serving on a Miranda class vessel. I had really high hopes because Star Trek is absolutely my favorite universe to roleplay in.
I hope a bunch of people pick this rulebook up and have a fun time with it!
Lack of time is definitely the enemy of table top gaming. I feel very fortunate that I've managed to have an ongoing [mostly] weekly STA game for two and half years now.
Yeah. I got this a while ago too, but my friends from college now have jobs and live in 4 different time zones. It’s pretty hard organizing more than two of them being around for more than like an hour or so.
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