Whenever there’s a storyline with quark, they talk about money/latinum.
I remember in one of the next gen episodes that there was discussion about money and Picard said something about how they’ve moved away from money.
So do Starfleet get paid now?
Update: thank you for the quick responses. From what I’m gathering the tldr is that the following is the answer
- Ferengi love for money/not being a post scarcity society by design
- Bajorans being so near their slavery times and not post scarcity yet
- Quark creating an atmosphere of camaraderie/gambling/upgraded replicators/actual food
All this requires some form of currency.
DS9 is a Bajoran station, not a Federation one. The Bajoran economy is not post-scarcity and still runs on money. Either Starfleet officers get a stipend to purchase things when posted on such assignments, or Quark simply bills Starfleet. Either way, Starfleet/the UFP likely has a reserve of latinum and other resources for trade with other nations.
Ok so next question. If the computer can magically create anything. And they are on almost all space stations (including cardassian/federation ones) what’s the point of a bar?
Gambling makes sense. Paying for food/drink when you have a replicator doesn’t.
You can buy alcohol cheap from a store in real life, along with all the ingredients to make drinks, yet people still go to bars where cocktails cost more than a meal. They’re not going just because of superior bartending skills, they’re going as part of the experience of drinking with other people. Because on DS9, your other option is basically to drink in your quarters, which is no fun.
There are more options for food on DS9, but people still go to Quark’s for the atmosphere. It’s lively and fun, which is probably hard to come by otherwise on a remote space station. I doubt people are coming to Quark’s in droves for the food though, it’s more just something you get if you’re already there.
In real life you have to make your own food, make your own drinks, use your own plates/glasses/etc. and deal with cleanup.
In ds9 the replicator does everything for you.
But I get your point
Thanks!
Pretty sure Quark uses replicators for the food. Just has actual drinks in stock.
I suspect that the primary money makers are the drinks, gambling and holosuite time.
@aredditimmigrant @VindictiveJudge later in lower decks it’s revealed that quark has “done some work” to his replicators that make them produce results you can’t get in your quarters/mess hall
The computer can’t create everything, that’s why gold is near worthless and latinum is eternal.
Paying for food or drink would be for recipes not programmed into your own replicator, or when you’re not at home with your own. Star fleet seems paternal about healthy stuff like synthehol.
I think I remember them mentioning that the replicators can’t make very complex items, like a layered alcoholic drink. That and honestly a lot of people would probably still go just for the social aspect.
Latinum is chosen as the default currency, exactly because it is not replicable. In ST:Outpost there’s an episode where they find an alien tech that is able to replicate latinum, but only for a couple days before it dissolves. That is than used by ferengi pirates for obvious malicious reasons. ST:outpost is a fan production though, so not canon, but I do believe this is how it is. It is briefly mentioned in the apendices on latinum’s memory alpha page
So I understand the above items (latinum being the most important and fungible) being non-replicatable. But at the point where Starfleet is permanently on your station and has easy access to both replicators and infinite energy, why aren’t the Bajorans also post-scarcity? You’d think that tech, while powerful, is a far more important thing to trade for and Starfleet has an incentive to uplift societies it isn’t at war with to prevent scarcity wars and instability.