22-year-old builds chips in his parents’ garage

Re:22-year-old builds chips in his parents’ garage by hiptobecubic on Sunday January 23, 2022 @11:11AM (#30047258)

One thing I never understood is that star fleet and the federation are somehow post-scarcity utopias, but you still have "gold-plated latinum" driving a huge underground criminal counter-culture. What's the point? The ferenghi should be having a cultural existential crisis, but instead they are happy just charging people for drinks that can be replicated freely.

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Re:22-year-old builds chips in his parents’ garage by grogenaut on Sunday January 23, 2022 @01:25PM (#30048785)

my understanding is that the space the ferrengi operate in doesnt operate much with federation space. ds9 is in deep space. and you cant make gold pressed latinum in a replicator. so it is a good trade item for working on a frontier and as a currency as the federation cant just print it.

but dont quote me.

its also a plot device to let them talk about economics.

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Re:22-year-old builds chips in his parents’ garage by emteycz on Sunday January 23, 2022 @01:58PM (#30049169)

I don't remember gold-plated latinum being used within the Federation itself, all their worlds were blissful utopias. DS9 was outside the Federation, and at a place and time where the major civilizations were at war for decades. And even in DS9, the Starfleet officers never had any interest whatsoever in latinum.

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Re:22-year-old builds chips in his parents’ garage by at_compile_time on Sunday January 23, 2022 @12:08PM (#30047867)

You don't understand because it doesn't make sense. It's just fun sci-fi storytelling.

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