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I'm still unclear how Federation 'credits' work and who decides or assigns who gets how much. Does everyone get the same number of credits assigned to them or are credits assigned based upon position held or duties performed? Can someone increase their credit allotment by doing something different, special or extraordinary? Can everyone buy a spaceship, a yacht or a vineyard?

Note: Since there may be no answer to this in the episodes and movies, answers can include info from tie-in novels, etc.

Goodbye Stack Exchange
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Morgan
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    Also related, but less so: http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/23580/what-happens-to-humans-that-choose-not-to-work-or-to-join-starfleet, http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/6923/how-to-reconcile-the-cashless-human-federation-society-with-human-traders-and-me – DVK-on-Ahch-To Mar 21 '13 at 22:32
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    Interesting how this is going... I see no answer to the question in those threads. There's the standard talk of, "Humans have moved beyond the need to acquire goods and seek to better themselves", and vague references to 'credits' and "Put it on my account". There's also references to barter type exchanges. But no answer to how these Federation'credits' are identified, valued or assigned... Payback? – Morgan Mar 21 '13 at 23:50
  • The linked threads are relevant to this, but I agree with @Morgan - this question still has no answer and it's not a duplicate. – Goodbye Stack Exchange Mar 22 '13 at 02:58
  • @neilfein Not even the explicit My question is, how do humans get "money" (credits, latinum, etc)? in the third link DVK posted? – Izkata Mar 22 '13 at 03:26
  • @Izkata - No, because that part of the question isn't actually answered. All that's stated there is that Federation currency has value, and that there's some sort of system in place in the Federation to deal with allocation of resources. This can't be answered within canon, though; the only possible way of getting an answer woud be in the tie-in novels, which I'm not familiar with. – Goodbye Stack Exchange Mar 22 '13 at 04:02
  • @Morgan - This is not answered in the TV episodes and the movies. Would an answer from the Star Trek licensed tie-in fiction serve? If so, this would further differentiate this question from the links in the above comments. – Goodbye Stack Exchange Mar 22 '13 at 04:04
  • @Morgan - the answer to your question is a combindation of these, but IMHO best expressed by Keith's answer here – DVK-on-Ahch-To Mar 22 '13 at 04:06
  • @neilfein - At this point I'm willing to expand the search to get the question answered. There must be a definitive answer available. – Morgan Mar 23 '13 at 17:24
  • @Morgan - Have edited the question and cast a re-open vote. – Goodbye Stack Exchange Mar 23 '13 at 19:23
  • Thank you @neilfein, I'm still unskilled at navigating the protocols here. – Morgan Mar 24 '13 at 02:47
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    @neilfein - fair enough. Not a dupe after the edit. VTRO – DVK-on-Ahch-To Mar 27 '13 at 02:07

1 Answers1

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It has never, ever, ever been addressed in the 79 episodes of The Original Series, the 176 episodes of the Next Generation, the 173 episodes of Deep Space Nine, the 168 episodes of Voyager, or the 97 episodes of Enterprise.

The only time we see any economy in action is in Deep Space 9, and it was all commerce with outsiders. Federation citizen obviously get paid something, because we see them use that money to buy things at various points of the series. Bartering is still around because we see it used in both Voyager and Deep Space 9. Beyond that, nobody knows. There aren't even enough data points to come up with a guess. I mean, you obviously can't just walk up and buy a Galaxy-class starship, but nobody blinks twice when they hand Scotty a shuttlecraft.

So... yeah. No data. No explanation.

sarge_smith
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