Post #272: The Barter Problem

Posted on Wed May 21st, 2025 @ 8:32pm by T'Kes & Tilev

661 words; about a 3 minute read

Mission: A New Beginning
Location: President's Office
Timeline: current

The upside to the time taken to move the base at least as far as T'Kes was concerned was that it had given her time to get her feet in under the table, she had managed to cobble together a staff of sorts, she had office space and slowly but surely the wheels of government were beginning to turn, it was however from a governmental responsibility perspective very much a one woman band operation, something that T'Kes hoped would eventually change. Her staff had spent the journey to the Delta Quadrant conducting , as best they could, a census of those on the base - essentially going through the population and making sure they had up to date information on everyone aboard this would help various other departments out in the long run. It was especially important in respect of any prospect of forming something equivalent to the Federation Council it was proving to be quite a labour intensive process, but such was the way of things now. However that was not the biggest concern on the President's desk, no there was something far more glaring, something that was likely going to come up sooner rather than later.
"We need to talk about trade." Tilev said, he'd been acting as some sort of senior advisor for his wife until they had someone properly in place.
"The barter problem right?" T'Kes asked
"Yes." Tilev said

"The Federation is a barter economy, it has no currency, instead it relies on bartering trade for buying and selling goods." T'Kes said slowly "Which is fine in the Alpha Quadrant where everyone is broadly speaking of similar technology levels and the Prime Directive safeguards it, but out here as Voyager proved while a number of species would meet the criteria of being warp capable as far as Starfleet Directives go, the rest is hit and miss - they don't have replicators, they don't have transporters, they don't have our medical technology, they don't have our weapons, our sensors, our engines, our cloak..." she took a breath "And we're going to be that desperate for resources that we can be taken advantage of easily, just because Starfleet's not been out here for sixty seven years doesn't mean we've been forgotten, all these factions out here have to varying extents things that may prove helpful and they're all going to know about our 'unique technologies' they all saw them sixty seven years ago. They can name their price because they know we barter and they can set that price high, this is the galactic equivalent of Earth's wild west - it's so dangerous and we hold whether we like it or not a lot of weaponry and technology that could drastically change the various balances of power across the Quadrant."

"That's why Janeway refused to deal." Tilev said, T'Kes half smiled as her husbands human side made a rare appearance "What do you want to do?"
"Deed bartering might get us some things." T'Kes said "It's a decent starting point, don't trade our technology, trade for us doing something. But that's got limits obviously and it's when we hit those limits..." she looked up at Tilev "The Federation needs a currency. Shop owners on the promenade already use latinum... so it's not an entirely foreign concept."
"Yes but there's a difference between the shops on the promenade and a number of star systems." Tilev said "And that's without mentioning that latinum can't be replicated."
"So we need something unique, something only Starfleet and the Federation use or something significantly rare, something we can mark." T'Kes said "And then we need to think about all the logistics - actual pay grades, taxes, banking, supply chains..." she looked towards the large window her office afforded of what was outside the base, Ocampa could be seen getting gradually larger as they approached. "It's going to be a fun one."

**************

T'Kes
President of the United Federation of Planets
Starbase Obsidian

Tilev
Starbase Obsidian

 

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