Can someone own a ship in Star Trek?

[McAvoy]

Can someone own a starship in the Federation in Star Trek? No I don't mean those planets that are obviously using currency to acquire things. I am talking about the planets like Earth for example where wealth isn't a thing. Everything is provided for. Presumably a replicator in every house sort of thing.

Like, how would they go about acquiring the materials to build one. Or would they go to a shipyard to have one built? Presumably some stuff is actually valuable such as dilithium. How do you acquire that?

I would think even by the 24th century getting a warp capable starship wouldn't be as different as getting a ocean going yacht. I mean sure, shuttles exist that can cross the deep void between systems with warp drive.

But a large ship of let's say 100 meters long or larger?

Is there perhaps some paperwork involved where these ships have to have a need. Like being a merchant ship? OK, if that is the reason there has to be something the owner has to pay back for those precious resources.

[clearspira]

This is of course the greatest hole in the concept of a moneyless post-scarcity economy. Small things can be handled by a replicator or protein recequencer or whatever such as food, drink, medicine, clothing etc. but there will ALWAYS be things that are a limited resource.

There will always only be so many beachfront homes because there is only so much beach. There will always only be so much land in order to have a French vineyard. And Chuck notes, there will always only be only so many genuine vintage baseball cards.

There will always be only so much dilithium, anti-matter or Star Trek deuterium (which remember in no way works like real world deuterium) because you clearly cannot replicate these things. The Ferengi are a parody but realistically, latinum as a concept needs to exist.

And both the Kelvinverse and PIC muddies the waters considerably by introducing the idea that corporations still exist in the Trekverse.

Of course there is one more thing to consider: time. These ships are not replicated into existence. We have seen that starships need to be physically built at spacedock, or Utopia Planetia, or on the ground.

So to answer your question yes and no. There seems to be a barter system of sorts at work in the Federation as we saw when Paris bought ''Alice''. But actually owning an actual ship seems to involve contracting someone out in order to build it. And that just cannot work without money.

Money MUST exist in some capacity or form or concept. And yet we are told that it does not.

I am aware of The Orville way around this by stating that money has been replaced by social capital. Which seems to indicate that good people get gifted good stuff by the government. Which is in itself a problem. The Culture series gets around this problem in part by just eliminating the concept of personal ownership and making everything ridiculously easy to build. Everything can be ''replicated'' in the Cultureverse but because everything is also AI operated it is never strictly yours.

[Nealithi]

Can someone own a starship in the Federation in Star Trek? No I don't mean those planets that are obviously using currency to acquire things. I am talking about the planets like Earth for example where wealth isn't a thing. Everything is provided for. Presumably a replicator in every house sort of thing.

Like, how would they go about acquiring the materials to build one. Or would they go to a shipyard to have one built? Presumably some stuff is actually valuable such as dilithium. How do you acquire that?

I would think even by the 24th century getting a warp capable starship wouldn't be as different as getting a ocean going yacht. I mean sure, shuttles exist that can cross the deep void between systems with warp drive.

But a large ship of let's say 100 meters long or larger?

Is there perhaps some paperwork involved where these ships have to have a need. Like being a merchant ship? OK, if that is the reason there has to be something the owner has to pay back for those precious resources.

How you get one I am not sure. Sisko's girlfriend owned her freighter. Seven's parents owned their ship when studying the borg. So civilian ships are owned. The how seems to be like the underpant gnomes.

[Al-1701]

Jones from Trouble with Tribbles is specifically described as having a "one-man spaceship." So, owning a private ship goes all the way back to TOS. Though, at the time, the Federation had "credits" and Starfleet personnel were paid.

Let's just accept the fact there is a form of currency in the Federation, and there not being was just another result of Gene getting more dogmatic about his utopia in the later stages of his life.

[stryke]

I think a lot can be explained, without the need for currency, by that property inheritance is still a thing. Picard has his wine and nice house cause it's been in his family, and so now he has it courtesy of a fire. Ships are built for a specific purpose, like transporting cargo to fill a need, and the captain then keeps the ship in the family like that lot in s1 of Enterprise. Kassidy's folks might have owned the ship before her, or whoever might have inherited the ship might have passed it on to whoever wanted and made the best case that they'd put it to good use.

You've also got to figure that non Starfleet Federation shipyards are a thing where they put together starships cause that's what they find to be fun, fulfilling, and how they seek to better themselves. Then they're going to end up with more ships outside of the ones they need to go mine the resources they need and the like, and perhaps they pass them onto the Federation to doll out to those who can make a case of making good use for them, either cargo, indie archeology, or whatever.

[Madner Kami]

I think a lot can be explained, without the need for currency, by that property inheritance is still a thing. Picard has his wine and nice house cause it's been in his family, and so now he has it courtesy of a fire. Ships are built for a specific purpose, like transporting cargo to fill a need, and the captain then keeps the ship in the family like that lot in s1 of Enterprise. Kassidy's folks might have owned the ship before her, or whoever might have inherited the ship might have passed it on to whoever wanted and made the best case that they'd put it to good use.

So the Haves are born into being a Have and everybody else remains a Havenot unless they get lucky. Doesn't sound utopic to me. Sounds more like today.

Either way, a number of currencies within the Federation are mentioned. E.g. transporter credits, when Sisko talks about visiting his father in New Orleans almost daily, while being at Starfleet Academy in San Franciso. The simple fact of the matter is, that as long as there is private ownership and limited resources (and there are, even in the Federation), there will be currencies of some sort around. It's an invetible fact. You just can't make a limited resource freely available to everyone and just blindly hope, it will work itself out.

[McAvoy]

In TNG, basic needs are met. Food, water, roof over your head. Free and advanced healthcare. Etc. So if you want to live on Earth and live as a basket weaver as a profession. You wont have a problem. You want to go visit Vulcan? Book a spot on some starship going there. Want to do a pleasure vacation? Probably will have a ship that does those sort of things too.

Just seems like once you get to where you want a ship to travel the stars. Be a merchant, explorer, or whatever then it seems like it gets far trickier. Like almost you woukd have to acquire a grant from Starfleet/Federation or Earth government to acquire the ship. Afterall, how would even begin to pay for things that would be needed to build the ship?

It makes far more sense that there are private shipyards that build civilian ships or even non-Starfleet combat ships but they will require currency. So how would a moneyless society be able to acquire a ship from there? Barter? That's reverting back to before there was money.

[Nealithi]

In TNG, basic needs are met. Food, water, roof over your head. Free and advanced healthcare. Etc. So if you want to live on Earth and live as a basket weaver as a profession. You wont have a problem. You want to go visit Vulcan? Book a spot on some starship going there. Want to do a pleasure vacation? Probably will have a ship that does those sort of things too.

Just seems like once you get to where you want a ship to travel the stars. Be a merchant, explorer, or whatever then it seems like it gets far trickier. Like almost you woukd have to acquire a grant from Starfleet/Federation or Earth government to acquire the ship. Afterall, how would even begin to pay for things that would be needed to build the ship?

It makes far more sense that there are private shipyards that build civilian ships or even non-Starfleet combat ships but they will require currency. So how would a moneyless society be able to acquire a ship from there? Barter? That's reverting back to before there was money.

Isn't that what Jake and Nog did with the stem bolts?
Farmer did not have any latinum so he traded some land for the bolts. Farmer acted like it was common enough, but Nog was confused.

That then raises the question with me. How do Federation people gamble at Quark's bar? They must use something to get latinum.

[clearspira]

If there is one thing that Star Trek has mangled, twisted and effed up beyond recognition in its own worldbuilding is money. It should be a simple concept: ''The Federation gives you everything that you need for free but nothing that you want.'' It would explain very neatly how and why there are still people in work. All of this ''running my cafe to better myself'' nonsense sounds like a crock to me. Some people sure, but everyone? Nah. If real life has taught us anything it is that a considerable number of people if given the opportunity to sit on their ass for free will not use that time to better the rest of humanity.

I know that they are meant to be more socially evolved that us but i'm afraid that Trek turned that concept on its rear end by the time of DS9 (and slaughtered it come PIC) where it became clear that humans in Trek are only more evolved than us because they live comfortable lives.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

I would actually argue against that. Most people want to do something with their lives. The pandemic surely taught us that, yeah, at first, an endless weekend is fun, but it gets old fast. I personally know people who enjoy doing janitorial work and would enjoy it more if they weren't constantly shat on for having a low-prestige job. People are not naturally lazy.