Ad Astra :: Star Trek Fanfiction Archive ^{Beam me up, Scotty.}

Chapter Text

The Star Beagle Adventures                                                
Episode 3: Yours Is No Disgrace
Scene 13: Beagle U.

3.13
Beagle U.

“It’s all about identifying the coin of the realm.” 

The U.S.S. Mako, the U.S.S. Beagle and the U.S.S. Escort had formed an ersatz space station, with the two smaller ships docked on either side of the Mako. Commodore Yui Song had never anticipated that the first official mission of her task force would involve more than a month of station keeping while scientists poured through mountains of data.

This created a hazard to morale for crew who weren’t involved in the data analysis. One solution was to involve as many people as possible in the data analysis, but most of the analysis was well beyond the training of even highly trained officers.

The Mako was the only ship of the three that had a holodeck and Commander Jason Bates, Yui Song’s first officer, had soon found himself overwhelmed with requests for its use. Far more requests than a single holodeck could begin to accommodate. So after two weeks of increasingly restive requests, Commander Bates was more than ready to turn that responsibility over to any competent person who would be insane enough to volunteer. Even if that person was a ferengi…

“Humans have lived in a post-scarcity society for so long that most of them have forgotten how a market-based economy works,” Trader Pel continued. “This is a serious strategic blunder. There is always an economy. You just have to identify the coin of the realm. And the coin of the realm within the Federation is experience. Individual experience. Shared group experience. And most valuable and difficult to arrange, shared intimate experience. Which is why the holodeck schedule has become such a vital resource for this task force.”

The minuscule ferengi was holding forth in the U.S.S. Beagle’s conference room and among his students for this lecture were the leadership of all three ships and all of the U.S.S. Beagle’s department heads, as well as the entire UFP diplomatic corps.

“It is painfully evident that no one took economic forces into account when designing this task force. The U.S.S. Beagle is designed to study new civilizations remotely for very long periods of time before making contact, if ever. That means that what we’ve been doing for the past 6 weeks, standing off from the Al Seribo star system at a distance of 15 light years for an indeterminate period of time while you people study readings from your probes, is the expected operating norm for the majority of missions.”

“If your task force is to maintain operational readiness and the crew morale needed to support such a mission profile, you must understand your own economy. The economy of experience. While we ferengi are noted for our preference for gold-pressed latinum, we are capable of recognizing other currencies and making use of them. Suffice it to say that I have made a substantial profit from my scheduling of the holodeck. Some of these profits have taken the form of shared meals with interesting conversationalists. Some have taken the form of lessons in self-defense. Others in material goods.”

“Humans might think that even this type of profit realization is avaricious in nature. But it is absolutely essential for managing increasing demand on a limited resource. People wanting to use the holodeck now realize they must bring something of value into the negotiations - not just for my services, but also to negotiate with other users who might be willing to trade their place in line for other consideration. And any ferengi can tell you that realizing your own economic power, that you have something of value to contribute that other people want, is tremendously ennobling. How you people could miss this vital aspect of your own natures is, frankly, beyond me."  

"Most importantly, while I am very good at scheduling and I did come up with a number of innovations to maximize the potential load of the holodeck, it is by understanding this experiential economy that I was able to reduce and manage that load... and increase the maintenance cycles not only for the holodeck, but for a number of supporting systems...”

Commander Bates spoke up. “We do have a regular maintenance schedule for those systems. A schedule that is established by our standard operating procedures…” 

“A schedule that is entirely inadequate for supporting the level of demand arising from the Mako’s crew alone, given weeks of station-keeping in blank space,” Pel rejoined. “Not to mention two additional crews.”

Trader Pel looked around, making eye contact with the specific individuals he had proposed this plan with. Captain Skip Howard. Commodore Yui Song. Dean Sakura Nakamura Holland. Astrophysics and Stellar Cartography Director T’Eln… It was time to make this proposal public:

“But the most creative use of the Mako’s holodeck will not begin to satisfy the experiential economic needs for the population of this task force. This economy, as it stands, will not survive a five-year mission. These people will start to tear themselves apart before you are a year into this mission. You need a much bigger economic incentive for this population than the recreation and training the holodeck can provide.”

“And the answer to that need is gathered right here in this room. Seven departments and more than 15 sub-division specialties. What I am proposing is to enroll the crews of the U.S.S. Mako, the U.S.S. Escort and the U.S.S. Beagle in Beagle University,,,”

3.13