Uploaded December 2021 | Updated September 2026, 2 hours ago
Season 1 Episode 26
Episode: "The Neutral Zone"
After decades of dormancy there appears to be evidence that the Romulans have crossed the Neutral Zone and are threatening the Federation outposts that are stationed there to monitor it; the Enterprise has been ordered to confirm that this is so.
Hours before that mission kicks off however, Data and Worf investigate an ancient space capsule, a derelict drifting through the local space, apparently of Earth origin. To their surprise they discover a dozen cryogenic stasis pods, three of which are occupied; Data has them beamed aboard the Enterprise. This trio of visitors despite having been found technically dead are successfully revived and it emerges that they are from the tail end of the 20th century; now they have to figure out how to adjust to living in the 24th century.
The reality has finally set in for Ralph Ophenhaus; all his wealth has gone and his talents as a money-man are only useful to a time period now long extinct. Picard offers him one last lesson on how humans living in the 24th century makes something of themselves absent the need, the want of wealth and acquisition.
Again, the Gene Roddenberry philosophy is strong in this scene.
Thanks to Star Trek, I have daydreamed about a moneyless society many times and often wondered how a society like that could work. Curiously, the most common reaction I draw out of the uninitiated whenever I've dared to offer such a concept is that they invariably retreat to the safety and comfort of their capitalist philosophy (the only philosophy they know of) from which they are inclined to write off the entire notion of a society absent money as completely absurd; they'll arm themselves with cliches, propaganda, fractured trains of thought and even push personal opinions supporting tenets of the capitalist agenda as though it were fact. They tell me that the pursuit of wealth is what motivates a person to live, it creates companies, it employs the masses, advances developments, advances the species and beyond that provides the best means for people to satisfy their natural propensities for greed.
Even those that perform badly under a capitalist model will enthusiastically defend its philosophy. - I maintain that they need to think about it a little more.
Season 1 Episode 26
Episode: "The Neutral Zone"
After decades of dormancy there appears to be evidence that the Romulans have crossed the Neutral Zone and are threatening the Federation outposts that are stationed there to monitor it; the Enterprise has been ordered to confirm that this is so.
Hours before that mission kicks off however, Data and Worf investigate an ancient space capsule, a derelict drifting through the local space, apparently of Earth origin. To their surprise they discover a dozen cryogenic stasis pods, three of which are occupied; Data has them beamed aboard the Enterprise. This trio of visitors despite having been found technically dead are successfully revived and it emerges that they are from the tail end of the 20th century; now they have to figure out how to adjust to living in the 24th century.
The reality has finally set in for Ralph Ophenhaus; all his wealth has gone and his talents as a money-man are only useful to a time period now long extinct. Picard offers him one last lesson on how humans living in the 24th century makes something of themselves absent the need, the want of wealth and acquisition.
Again, the Gene Roddenberry philosophy is strong in this scene.
Thanks to Star Trek, I have daydreamed about a moneyless society many times and often wondered how a society like that could work. Curiously, the most common reaction I draw out of the uninitiated whenever I've dared to offer such a concept is that they invariably retreat to the safety and comfort of their capitalist philosophy (the only philosophy they know of) from which they are inclined to write off the entire notion of a society absent money as completely absurd; they'll arm themselves with cliches, propaganda, fractured trains of thought and even push personal opinions supporting tenets of the capitalist agenda as though it were fact. They tell me that the pursuit of wealth is what motivates a person to live, it creates companies, it employs the masses, advances developments, advances the species and beyond that provides the best means for people to satisfy their natural propensities for greed.
Even those that perform badly under a capitalist model will enthusiastically defend its philosophy. - I maintain that they need to think about it a little more.
