I Noticed a Plot Hole in the VOY episode "Pathfinder"

[amigocabal]

How did Reginald Barclay (a lieutenant) manage to get a two level apartment in San Francisco? Realistically, he should have had an apartment barely bigger than a large closet, or else be living in a condo in Livermore.

[Crazedwraith]

Utopian future. That apartment is the 24th century closet.

[AniThyng]

Is this a silicon valley property bubble social commentary joke?

[FedRebel]

Reg is attached to Pathfinder and works out of SFHQ, he no doubt is highly vetted and that translates to more comfortable living quarters

stuffing him in a chinese takeout box could make hims disgruntled, and disgruntled officers can be talkative

There was a point where he was the victim of a honeypot precisely because of his position, that whole mess got sorted out because he realized the error of his naivety. Put him in a refrigerator box instead of Trump Tower...those Ferengi could just buy the information without complication (as disgruntled Reg would be on the first shuttle to Risa.)

[Lord Revan]

there's also the fact that just because San Francisco is hot property today, it might not be that 350 (or so) years in the future.

[Simon_Jester]

How did Reginald Barclay (a lieutenant) manage to get a two level apartment in San Francisco? Realistically, he should have had an apartment barely bigger than a large closet, or else be living in a condo in Livermore.

With transporters, the value of living close to any given location goes down, which means the value of real estate goes down. People spread out across California until "I live in San Francisco" just means a flying car could reach you from the city center within twenty minutes or so. Consequently, living space near San Francisco proper is at less of a premium.

Alternatively, "junior officer in Starfleet" may be like "low-ranking member of the astronaut corps," it's low-prestige relative to the people running your own organization, but high-status and high-benefits compared to most other professions.

[Elheru Aran]

there's also the fact that just because San Francisco is hot property today, it might not be that 350 (or so) years in the future.

SF would still be in fairly close proximity to Starfleet HQ and Starfleet Academy. While not as much of a concern as it is now with what appears to be mass transit (trains in ST:TMP) and shuttles and transporters and whatnot, it's still useful to live not too far from where you work/study.

That said: I'm comfortable with the guesses that either Barclay received pay/privileges due to being an officer with seniority and/or being part of an important project, or that the relative costs of SF living have gone down to some degree.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Another option might be that since money doesn't exist, they have something else to work out who gets to live where (work credits, something like that), and Barclay, who had spent, what, 6+ years on the E-D and E-E by that point with Starfleet-provided quarters, had enough credits saved up to get a bigger-than-normal place.

[Crazedwraith]

Or... it's a fucking Utopia and that's what everyone gets.

it doesn't need to be anymore complicated than 'in the future we get nice places to live because the future is nice'

Saying 'oh Barclay is super important and they're keeping happy' or 'starfleet officers are the equivalent of rockstars and get the nice stuff' undermines the whole thing.

[Lord Revan]

there's also the fact that just because San Francisco is hot property today, it might not be that 350 (or so) years in the future.

SF would still be in fairly close proximity to Starfleet HQ and Starfleet Academy. While not as much of a concern as it is now with what appears to be mass transit (trains in ST:TMP) and shuttles and transporters and whatnot, it's still useful to live not too far from where you work/study.

That said: I'm comfortable with the guesses that either Barclay received pay/privileges due to being an officer with seniority and/or being part of an important project, or that the relative costs of SF living have gone down to some degree.

Barclay is also an engineering specialist IIRC so his "salary" (what ever form it takes) could be greater then your average goldshirt of the same rank. Someone works on nuclear vessels can correct me if I'm IIRC reactor techs get paid more then your average naval personel of the same rank, same could apply for Starfleet.

Also it's possible that starfleet officers had a discount, to discourage Starfleet from moving elsewhere.

Granted there's probably more then 1 factor at play and "unexplained plothole due to not matching current prizes" is probably pretty low on the list of likely explantions.

[Batman]

There's also the possibility that he's independently wealthy (however that may manifest in the 24th century) due to family connections or having a patent or three to his name or some such. Socially awkward as Reg was he was also a pretty damned good engineer.

[The Romulan Republic]

My guess is that its a combination of a number of things mentioned here:

1. The Federation (at least the core worlds) has high living standards in general.

This would probably be even more true in a city which (as the location of Starfleet Academy/Command), is quite possibly the second most important in the Federation after the capital. It would be an embarrassment to the Federation if its officers in one of its most important cities were living in less than comfortable conditions.

2. Barclay isn't really a low-level guy.

3. Barclay could have saved up his energy/replicator rations to get the best place- especially, I'd note, since Barclay comes off as a cautious and intelligent guy who enjoys his comforts. He'd probably figure out how to get the best possible apartment he could, short of violating regs. to get it.

[Elheru Aran]

Yeah, his only vice seems to be holodeck fantasies, something that's probably easy enough for Starfleet to tolerate as long as he continues performing competently and with occasional flashes of brilliance. And he's been in Starfleet since the early seasons of TNG at least, in which he was already a LT (LTJG?), so he had been in the Fleet for some time there already. By the time he appears in VOY it's been, what, fifteen-plus years? That's a pretty solid length of time in any career.

[Prometheus Unbound]

How did Reginald Barclay (a lieutenant) manage to get a two level apartment in San Francisco? Realistically, he should have had an apartment barely bigger than a large closet, or else be living in a condo in Livermore.

That's not a plot hole.

A plot hole is when the story goes somewhere without any introduction and/or something impossible doesn't make sense. I.e. a character suddenly pulling out a gun they didn't have earlier on (Thomas Riker: Defiant).

This is just a "huh". As scotty pointed out in Relics, even the guest quarters on a ship are better than what an Admiral would have had in the 23rd Century and that's on a ship with limited space. Earth is a post scarcity utopia - everyone lives like that. Harry Kim has similar quarters which we've seen - nice huge double apartment with a lovely view.

[NecronLord]

there's also the fact that just because San Francisco is hot property today, it might not be that 350 (or so) years in the future.

Quite. Beyond the fact of their society being post-scarcity...



A fair bit new builds probably became available after the Breen attack.

[Gandalf]

Maybe SF is just a company town to most people, so unless one is working for Starfleet or selling things to them, it's not a great place to be. It might be all drunken cadets, stuffy admirals, and a small army of middle management careerists.

[WATCH-MAN]

Do we really know that Barclay's apartment is in San Francisco?

With a matter-energy transporter or air tram, he could live everywhere on Earth and commute every day to San Francisco.

[Simon_Jester]

Time zones are still a thing, so he'd probably want to live somewhere on the west coast of North America.

But yeah, I think this one is pretty comprehensively answered:

1) Barclay may be low-status compared to starship captains and alien generals, but he's not low-status compared to the general population.
2) In a post-scarcity utopia, providing everyone with big apartments/homes is just not that hard, so even if Barclay were low-status, it wouldn't matter.
3) Super-advanced transportation reduces the scarcity value of real estate in any one place, so even if Barclay were low-status AND it weren't a post-scarcity utopia, it might well be easier for him to get ahold of a home in the San Francisco area than it is today.

[Darth Lucifer]

Gods, it's threads like these that make my brain hurt thinking about the economics of the Star Trek universe and the UFP in particular. I always liked the old FASA Star Trek/Star Trek TNG role-play books where they just used "credits"...it's still slightly congruent to the brain bug that there's no money in the Federation.

[Prometheus Unbound]

Gods, it's threads like these that make my brain hurt thinking about the economics of the Star Trek universe and the UFP in particular. I always liked the old FASA Star Trek/Star Trek TNG role-play books where they just used "credits"...it's still slightly congruent to the brain bug that there's no money in the Federation.

No money on Earth. It's United Earth Humans who don't have money. The Federation itself uses credits (said twice in TOS) and Sisko had "energy credits" or "transporter credits" he could use as a graduate. We've seen Starfleet using money/credits when working with Vulcans, Farpoint, Fajo and a few other instances. Janeway's mentioned paying for stuff, Scotty has... the Federation charge rent for their properties (well they don't, out of goodwill, on DS9, but could - they threaten Quark with it).

It comes from ST4 (They're still using money) and ST8 (Picard's speech). Picard's speech was slightly altered with Nog who talks with Jake about it. Nog makes it very clear that it's humans specifically who have this no money thing. Twice he says Hoomons and "your species", not Federation.

[Eternal_Freedom]

I always thought the "no money"bit from Kirk in ST4 meant no hard currency, coins, notes etc. If they've adopted entirely electronic means of payments and exchange it still fits but also allows for things like Scotty saying "I just bought a boat" in ST6. Presumably at some point between TUC and TNG they went from "no physical currency" to "no money at all."

[Prometheus Unbound]

I always thought the "no money"bit from Kirk in ST4 meant no hard currency, coins, notes etc. If they've adopted entirely electronic means of payments and exchange it still fits but also allows for things like Scotty saying "I just bought a boat" in ST6. Presumably at some point between TUC and TNG they went from "no physical currency" to "no money at all."

^ yus

Among humans on Earth, at least. And any human with citizenship on Earth no doubt has a "credit account" they just wire bullshit through to - like Crusher did when buying fabrics on Farpoint.

People then question "well why doesn't everyone have a skyscraper and palace? or their own personal starship?" - to which the answer is well, because that's dumb. Could they turn Earth into Courescent or something? Probably. But they don't want to do that. Most needs are fixed via holodeck and those who want something nice get it - Kirk has his cabin in the woods, Scotty has a Boat etc. But "my own ship" ? Well I guess they can, really. You just need a licence and a crew who will work for you. And fuel etc? Well I'm sure most Starbases do fuel you for free (DS9 certainly seems to do so) but... ok. Then what? You have your own ship. It's a shuttle, because no one wants to work for/with you. ... So... ok. Set course for Risa... warp 2.

...

Others go to Risa on the warp 7 passenger transports that leave once a day. And get quarters "not even an admiral" would have, maybe? (Scotty, Relics)

?

idk. People come up with these "GOTCHA!" type scenarios to prove the Federation is evil and Communist or evil and Fascist or something. No... it's just... who gives a shit? You got a shuttle. Great, I'm gonna be over on the holodeck on the Titanic or something. If I want to come explore in a shuttle I will. Or, ya know, sign up to Starfleet and go at warp 9.

When public healthcare is 100% perfect as can possibly be, whether you own a moon or not... when security is provided by the vast Starfleet of the Federations... when fusion is available to provide limitless energy - to the point you can magic up billions of tons of antimatter to supply your vast fleet... when holodecks can provide everything you could dream of (to 95% perfection)... when replicators can do the same... ok, actual caviar might taste a tiny bit better and if you know people or if you want to travel, you can go have that too.

It's just not an immediate "all you can eat buffet" of everything and anything. You can get 99% of it, it seems. And the rest? Well, go join Starfleet. Sheesh, what do you people want?