Star Trek 101: Latinum

Star Trek 101 serves two functions: succinctly introduce Star Trek newcomers to the basic foundations and elements of the franchise and refresh the memories of longtime Trek fans. We're pulling our entries from the book Star Trek 101: A Practical Guide to Who, What, Where, And Why, written by Terry J. Erdmann & Paula M. Block and published in 2008 by Pocket Books. An invaluable resource, it encompasses The Original Series, , The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager and Enterprise, as well as the first 10 Trek feature films.

Today, we share Star Trek 101's file on Latinum.

As Star Trek would have it, life is so rosy in the future that folks don’t have any need for money. (Don’t ask us how they get stuff — it’s one of Star Trek’s fuzzier areas.) The Ferengi, on the other hand, love money — or rather, latinum, a highly precious liquid metal. It’s generally referred to as gold-pressed latinum, because it comes inside gold ingots, in denominations of slips, strips, bars, and bricks.

Paula M. Block and Terry J. Erdmann are coauthors of numerous books about the entertainment industry, including Star Trek 101; Star Trek Costumes: Fifty Years of Fashion from the Final Frontier; Star Trek: The Original Series 365; and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion. They currently are writing the latest in their series of Ferengi novellas, which (so far) includes Lust’s Latinum Lost (and Found); and Rules of Accusation. As noted, their most recent non-Trek book is Labyrinth: The Ultimate Visual History.