A suggestion to the executives at Paramount: Dont set the next Star Trek series on big, shiny starship, or even a sprawling intergalactic space station. No, what people want to see, apparently, is what goes on in a 24th century shopping mall.

Okay, so thats probably a stretch.

Theres no denying, though, that fans are genuinely intrigued with the economy of the United Federation of Planets.

In my last column, I pondered just how employment -- and unemployment -- might work in the UFP. But I only scratched the surface.

Folks have given the subject a lot of thought.

There are those, of course, who see Star Trek as nothing more than a front to espouse communism, although I doubt Gene Roddenberry or any of the other producers and writers ever looked at it that way.

Several thoughtful readers, however, wrote in raising legitimate issues and asking real questions about how a non-currency economy like that in Star Trek could actually work, including the question of incentives and scarce resources like housing.

If someone works hard and smarter, how does a wealthless society incent people to try harder? a reader asked. If there is no cash, how do people by or rent housing, especially in a desirable location? Jean Luc Picard's family were vitners. Only a limited amount of wine can be produced. How is the wine distributed? Who gets the real wine versus the replicated wine? Is there a limit on how many bottles can be acquired or given to a person?

Those are certainly very good questions. Of course, however, Star Trek is science fiction, not an economic dissertation, so series writers and producers were rarely most interested in answering them. Indeed, over the years the writers and producers have offered conflicting answers and evidence over money and its role in the future.

Still, as much as it may be hard for us today to imagine, readers say future technology and other developments make a Star Trek economy easier to understand: particularly, colonization of other worlds and the advent of replicator technology.

I think a key factor in the success of the Federation is replication technology and the survival of humans after World War Three along with the assistance of the Vulcans to find habitable worlds, a reader said. Since resources are no longer scarce and humans learned the devastation of infighting, they have the motivation and means to create a different economic system.

Sure, travel to other planets and first contact with alien races may be some time away, but nanotechnology today is a burgeoning endeavor that may make replicators and such technology seem not-all-that fanciful.

There has been discussions in science fiction about nanotechnology leading to molecular assemblers that could replicate any material, organic or inorganic. Would nano-assemblers be our version of replicators? Author Charles Stross' Singularity novels depicts a world where everything out of copyright or patent is freely available to citizens. Given the library of clothing designs, machines, and intellectual property available, a nano-assembler could provide most of the needs and wants of the world.

Ken from Chicago offered his own list of technologies that could help make a Star Trek-like economy seem much more possible: fusion power, artificial intelligence, Replicators and transporters: