u/xxnoxynoxxnoxy

S3 E8 The Price. Representatives of various entities including Starfleet and the Chrysalians are bidding for control of a supposed stable wormhole in Barzan space. The Chrysalian's representative, Devinoni Ral, manipulates the Caldonian rep to drop out. Riker (repping Starfleet) immediately tries to initiate a trade agreement with the Caldonian to add their proposal (trillium 323 deposits)to his offer, but Ral has already done so.

Every time I watch this episode the logic of that seems a little awkward to me. First of all, why scramble to grab that specific Caldonian resource? All the added bureaucracy and logistics would seem an unnecessary snarl. If it's a trade agreement, it's not like you're just getting something for free. Why not just increase whatever it is you were originally offering, or add some other valuable thing you already control that was not on the table? How about a few pallets of biomemetic gel? And for that matter, why try to raise the bidding at all? When someone drops out of the bidding for something it's not like the price goes up. It's not as if Premier Bhavani was expecting to receive everything that had been put on the table in the end. They would just be getting whatever the highest bidder was offering, and everyone else goes home with their toys. Everyone else could have just kept their mouths shut. But now the bidding war just got a lot more expensive.

(I'm just going to ignore the fact that basically anything can be replicated (including Trillium 323 whatever that is) I'm assuming in industrial quantities.)

Edit: I'm happy to presume in fact Trillium as well as some other things that have been established as such cannot be replicated. ☺️ Anyone have any insight regarding the rest of it?