• dejected_warp_core@startrek.website
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      7 months ago

      Ah yes, the ledgers.

      Actuarial acrobatics so foul, that they are still talking of it on Feringinar to this day. The Klingons involved thought they had invented a new martial art by way of mathematics, and their deep fiscal wounds would be the stuff of song and wine in Stovokor. Unfortunately, it was a hilariously naked attempt at simple fraud. No double-books, no accumulation of rounding errors, no plausible line-items for non-existent goods, no money laundering, no elaborate fences, no nameless middlemen that aren’t middlemen, no real subterfuge. Just plain, conventional, bad math and bogus prices. No, the legend persists not because of how brilliant a scam this was, but rather how something so simple almost toppled one of the greatest houses on Kronos; a practical bankruptcy for a Klingon! That is, until Quark came along and explained the deed in plain, simple, Federation Common tongue (ugh) so that even a baby could understand.