Kobayashi Maru Preview & Cover Art
- Thread starter Quark's Lobe
- Start date
This complaint is coming rather late in the game, given that the titles Triangle, Enterprise, Honor Bound, Requiem, Masks, Emissary, Final Frontier, Perchance to Dream, First Contact, Nemesis, and several other titles have been repeated in Trek lore.....
Was I complaining?
Anyway, it was the first time I've heard of this book. I had forgotten that the other novel was The Kobayashi Maru. At least the other examples you gave (unless I'm misremembering) were titles for works in different mediums.
^^Most of them are, but Triangle was the name of two books (an early TOS novel and Triangle: Imzadi 2).
^thank you. That reminded me that I haven't read Imzadi 2 yet.
Maybe the gravitic mine explosion blew it across space?
ST II's no-win scenario doesn't mean that Saavik's crew was actually reenacting an historic event. They were using a movie-era Enterprise for a start!
It was simply a simulation based on some actual events.
Still, I like the novel's apparent conceit that the voice heard in the simulation in TWOK is an actual recording, or at least faithful recreation, of the original distress call. That's an interesting idea. Everyone seems to be trying to hard to point out that the simulation doesn't have to be at all faithful to the actual events, but the idea that it is faithful, at least in the essentials if not the technology and participants, surely has merit too. Why not wait and see how it actually plays out in the book, rather than pre-emptively arguing against the idea of it happening that way?
I totally agree!
IIRC, a FASA RPG manual once mentioned a Kobayashi Maru and that was the first time I considered it might not have been a fictitious vessel created for the scenario. (I think one of the DC Comics had a Kobayashi Maru II.)
I really like this idea. I can't remember how TWOK explained it and as I mentioned in another thread I can't remember much about the other Kobayashi Maru novel other than the fact I didn't like it. But if it was me running the Academy (
) I would set up the no-win scenario so that all the cadets know it is going to happen at some point, say, in their final year. But no-one knows when it'll be their turn or how exactly the scenario will play out for them.So you would have Cadet trampledamage trying to struggle through a morning simulation of diplomacy with the Romulans, half asleep because she stayed up late the night before cramming for a temporal mechanics test. Then the cadet working communications says, "Incoming distress call Captain" and through the speakers come the haunting voices of the original Kobayashi Maru.
And all is quiet except for Cadet trampledamage's muttered, "Oh crap."
You're misremembering.
Honor Bound, Requiem, Enterprise, and Final Frontier were all repeated in books.To be sure, judging by the movie alone, I wonder if even a) would be true.
After all, Saavik never finds any distressed freighter in that Neutral Zone, but runs into Klingon cruisers instead. Is it just a coincidence that she and those warships are violating the Zone at the same time at the same spot?
The impression I originally got was that the distress call was completely faked in order to lure Saavik in: the Kobayashi Maru, if she ever even existed as something else than an ID burst accompanying the distress call, was in the simulated reality safe and sound somewhere near Psi Phi. One might think such a trick would not work in a future where meticuous computerized records are kept and instant communications with distant vessels are possible. But we know for a fact that it worked in "Friday's Child", so apparently the records aren't that meticuous, or that easy to access, and the communications aren't that reliable.
Of course, it could be that the distress in the simulation was real and lured in the Klingon buzzards as well...
Timo Saloniemi
^^Well, a fake call doesn't mean the ship itself is fake. After all, in "Friday's Child," both fake distress calls were from ships known to be real. Scotty recognized the Dierdre by name as a freighter, and Uhura said that the Carolina was registered in that sector. A fake distress call alleging to be from a real ship is more likely to be believed.
...Except by Senator Vreenak. You can't fool him.
...Except by Senator Vreenak. You can't fool him.
Fool him once, shame on you...
If we take the scenario Saavik faced at face value, it would make sense from the Klingon point of view to fake the call, even if the ship as such was real. But if they managed to first lure in the real Kobayashi Maru and then up the ante by reeling in a full starship, all the better for them!
Unless, of course, they wanted deniability. "What freighter? Do you see any freighter? Captain Saavik just assaulted us without provocation - surely we have the right to defend our territory!"
(Or Vreenak's territory. Or whatever.)
Timo Saloniemi
If we take the scenario Saavik faced at face value, it would make sense from the Klingon point of view to fake the call, even if the ship as such was real. But if they managed to first lure in the real Kobayashi Maru and then up the ante by reeling in a full starship, all the better for them!
Unless, of course, they wanted deniability. "What freighter? Do you see any freighter? Captain Saavik just assaulted us without provocation - surely we have the right to defend our territory!"
(Or Vreenak's territory. Or whatever.)
Timo Saloniemi
Besides, Saavik calls up data on the Kobayashi Maru from her own ship's computer. So that makes it even more likely that the KM is real.
Ah, but was it stored in her computer banks, or was it just identification information relayed via ship's transponder or perhaps associated automatically with the transmission? You know, like data packet overhead or track info with an mp3?
She says "Data on Kobayashi Maru" which subsequently appears on the viewscreen, with the computer voiceover (by Harve Bennett), so I can only assume the data came *from* the computer. And it seemed fairly complete: the computer says "Subject vessel is third class Neutronic fuel carrier. Crew of 81. 300 passengers" accompanied by a page full of data.
The question of why a fuel carrier would be carrying passengers, was left unanswered.
the computer says "Subject vessel is third class Neutronic fuel carrier. Crew of 81. 300 passengers" accompanied by a page full of data.
The question of why a fuel carrier would be carrying passengers, was left unanswered.
Unanswered... for now...
Anyway, the fact that data on the ship were in the simulator's memory banks doesn't prove it was a real ship, except within the fictional scenario of the simulation.
I know after seeing the cover and little previews of the book, that I can't wait for this book til September. I wouldn't be surprised if someone put together a small video on Youtube about this, like small scenes from Season 4 and add other elements to it. Should be an exciting read.
Ah, thank you. I was beginning to get confused and wondering if Saavik had at some point actually encounter the KM in real life.
If it's just in the simulator then surely all the details she finds about the ship are from the simulator and are constructed for the purpose of the test. If the test designers need her to discover a black hole (for example!) in the Neutral Zone, then one will be there regardless of reality.