The Effectiveness of the Kobayashi Maru Test

[Jonas Grumby]

"The purpose is to experience fear in the face of certain death. To accept that fear, and maintain control of oneself and one's crew. This is a quality expected in every Starfleet captain."

Did they really say that? (I haven't seen the movie.) If they did, then they certainly got it wrong. Obviously, no cadet is going to believe he's going to die if he doesn't pass the test.

The test - at least, as seen in TWOK - is obviously meant to test a cadet's problem-solving abilities (and tenacity) and his composure under stress. The stress of failing a crucial Starfleet exam would be enough to gage that composure, especially as it became more and more clear to the cadet that he could find no solution to the crisis.

(Incidentally, being a no-win scenario, I wonder if one of the things being evaluated is whether the cadet launches the recorder marker in time. )

 

[Vanyel]

Considering Troi's test, I believe that the Kobayashi Maru is just one of many no win scenario test given to cadets. They could go into the simulator or holodeck, expecting a routine test of their skills at their positions.

Then they could be facing a plague of some sort and have to decide to either try to cure the plague, or declare a medical emergency send out their findings to the nearest starbase or star ship, and destroy the ship to prevent the plague from ever contaminating another ship or planet; saucer separation, escape pods, shuttles would be ruled out because the plague is undetectable for hours thus the entire ship would be infected.

The Kobayashi Maru itself.

An Engineering problem like Troi faced.

Running into a pair of Romulan Warbirds that are well inside Federation space, where they have to decide to fight to stop the Romulans or run like hell to warn Starfleet only to have a third Warbird uncloak near them.

Any number of no win scenarios could be used, at any time. The problems they encounter would start off as typical problems any starship could face, then quickly escalate.

The cadets would never know when the test will come or even if the simulation they are facing is of the Kobayashi Maru type, until it's over. And since the computer gets to cheat it can replace actual cadets with holograms and split those taking the test into two groups each facing two different tests.

Anyway, that'd be the only way to keep the cadets on their toes. And they could take the test multiple times but since they never know when it's going to happen or what the scenario is going to be, it would still be a good test of their command and/or self control abilities.

 

[tighr]

And I believe that Star Trek '09 was the first to say that Kirk took the test three times. If I'm not mistaken, TWOK never mentioned that he took it multiple times, just that he re-programmed the test in order to win.

Actually TWOK did mention that, or specifically Spock did, in the scene where he gave Kirk A Tale of Two Cities: "The Kobayashi Maru scenario frequently wreaks havoc with students and equipment. As I recall you took the test three times yourself. Your final solution was, shall we say, unique?"

Well, I'll stand corrected then! I do recall that scene, now.

Either way, my original point stands: it doesn't seem odd that cadets can take the test more than once if they want to.

 

[Paradon]

Maybe they want to see how you will react under normal circumstances to get a clue as to how you would do under real stressful situations. Just imagine if you react badly under normal situations, how you would react under the real situation when the fate of the people or the entire planet is in you hands.

 

[Christopher]

Did they really say that? (I haven't seen the movie.) If they did, then they certainly got it wrong. Obviously, no cadet is going to believe he's going to die if he doesn't pass the test.

The test - at least, as seen in TWOK - is obviously meant to test a cadet's problem-solving abilities (and tenacity) and his composure under stress. The stress of failing a crucial Starfleet exam would be enough to gage that composure, especially as it became more and more clear to the cadet that he could find no solution to the crisis.

How long has it been since you've seen TWOK? Let me quote some lines from the transcript:

SAAVIK: I don't believe this was a fair test of my command abilities.
KIRK: And why not?
SAAVIK: Because ...there was no way to win.
KIRK: A no-win situation is a possibility every commander may face. Has that never occurred to you?
SAAVIK: No sir. It has not.
KIRK: How we deal with death is at least as important as how we deal with life, wouldn't you say?

KIRK: I reprogrammed the simulation so it was possible to rescue the ship.
SAAVIK: What?
DAVID: He cheated!
KIRK: I changed the conditions of the test. I got a commendation for original thinking. ...I don't like to lose.
SAAVIK: Then you never faced that situation, ...faced death.

TWOK absolutely did define the Kobayashi Maru as being about "facing death." It had nothing to do with problem-solving abilities, because the test was specifically designed to make the problem impossible to solve, so that no matter how ingenious or clever you were, you were still doomed to failure. That's the whole point. The harsh reality of life in space is that you can't always win by being smart or clever or persistent -- sometimes you just straight up get killed and there's not a damn thing you can do to prevent it. Aspiring captains have to be able to face the reality that sometimes there's no way to win. Which ties in thematically to Spock's sacrifice.

In both films, the KM is a plot device used to illuminate Kirk and Spock's character arcs. In TWOK, it's about Kirk's sense of his looming mortality and Spock's willingness to sacrifice. In ST '09, it's about young Kirk carrying the baggage of his father's sacrifice in a no-win scenario (which gives Kirk a solid personal reason for refusing to believe in them) and about Spock being forced to confront death himself in a situation where he's in command, and finding it's not as simple as he thought when he delivered that quote. (Not to mention that in both films, the villains are driven by their inability to accept a death, their failure to realize that vengeance is itself a no-win scenario. They're in denial, refusing to face the death of their loved ones and allow themselves to grieve.)

Considering Troi's test, I believe that the Kobayashi Maru is just one of many no win scenario test given to cadets.

Well, we're talking about two timeframes a century apart. Do we use century-old textbooks in our college courses? So who knows if the KM is still used in the TNG era? Not to mention that the KM is for cadets while Troi's test was for lieutenant commanders seeking full commander's rank and authority.

 

[T'Girl]

And they could take the test multiple times but since they never know when it's going to happen or what the scenario is going to be

The third test Kirk took in ST Eleven and the first test of Saavik took in TWOK were different tests. Saavik enter the NZ with out orders on her own initiative and was ambushed. Also, they lost contact with the Maru, possibly indicating it was never there.

Kirk received direct orders from Starfleet to enter the NZ, the Klingon entered after they did, and they did rendezvous with the Maru.

Either way, my original point stands: it doesn't seem odd that cadets can take the test more than once if they want to.

On each of his three tries, the tests Kirk took could have been very different in details, and not like Troi simply taking the identical test repeatedly.

 

[Christopher]

^Again, we're talking about two different decades, the 2250s for Kirk and the 2280s for Saavik. The test could've been rewritten in the intervening 27 years. Not to mention that they're in two different timelines.

 

[Jonas Grumby]

TWOK absolutely did define the Kobayashi Maru as being about "facing death." It had nothing to do with problem-solving abilities, because the test was specifically designed to make the problem impossible to solve, so that no matter how ingenious or clever you were, you were still doomed to failure.

I guess we can agree that in-universe it's a test of "facing death," but it's still ridiculous. No cadet would ever believe he's "facing death" in a controlled test in a simulator.

And the idea that it could not be a test of problem-solving skills because it has no solution doesn't hold water either. If I were designing a test to find the absolute limits of a cadet's tenacity and ingenuity, I would of course design a test that couldn't be solved. I want to see him try everything he can think of, and I want to see if he ever gives up.

 

[Paradon]

That's true. I agree with you.

So, do you think Kirk did the right thing?

 

[Christopher]

I guess we can agree that in-universe it's a test of "facing death," but it's still ridiculous. No cadet would ever belief he's "facing death" in a controlled test in a simulator.

The point isn't to make them actually think they're going to die. It's to force them to confront and think about the possibility that they may be unable to talk or think or fight their way out of death in the future. It's to make them admit the possibility of failure, to recognize their own limitations.

And the idea that it could not be a test of problem-solving skills because it has no solution doesn't hold water either. If I were designing a test to find the absolute limits of a cadet's tenacity and ingenuity, I would of course design a test that couldn't be solved. I want to see him try everything he can think of, and I want to see if he ever gives up.

I don't see how it makes a valid test of a person's ingenuity and problem-solving ability if the test doesn't reveal whether the solutions would actually work. A lot of people come up with clever, inspired, imaginative solutions that don't actually work at all in practice. (Adam Savage does it frequently on Mythbusters, and sometimes Jamie Hyneman does too. They have lots of ideas that seem brilliant but just don't work.) If your test won't let your subject win, then it won't let you distinguish workable solutions from unworkable ones, so it doesn't tell you whether the cadet is really a great problem-solver or just someone with a bunch of imaginative but impractical ideas. So it can't be a valid test of problem-solving skills.

 

[Paradon]

What about Picard Maneuver? That is kindda like Kirk taking the test, wasn't it? He made the Ferengis think that another ship was approaching and fooled them into diverting their fire power. I believe it went something like that. Correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[Jonas Grumby]

I don't see how it makes a valid test of a person's ingenuity and problem-solving ability if the test doesn't reveal whether the solutions would actually work.

You really don't think seeing the quality and quantity of solutions a cadet can come up with, how quickly he can come up with them, and how long he keeps at it before giving up is valuable when evaluating candidates for command positions?

Nevertheless, since it is explicily stated onscreen that the KM scenario is a test of "facing death," I accept that, in universe, it is. But I think I agree with the OP that it doesn't make a lot of sense.

 

[Vanyel]

^Again, we're talking about two different decades, the 2250s for Kirk and the 2280s for Saavik. The test could've been rewritten in the intervening 27 years. Not to mention that they're in two different timelines.

They are still no win scenarios. It doesn't matter that they are 27 or 100 years apart, the scenario may change, but it still no win. Troi's was a no win even IF the test was just to allow her to move up a grade in rank and allow her to command a ship.

For me, I'm just saying that Starfleet, must use multiple no win scenario's to test its cadets. The Kobayashi Maru is just the most famous one.

The cadets of the 24th century enter a holodeck not knowing if it'll be a simple simulation like manually piloting the ship into space dock, or landing an Intrepid or Defiant class, a controlled landing of a Galaxy class saucer, providing support to a Federation or allied planet that's suffered a disaster, basically things that'll test their nerves and see how well they've been trained; or a no win scenario that'll make them throw everything they've learned and maybe a few things they figured out on the spot at the situation and hope they win. Maybe they even use scenarios that start out looking like a no win scenario but would have a winning move or two. That would also test the cadets and see if they give up or try and find the winning move. Not like Tuvok's, where running away from the Warbird was the winning move, but an actual tactical move that allow victory.

The cadets are unaware of what the computer has in store can never go in prepared.

 

[Christopher]

What about Picard Maneuver? That is kindda like Kirk taking the test, wasn't it? He made the Ferengis think that another ship was approaching and fooled them into diverting their fire power. I believe it went something like that. Correct me if I'm wrong.

I don't see any similarity. The Picard Maneuver is just about using speed-of-light image lag, making a quick warp jump to outrace the light from your own ship and create a double image so the enemy is confused about which ship to fire at. All Kirk did (in the version seen in the 2009 movie) was to reprogram the simulated enemy ships to make them defenseless and easy to destroy. (Which is nowhere near as clever as the version in Julia Ecklar's novel The Kobayashi Maru.)

You really don't think seeing the quality and quantity of solutions a cadet can come up with, how quickly he can come up with them, and how long he keeps at it before giving up is valuable when evaluating candidates for command positions?

As I said, I don't see how you can assess the quality of the solutions if you can't tell whether they actually solve anything. If you make them all fail, how do you know which ones, if any, would've actually worked? And if they don't work, it doesn't matter how many of them there are or how quickly they're churned out.

 

[AFEK ESLCAFE W]

I don't think it's a good idea on general principles to trick cadets into thinking their simulations are genuine life-threatening situations. That way, if a real life-threatening situation came up while they were on a training cruise (like what happened during the "little training cruise" in TWOK, say), they might mistake it for a drill and fail to take necessary precautions, and that could get them killed.

It was actually the then-deskbound Admiral James T. Kirk who was caught with his bridges down, more concerned about growing old and whether or not he'd actually get an opportunity to command a starship again than to actually command.

Those young cadets were simply following the commands and orders of a superior officer of legendary status that they were in awe of. It was only the intuitive Lieutenant Saavik who had the guts to see whether he really measured up to all that hoopla or not.

 

[Jonas Grumby]

As I said, I don't see how you can assess the quality of the solutions if you can't tell whether they actually solve anything.

I'm having a difficult time buying that the (one would hope) seasoned officers/instructors at Starfleet Academy would be unable to judge the merits of a cadet's ideas based on criteria quite apart from whether a simulator program allows them to "win" or not.

 

[Christopher]

I don't think it's a good idea on general principles to trick cadets into thinking their simulations are genuine life-threatening situations. That way, if a real life-threatening situation came up while they were on a training cruise (like what happened during the "little training cruise" in TWOK, say), they might mistake it for a drill and fail to take necessary precautions, and that could get them killed.

It was actually the then-deskbound Admiral James T. Kirk who was caught with his bridges down, more concerned about growing old and whether or not he'd actually get an opportunity to command a starship again than to actually command.

Those young cadets were simply following the commands and orders of a superior officer of legendary status that they were in awe of. It was only the intuitive Lieutenant Saavik who had the guts to see whether he really measured up to all that hoopla or not.

First off, it's "caught with his britches down," i.e. his trousers.

Second, I wasn't saying it happened in that particular situation. I was just using that situation to show that it was possible for cadets to be thrust into real life-threatening situations, and therefore it might be a bad idea in general to make them unable to distinguish between real danger and a test. Just ask the boy who cried "wolf." Or, wait, you can't, the wolf ate him.

I'm having a difficult time buying that the (one would hope) seasoned officers/instructors at Starfleet Academy would be unable to judge the merits of a cadet's ideas based on criteria quite apart from whether a simulator program allows them to "win" or not.

Like I said, oftentimes smart, experienced people come up with solutions that seem perfectly sound and reasonable and creative, but when they try them out in reality, they turn out to fail because of some factor they overlooked. It therefore follows that even the most experienced, expert officers wouldn't be reliably able to judge whether a proposed solution would actually work based merely on whether it sounded viable. If we're talking about problem-solving, then by definition we're talking about outcomes, not just ideas.

 

[Jonas Grumby]

If we're talking about problem-solving, then by definition we're talking about outcomes, not just ideas.

Well, I think you're talking exclusively about problem-solving, but that misses my point. I don't see the KB scenario is a test of "getting the right answer." The only way I can make sense of it is, as I stated above, as a test of "tenacity and ingenuity," a scenario that allows for the evaluation of those qualities in the cadet.

But, again, I realize this doesn't square with the "in universe" reality.

For instance, I would think, rather than training cadets that there are no-win situations where one can only be concerned with how one faces death, you'd want to train them to never accept defeat and keep fighting to accomplish the mission to the bitter end.

Also, my contention that seasoned officers and instructors could evaluate a cadet's ideas based on their own experience without having to run actual physical trials of them flies, I know, in the face of the oft-used Trek concept of young upstarts knowing more than their clueless "betters."

 

[Maurice]

"Face death" doesn't necessarily mean facing your own death, it means that no matter what solution you try someone is going to die, whether that be you and your crew or the slobs on the Kobayashi Maru. If you choose not to engage, they die. If you try rescue, you die. Etc.

 

[Caliburn24]

I went through US Army Basic, and Scout school, so my view of the Kobayashi Maru test is colored by my own military training.

Part of military training is breaking down civilian mindsets, and rebuilding them with proper military thinking. The KMT is Starfleet's way of breaking down cadets.

All the time in Army training you are given impossible goals to meet. You either don't have the time, or the manpower, or the equipment. And the Drill Sergeants have deliberately set it up like that, and take great pleasure in making sure you know it is a no-win scenario.

They are waiting for you to quit, to give up. To break. But if you keep trudging, keep trying, somehow that hour you had to perform a task becomes two hours. Or magically the standards change, or suddenly you get some help from some unexpected quarter.

And that is an important lesson. However bleak the situation seems, however impossible. There are outside factors that you do not control. Victory is always possible, because real life is not as immutable as a test or game. The goalposts are always moving. So long as you keep trying, maximizing whatever you can do for your cause you have done your duty.

Sometimes those outside factors are going to go against you, as in the KMT. So long as you did not give up in the face of defeat and impossible odds, your tactical performance is not particularly important.