A certain test in Trek XI - Spoilers - (I think...)
- Thread starter Roshi
- Start date
I don't see your point.
In The Wrath of Khan Saavik took, and passed, the KM test, but was confused because she had obviously lost the fight. The point of the test was then explained to her. I can see that Kirk would also have questioned the outcome of his KM test, and it would have been explained to him too. Once that explanation was made, there would be no point in having Kirk retake the test.
I can just see Kirk asking to retake the KM test:
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Kirk: Sir, I only got slightly bruised when I bashed my head against the stone wall in yesterday's wall breaching test. I'd like to take it again.
Instructor: But Mr. Kirk, we explained to you that the wall is impenetrable. We're satisfied that your concussion shows sufficient aptitude for command.
Kirk: But sir, I know that if you give me just one more try I can shove my head through that stone wall. I can't take failure.
Instructor: Mr. Kirk, you passed the test. There's really no need. We are sure that the wall is unbreachable by even the hardest human head.
Kirk: I'll hold my breath until you let me take the test again.
Instructor: OK. 2pm tomorrow afternoon.
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After the skull reconstruction surgery required after the second test, Kirk got smart and decided to cheat on the next one. And the rest, as they say, is history.
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number6
Vice Admiral
Who says she passed?
Kirk took the test when he was in the academy. It's easy to take his explanation with some 30 years hindsight. If Kirk doesn't as he said, "believe in a no win scenario" I would imagine he'd take the test again.
Since this is a test of character, who's to say that this test is only offered once?
I can just see Kirk asking to retake the KM test:
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Kirk: Sir, I only got slightly bruised when I bashed my head against the stone wall in yesterday's wall breaching test. I'd like to take it again.
Instructor: But Mr. Kirk, we explained to you that the wall is impenetrable. We're satisfied that your concussion shows sufficient aptitude for command.
Kirk: But sir, I know that if you give me just one more try I can shove my head through that stone wall. I can't take failure.
Instructor: Mr. Kirk, you passed the test. There's really no need. We are sure that the wall is unbreachable by even the hardest human head.
Kirk: I'll hold my breath until you let me take the test again.
Instructor: OK. 2pm tomorrow afternoon.
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After the skull reconstruction surgery required after the second test, Kirk got smart and decided to cheat on the next one. And the rest, as they say, is history.
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For all we know this could have been exactly what happened.
Nowhere Man
Commodore
don't forget Starfleet is not so much military as it is science oriented and this is set in the future not the past .
You said it better than I did.
Seems to me the writers may be trying to set up an example of how Kirk has always been up against staid authority figures. More clever than the teachers, so to speak.
I also figure he "passed" the test the first time. The other two tries were for his amusement and the amusement of his superiors, too (probably). (Apparently taking it more than once was unusual.) Which is again why I can't see why they tied their shorts in knots and are ready to expel him for messing with the simulation on his third try. Seems they goaded him into it, really. I mean, what was the harm at that point?
So, the question is how does he end up with a commendation for original thinking instead of expulsion? Because of the speech he supposedly gives?
Cause no matter how many times before or later he took the test by "cheating" or messing with the programing (or having someone do it on his behalf) he's still breaking the honor code by which organizations setup like StarFleet live and die by. They can't let that go without at least the formality of a tribunal.
Sharr
That's not how this sort of test is done. You're thinking in terms of scholastic testing, where there's a "right answer" to every question.
Think of it more as a laboratory test. You're not testing the subject's KNOWLEDGE, or even his skills. You're testing the very makeup of the subject.
This is VERY common in military situations, and I'm sure that there are situations outside of that environment where it happens, too. (I'll admit I've seen far fewer applications of this sort of evaluation outside of the military, and that, IMHO, is a damned shame... and is the root cause, IMHO, of why the "Peter Principle" is still the governing rule behind all business promotion and hiring in the US, sad to say!)
I'll give you an example that might be similar... but somewhat more familiar to most people (since so few people today have any military experience).
Think of a police officer. He may graduate from the academy with flying colors, may be able to plink the fly off a horse's nose at 100 paces with his 9mm, may know the textbook answers to every situation that the academy might put him into...
But the first time he sees the face of someone he knows turned into a puddle of goo by a criminal's shotgun blast... will he turn into a rage-filled monster? Will he freeze up? Or will he be able to DO THE JOB?
That's why this sort of test is done. To give the people evaluating the candidate a better (if not absolute) feel for the candidate's real, internal makeup.
There is no "pass" and no "fail" per-se... though there are obviously many things you could do that would be overt failures ("Mr. Sulu... prepare to ram the lead klingon vessel! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!" ... or ... "Oh my God, everyone around me is dead... I can't do my job anymore... boo hoo boo hoo boo hooo!!!!!")
To the heads of the Academy... the folks who were running this simulation... they WANT to see someone do exactly what Saavik did... though I'm sure they'd prefer someone who could make the fight last a bit longer before sending her crew to die in the escape pods...
She kept her head, for the most part. Didn't lose her cool or go crazy or just fall apart totally. That's what they expected.
What they DIDN'T expect was for someone to refuse to accept defeat under any circumstances. But, again, that's who >I< would want as my captain... the man who'd never give up.
That would ruin the whole point of the test. I'm guessing that the reason that Kirk told Saavik was that he saw some of himself in her (no dirty pun there, folks... keep it clean here!)... and also because, after Kirk, they probably decided to stop letting command school candidates retake that particular scenario!
Here's how I see it happening. You guys can disagree of course...
1) The first time Kirk takes it, he does about how Saavik did (I'd love it if we even got the "damn!" comment at the same point!).
2) Kirk is angry enough about this that, in an unusual move, he requests (virtually demands!) a second chance to take it. This time, he prepares for a week, barely eating or sleeping... and comes up with what he thinks will work.
3) He retakes it...and notices that the scenario is adaptive. It seems to adjust so that whatever he does, whatever he tries, it shifts and overwhelms him. He makes the scenario last... FAR longer than anyone else has... but eventually is worn down.
4) Kirk is pissed off at this point. He knows that something's rotten there... and he decides to find out what. We know that Kirk is a computer expert... one of the top three experts on the Enterprise later on (the other two being Spock and Ben Finney).
5) SO... Kirk digs into the program... very "Mission Impossible" like... and discovers that the program IS adaptive. And he simply disables the adaptivity of the program, so that the situation he goes into at the beginning of the simulation is the situation he has to deal with throughout the simulation.
6) Given that... a FAIR AND LEVEL PLAYING FIELD... albeit one with dramatically "unfair" odds... Kirk knows he can win.
7) He requests another try. At this point, the staff is alternately annoyed and bemused by this guy, but they go along with it.
8.) He engages the enemy, and manages to save both the K-M and his ship... though it's a long, hard, drawn-out battle scenario, one that almost no candidate could have beaten anyway.
9) Upon walking out, the faculty are stymied. They KNOW that the program itself is set up to "cheat" and they noticed that it didn't do so (think, for instance, of a computer game where there are infinite numbers of respawning enemies. Now, imagine turning off the "respawn" point in one of those games...)
10) They bring in a staff of computer experts to look into the programming. One of those is Lieutenant Spock, recently at the Academy for Science Branch Advanced Course, off of his posting under Pike on the Enterprise.
11) Spock identifies the "cheat" Kirk used... which was only to disable the "cheat" put into the program by the faculty and staff to ensure loss by the candidate. He points this out, matter-of-factly... that the way that Kirk "cheated" was by countering the way that someone else had cheated. Which, when you think about it, isn't really "cheating" at all... is it?
As we keep saying... it's not a "pass fail" test... it's a "test of character" to determine how you deal with that sort of situation.
Kirk's way of dealing with it was to refuse to accept defeat. I suspect, eventually, Saavik might have responded the same way... at least the Saavik we got in TWOK (though likely not the Saavik we got in the next film).
Believe it or not, rules are usually in place for a reason, and many aren't to be broken lightly.
Also remember that the military (Starfleet) carries out (Federation) policy, they don't make it. Winning the battle by breaking the rules is not always the right thing to do when the 'big picture' is being considered.
I would think that reprogramming the simulation to let Kirk have his victory would actually be seen as a negative by many of the faculty, because it shows a disregard for the 'system' in favor of Kirk's ego. The 'system' is, of course, Federation policy and Starfleet regulations.
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I watched an excellent special on The History Channel not long ago about the U.S. military academies. A member of the faculty of West Point said they actually do look for leaders who are individualists and willing to take a situation into their own hands.
Again, mind you, they aren't looking for mavericks or blantant rules violators, but they are looking for people who aren't afraid to think for themselves, assess a situation, and get the job done.
Stephen Ambrose said that ability (and freedom) to think on the fly is what separated American officers from German and even other allied officers during the heat of battle in WWII.
Also, as Cary L. Brown said and others alluded to, you don't "pass" or "fail" the no-win test, per se. Indeed, taking it more than once, if you know it's no-win, defeats the purpose.
To that end, perhaps Kirk secretly found out that the test was no-win. And, that's why his superiors had no problem continuing to let him try. Let him go until he finds out on his own he can't always win, may have been their attitude. Then, damned if he doesn't win.
Where did this come from?
What, exactly, does military treaty or protocol have to do with winning a battle simulation? Or real world battle? So when a Klingon is attacking your ship, would you want:
A: Someone very good at quoting regulations.
~or~
B: Someone who won't give up in a fight no matter what.
Because that's the situation in the test. A battle/rescue.
So giving yourself a chance to win an unfair battle simulation = Bay of Pigs. Great. I can see this going no where fast.
Of course. A person who can't think for themselves or get the job done isn't, and won't be a leader.
We already know about Kirk's cheating ways at Starfleet Academy. Can't we just have a movie that covers new territory?
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During the KM test in STII, Saavik chose to disregard a treaty in response to a distress call, so I would say that there is a connection.
If I were on a ship in distress calling out for rescue then I would obviously favor option B.
No, the situation in the test was apparently a trap set by the Klingons to lure a starship into violating the Neutral Zone treaty. Saavik fell right into their hands.
Changing the rules of the test might make the student feel better, but it would not likely give the instructors the information they were looking for. Or in this case maybe it would, since it was supposedly a test of character.
Perhaps the ends justify the means in Star Trek, and Starfleet is planning on launching genocidal attacks on the Klingon and Romulan homeworlds in the new movie.
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Time-travel is a bad idea. This discussion of the KM test proves that that is a good idea.
Personally, it's going to be interesting to see exactly how well they handle this, considering the ethical questions raised in here (of all places.) I'm only sad that they're probably going to shoehorn it into a time-travel film, which is far from appropriate, especially considering the more recent clock-reversing escapades.
It's as if there's a stipulation in the writers' contract that demands any production set in the past must, unconditionally, use time-travel.
I do like the idea that Spock meets for the first time on the board, leaving the "buddy buddy" role for Mitchell.
heh
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