Didn´t Kirk reprogram Kobayashi Maru cenario?

[dkehler]

Re: Hasn´t Kirk reprogrammed Kobayashi Maru cenario?

The other possibility is that he doesn't really NEED to be an expert in computers to reprogram the simulation. For all we know, it's a point and click interface that anyone with basic computer training could modify. Perhaps it's a simple GOTO WIN SUBROUTINE.

In fact, if I remember correctly, in the noncanonical Kobayashi Maru novel, he simply reprograms the simulation so that the Klingons immediately gave up as soon as they heard the name of "the great Captain Kirk."

It's like somebody said above; he doesn't expect to not get caught. He does it to prove a point, that being that the no-win scenario is bogus.

 

[Arlo]

Re: Hasn´t Kirk reprogrammed Kobayashi Maru cenario?

Starship Polaris said:

Arlo said:
^ reminds me of Voyage Home. Spock is the one who really knows what's going on with the Tootsie Roll probe, the whales and what not, but he had to feed it all to the Shat so KIRK would come off as the one who figured it all out.

Kirk is the swaggering commander, that's why we love him so, but I really don't see him having specialized comp-sci or engineering skills. I just don't see the guy sitting there debugging 5,000 lines of C++.

Yeah, the guy has a computer system that's calling him "dear" and the only thing he can think of to do with it is to threaten it.

I don't think Kirk directly rearranges the insides of the Kobyashi Maru unless the user interface includes a vagina.

That is SO my sig now.

 

[ancient]

Re: Hasn´t Kirk reprogrammed Kobayashi Maru cenario?

>WELCOME TO THE SIMULATOR MAINFRAME.

>PLEASE SELECT AN OPTION:

-> Take No-Win Simulation
-> Cheat, Allowing Yourself to Win

....-> You have selected "Win"

>IF YOU SELECT THIS OPTION, SAY GOODBYE TO THE HONOR SYSTEM.
>DO YOU WISH TO CONTINUE?

->Yes
->No

...->You have selected "Yes" you selfish person. Please Enter.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Re: Hasn´t Kirk reprogrammed Kobayashi Maru cenario?

Arlo said:

Starship Polaris said:

Arlo said:
^ reminds me of Voyage Home. Spock is the one who really knows what's going on with the Tootsie Roll probe, the whales and what not, but he had to feed it all to the Shat so KIRK would come off as the one who figured it all out.

Kirk is the swaggering commander, that's why we love him so, but I really don't see him having specialized comp-sci or engineering skills. I just don't see the guy sitting there debugging 5,000 lines of C++.

Yeah, the guy has a computer system that's calling him "dear" and the only thing he can think of to do with it is to threaten it.

I don't think Kirk directly rearranges the insides of the Kobyashi Maru unless the user interface includes a vagina.

That is SO my sig now.

That was fast.

 

[Opus]

Re: Hasn´t Kirk reprogrammed Kobayashi Maru cenario?

Arlo said:

Starship Polaris said:

Arlo said:
^ reminds me of Voyage Home. Spock is the one who really knows what's going on with the Tootsie Roll probe, the whales and what not, but he had to feed it all to the Shat so KIRK would come off as the one who figured it all out.

Kirk is the swaggering commander, that's why we love him so, but I really don't see him having specialized comp-sci or engineering skills. I just don't see the guy sitting there debugging 5,000 lines of C++.

Yeah, the guy has a computer system that's calling him "dear" and the only thing he can think of to do with it is to threaten it.

I don't think Kirk directly rearranges the insides of the Kobyashi Maru unless the user interface includes a vagina.

That is SO my sig now.

Make sure you give SP the credit. THAT is the funniest damn line I've read in weeks!

 

[Timo]

Re: Hasn´t Kirk reprogrammed Kobayashi Maru cenario?

Can you provide any further support for this argument?

I guess it was given in the messages above already (thanks, guys! ).

Seriously, "Court Martial" never states that Kirk would have special skills - it only states that Kirk has special access. And it is a major plot point in half a dozen TOS episodes that Kirk severely needs Spock's help with all those things that blink and go "Ping! Processing...". The poor captain fears computers, or fears and hates.

We already know a couple of hobbies and skills that Kirk has in addition to mastering the art of being starship captain. He knows his way around Earth 19th century / American history, and has a passing familiarity with the other centuries and locations. His Kirk Fu is feared throughout the galaxy. When the push comes to a shove, he is good at repairing Starfleet hardware, or improvising simple mechanical devices. And he can sweet-talk like no other.

Sure, he used to be a stack of books with legs, but that doesn't mean he'd have to be a Renaissance man like Spock. He has a realistic set of skills and a pretty explicit set of limitations. Nobody expects of him a mastery of computers, and he delivers none. For this once, I think Occam might be useful: if we don't see him in action, let's not burden him with yet another superfluous skill set. Many a TNG era character already got discharacterized by too much characterization.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[sturmde]

Re: Hasn´t Kirk reprogrammed Kobayashi Maru cenario?

^ How about a compromise view here. Kirk certainly had the skills, and the access both. He probably just hadn't kept those skills up with innovations such as multitronics, and in subsystems not used on the bridge... he came out of a duotronics era.

Example... 20 years ago, I could program in BASIC, FORTRAN, COBOL, and Pascal. Only one of those skills is today at all useful, FORTRAN, and it takes a day to get back up to speed. C I can read code, but I can't begin to code it, neither with C++. But I can still read it.

A more recent example: I'm fully functional with VBA and Microsoft Office up to 2003. I abhor Office 2007, and am not planning to upgrade to it for a good long while. The legacy versions are more than sufficient for my needs.

I think Kirk is analogous. He had a computer expert level based on understanding the legacy equipment: the duotronics on Enterprise. Specific systems perhaps... we have a number of examples in the 78 episodes of him manning stations and manipulating the ship successfully.

In his days of taking the KM test, his "legacy" knowledge would have been much more current. It's very likely he could have added a subroutine, or found a way to manipulate the other vessels in the scenario. I can think of dozens of various ideas, but just stick with the novel version, reprogramming the Klingons to recognize Kirk as a great Fleet Captain, etc. After all, Orci's said they've read the novels: they even used them for line readings to keep the movie script secret...

In any event... Kirk's computer skills were certainly top notch at the time of the KM test.

 

[Timo]

Re: Hasn´t Kirk reprogrammed Kobayashi Maru cenario?

I'd be quite happy with that, yeah.

Then again, I'm always wary of introducing new "Kirk skills" when his sudden ability to adjust the deflector of the Enterprise-B was so jarringly illogical and threw the relative characterizations of the three TOS heroes in that movie out of whack. (I could have accepted Chekov's sudden proficiency in medicine, since he has often been this "strange skills out of the left field" guy, and I could almost believe in Scotty acting like Spock, but there has to be a limit somewhere.)

Also, there is this weird discrepancy in "Court Martial" already: Kirk is supposedly capable of tampering with the computer testimony, but he never realizes this himself. I have an easier time in believing this if I assume that he forgot he had the theoretical access; if I have to assume he forgot he had the practical skill, it's a much bigger assumption. If Kirk did have that hammer, surely the problem at hand would look like a nail to him! But if he only has the keys to the closet that holds the hammer, he may never come to think in terms of hammering.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Re: Hasn´t Kirk reprogrammed Kobayashi Maru cenario?

The flip side of the argument, of course, is that whatever skills Kirk may have he acquired either at the Academy or in later training after the time of the KM test.

 

[Vektor]

Re: Hasn´t Kirk reprogrammed Kobayashi Maru cenario?

I never had the impression of Kirk as a computer expert of any kind. I’ll admit that the dialogue in Court Martial could be interpreted to mean that he did, but I never thought of it that way myself until the subject was raised in this discussion thread. I always assumed that Kirk was “capable” of altering the ship’s log because he had command-level access, not because he possessed any sort of exceptional computer skills.

By the same token, I’m not thrilled about the rumor that he seduces some female computer expert into reprogramming the Kobayashi Maru simulation for him. Sure, he’s been known to “use” women on numerous other occasions, but nearly always when his ship and crew were in jeopardy, not merely for his own personal gain. I suppose I could see him using her unwittingly, getting her to teach him the relevant computer skills for example, but I don’t see him using her to commit the actual “crime,” especially given the virtual certainty of it being found out.

On a related note, has it occurred to anyone else that this rumored female computer expert might actually be Carol Marcus? Perhaps the Kobayashi Maru incident was the original cause of their falling-out, after which Marcus discovered she was pregnant!

Then again, wasn’t there some info a while back suggesting that Marcus would not be in this film? When you think about it, any plot point involving her would likely involve more drama than they probably have time for without devoting a sizeable chunk of the movie to it.

 

[sturmde]

Re: Hasn´t Kirk reprogrammed Kobayashi Maru cenario?

We might also consider that the woman helping him might not have been doing it specifically at his request... she may have been "cooking" again and improvising based on some comments of his about how he wished the simulation would do certain things... or that he'd been trying to "tweak" it, and it wasn't quite working out.

And I have little doubt this woman helping him is his perhaps "contract wife"* Carol Marcus. And I'm putting a bet of a hundred quatloos that Rachel Nichols is portraying her, and that the Orion woman character is a smokescreen.

I think Bad Robot is smart enough to pull from the Blue Harvest legacy! They've certainly done some similar with Cloverfield...


*(Reference note: GR's novelization of ST:TMP fully details such a relationship Kirk had to be married to Admiral Lori Ciani; and how marriage works in the 23rd century....)

 

[USS Mariner]

Re: Hasn´t Kirk reprogrammed Kobayashi Maru cenario?

Don't forget, there's also Areel Shaw and "Ruth" for Kirk to seduce at least in some part of this movie.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Re: Hasn´t Kirk reprogrammed Kobayashi Maru cenario?

Why don't they just name some lab-technician character "Areel Ruth Carol Shaw-Marcus," let Kirk pork her and then get the Hell on with the movie.

 

[ralph]

Re: Hasn´t Kirk reprogrammed Kobayashi Maru cenario?

Julia Ecklar’s The Kobayashi Maru tells that Kirk won the scenario by reprogramming the simulation so that the Klingons believed he was a famous starship captain. Probabilly the computer changed Klingon attack.
A excellent solution.

 

[Vektor]

Re: Hasn´t Kirk reprogrammed Kobayashi Maru cenario?

^^ I hated that solution. I thought it was utterly cheap and anti-climactic. If he had actually beaten it that way, he should have been expelled as a reckless, egotistical little twit. He didn't just "change the conditions of the test," he set up a deus ex machina victory for himself that didn't require him to do anything more than state his name.

Scotty's performance on the test was far more interesting and exemplary of some truly clever strategy and innovation.

 

[ralph]

Re: Hasn´t Kirk reprogrammed Kobayashi Maru cenario?

Yes. Scott discovered that program was overestimating the effectiveness of a theoretical Klingon attack, but Kirk faced test with this disadvantage.

 

[martin]

Re: Hasn´t Kirk reprogrammed Kobayashi Maru cenario?

How canon is the PC Game "Star Trek: Starfleet Academy" That features William Shatner and the Kobayashi Maru test. It also lets you reprogram the simulator with 3 options...

Dumb down the AI
Make the Klingons Weaker
Make them believe you are a legendary Captain.

Also in the game, you only get to take it once. There is also a scene where you are pulled up in the office by the head of the Command School, asking for an explanation for why you meddled with it.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

Re: Hasn´t Kirk reprogrammed Kobayashi Maru cenario?

C'mon now, guys... I'm guessing everyone reading this forum has played a computer game at some point... haven't you?

In many games (especially "space combat sims") there's an "infinity battle" or other instant-action mode, where you fight against a never-ending sequence of ships. It starts you off with even odds, but the odds steadily get worse and worse. You INEVITABLY die. The goal of these situations is to see how long you can last.

Now, that's really an unfair "test" too... isn't it?

I really think that the Kobayashi Maru test was set up the same way. If you defeat your first enemy, another "pops in" that's more powerful... and so on and so on... until you simply can't fight any longer.

Now... imagine if all Kirk did was to disable the "respawning" of enemy craft (or the "instant damage repair option" for the enemy craft, or the "super-powerful weapons" cheat... or whatever other cheat the faculty had put into place for the "unbeatable" enemy.

He'd still be facing three enemy craft with his one ship... and fighting to save an unarmed, disabled ship filled with civilians. EXTREMELY challenging... but not utterly impossible.

Again, I'm absolutely convinced that his "cheat" was simply to disable the "cheats" made within the program... making it a more REALISTIC situation.

I agree that the "You're the LEGENDARY JAMES KIRK? We bow down to you!" solution in that horrible novel was... well, just offensive, by the way. That WAS "cheating" and had no redeeming qualities to it.

I think MY suggested solution, on the other hand... where his "cheat" was simply to counter someone else's "cheat"... is something that anyone who was being fair and even-handed in their evaluation would have to admit isn't really CHEATING at all.

Remember... Kirk's reason for his "cheat" was that he doesn't believe in the "no-win scenario." And ya know what? Neither do I. If the sim was programmed to cheat... I'd probably be pretty ticked off by that, too!

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Re: Hasn´t Kirk reprogrammed Kobayashi Maru cenario?

Cary L. Brown said:
Again, I'm absolutely convinced that his "cheat" was simply to disable the "cheats" made within the program... making it a more REALISTIC situation.

The simulation isn't supposed to be realistic. I doubt it was ever intended to be.

The whole point is to test cadets' response *as if it was real*. Even if it's the most obviously one-sided encounter imaginable, then how the cadet deals with it is still the point.

Now of course it could be argued that Kirk's reprogramming of the simulator is in itself a creative response (although we never knew how Kirk dealt with it the first few times he took the test, before he cheated). If the instructors were *expecting* some cadet to come along and reprogram the simulation, well, that's different of course.

But the whole point is why Kirk cheated. He said he doesn't like to lose. Well, tough SHIT, little man. Sometimes people do. If, however, he had been unsatisfied with his own performance the first couple of times, then that wouldn't have been quite so egotistical on his part. (Then again, this *is* Kirk we're talking about. An inflated ego is a foregone conclusion. )

 

[Jack Bauer]

Re: Hasn´t Kirk reprogrammed Kobayashi Maru cenario?

Vektor said:
Then again, wasn’t there some info a while back suggesting that Marcus would not be in this film?

That's correct.