Mistakes You Thought Were Made In OS, But Weren't

It's just a rationalization, an assumption to make the idea of test work. If I had evidence, I would have cited it.

 

How do you rationalize the fact that the test is identical for both Saavik and alt-Kirk?

 

Too easy. Different timelines.

 

It's the SAME TEST!!! Are you claiming coincidence? In that case, everything is as soon as it's convenient. Like gravity for example. Maybe objects fall at random in every direction, it's just random luck that makes them all fall on the ground!!

 

My head canon says the test is different for each candidate. When Kirk took the test in the Prime reality it was different than the one his counterpart took in the Kelvin one.
Any how, fiction is often reliant on coincidence. It's not constrained by the laws of physics.

 

If that were the case, wouldn't Saavik ask Kirk something more like "Can I ask what situation you faced in the Kobayashi Maru test?" The way she phrases the question implies a common frame of reference.

Not to mention the impracticality and difficulty of constantly inventing new test situations which are completely different for each cadet, the "cast" learning their roles and so on.

 

There are probably several KM scenerios in constant rotation. The "cast" improvs. Which keeps it real. /rationalization

 

Easy. Kirk is the one giving the test to Saavik.

It's Kirk's birthday. He's celebrating it by torturing his students with a scenario that holds personal significance to him. And to Spock, perhaps, as it might well be the Vulcan devised the scenario in both timelines.

I assume Kirk is the Academy head honcho in ST2, and for that reason so intimately involved with the simulation training. After all, he is not intimately involved with the Enterprise at the time, except through said simulation training.

Timo Saloniemi

 

I could buy that. "Everything else is different each time" made me think each test would be completely unique. The conversations with Saavik are still phrased like they're talking about the same test, though.

 

The KM in Saavik's test was a civilian transport that struck a mine and we never see it suggesting that it as bait on the part of the Klingons and was never there.

Nu-Kirk's KM was a Starfleet vessel and we see it and see it's currently under attack.

I can't remember if nu-Kirk's KM struck a mine.

 

Are you arguing that these variations change the resolution of the test? I see them as unimportant details with no incidence whatsoever on the test itself. The basic premise is the same, "whatever you do you end up surrounded by ships bent on blowing you up and succeeding in that endeavor no matter what you do in response."

 

I think in this case the simplest explanation is the answer:

 

You did use the term "identical."

 

Sure, what of it? Are we into semantic now? The point is that aside from differences due to the fact that these are movies from different eras and things change (like the ethnic origin of Khan) while everyone including old Spock (Leonard Nimoy) act as if they were IDENTICAL, you come and argue that two tests that are remarkably close given how often the writers change things at random even when referring to things of the same series. Like when they retconned in ENT how T'Pol got infected with the "disease". I'll say that given the circumstances these two tests are as identical as possible and then some!

 

The test goes by two basic descriptions in ST2 and the subsequent repeats: "the Kobayashi Maru scenario" and "the no-win scenario". It is indeed suggested to be a single phenomenon persisting through recent Starfleet history, but also split into these two descriptions. The fun is making something out of this essentially nothing, and seeing if it holds together.

The latter, general term is quite possibly what this test is all about in general. It tests reactions in face of defeat (ST2), including coping with fear (the 2009 flick), by whatever means (as long as assured defeat is built in). And one means is to make the hero try and rescue a ship from a calamity; sometimes (perhaps even every time a ship is involved, as only our two or three explicit Kobayashi Maru heroes ever refer to a "ship") the name of the ship is Kobayashi Maru, and this name is typically associated with a version of the scenario that is destructive to the simulator (ST2). This is the extent of our canon knowledge, so multiple lines of speculation are allowed.

We may e.g. speculate that there is historical precedent in a ship of that name being involved in a crisis where the rescuing starship got pounced by superior enemy forces. This history is not slavishly followed: the exact nature of the Kobayashi Maru is known to be varied, so we can speculate the exact nature of the setting or the enemy is, too. If the ship can switch from civilian to Starfleet*, the enemy may well switch from Klingon to Romulan to Space Amoeba as well.

Nothing forces us to think that every "no-win" would involve a "Kobayashi Maru". Then again, nothing forces us to think the test would be truly unique and surprising: there is no harm in the test subject knowing all about the test in advance, and in taking it twice or thrice, and indeed such diligence or obsessiveness is appreciated (no doubt because it, too, gives the test board good data on the psychology of the test subject).

Timo Saloniemi

* Backstage pics show a "civilian" registry prefix ECS, but that cannot be seen in the movie. Uhura can be heard stating out loud that the ship name is preceded by "Starfleet" USS, though.

 

Many things in the ST series and movies are wrong or out of place and discrepancies between things otherwise said to be identical are legions, like when the interminable password that data enounces in "Brothers" differs from the one which is displayed on the screen or the words said by Kirk in his personal log (in TUC) are not the same as the ones we hear during the trial, the list of those discrepancies is endless.

 

Remember Doc Holliday had a shotgun, as well.

 

I agree with this. I think the idea that Spock devised the KM was one of the cleverer concepts in the 2009 movie.

Not with this part, though. I used to think that Kirk was the Academy Commandant in TWOK too, but I've since become convinced that he's not. He doesn't seem to be especially familiar with the students, he at least twice refers to them as "your cadets" to Spock (emphasis mine), and outright asks Spock how he thinks they'll respond under the pressure of a real mission. All of that indicates to me that he's not really dealing with the students on a regular basis. The only cadet he seems to recognize besides Saavik is Peter Preston, who he might have met years before, the way he did with Sulu's daughter Demora.

Plus there's the fact that Kirk is pretty obviously bored and unfulfilled in his work once again. If he were teaching or running the Academy full time, I bet he'd find that a lot more stimulating than being a deskbound paper pusher. ("Young minds, fresh ideas.") But it seems like Kirk let himself get trapped into a boring desk job once again.

My theory is that most of the old Enterprise crew aren't normally attached to Kirk's staff or the Academy, and the KM test, the inspection, and the little training cruise on Kirk's old ship are a special reunion that Spock and McCoy arranged for Kirk's birthday. Spock is running the Enterprise as a trainee ship, McCoy is apparently also regularly attached to the Enterprise, as his name is stenciled on the door of sickbay, and Scotty is obviously involved with training the engineering crew. If you believe that deleted scenes are canon, Sulu was scheduled to Captain the Excelsior. And we know that Chekov became first officer on the Reliant.

We're not really given any sort of indication as to what Uhura has been doing on a regular basis, though. Maybe she was already working at the transporter station we saw her at in STIII? Or maybe, considering the way that Kirk just automatically hands off his book to her when the inspection starts, she was a regular part of Admiral Kirk's staff? His personal attaché, maybe?

 

That’s truly great stuff. I love the ideas of Spock and McCoy bringing in Sulu for Kirk's birthday (the "I don't think these kids can steer" and even "so much for the little training cruise" lines fit in perfectly with the idea that Sulu was just on loan for a few weeks). I don’t know why Scotty wanted to stay Earthside and supervise trainees, but maybe that worked for him and he got to keep working with his friends, Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. But that doesn't explain the "Mr. Scott, you old space dog" exchange, where it seems clear that Kirk is not regularly working with Scotty. So perhaps Scotty was brought in too along with Sulu. Uhura may have been in the same situation, or maybe she was indeed Kirk's attache; that’s a great idea.

As for Kirk's position, I don't think he's the commandant of the Academy either, mostly because he's fully read in on and has access to the Genesis Project, which Spock for example does not. I think Kirk's still Chief of Starfleet Operations during TWOK.

 

I have a friend that referred to me as "you old dog" often and Is saw him 3 or 4 times a week.

In the "Kobyashi Maru" novel, all the cadets took the exact same test. In Diane Duane's "Dreadnought" (I think it was) novel, the antagonist were Romulan instead of Klingon. All the other details were the same.