The Kobayashi Maru by Julia Ecklar

[Arpy]

Well, you'd expect that if everyone was taking the KM test, they'd be better prepared than Troi was. Which was not at all.

She was done a disservice in the episode. (That, “Rascals,” and “Chain of Command” I think of as the Holy Trinity of Facepalm.) I don’t see one rising to the rank of lieutenant commander and not knowing something that basic about their ship. Or physics.

The point is that she was a non-command officer in charge of the massive ship, and you’d think Starfleet would want to test all its officers’ mettle before sending them out into the great unknown.

The same with McCoy, Uhura, and Spock.

EDIT: cut out story ideas, given the presence of writers.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Yeah, when you know in advance it's a no-win you don't get the full emotional experience that Spock spoke of in ST09. It's no-win and a simulation, how much should i really care? or I just have to pretend to feel fear at the same time show that I am controlling myself and my crew.

Which just improves cadets' acting skills more than anything else.

It was Jim's third attempt in ST'09. By then he'd figured it out

In the PC game Starfleet Academy, your cadet character sometime between 2288-2290 doesn't know about Kirk's cheat either until he accidentally stumbles upon Kirk's old hacking source code.

Great game by the way, there's nothing like playing the Kobayashi Maru yourself. Reading or watching about it is nothing compared to actually going through it! You can even cheat the exact way Kelvinverse Kirk does in the 2009 movie (by making the Klingons weaker--and this game came out in 1997)

There was a novelization of that game by Diane Carey, it was pretty good.

 

[Christopher]

They’re Starfleet officers. Anyone of them might find themselves like Troi did in “Disaster” having to take command. The no-win scenario isn’t a matter of testing tactics but character. Like the Psych Test that Wesley took.

Yeah, but why does everybody assume that the Kobayashi Maru is the only command test in the Academy, or that it's mandatory/constant for everyone? Surely it'd be just one of many simulations and trials, and since it's only testing one particular, narrow thing, I don't see it as being some absolute, universal requirement. In real academia, how many tests get administered perpetually to everyone without ever being updated or replaced? It's kind of silly how fandom has jumped to the conclusion that the KM is the single most important test or inviolable tradition in the entire Academy just because it's the only one we've seen. (And not just fandom. Diane Duane's The Kobayashi Alternative computer game was supposedly a second simulation the Academy had created because they'd realized the KM wasn't adequate by itself. I never understood why Duane thought it was meant to be the only Academy simulation rather than one of many.)

It was Jim's third attempt in ST'09. By then he'd figured it out

It was his third attempt in TWOK too. Remember this exchange from the birthday-gift scene?

SPOCK: As I recall, you took the test three times yourself. Your final solution was, shall we say, unique?
KIRK: It had the virtue of never having been tried.

 

[Arpy]

Yeah, but why does everybody assume that the Kobayashi Maru is the only command test in the Academy, or that it's mandatory/constant for everyone? Surely it'd be just one of many simulations and trials, and since it's only testing one particular, narrow thing, I don't see it as being some absolute, universal requirement. In real academia, how many tests get administered perpetually to everyone without ever being updated or replaced? It's kind of silly how fandom has jumped to the conclusion that the KM is the single most important test or inviolable tradition in the entire Academy just because it's the only one we've seen. (And not just fandom. Diane Duane's The Kobayashi Alternative computer game was supposedly a second simulation the Academy had created because they'd realized the KM wasn't adequate by itself. I never understood why Duane thought it was meant to be the only Academy simulation rather than one of many.)

This body doesn’t assume it’s the only command test at the Academy or, necessarily, that it’s mandatory. Again, the first time we hear about it, we learn that Captain Spock never took it. It’s just fun in this specific thread to wonder how the rest of our heroes might have fared with it.

But to the point of the test, I can easily imagine it being a test for all students, like I can the Psych Test, because it tests not specific or esoteric command tactics or history, but broader psychology. The KM is about how one deals with failure. The Psych Test with fear.

I imagine there are lots of other interesting tests all cadets take, psychological and otherwise, and obviously lots of tests most don’t.

 

[JD]

Yeah, but why does everybody assume that the Kobayashi Maru is the only command test in the Academy, or that it's mandatory/constant for everyone? Surely it'd be just one of many simulations and trials, and since it's only testing one particular, narrow thing, I don't see it as being some absolute, universal requirement. In real academia, how many tests get administered perpetually to everyone without ever being updated or replaced? It's kind of silly how fandom has jumped to the conclusion that the KM is the single most important test or inviolable tradition in the entire Academy just because it's the only one we've seen. (And not just fandom. Diane Duane's The Kobayashi Alternative computer game was supposedly a second simulation the Academy had created because they'd realized the KM wasn't adequate by itself. I never understood why Duane thought it was meant to be the only Academy simulation rather than one of many.)

I would think by the time you reached the last year or so of the command program you'd probably be spending the majority of your time in the simulator going through different scenarios.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

She was done a disservice in the episode. (That, “Rascals,” and “Chain of Command” I think of as the Holy Trinity of Facepalm.) I don’t see one rising to the rank of lieutenant commander and not knowing something that basic about their ship. Or physics.

The episode showed us that exact thing, though. Troi was trained as counselor. Why should she know anything about physics beyond the basics?

 

[Arpy]

The episode showed us that exact thing, though. Troi was trained as counselor. Why should she know anything about physics beyond the basics?

Because she’s a lieutenant commander and because of the situation she found herself in the episode — in command. She’s not civilian support like Guinan or the school staff; she’s an officer.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

"I gotta tell you, at this point, the length of this conversation is way out of proportion to my interest in it." - Dan Rydell, Sports Night, written by Aaron Sorkin.

 

[Stevil2001]

In the PC game Starfleet Academy, your cadet character sometime between 2288-2290 doesn't know about Kirk's cheat either until he accidentally stumbles upon Kirk's old hacking source code.

Great game by the way, there's nothing like playing the Kobayashi Maru yourself. Reading or watching about it is nothing compared to actually going through it! You can even cheat the exact way Kelvinverse Kirk does in the 2009 movie (by making the Klingons weaker--and this game came out in 1997)

In the novelization of the game, Forester dismisses that option because the simulation can just keep throwing more ships at you even if they are weak. (Or if your ship is overpowered, which is another option he considers.) The hack he ultimately selects is to make himself feared among the Klingons. (Isn't that a reference back to the Ecklar novel?)

Presumably Starfleet Academy training simulations are difficult, or there'd be no point. How does Saavik know there was no way to win, instead of that she just played badly?

 

[Timo]

Well, does she? Her evaluation of the difficulty level could be based on her own calculations, be they correct or faulty, rather than on her being aware of the fact that this simulation's middle name is "No-Win".

As of STII:TWoK, we don't yet learn that the Academy no-win scenario would involve rescuing the Kobayashi Maru every time. That ship is only involved in the scenario we see played out, on Kirk's birthday, and then said to be the one that gave Kirk his first taste of being Superman.

The test in "Thine Own Self", as well as another in "Learning Curve", feature different parameters altogether, but may well serve the same purpose. Although nothing dictates that they should.

No later episode creates ties between no-win and the Kobayashi Maru specs. In the 2009 movie, the ties are of a paranormal sort, i.e. fate and all that - but we still can't tell for sure whether there was a Kobayashi Maru except in the final test where nuKirk cheated, although we can speculate there were Klingons in all the preceding ones, too. That's a test Kirk personally asked to be repeated, though; fellow commander-hopefuls may have tackled the infamous Space Dragon scenario, or the Romulan Surprise Strike one, or whatnot.

In any case, psychological tests are a big thing in the Academy, and can result in a flunking very late in the game, including Merrick's fifth year. No matter how nonsensical the Kobayashi Maru test we see may appear, it probably does serve a purpose, along with a dozen others that do not necessarily much reflect the practical realities of starship command.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[thribs]

Sounds interesting. I’ve read the Enterprise one. I should give this one a go.

 

[Christopher]

Presumably Starfleet Academy training simulations are difficult, or there'd be no point. How does Saavik know there was no way to win, instead of that she just played badly?

Because it wasn't the only Starfleet Academy training simulation. Apparently it was the last one before graduation, given that she changed her turtleneck from cadet red to command white in the next movie. So she must have participated in many previous simulations and gotten a realistic sense of her own performance and its likely results. So she could've calculated that the probability that her choices would be successful in a normal, fair simulation would be high, and thus her total inability to succeed in the KM meant it was anomalous.

 

[Yistaan]

In the novelization of the game, Forester dismisses that option because the simulation can just keep throwing more ships at you even if they are weak. (Or if your ship is overpowered, which is another option he considers.)

In the game, you can still do things exactly like KelvinKirk did, which seemed to be either making the Klingons weaker or the Federation stronger.

It's been a while since I played, so I had to look up wikipedia for what happened if your Forester character does this--
"If the player cheats by altering the battle itself, he is treated to two larger waves of Klingon D7 cruisers after destroying the initial wave of three. After destroying those waves, the simulator computer crashes with a Guru Meditationerror, and in debriefing the commandant remarks that he would be impressed were it not for the impossibility of such a feat."

So basically, you can do the same thing as in the 2009 movie. The only difference is that the simulation crashes in the PC game as Forester, while KelvinKirk pulls it off without a computer crash. I guess KelvinKirk's a better hacker.