Is this a solution to the Kobyashi Maru test?

Cafe Society
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21

But one side of the no-win is not going and getting shit from your more aggressive counterparts, like Kirk, or not getting a command because you’re too timid, or too callous.

The choices aren’t just dying in manner A or dying in manner B. The choice of not dying IS a valid choice. One IMO I don’t think should be a disqualification from command. If you can justify it. Space is littered with the debris of starships whose captains went in guns a-blazin’. Just because someone once said:

If you can’t take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home, and crawl under your bed. It’s not safe out here! It’s wondrous…with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross; but it’s not for the timid.

Doesn’t mean you have to go and die just to prove you aren’t timid. After all, what are we - Klingons? :slight_smile:

This is why I loathe the opening scene in Generations. Captain Cameron kept dismissing every possible way of saving the Enterprise because he knows that choice is pointless:

Kirk: You left spacedock without a tractor beam?
Harriman: It won’t be installed until Tuesday.

but yet, the scene is supposed to make Kirk look heroic and decisive, and Cameron look wimpy

Kirk: [to Harriman] Risk is part of the game if you want to sit in that chair.

But I submit Harriman was right. Or, at least, right-er.

22

No he didn’t He explained his decision and the rest of the simulation got laughs from the monitors since it was uneventful.

23

When Kirk says he “reprogrammed the simulator to make it possible to rescue the ship”, did that mean he reduce the accuracy or strength of Romulan disruptors, or just have the Romulans decide that a good will mission should be left alone? (I hope it wasn’t the old “Captin Kirk?! Run away run away!” Because that would be stupid.)

24

Assuming you mean in the book mentioned above, tt’s your second option, with a little bit of the third. He programs it where the Klingons actually respond to hails, and tells them he’s Captain Kirk and on a rescue mission for a ship in distress. He says he means no harm, but will defend himself if necessary. The Klingon responds with “The Captain Kirk?” and ultimately says they’ll let him through and assist in any way.

Before this, he does try other alterations, like making them more powerful or making the Klingons less powerful. But he still always loses because the computer will just create more Klingons. Part of why he thinks it’s fair to cheat the test is that he discovers the test itself cheats.

(I found an audio book copy on the Internet Archive, and listened to Kirk’s part of the story.)

25

Speaking of the KM test, remember Friday’s Child? Where Scotty was fooled into diverting to rescue a ship from a Klingon attack. They fly off, but it turns out to be a hoax. Then they get another call, and Scotty ignores it.

It was the correct call to ignore the distress call. Good thing Scotty didn’t take the “right” lesson from the test.

26

WTF is wrong with them?

In the movie “White House Down” (I think) there is a scene where the bad guy puts a gun to a 12-year-old girl’s head and threatens to shoot her unless the president gives the nuclear codes. The president looks at the little girl and says something to the effect, “I’m sorry, if I give him the codes millions will die. I hope you understand.” She’s crying but nods in assent…she gets it.

I may have the exact details wrong (above) but I would hope a Starfleet crew would understand that entering the Neutral Zone would mean war and millions or even billions of deaths. If that means letting a few hundred die then that is what you have to do.

I get it is all fiction but still…that seems unreasonable to me.

(Jump to 1:00 in the video below for that scene):

27

@Whack-a-Mole

First off, as someone else posted, it doesn’t happen that way. The Memory Alpha information is wrong. There is no mutiny. Just protests by the other cadets. One of them does mention mutiny, but they do reluctantly go along with their orders afterwards.

One part that may not be clear is that there is no evidence any Klingons are nearby. Remember, it’s a Neutral Zone: they aren’t supposed to be in it, either. And the Kobyashi Maru is just barely inside the Neutral Zone. The other cadets mostly seem to believe they can get in and get out before they get caught.

Sulu does in part choose not to go in because of the risk of war, but also because he believes it may be a trap. He, unlike the others, scans for the ship, and finds out that there is ionic interference. He can’t establish if the ship is even there, let alone whether or not there are any Klingons around. It’s possible he would have tried the rescue if he could have proven the ship was really there and alone.

Also, the captain on the ship also begs after he tells them they can’t help, playing up the cadets sympathies.

And, this is all assuming the other crew aren’t in on it. I always assumed they actually were from TWOK. The captain has to be surprised by the test (the first time they take it, anyways), so they can’t have played a different part in it before. So the only cadets left to play the other parts would be people who have already taken the test and know it is unwinnable.

If that’s the case, then they would likely be told they need to put pressure on the captain, to see how the captain would respond. Their protests might not reflect their actual opinions. That said, they did seem pretty sincere in the book, so I’m not so sure.

Still, the only mutiny is in Star Trek Prodigy, where Dal (who has only just learned of the Federation and is not an actual cadet) tries not saving them because he says it isn’t his problem, and that he has to look out for himself above others. That mutiny makes more sense.

28

I suspect another part of the Kobyashi Maru test (and don’t get me wrong, I think it was much like @Stranger_On_A_Train’s take, a framing narrative for the themes of the whole movie rather than a completely thought out ‘thing’) - is that apparently you can retake it many times.

In that sense, it’s probably a good tool to evaluate how potential command officers treat defeat and learn from mistakes, and I find it highly unlikely that the cadets don’t know that (to whatever degree) the “fix is in.”

So it’s about seeing how various, presumably at least somewhat aggressive (and less so) command personal deal with the issue, and if they keep making the attempt, give up easily, or get beaten down by it.

29

The “solution” to the test is to lose the best way possible.
Winning is flunking.

30

That sounds like the Klingons “winning” but a Pyrrhic victory for them (e.g. you destroy most of their ships before they get you).

31

It is a test to find out how fast the candidate will give up. It is like a “holding your breath” contest. You can’t “win”, but you can do better than others.

32

Actually, the stupid option was what he did. But the Klingons (not Romulans) offered to help the rescue after they heard that they were facing “the Captain Kirk!”

It might have been silly, but I think that it was better than the scenario showed in the Star Trek movie with Chris Pine.*

33

You are correct, of course!

But it should have been Romulans, Klingons never had neutral zones, considering they came and went on a almost daily basis. Romulans stayed in their own yard. Klingons take prisoners, too. Watch the episodes! Stupid writers.

And why does the TWOK Neutral Zone look like a giant balloon in space? That makes no sense! Stupid sfx people!

34

I agree on both points. The Neutral Zone was first mentioned in “Balance of Terror” as a kind of No Man’s Land between the Romulans and the Federation. It was never mentioned in the series as the border between the Federation and the Klingons. In fact, the Klingons and the Federation had a peace treaty between them, imposed by the Organians in “Errand of Mercy”.

35

Then how did “Neutral Zone” and the Klingons get associated? I’d always thought it was that way until now.

36

I rather liked his ultimate solution: “No rational approach works, so let’s try chaos.” And it worked pretty well. One wonders what the program would have hit him with next if he hadn’t, you know, accidentally blown up the Enterprise himself.

37

Fire long range photon torpedoes at the Kobayashi Maru, destroying it and removing the motive for mutiny. Blame the Klingons, use the political fallout to extract concessions from the Klingons. Gain the Klingons’ respect for such a ruthless but effective strategy, become a naturalized Klingon and run for high office. Destroy the Klingon Empire from within.

38

That part was a little jarring, but funny.

39

Because of this very movie, The Wrath of Khan. Before that, “the Neutral Zone” had always been a Romulan thing.

Likewise, in Star Trek III the Klingon ship is called a “Bird of Prey” for the first time. That was also a Romulan thing until then.

Somebody back then didn’t know their Klingons from their Romulans. I blame Nicholas Meyer.

40

I like the cut of your space jib!

I wonder if the (space) seeds of this came when the Romulan Bird of Prey filming model disappeared. Some say it was an accident, some say it was theft, some say it was political. But the result was the Romulans were forced to fly Klingon battlecruisers (not birds of prey) until Next Gen. And the writers never watched the show, so they don’t keep it straight.

He did a lot right, but, yeah, this one’s on him.