For Roddenberry’s sake, people, it’s the Neutral Zone on the Klingon border, not the Romulan border. The Federation and Klingon Empire were enemies until Star Trek VI.
Until I saw this thread, I didn’t know there was a book. I picked it up and read through the first half last night. A couple of corrections:
Chekov rams one of the Klingon ships, causing the anti-matter explosions. He had originally planned to claim he’d evacuated first, then when pushed by the instructor, admitted that he’d sacrificed the crew to save them from Klingon interrogation techniques.
What intrigued me from the Chekov story wasn’t his solution, but the following section. Chekov and the command cadets are given a command scenario in which one of the is designated an assassin, and they’re all set loose on a space station, with the goal being to survive. That’s it, survive. Before reading what actually happened, it took me about 30 seconds to devise the exact strategy later attributed to the Great Cadet Kirk (the only cadet ever to beat this one also), which was to team up with some buddies, secure an easily defensible position, and allow anyone else to join providing they disarm. What Chekov does is kill everyone else to try to be the sole survivor (he succeeds it killing the others, but only by committing suicide). It turns out that pretty much all of the cadets had the same idea: kill everyone else. The purpose of this was apparently to show how impetuous (yet brilliant in battle) Chekov was, and give another example of Kirk’s brilliant leadership, but all it did was show that the entire class were grade A jerks who cared only for themselves and didn’t pay attention to the instructions.
I enjoyed the Kirk solution. I laughed out loud when the Klingon commander, then the bridge crew responded as one “The Captain Kirk?” before offering to escort him and offer aid. It works for me because Kirk’s point was that the test was unfair because it isn’t realistic, so his solution was likewise unrealistic and unfair.
Sulu’s solution was the one I actually agree with, and he and his first officer actually score high with it.
Haven’t read Scotty’s solution yet.
Fenris In the book, it’s made clear that command cadets are sworn to secrecy after taking the test, and Kirk actually has to warn the others not to repeat the story, 'cause if anyone ever tried it again, Starfleet would know he’d talked and he’d been in deep do-do. McCoy doesn’t know anything about it. The book is set between the first two movies, so it even fits in somewhat with the continuity, though I do realize if it ain’t in the series or movies, it didn’t happen.
I’ve been enjoying the solutions on a geek level, but the writing is purely pedestrian. The battles in Ender’s Game were fun, but the rest of that book provided motive for paying careful attention to the story. I’ve been tempted to skip to the Kobayashi Maru stories and ignore the rest, the framing story is so bland.
Distress call from a ship lost in the Neutral Zone?
Say, “That ship and her crew are forfeit. May God have mercy on
their souls…and ours.”, and leave the simulated ship to its fate.
That’s what i did after a while reading that (the Chekov story got boring and i came up with the solution Kirk used as well). but i was 13, and easily distracted. As opposed to now, when i am 24, and still easily distracted…
What book are you talking about?
In the ST:TNG book Boogeymen, Wesley wanted to test his command abilities. I forget who it was, but someone (or many people) convinced him to try the Kobayashi Maru scenario on the holodeck. He does against Romulans, and loses. He later tries it with aliens of his own making, and screws the ship up. Just wanted to show that the later series used races it wasn’t allied with to test against.
But… A real life Kobayashi Maru situation would be winnable – all you’d have to do is to get Q to drop by at the right time, hurl a few insults the captain’s way, and then wave his hand and turn the Klingon ships into brussel sprouts…
I used to think I was a geek…
How much do we hear about this in the films/series? What’s in other books?
My contributions are TNG “A Rock and a Hard Place” by Peter David where Quintin Stone is said to have passed the test without cheating (but is verging on insane) and TOS “Dreadnaught” by Diane Duane where Piper loses the ship (after using a communicator to talk to the ships computer) and is told something like “…everybody fails… if you do the right things the people around you don’t…”
Maybe the chief engineer is primed to say “The engines really canna take n’ more, cp’n!” if you’re doing well.
I think it’s Kobayashi Maru by Julie Ecklar. If the link doesn’t work, you can search for it at amazon.com.
You know I don’t think they really gave an answer as to how well the students did on teh test.
Is there a grade or was the test just to show them that there is a possibility of total faliure?
I think it has to be graded or else why would they have Kirk take the test “several times”? Or maybe that was just his desire to say to the instructers no there has to be a awy of winning.
If graded does Saavik lose points for constantly bitching about the test or letting it get to her?
That sounds completely consistent with his character, if you ask me.