Kobayashi Maru
The Kobayashi Maru is a test in the fictional Star Trek universe. It is a Starfleet training exercise designed to test the character of cadets in the command track at Starfleet Academy. The Kobayashi Maru test was first depicted in the opening scene of the film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and also appears in the 2009 film Star Trek. The test's name is occasionally used among Star Trek fans or those familiar with the series to describe a no-win scenario.
Rescuing the civilian vessel Kobayashi Maru is the notional primary goal in a simulated battle with the Klingons. The ship is disabled and the approaching cadet crew must decide whether or not to attempt rescue of the Maru crew – potentially endangering their own ship/lives – or leave the Kobayashi Maru to certain destruction.
The Kobayashi Maru (Original Series novel)
The Kobayashi Maru (1989) by Julia Ecklar tells how each of these officers faced the problem:
Chekov evacuates his ship and then crashes it into the three Klingon cruisers, destroying all four ships in the process and (inadvertently) all of the evacuees as well.
Sulu realizes it is probably a trap and refuses to cross the Neutral Zone.
Scotty attempts to fight the Klingon ships, employing a series of unorthodox tactics, such as bypassing the Klingon shields using a works-on-paper-only calculation (the failure-to-work-in-practice demonstration experiment was published by Scotty before he joined Starfleet and this fore-knowledge of theory/practice results in his being judged unsuitable for command track and sent off to engineering, as he actually desired), and transporting various destructive items to them. At first, he is surprisingly effective, but the computer scenario ups the ante with the arrival of additional Klingon ships.
Scotty responds in kind with even more unorthodox tactics that rapidly escalate in on-the-fly engineering derring-do and destructiveness. He eventually loses to a staggering fleet of fifteen ships, but claims that if there had been an actual engineering room in which he could have performed his instructions himself, they would have been destroyed as well. This example proves it clear that the simulation will never end, no matter what the student throws at the Klingon ships, as an ever-increasing number of Klingon vessels will arrive on the scene, guaranteeing that the testee will lose eventually.
Kirk reprograms the simulated Klingons to be afraid of "The Captain Kirk"
http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/The_Kobayashi_Maru
The Kobayashi Maru
Author(s): Julia Ecklar
Publisher: Pocket Books
Series: Pocket TOS #47
Titan Books #30
Published: 1 December 1989
A freak shuttlecraft accident – and suddenly Captain Kirk and most of his senior officers find themselves adrift in space, with no hope of rescue, no hope of repairing their craft, or restoring communications – with nothing, in short, but time on their hands.
Time enough for each to tell the story of the Kobayashi Maru – the Starfleet Academy test given to command cadets. Nominally a tactical exercise, the Kobayashi Maru is in fact a test of character revealed in the choices each man makes – and does not make.
Discover now how Starfleet Cadets Kirk, Chekov, Montgomery Scott, and Sulu each faced the Kobayashi Maru... and became in turn Starfleet officers.
Kirk's story relates how, after failing the test more than once and becoming more and more obsessed with it, he cheats and reprograms the test to make it think he was so famous and respected in battle, that the simulation adversaries instantly surrender and offer assistance.
>>>>>JOURNAL ARCHIVE: From: Kerry Burgess
To: Kerry Burgess
Sent: Tuesday, May 9, 2006 6:01:15 PM
Subject: Right
I wonder if this is where that guy painting the picture was standing?
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Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan
1:21:14
Evasive starboard!
1:21:25
Fire!
1:21:47
Damage, Mr Scott?
1:21:50
Admiral, I've got to take
the mains off the line.
1:21:54
- The radiation...
- Scotty?!
