(no subject)

[stillane]

Okay. So. Got a Star Trek question for you all:

How does one fail the Kobayashi Maru?

It is entirely possible that I'm missing something very obvious here, but... what is it? My Trek background is kind of spotty and strange, a weird combo of cultural osmosis and active pursuit over the years, but it's left me with some bizarrely detailed knowledge in certain areas and some truly crappy gaps in others.

Ergo, the Kobayashi Maru. I get the mechanics of it, I do, along with the ideologies it brings into play. As a storytelling device, it's neat; as a method of gauging cadet responses, also neat. The student in me, though, really wants to know what it means in terms of a grade. At least in this latest movie, this thing isn't set up as just a training exercise, it's actively represented as an exam of some kind. Granted, more of a pass/fail, notes-on-your-report-card type than the standard A through F scale, but still. How do you fail a test that's designed to be failed?

Are there two levels of 'failure' involved here? Bones says that everyone fails it, and I'm assuming that means that for the students, failure entails watching everything virtually crash and burn around you, but it has to be something else from the instructors' point of view, because otherwise nobody would ever get commissioned. Is the simple act of not accepting your helplessness enough, or do you have to do some pretty drastic flaily-hands mid simulation to 'fail'? Like, so long as you don't stroke out or start talking about the Jabberwocky or something mid-battle, is that considered okay?

Which is another question, really... How do you definitively pass it? Is it enough just to keep your head and make rational decisions right up until the end, or is there something else you should do? I know from Kirk's perspective anything less than victory is a failure, but what does everybody else consider 'doing well'? I get that the whole point of the test is a thought exercise for the student, but there has to be some element of it that is actually, well, a test. Otherwise the concept of being able to cheat on it doesn't make much sense. If you can get hauled on the carpet for doing something the wrong way, it stands to reason it can't be a "there are no right or wrong answers" kind of deal.

What I really wonder is, is the very act of coming back and taking this thing repeatedly a failure?

Also, what happened when Kirk failed those other two times?

Feel free to tell me I am full of nonsense and point and laugh at the holes in my Trek canon. Like I said, there might be a really easy answer I'm missing here, but I would go batshit insane if I were being graded this heavily on something this arbitrary.

In other news: meme! Appropriately scifi flavored meme, even!

Inspired by Doctor Who's "Turn Left:" Pick one of my stories and tell me a point in the tale that you'd change -- something tiny or big -- and I'll tell you how that one difference would have altered the course of the entire story.

Everything in my arsenal can be found here, if you wanted to play.

Comments

[the-moonmoth.livejournal.com]

What I really wonder is, is the very act of coming back and taking this thing repeatedly a failure?

I thought the exact same thing!

I think of it as more like a right of passage that the students see as an "exam" but which isn't graded, more sort of annotated and analysed and added to the body of psych work they must be collecting on all the cadets. In an atmosphere like starfleet academy, with all those clever, ambitious people, I expect there's more than a little competition and most things are seen as a test.

Although my original trek knowledge is at best incomplete and I could be waaaay over here in makebelieve land :)

[stillane.livejournal.com]

I thought the exact same thing!

It makes sense, though, right? I mean, if the point is to demonstrate that you're cool under pressure and able to recover from defeat, isn't that negated a little bit by obsession with the unattainable? Except, as elandrialore pointed out below, it could also be taken as perseverance in the face of adversity.

But then, that's what's driving me nuts about the whole deal. You could spin any decision (aside from the above-mentioned Jabberywocky meltdown thing) in a bunch of different directions. How do they decide what's a healthy response? What does Spock, of all people, do with the results of a test which are potentially this ambiguous? Especially this Spock, who's pretty much spending this portion of the movie with his hands over his ears chanting, "Lalala can't hear you. I am not emotional and you can't make me be," except when he's really pissed off. I can't decide if he's the best or the worst person ever to be in charge of eliciting and classifying psychological responses.

Huh. Do you think there's a committee decision on the graduation of command-track cadets? Like, they sit around a big table and go, "Shows promise... Shows promise... Shows promise... Completely bugfuck..."

In an atmosphere like starfleet academy, with all those clever, ambitious people, I expect there's more than a little competition and most things are seen as a test.

When you put it that way... That does not sound disturbingly familiar. My classmates have not spent the last semester losing their collective minds over the lack of concrete grading strategies. Nope. Not at all. *looks shifty*

[the-moonmoth.livejournal.com]

I can't decide if he's the best or the worst person ever to be in charge of eliciting and classifying psychological responses.

I always took it that he was just the programmer, not the one in charge of evaluating the cadets' responses. I know in TOS he was meant to be some computing specialist.

That does not sound disturbingly familiar.

Nope, not at all :)

[elandrialore.livejournal.com]

I think of it as like a psych test or even as simple as a personality test. They want to evaluate a lot of things: how they handle pressure, what choices they make and in what order they make them, how do they handle 'death'- both their crews and their own - and how do they handle failure.

There is technically no wrong answer, but some answers are better because they align to whatever personality type that the Academy is looking for. And you can still cheat on a personality test (which seems weird but go with me) because you can know enough about the test and about how they want you to answer to be able to answer in that specific way whether that's really who you are or not.

Kirk took it one step further and instead of changing himself to fit the responses, he changed the responses to fit himself. This is both ingenious and arrogant as hell, which - while an interesting comment on Kirk - still doesn't give them the answers that they need. They still need to know how he'll handle the pressures, etc.

So, in essence, yes, there are technically two levels that this is working on. There's the failure as seen by the cadet who did not manage to rescue the crew safely, and then there's the failure of being up to the standards that they set for the psych evaluation aspect.

I would think that going back to take the test on one hand might be considered a failure in that he's not understanding the purpose of the test - which I think Spock mentions in the hearing - but I also think that on the other hand it could also be considered perseverance and the inclination to never give up even in the midst of unbeatable odds, which is definitely not a bad thing for a Starfleet Captain.

[stillane.livejournal.com]

Thanks! This made everything a lot clearer in my science-wired, occasionally-too-binary brain.

I think of it as like a psych test or even as simple as a personality test.

Hm. That makes a huge amount of sense, particularly what you said about the ability to cheat the test simply by knowing it's purpose. To that end... The simulation has to follow the same basic idea each time, right? The details may get to vary all choose-your-own-adventure style, but in the end rocks fall, everybody dies. Is the experience less valid if you just repeat it enough? Do other cadets occasionally take it over again, or is Kirk just that unique? I know Bones seems surprised at the announcement, but I wonder if it's unheard of.

They still need to know how he'll handle the pressures, etc.

This makes me really want to know what happened the first two times. I almost think they just keep letting him try again out of sheer curiosity. O_o

but I also think that on the other hand it could also be considered perseverance and the inclination to never give up even in the midst of unbeatable odds

Ah, Kirk. Walking that fine line between batshit crazypants and unbelievably awesome, and with style. This is what I love most about this crew. *g*

[elandrialore.livejournal.com]

The simulation has to follow the same basic idea each time, right? The details may get to vary all choose-your-own-adventure style, but in the end rocks fall, everybody dies.

I think that's where Spock's vast programming knowledge comes in because he has to be able to predict and counteract all possible scenarios and guard against them.

Is the experience less valid if you just repeat it enough? Do other cadets occasionally take it over again, or is Kirk just that unique? I know Bones seems surprised at the announcement, but I wonder if it's unheard of.

I have a feeling that, based on human ingenuity and the sheer amount of variables, someone would have to take it a great many times before they encountered every possible scenario. I also think that part of the test is based on how long it takes you to fail so maybe the more you take it the better you might adjust your decisions and the longer it would take you to die, however, it's not set up as a test that you take multiple times.

I'm actually quite surprised that Kirk was the only person to ever take it more than once, but perhaps everyone else looked at it solely as a learning experience and Kirk looked at it like a pass/fail and dammit he wasn't prepared to fail.


This makes me really want to know what happened the first two times. I almost think they just keep letting him try again out of sheer curiosity. O_o

In my head Kirk is utterly shocked that he failed - even though everyone fails - because he's so good at accomplishing the unexpected and he knows it. Then I imagine that he got very, very pissed and tried again. When he failed the second time I imagine pissed was an understatement and then came his realization that he'd have to cheat the system, and this we got his cockiness in the conversation with Bones:)

And I definitely think they let him take it again just out of curiosity. And I'd be willing to bet that Pike was laughing his ass off as soon as someone told him about Kirk's request.

[darsynia.livejournal.com]

There was a version of this that they did with the Next Generation, and it involved sending an important crewmember to their deaths in order to save the ship. I wonder if it's that sort of thing here? Like, in order to pass, you have to make tough decisions, and in order to fail, you have to waste time NOT making the tough, sacrificing decisions? I think TNG did a much better job of it, imo.

[stillane.livejournal.com]

it involved sending an important crewmember to their deaths in order to save the ship.

Ooh. How much would I love to see that one applied to these guys in fic? Soooo much. *g*

Like, in order to pass, you have to make tough decisions, and in order to fail, you have to waste time NOT making the tough, sacrificing decisions?

That makes a lot of sense. I can certainly believe there'd be some element thrown in there to directly test their ability to weigh odds and make hard calls based on the personal vs. the professional. It doesn't hurt that my cut-and-dried, either/or brain likes the idea of there being a quantifiable better or worse performance evaluation possible for this thing. *g*

(Also, because I've utterly failed at saying so: Congratulations on the miniLemon! She's such a tiny, amazing little thing!)