Greetings, intrepid readers! M. H. Barton here with another blog post on the art and craft of storytelling. Today, I wanted to look at one of the most famous scenarios given to us by the Star Trek franchise, the Kobayashi Maru exam. The test has been seen and referenced throughout the history of the franchise by many different characters and is often known even by people who aren’t Star Trek fans. It’s a test given to all cadets desiring to command a ship which puts the cadet into a no-win scenario. No cadet has ever succeeded in completing the scenario itself, save for one James Tiberius Kirk. He famously “cheated” by reprogramming the simulation to make it possible to win. But in doing so, did Kirk really pass? That’s the question I want to explore in today’s post. This is simply my opinion as I wax philosophical about this topic, but it should be helpful in understanding how to write a character’s leadership qualities. Anyway, time to explore a part of Star Trek where many have gone before.
To start off, I’ll give a rundown of what the Kobayashi Maru entails. The cadet is given command of a simulated Federation starship with a command crew to assist them. These crew members are usually real officers meant to proctor the exam. The cadet soon receives a distress signal from the ship Kobayashi Maru. The ship states that they have hit a gravitic mine and are completely disabled. Worse, they’ve been stranded in the Neutral Zone between the Federation and the Klingon Empire. Entering the Neutral Zone is a treaty violation that could start a war. However, if the cadet refuses to enter the Neutral Zone, they will face a mutiny from their crew, forcing them to enter anyway. Upon entering the Neutral Zone, the cadet loses contact with the Kobayashi Maru and is immediately attacked by an overwhelming number of enemy ships. No matter what they try – fight, flee, or negotiate – the scenario always ends with the destruction of their ship and the deaths of all crew members.
Different Star Trek characters have taken the Kobayashi Maru exam over the years, and each has approached it differently, revealing key information about their personalities. Saavik’s exam is our first introduction to the scenario, in which she attempts the rescue, tries and fails to contact the Klingons, and finds the ship too damaged to do anything when she then tries to fight. Even her final order to abandon ship was useless, per Admiral Kirk, as the Klingons would have shot down the escape pods without hesitation. Saavik’s experience with the exam is probably the most famous and quintessential version, being the original iteration. But she isn’t the only character whose experiences we’ve learned about.
We learn more about the crew of the original Enterprise and their experiences with the scenario in Julia Ecklar’s pocket novel, The Kobayashi Maru. When Chekov faces the exam, he attempts the rescue, but immediately orders the crew to escape when the Klingons appear. He himself remains behind to self-destruct the ship, an action that still kills the escaping crew. On the other hand, Sulu faces the exam with ironclad resolve to not violate the Neutral Zone, resulting in a mutiny from his crew. Scotty takes a novel approach, using his engineering skills to abuse mechanics specific to the simulation and last longer than any cadet ever had. Nonetheless, he knew such tactics would have been useless in real life and is deemed unfit for command. Scotty had planned this as a way to be reassigned to an engineering track despite his family’s wishes for him to be a starship captain. Spock had never faced the Kobayashi Maru scenario but retorted that his actions at the end of Wrath of Khan qualified as his solution to the no-win situation.
But what of the original protagonist, Captain Kirk? After trying and failing the scenario twice, Kirk’s need for victory motivates him to try a third time. This time, however, he hacks the simulation and reprograms it to make the Klingons think he’s a famous and skillful starship captain, resulting in their surrender and pledge to help rescue the Kobayashi Maru. In the original setting, Kirk was commended for his original thinking on the scenario, but in the alternate reality of 2009’s Star Trek film, he was brought before a disciplinary hearing for his actions. This difference presents some confusion as to Starfleet’s views on Kirk’s solution. Did Kirk cheat or not? It’s hard to say, but I honestly think it’s irrelevant. Instead, I wonder if Kirk should be considered to have passed the exam at all.
As someone who has used video game cheat codes in the past, it is my opinion that Kirk failed the Kobayashi Maru scenario. Sure, it was fun to be able to kill boss enemies in one hit, but after seeing the ending, it’s not like I felt any sense of accomplishment. I hadn’t beaten the game. I had only forced my way past tough situations in order to see the ending. Granted, none of these were truly unwinnable scenarios, but I think the analogy still applies. Real gamers should feel that witnessing the ending of a game is a reward for their time and hard work. That’s why, as I grew older, I only ever used cheat codes to help with tedious, time-consuming tasks, rather than breaking the natural game progression. On the rare occasions that I did use more game-breaking cheat codes, I only did so on games I had already beaten to see how things were different. It was an experiment, nothing more.
In the same way, Kirk misses the point of the Kobayashi Maru scenario. If one looks at it like a video game, then Kirk had already seen the true ending of the game twice before deciding he couldn’t accept that ending. He hacked the game and changed the ending to what he wanted. Good for him. But the ending wasn’t the point. The unwinnable scenario isn’t testing you by results, as the results are always the same. Instead, it’s testing your decisions leading up to the results and your reactions afterward. Kirk was so obsessed with winning that he forgot to actually play the game. Should he have felt mad at an unfair exam? Sure. Absolutely. But that’s part of the job he’s signing up for. He can boast that he doesn’t believe in unwinnable scenarios all he wants, but that doesn’t stop such scenarios from rearing their ugly heads in life, especially as a Starfleet captain.
Talking about the Kobayashi Maru scenario reminds me of another no-win scenario from the film National Treasure: Book of Secrets. I’m sure you all know of the Indiana Jones-esque adventures from these movies, but the worst scenario of all comes at the final climax of Book of Secrets. As the characters make their escape, Mitch Wilkinson realizes the room just before exiting the ancient temple of Cibola is a death trap. The exit can only be opened by a crank far enough away that the operator of the crank can’t get to the door before it closes. Worse, the room fills with water while the door is closed, while the room beyond fills with water while the door is open. While protagonist Ben Gates continues to try and find a way to save everyone, Wilkinson states the simple fact: It’s not a puzzle, it’s a choice. An unwinnable situation.
That’s the essence of the Kobayashi Maru that Kirk missed. It’s a choice, not a puzzle. Choose the least bad of several awful choices and be able to accept the consequences, horrific as they may be. It is often argued that Kirk’s refusal to accept the unwinnable scenario is one of the traits that make him a strong leader, but I disagree. I think it’s what holds him back. Kirk is a great captain, make no mistake, but I would not rank him as an elite leader in the Star Trek franchise. He’s brash and cavalier, sometimes creating problems he then has to find ways out of. His approach to the Kobayashi Maru has certainly defined what it is that makes him tick, but it also prevents him from rising to the level of Picard or Spock, for example. Maybe having to witness Spock’s death after their battle with Khan served as Kirk’s true Kobayashi Maru, forcing him into a horrible scenario he has no control over. If so, perhaps too much emphasis is placed on the Kobayashi Maru, to begin with. Regardless, even as Kirk grew later in his career, his efforts to win the Kobayashi Maru made it his biggest failure in my mind.
So, what can we take away from these ramblings for our own writings? I think one of the best takeaways is that training simulations are wonderful ways to peel back the layers of a character, but they can only go so far. To truly reveal who our characters are and push them to grow into who we want them to be, we have to put them in real scenarios with real stakes. Those real scenarios were what it took for Kirk to finally grow. Anyone can say they know what they’d do in a given scenario, but things get real in a big-time hurry when lives are on the line in the heat of battle. Those fires are how we can hone our characters' personality traits into more iconic and defining characteristics. Use training scenes well, but always follow them up with real-world experience. Your story will be all the better for it.
And that’s going to do it for this short blog entry. I hope my nerdy musings were helpful and interesting. Maybe they’ll help you along your own writing journey. Of course, I’d love to hear what you think. Am I just a dumb Kirk hater? Or did I make a few good points in my ramblings? Feel free to let me know in the comments or reach out directly, especially if you have any ideas or requests for future entries. I’ve got an active running list of ideas, but I’m always open to more. I’d appreciate it if you’d leave a like and share this post on social media. And to stay up to date on future blog posts, you can sign up for my monthly newsletter on my website. Until the next story!