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how to fail the Kobyashi Maru exam (Star Trek fanfic)
Lisa Tanaka flunks the Kobyashi Maru exam. Her way.
[The Kobyashi Maru, a neutronic fuel carrier with 300 passengers, is adrift in the Klingon Neutral Zone. Struck by a gravitic mine, she has lost all power and sustained many casualties. However if a starship enters the Zone, this is a breach of the peace treaty with the Empire -- and the Klingons are darkly suspicious of Federation interference disguised as rescue attempts. There is also the possibility that the entire situation is a Klingon trap and the Maru is nothing more than a Klingon IFF beacon.]
"Can you assist us, Enterprise? Can you assist us?"
"Communications, no reply. Continous recording to ship's log buoy and set to deadman eject."
She considered carefully and activated the ship's PA system.
"Now hear this. Shields will remain down. Red alert, battle stations. Sickbay prepare to receive mass casualties. All crew except ship's physician will draw hand weapons from ship's armory immediately and be prepared to function as boarding parties. Marines report to transporter rooms with heavy weapons and grenades for opposed ship boarding operations. You will not be supported, you win or you die.
"Engineering, overload photon torpedoes and charge phaser banks. Give me one shuttle loaded with a suicide charge, also charge transporter bombs but send them to the aft hatch. All other shuttles will launch overloaded with non-essential personnel as ship's militia. Lab, overload probe drones as weapons. Energize tractor beams, I'm going to need some fancy maneuvers. Hotload warp engines and minimize antimatter containment fields. Go to emergency life support. One member of each damage control party will don spacesuits at once and button up!
"Captain, three Klingon Warbirds on attack course."
"Communications, inform the Klingons we are on a rescue mission. Energize internal defense fields only! Helm, transfer shield control to my chair. SHIELDS WILL REMAIN DOWN unless I am disabled.
"They're jamming all the . . ."
"Helm, collision course, center Warbird, popwarp, execute! Weapons, drop me a shield on the starboard Warbird now! Transporter room, board Marines when you get a lock! Shuttlebay launch all shuttles now to attack port Warbird!"
Her hand tensed on the shield control. Too early and the Marines would never beam out. Too late and the Klingon fire would gut her starship like a trout.
The Marines beamed out. Her hand twitched on the control.
Later analysis would indicate that the shield control circuit energized 0.23 seconds prior to the first Klingon disruptor bolt striking the ship.
"Weapons pound that Warbird into junk or we've had it!"
The ship shuddered as overloaded photon torpedoes slammed out and disruptor bolts from all sides stripped the ship of forward arc shields. Convenient, that.
"Tractor lock center Warbird! Launch suicide shuttle, probe drone, fire defense phasers and the kitchen sink! Give me a second wave of boarders on the starboard bird!"
As she watched, the starboard Warbird lurched out of control. Twenty-odd heavily armed Starfleet Marines getting very frisky with energy charges and phaser rifles, suddenly reinforced by the same number of desperate red-shirted crew who either win a nice game of Phaser Tag or never see home again, will do that even to a Klingon vessel caught by surprise.
The port Warbird, relatively unaffected, cheerfully shot up the four shuttles overloaded with boarding parties on the off chance that they might crash a shield and get aboard. Fifty Starfleet crew dead for little tactical advantage -- except sucking up some of the phaser fire that otherwise would have further gutted their vessel.
Tanaka glanced at the tactical display. The center Warbird was hors de combat and out of the fight; the starboard Warbird busy with an infestation far more dangerous than Tribbles. Her duty was clear.
"Phasers at 20% captain! Forward shields gone!"
"All engines reverse, plot rear facing intercept course on port Warbird. Back over him! Weapons, aft torpedo, danger close, fire! Phasers continuous fire. Divert all power to phasers!
The timing on this next maneuver would be trickier.
"Helm, plot forward warp 50% engine power and hold for my mark. Tractors, wait until we get to minimum tractor range then hook him up. Then we punch it and drag him behind us. He will not get a lock on our forward shields!"
The two warships, roughly equivalent in combat power, poured phaser and heavy weapons fire into each other. The Klingon Warbird lost its forward shields and a few phasers. The Enterprise was not so lucky.
"Heavy damage in Engineering! Auxcon is gone! Coolant leak in impulse reactor, we have only one quarter power remaining! APRs offline, radiation leaks, heavy casualties!"
"Now hear this. Engineering crew, ignore the wounded and do anything to get power! Officers are ordered to shoot any engineer performing first aid or rescue."
Tanaka ignored the looks from her bridge crew. Without power, all three-hundred odd surviving members of her four hundred and fifty strong crew were dead. Shot up for target practice by the Klingons, or slowly suffocating in a wrecked hulk without succor or escape . . . plus the three hundred passengers and fifty crew of the Kobyashi Maru, who had taken no oaths to Starfleet and therefore were not as expendable.
No matter what happened to her ship. Even if Enterprise were destroyed to no effect, the battle still bought Kobyashi Maru time. Time for other starships to arrive, time to abandon ship, time to challenge the Klingons to honorable single combat, time to pray to a Goddess of choice or to make peace with mortality . . . time perhaps for a miracle.
"Power!" She saw the readouts. The warp engines were badly shot up and on minimum safety margins, but they could make warp.
"Tractor now!"
"She's counter-tractor! Blowing batteries! Got her! Turning her away from aft shield!"
Enterprise lurched forward dragging the hapless Klingon Warbird behind her, like a sheep dragging a big angry wolf with jaws caught in its wool. The latter's weapons lashed out angrily at her tormentor, striking the weak flank shields which were the only ones still up.
"T-bomb, out the hatch, time now! Again until we're out! Fire probe launcher! Transporter room, boarding parties hit-and-run enemy phaser banks! Engineering, I need more impulse power!"
"Intruder alert! Intruder alert!"
Hit and run raids were a game that could be played both ways. As the Klingon Marines materialized on the bridge, the red-shirted Security drew hand phasers and mercilessly shot them up. Tanaka herself shot one in the face as her hands danced between readouts. The return Klingon transporter beam had nothing to lock onto. However, their hand disruptors made havoc of consoles and Helm crew, who died facing their stations and doing their jobs.
"Shift command to Emergency Control! Bridge crew with me, Transporter Room Two! All hands, all hands, abandon ship, board Klingon Warbird! Emergency Control, you will set for self-destruct to ram and destroy whichever vessel we do not capture!"
The Communications officer turned white.
"Captain, seven Klingon Warbirds have just dropped out of warp. Beaming many boarding parties to disputed Warbird and damage control teams to center Warbird. We are being hailed."
A computer voice spoke, "Starfleet captain, surrender your vessel or be destroyed."
"Like hell! Carry out last orders received. Let's move people!"
The deck shuddered and explosions rocked the Bridge. Concentrated long-range disruptor fire gutted Enterprise. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see tiny specks in red Starfleet Marines boarding suits being rudely ejected from the farther Warbird, to die slowly in the interstellar void. Out of her phaser range.
She knew she would choose fire over ice, and wished she could do the same for them.
Tanaka crawled to the science console and started to enter the Self Destruct command.
"Override, override," she coughed as the ship's computer protested that two other officers must concur. "Enemy boarding imminent." She dialed the count down from sixty seconds to ten seconds.
Nine. She crawled over the dead bodies of her crew to the helm console.
Seven. She used emergency thrusters and the few surviving navigational deflectors to re-orient on the nearest Klingon Warbird. Amazingly the ruthlessly abused impulse engines responded. Someone down on the Engineering Deck must still be alive and doing their job, for the final seconds of their lives.
Four. Collision alert. Collision alert. "Eject log buoy. Fire all remaining science probes." No telling if anyone heard her, but she was too busy to do it.
Two. Activating the intership high power transmitter, normally used for collision avoidance. "Klingon commander, prepare to receive message."
One.
"NUTS!" Tanaka shouted into the console microphone.
The screens turned white.
"Fans on! Blowers on!"
The simulator opened. A Vulcan in commander's uniform stood there, patiently.
"Cadet Tanaka, you are relieved of duty. Consider yourself under arrest and return to your quarters."
"Upon consideration of the evidence, including simulator video recordings and Cadet Tanaka's own testimony, this Academy Review Board finds that Cadet Tanaka's performance as a Starfleet officer was not in keeping with the highest traditions of Starfleet. In particular, her order in the heat of battle to ruthlessly send dozens of her crew aboard unshielded shuttlecraft into a Klingon turkey shoot, then ordering her Engineering crew not only to ignore her own wounded but ordering her officers to shoot anyone performing first aid or rescue, is morally repugnant and in ruthless disregard of humanitarian considerations.
"Further, the Board finds that Cadet Tanaka's actions, while narrowly effective in a tactical military sense, are more appropriate to a bygone era. Particularly her refusal to surrender, couched in terms from the Second Global War, further demonstrates her present unfitness to command a Starfleet vessel.
"Therefore it is the recommendation of this Board that Cadet Tanaka be recycled to the first year class, and further that she be removed from further command track consideration, such disability to be reconsidered after ten years service in the Fleet."
Tanaka drew herself up.
"The Cadet requests permission of the Board to read her statement into the record."
"Proceed."
"In old year 1967 the United States Ship Forrestal, a wet navy atmospheric aircraft carrier, suffered a disastrous fire aboard. A weaponized aircraft accidentally fired a chemical rocket on deck, starting a fire amid explosives which killed and injured hundreds of crew and endangered the veseel. I believe the final count was 134 killed and 161 injured. All trained firefighting crew were rendered hors de combat within seconds of the first explosion.
"In fighting the resulting fire with untrained crew, it was necessary on several occasions to order these crew not to attempt rescue or first aid, because unstable explosives endangered the lives of all aboard and had to take precedence. It was not however necessary to order them to run into the flames with hand extinguishers, pilot unprotected forklifts into the flames to jettison aircraft, or to keep fighting the fire with foam and seawater while handling live and smoking chemical explosives despite massive and sometimes fatal wounds. These brave sailors did that on their own.
"Therefore I do not believe that my orders to that effect were outside either the wet navy tradition from which we so proudly draw, or the desirable qualities of a Starfleet officer facing the no-win scenario. You may have heard of a seafaring phrase, custom of the sea. Even in those dark ages, it was understood that sometimes the needs of the many outweighed the needs of the few. The custom of the sea dictated that when it was necessary for one to give their life to save several others, that it was also necessary for others to enforce this -- even under conditions that would otherwise be murder most foul. I respectfully submit that space is a far less forgiving environment than the ocean, and that the distance from open space to safe harbor is far greater and cannot be crossed in a ship's open boat, no matter how heroic the crew.
"I come to the Star Fleet Academy not as an untrained cadet, but as an experienced merchant marine officer. Unlike most of your cadets -- and I see from your records, unlike all of the Academy members of this review board -- I have fought shipboard fires and hull breaches, resisted boarding attempts by pirates, and participated in suppressing a mutiny.
"The Kobyashi Maru is a no-win scenario, and I endorse the necessity and logic behind this training exercise. I fear that Starfleet refuses to pursue this logic to its necessary conclusion. Every member of a starship's crew, including women and children and especially including the starship's Captain, must be considered expendable before sufficient cause. Certainly the rescue of a merchant carrier with 300 passengers fully justifies the loss of a starship; otherwise this scenario would not exist.
"It is not implausible that someday a starship may be all that stands between an adversary and the destruction of an entire living world. In the face of planetkiller weapons, Starfleet directives state that all vessels and crew are to be considered expendable unless a greater threat exists.
"The Klingons respect warlike acts and are known to study Earth's warlike histories. They even quote Shakespeare. I feel that they would have understood my aggressive attack in defense of Federation lives and property, the tactical performance that would have destroyed at least one Klingon Warbird and possibly three prior to the Klingon fleet's arrival, and especially my reference in the face of death to 'NUTS!' or the surrender refusal sent by General McAuliffe of the American 101st Airborne to the German forces which massively outnumbered him. Had I confronted a more civilized combatant, or one likely to respect the laws and customs of war or space, I would certainly have chosen to surrender my vessel and crew in the face of overwhelming force -- albeit after sufficient combat to show that I had taken strong and lethal exception on behalf of the United Federation of Planets.
"However in the face of the Klingon's well-known proclivity to not take prisoners, actually cited by Commander Spock as a criticism during another Cadet's examination, I saw no purpose to subjecting my few surviving crew to a slow, lonely death or to an ignoble end as Klingon target practice.
"I therefore refuse to accept the conclusions of this Board, and appeal my case to the Commandant of the Academy for further review, understanding fully that the likely result of this appeal will be dismissal from Starfleet."
"It would be false of me to believe that sacrifice is a necessary part of the curriculum of this Academy, and then to shirk from that sacrifice either by accepting transfer back to the merchant marine, or recycling to the first year class as has been suggested. While I appreciate both the historical reference and the humor of someone leaving a loaded phaser in my quarters, I regret that I refuse to go away that quietly."
"Thank you for your consideration, if not for your good judgment or appreciation of your grave responsibilities."
Tanaka's performance in the Kobyashi Maru examination and the following investigation, culminating in her dismissal from Starfleet, is now required review in both the Academy Strategic College (for command officers after actual service in the Fleet) and the Academy senior year Ethics of Starship Command course, after confronting the Kobyashi Maru test but immediately prior to graduation.
Historical Note: Tanaka rejoined the merchant marine as a cargomaster, worked her way back up to bridge crew over the next decade, entered Starfleet by lateral transfer from the merchant marine and advanced to the command of a rescue cutter, ultimately completing a distinguished career marred by numerous reprimands from her superiors and despite a formal censure from the UFP court system for her shipboard trial and execution of pirates while herself raiding merchant shipping deep behind Klingon lines. She never served aboard a full starship.
Alternate Historical Note: in the Star Trek movie universe, dismissed Cadet Tanaka was killed after stealing and attempting to ram a San Francisco municipal anti-gravity trash lifter into the Romulan drill deployed from the mining ship Narada by the renegade and genocidal Captain Nero. The Narada's automated defenses detected, engaged and destroyed the trash lifter within seconds after it crossed from land to water. Her remains were never recovered and her grave is unmarked, as no one knew of her actions.
Alternate Historical Note: in the Mirror Universe / "Terran Empire," Admiral Tanaka was executed by a subordinate for refusing to initiate fleet bombardment of a rebel planet citing that insufficient time had been provided for third party neutrals to evacuate. The subordinate was immediately killed by her loyal bodyguard and lover, starting a chain of assassinations that rendered the flagship combat ineffective until the neutrals cleared the engagement area.
[The Kobyashi Maru, a neutronic fuel carrier with 300 passengers, is adrift in the Klingon Neutral Zone. Struck by a gravitic mine, she has lost all power and sustained many casualties. However if a starship enters the Zone, this is a breach of the peace treaty with the Empire -- and the Klingons are darkly suspicious of Federation interference disguised as rescue attempts. There is also the possibility that the entire situation is a Klingon trap and the Maru is nothing more than a Klingon IFF beacon.]
"Can you assist us, Enterprise? Can you assist us?"
"Communications, no reply. Continous recording to ship's log buoy and set to deadman eject."
She considered carefully and activated the ship's PA system.
"Now hear this. Shields will remain down. Red alert, battle stations. Sickbay prepare to receive mass casualties. All crew except ship's physician will draw hand weapons from ship's armory immediately and be prepared to function as boarding parties. Marines report to transporter rooms with heavy weapons and grenades for opposed ship boarding operations. You will not be supported, you win or you die.
"Engineering, overload photon torpedoes and charge phaser banks. Give me one shuttle loaded with a suicide charge, also charge transporter bombs but send them to the aft hatch. All other shuttles will launch overloaded with non-essential personnel as ship's militia. Lab, overload probe drones as weapons. Energize tractor beams, I'm going to need some fancy maneuvers. Hotload warp engines and minimize antimatter containment fields. Go to emergency life support. One member of each damage control party will don spacesuits at once and button up!
"Captain, three Klingon Warbirds on attack course."
"Communications, inform the Klingons we are on a rescue mission. Energize internal defense fields only! Helm, transfer shield control to my chair. SHIELDS WILL REMAIN DOWN unless I am disabled.
"They're jamming all the . . ."
"Helm, collision course, center Warbird, popwarp, execute! Weapons, drop me a shield on the starboard Warbird now! Transporter room, board Marines when you get a lock! Shuttlebay launch all shuttles now to attack port Warbird!"
Her hand tensed on the shield control. Too early and the Marines would never beam out. Too late and the Klingon fire would gut her starship like a trout.
The Marines beamed out. Her hand twitched on the control.
Later analysis would indicate that the shield control circuit energized 0.23 seconds prior to the first Klingon disruptor bolt striking the ship.
"Weapons pound that Warbird into junk or we've had it!"
The ship shuddered as overloaded photon torpedoes slammed out and disruptor bolts from all sides stripped the ship of forward arc shields. Convenient, that.
"Tractor lock center Warbird! Launch suicide shuttle, probe drone, fire defense phasers and the kitchen sink! Give me a second wave of boarders on the starboard bird!"
As she watched, the starboard Warbird lurched out of control. Twenty-odd heavily armed Starfleet Marines getting very frisky with energy charges and phaser rifles, suddenly reinforced by the same number of desperate red-shirted crew who either win a nice game of Phaser Tag or never see home again, will do that even to a Klingon vessel caught by surprise.
The port Warbird, relatively unaffected, cheerfully shot up the four shuttles overloaded with boarding parties on the off chance that they might crash a shield and get aboard. Fifty Starfleet crew dead for little tactical advantage -- except sucking up some of the phaser fire that otherwise would have further gutted their vessel.
Tanaka glanced at the tactical display. The center Warbird was hors de combat and out of the fight; the starboard Warbird busy with an infestation far more dangerous than Tribbles. Her duty was clear.
"Phasers at 20% captain! Forward shields gone!"
"All engines reverse, plot rear facing intercept course on port Warbird. Back over him! Weapons, aft torpedo, danger close, fire! Phasers continuous fire. Divert all power to phasers!
The timing on this next maneuver would be trickier.
"Helm, plot forward warp 50% engine power and hold for my mark. Tractors, wait until we get to minimum tractor range then hook him up. Then we punch it and drag him behind us. He will not get a lock on our forward shields!"
The two warships, roughly equivalent in combat power, poured phaser and heavy weapons fire into each other. The Klingon Warbird lost its forward shields and a few phasers. The Enterprise was not so lucky.
"Heavy damage in Engineering! Auxcon is gone! Coolant leak in impulse reactor, we have only one quarter power remaining! APRs offline, radiation leaks, heavy casualties!"
"Now hear this. Engineering crew, ignore the wounded and do anything to get power! Officers are ordered to shoot any engineer performing first aid or rescue."
Tanaka ignored the looks from her bridge crew. Without power, all three-hundred odd surviving members of her four hundred and fifty strong crew were dead. Shot up for target practice by the Klingons, or slowly suffocating in a wrecked hulk without succor or escape . . . plus the three hundred passengers and fifty crew of the Kobyashi Maru, who had taken no oaths to Starfleet and therefore were not as expendable.
No matter what happened to her ship. Even if Enterprise were destroyed to no effect, the battle still bought Kobyashi Maru time. Time for other starships to arrive, time to abandon ship, time to challenge the Klingons to honorable single combat, time to pray to a Goddess of choice or to make peace with mortality . . . time perhaps for a miracle.
"Power!" She saw the readouts. The warp engines were badly shot up and on minimum safety margins, but they could make warp.
"Tractor now!"
"She's counter-tractor! Blowing batteries! Got her! Turning her away from aft shield!"
Enterprise lurched forward dragging the hapless Klingon Warbird behind her, like a sheep dragging a big angry wolf with jaws caught in its wool. The latter's weapons lashed out angrily at her tormentor, striking the weak flank shields which were the only ones still up.
"T-bomb, out the hatch, time now! Again until we're out! Fire probe launcher! Transporter room, boarding parties hit-and-run enemy phaser banks! Engineering, I need more impulse power!"
"Intruder alert! Intruder alert!"
Hit and run raids were a game that could be played both ways. As the Klingon Marines materialized on the bridge, the red-shirted Security drew hand phasers and mercilessly shot them up. Tanaka herself shot one in the face as her hands danced between readouts. The return Klingon transporter beam had nothing to lock onto. However, their hand disruptors made havoc of consoles and Helm crew, who died facing their stations and doing their jobs.
"Shift command to Emergency Control! Bridge crew with me, Transporter Room Two! All hands, all hands, abandon ship, board Klingon Warbird! Emergency Control, you will set for self-destruct to ram and destroy whichever vessel we do not capture!"
The Communications officer turned white.
"Captain, seven Klingon Warbirds have just dropped out of warp. Beaming many boarding parties to disputed Warbird and damage control teams to center Warbird. We are being hailed."
A computer voice spoke, "Starfleet captain, surrender your vessel or be destroyed."
"Like hell! Carry out last orders received. Let's move people!"
The deck shuddered and explosions rocked the Bridge. Concentrated long-range disruptor fire gutted Enterprise. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see tiny specks in red Starfleet Marines boarding suits being rudely ejected from the farther Warbird, to die slowly in the interstellar void. Out of her phaser range.
She knew she would choose fire over ice, and wished she could do the same for them.
Tanaka crawled to the science console and started to enter the Self Destruct command.
"Override, override," she coughed as the ship's computer protested that two other officers must concur. "Enemy boarding imminent." She dialed the count down from sixty seconds to ten seconds.
Nine. She crawled over the dead bodies of her crew to the helm console.
Seven. She used emergency thrusters and the few surviving navigational deflectors to re-orient on the nearest Klingon Warbird. Amazingly the ruthlessly abused impulse engines responded. Someone down on the Engineering Deck must still be alive and doing their job, for the final seconds of their lives.
Four. Collision alert. Collision alert. "Eject log buoy. Fire all remaining science probes." No telling if anyone heard her, but she was too busy to do it.
Two. Activating the intership high power transmitter, normally used for collision avoidance. "Klingon commander, prepare to receive message."
One.
"NUTS!" Tanaka shouted into the console microphone.
The screens turned white.
"Fans on! Blowers on!"
The simulator opened. A Vulcan in commander's uniform stood there, patiently.
"Cadet Tanaka, you are relieved of duty. Consider yourself under arrest and return to your quarters."
"Upon consideration of the evidence, including simulator video recordings and Cadet Tanaka's own testimony, this Academy Review Board finds that Cadet Tanaka's performance as a Starfleet officer was not in keeping with the highest traditions of Starfleet. In particular, her order in the heat of battle to ruthlessly send dozens of her crew aboard unshielded shuttlecraft into a Klingon turkey shoot, then ordering her Engineering crew not only to ignore her own wounded but ordering her officers to shoot anyone performing first aid or rescue, is morally repugnant and in ruthless disregard of humanitarian considerations.
"Further, the Board finds that Cadet Tanaka's actions, while narrowly effective in a tactical military sense, are more appropriate to a bygone era. Particularly her refusal to surrender, couched in terms from the Second Global War, further demonstrates her present unfitness to command a Starfleet vessel.
"Therefore it is the recommendation of this Board that Cadet Tanaka be recycled to the first year class, and further that she be removed from further command track consideration, such disability to be reconsidered after ten years service in the Fleet."
Tanaka drew herself up.
"The Cadet requests permission of the Board to read her statement into the record."
"Proceed."
"In old year 1967 the United States Ship Forrestal, a wet navy atmospheric aircraft carrier, suffered a disastrous fire aboard. A weaponized aircraft accidentally fired a chemical rocket on deck, starting a fire amid explosives which killed and injured hundreds of crew and endangered the veseel. I believe the final count was 134 killed and 161 injured. All trained firefighting crew were rendered hors de combat within seconds of the first explosion.
"In fighting the resulting fire with untrained crew, it was necessary on several occasions to order these crew not to attempt rescue or first aid, because unstable explosives endangered the lives of all aboard and had to take precedence. It was not however necessary to order them to run into the flames with hand extinguishers, pilot unprotected forklifts into the flames to jettison aircraft, or to keep fighting the fire with foam and seawater while handling live and smoking chemical explosives despite massive and sometimes fatal wounds. These brave sailors did that on their own.
"Therefore I do not believe that my orders to that effect were outside either the wet navy tradition from which we so proudly draw, or the desirable qualities of a Starfleet officer facing the no-win scenario. You may have heard of a seafaring phrase, custom of the sea. Even in those dark ages, it was understood that sometimes the needs of the many outweighed the needs of the few. The custom of the sea dictated that when it was necessary for one to give their life to save several others, that it was also necessary for others to enforce this -- even under conditions that would otherwise be murder most foul. I respectfully submit that space is a far less forgiving environment than the ocean, and that the distance from open space to safe harbor is far greater and cannot be crossed in a ship's open boat, no matter how heroic the crew.
"I come to the Star Fleet Academy not as an untrained cadet, but as an experienced merchant marine officer. Unlike most of your cadets -- and I see from your records, unlike all of the Academy members of this review board -- I have fought shipboard fires and hull breaches, resisted boarding attempts by pirates, and participated in suppressing a mutiny.
"The Kobyashi Maru is a no-win scenario, and I endorse the necessity and logic behind this training exercise. I fear that Starfleet refuses to pursue this logic to its necessary conclusion. Every member of a starship's crew, including women and children and especially including the starship's Captain, must be considered expendable before sufficient cause. Certainly the rescue of a merchant carrier with 300 passengers fully justifies the loss of a starship; otherwise this scenario would not exist.
"It is not implausible that someday a starship may be all that stands between an adversary and the destruction of an entire living world. In the face of planetkiller weapons, Starfleet directives state that all vessels and crew are to be considered expendable unless a greater threat exists.
"The Klingons respect warlike acts and are known to study Earth's warlike histories. They even quote Shakespeare. I feel that they would have understood my aggressive attack in defense of Federation lives and property, the tactical performance that would have destroyed at least one Klingon Warbird and possibly three prior to the Klingon fleet's arrival, and especially my reference in the face of death to 'NUTS!' or the surrender refusal sent by General McAuliffe of the American 101st Airborne to the German forces which massively outnumbered him. Had I confronted a more civilized combatant, or one likely to respect the laws and customs of war or space, I would certainly have chosen to surrender my vessel and crew in the face of overwhelming force -- albeit after sufficient combat to show that I had taken strong and lethal exception on behalf of the United Federation of Planets.
"However in the face of the Klingon's well-known proclivity to not take prisoners, actually cited by Commander Spock as a criticism during another Cadet's examination, I saw no purpose to subjecting my few surviving crew to a slow, lonely death or to an ignoble end as Klingon target practice.
"I therefore refuse to accept the conclusions of this Board, and appeal my case to the Commandant of the Academy for further review, understanding fully that the likely result of this appeal will be dismissal from Starfleet."
"It would be false of me to believe that sacrifice is a necessary part of the curriculum of this Academy, and then to shirk from that sacrifice either by accepting transfer back to the merchant marine, or recycling to the first year class as has been suggested. While I appreciate both the historical reference and the humor of someone leaving a loaded phaser in my quarters, I regret that I refuse to go away that quietly."
"Thank you for your consideration, if not for your good judgment or appreciation of your grave responsibilities."
Tanaka's performance in the Kobyashi Maru examination and the following investigation, culminating in her dismissal from Starfleet, is now required review in both the Academy Strategic College (for command officers after actual service in the Fleet) and the Academy senior year Ethics of Starship Command course, after confronting the Kobyashi Maru test but immediately prior to graduation.
Historical Note: Tanaka rejoined the merchant marine as a cargomaster, worked her way back up to bridge crew over the next decade, entered Starfleet by lateral transfer from the merchant marine and advanced to the command of a rescue cutter, ultimately completing a distinguished career marred by numerous reprimands from her superiors and despite a formal censure from the UFP court system for her shipboard trial and execution of pirates while herself raiding merchant shipping deep behind Klingon lines. She never served aboard a full starship.
Alternate Historical Note: in the Star Trek movie universe, dismissed Cadet Tanaka was killed after stealing and attempting to ram a San Francisco municipal anti-gravity trash lifter into the Romulan drill deployed from the mining ship Narada by the renegade and genocidal Captain Nero. The Narada's automated defenses detected, engaged and destroyed the trash lifter within seconds after it crossed from land to water. Her remains were never recovered and her grave is unmarked, as no one knew of her actions.
Alternate Historical Note: in the Mirror Universe / "Terran Empire," Admiral Tanaka was executed by a subordinate for refusing to initiate fleet bombardment of a rebel planet citing that insufficient time had been provided for third party neutrals to evacuate. The subordinate was immediately killed by her loyal bodyguard and lover, starting a chain of assassinations that rendered the flagship combat ineffective until the neutrals cleared the engagement area.
no subject
no subject
"Canon" which quickly loses one in a hodge-podge of technical manuals, plot devices and unhappy episode-based precedents. Hacking the test (as Kirk did) falls in this category, as does the Transporter-Of-The-Month club and other cheats.
"Technobabble" which disregards technology in favor of the story. Much like in the current Trek movie, which cheerfully disregards most of what we know about physics yet makes an entertaining story. I recommend "The Cold Equations (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cold_Equations)" to your attention as an example of a story in which no technobabble fix is possible or desirable.
"SFB" provides a consistent way for military technologies to interact, which was designed most carefully to be faithful to the three seasons of TOS. Further additions to the series have made SFB almost unworkable in Next Generation as it has gone down very different paths (Andromedans, fighters, simulator races, etc) -- but it is still quite serviceable for this purpose.
I personally think that Hikaru Sulu's answer to the test is the best. In one of the novelizations, Sulu has the moral courage to refuse to enter the trap at all. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kobayashi_Maru
no subject
There is the fourth alternative, of course, using the Star Fleet Combat Simulator, which was FASA's adaptation while they owned the right to publish the RPG. Admittedly, it was not as complex in options as SFB, but I think it was truer to the ideal. Of course, the games were also seperated by 10-15 years and who knows how many development cycles.
I think no matter which way you do it though, I think the *stance*, the how and why the captain does it is more important anyway, and that is the most fascinating part.