There was also Nog, the young Ferengi from Deep Space 9, who allegedly addressed the test in two unique ways:
He tried to bargain with the enemy ship and haggled it to a standstill until the simulation crashed,
AND
He used the tractor beam to fling the friendly ship back toward the border and then briefly engaged the enemy only to surrender in order to distract them from their prey and buy time. While the hostiles began boarding, he initiated self destruct but attempted to mute the ship’s computer announcement so they wouldn’t suspect it.
That’s how you get a ship named after you.
By cheating though.
Right lol. I know it’s a classic Kirk moment, but I’m glad they called it out for what it was in ST09.
I always thought it was sort of a meta-allegory for Kirk’s plot armor. Like, for most people, there might be nothing at all you can do. Sometimes you do everything right, and you still lose. That’s reality.
Star Trek is fiction. Captain Kirk is mother fucking Captain Kirk. He will prevail, even when things seem bleak and hopeless. His losses will be temporary, and his victories sweeter because he never compromised his values to get them. His mistakes, however few and far between, will be opportunities for growth and self-reflection that will become critical during a subsequent event and help him prevail even harder next time.
The Kobayashi Maru was supposed to teach him humility in face of the stark realities of command. His response is to reject that reality and substitute his own. These are his voyages.
They called it out in TWoK, too. It was the first thing out of David’s mouth when it came up. And the movie ends with Kirk admitting that cheating the test left him unprepared for real failure.
The only cadet? How about David Forrester (Star Trek: Starfleet Academy Video Game, 1997).
According to the Shatnerverse, reprogramming the test has become the expectation in the 24th century. The meaning of the test has completely inverted over time to become a lesson about thinking outside the box to win.
Wesley: “But…”
