FOR THOSE WHO DON'T KNOW: At Starfleet Academy, the Kobayashi Maru test is a command simulation that all cadets take. And always, invariably, it ends in failure.

The premise is that you're trying to save a civilian ship from enemies (Klingons, specifically). But whatever you try - attacking the ships cleverly, engineering solutions, beaming aboard the civilians, beaming onto the enemy ship, straight up running

The computer will find a way to defeat your and destroy your ship. Because the point of the Kobayashi Maru is to test how you handle defeat.

Famously, James T Kirk got around it by reprogramming the sim. In Star Trek: Prodigy, Dal tries about a zillion permutations before he gets what the point of the test is.

SO FOR EXAMPLE.

lmao kirk

that’s amazing

Ethlyn takes a more explicitly humanitarian angle of trying to evacuate the civilian ship at first, and she sticks with that route for a long time. Eventually she gets fed up with the Klingons blasting escape pods and stuff, and she starts going ham on the Klingons. Full spread torpedoes, fire all phasesrs, merciless

She probably starts to get it at about the point she's ordering her ship to ram the Klingon ship and the computer spits out 5 more enemy ships

Paine starts aggro right away. Then she gets sneaky. She probably does tricks with tractor beams and creating illusory ships. I think her final move, though, is just to order everyone else to do nothing, completely power down her ship and sit in the captain's chair with her arms and legs crossed

because she gets it. and she does NOT like it. so her final solution is "do not accept the premise of the test."

Kes probably figures it out early on (putting aside that she could find out from someone else on the ship). So she starts testing the different ways she can fail, on purpose.

ANYWAY. REPLY WITH YOUR OWN CHARACTERS OR SPREAD IT AROUND, I WANNA KNOW

dazai’s first gambit is trying to gain control over the klingon ships directly and then he probably figures it out and puts a virus in the sim JFNGKHLJ

LOL that does not surprise me

OH THIS IS SUCH A FUN ONE

funnily enough, claude's approach is probably the exact same as ethlyn's lol, but probably would not ever understand that failure is the point and would get DEEPLY FUCKING IRRITATED BY THE WHOLE THING

LMAOOOO

if in-universe he'd probably wind up doing the kirk thing after a very, very long time but he'd be pissed off the whole time and would never in fact learn his lesson. alternatively, he'd stay in the simulation long enough for all the civilians to die but would get his revenge anyway like

was this not the test?

LOL SO CLAUDE IS IN FACT JUST LIKE KIRK

yusuke just keeps aggroing the ships. repeatedly. overheats the sim just from his refusal to give up

Kirk: I cheated the test
The Moral Of The Story Is You Can't Cheat Life

LMAOOOO YEAH. YEAH. we did discover through rp that jim and claude are VERY similar

that's hilarious omg... I'M NOT SURPRISED THO

riz would need to be forcibly removed from the machine because he would inevitably spiral into a manic episode

the sim was not meant to be played 240 times in a single hour.

which is to say, he would then be removed from the program

Dude Who Spirals Into Manic Episodes is not good cadet material

he will not leave the sim until he’s beaten it and/or someone forcibly removes him yeah at which point he’s beating up the programmer

Lmao well if he does that then he's probably getting a suspension from the academy

yeah I'm pretty sure trek's tech has moved beyond overheating LOL

wisdombitch OMG POOR RIZ... god riz in the academy would be. hilarious. and disastrous.

IT WOULD BE VERY BAD LMAO and he's like an inch away from a manic episode at all times anyway, so

I feel like he'd get recruited out of the academy into like, the Timeline Police

(someone medicate the goblin.)

HAHAH yes I can see that

"you seem obsessive and high-strung. would you like to help us keep the timeline from getting fucked. people are constantly trying to break it."

vash would also get kicked out of the program just because it gets to the point of obsession. the man is literally weeping about the fictional dead people. someone save him.

HAHAH the trek version of being an angel spy, love that for him <3

P MUCH YEAH

realizing I have no characters that would be normal about this except maybe ginko bfjskgkh

i mean i play kirk so we already know what he did

and he was so much of a nerd and a teacher's pet that he didn't even get in trouble for it

also while it's been a long time since I've played my dudes who are actually in military/policing complexes, I have to add that rex and kim would both very stoically accept that they lost and would seek further guidance from their betters

which is probably why they're actually good at their professions asjkasjak

perilous LOL YES

shinji loses the simulation maybe twice and drops out of the academy himself

wisdombitch lmao THAT'S CUTE... rex trying to figure it out earnestly

LMAO YES rex going up to his commander like "I've failed, please provide me with guidance in how to be a more effective leader"

"Accept that sometimes defeat is inevitable"

TERRIBLE ANSWER!!!!!!

....honestly my favorite answer to the Kobayashi Maru is Scotty's.

lmao didn't he try beaming the warp core into the enemy ship or something?

Namely he took advantage of the fact that it was a sim by deliberately performing maneuvers that on paper would work but were physically impossible in real life. So they transferred him to the Engineering school, which is what he wanted in the first place.

OH THAT'S RIGHT lmao.

Changing the premise from "no win scenario" to "Scotty wins scenario"

The best part is that Scotty, before ever even entering the academy, was the one who proved it was physically impossible.

Aloy would be out there noting a new little detail each run and trying to use it as an exploit on her next insistent attempt. Can we take advantage of the time between decloaking and defensive systems coming online to deliver crippling attacks? Can we beam something onto the ship? Can we ping their location to target while still cloaked by doing something...

Her first instinct is can she get something done a little faster, a little more perfect, so that she can squeeze a success out of it.

Once it’s clear she can’t get an outright win, she second instinct is to try to find a way to sacrifice the ship to create circumstances where the Maru crew and her own crew can at least escape/survive. And she’ll spend a long time running permutations to try getting that to work.

I think in the end she arrives at a point of if I can’t beat the simulation, let me go beat the simulation’s designer at something

That's actually what Nog does in one of the short stories about his attempts at the Kobayashi Maru. He sacrifices his ship in an attempt to slingshot the Maru out of the Neutral Zone.

IIRC a funny one was someone going “Uhm. It would be a very bad thing to enter the Neutral Zone.” flies away

God, Mariner would be gleefully trying to come up with the craziest way to die in the Maru

Omg Aloy trying to beat not the sim but outwit the programmer, love it

and lmao god I CAN ONLY IMAGINE

Mariner was still straightlaced back then but I bet her wild tendencies started coming out after a couple of runs at the Kobayashi

I bet she does it for fun now. Like her Cardassian prison breakout cardio

I never knew the details of the test before, just what Kirk did. Nice XD

fakealchemist: Sulu actually did do that!

Mariner loudly going like IT’S RIGGED MAN, SO LET’S HAVE FUN WITH IT while Boimler goes noooooo but it’s still a test what’s the most promotable way to be seen dealing with death

He just left.

Echo is so used to following orders and being the one who cannot fail, so she'd probably try forever... That or just eventually break the computer running the simulation.

omg I DID NOT KNOW THAT ABT SULU... iconic

kaitodoushi oh nooo echo!! ;;

Yeah, her life is suffering and she doesn't even realize this fact...

oh gosh i think the test would defeat marianne. she would try to save the civilians and get too depressed to go on after several failures

if this were post-timeskip marianne with more confidence i can see her continuing to try and even get aggressive/frustrated in her plays. but ultimately conclude the commander role is not for her u_u

awww Marianne ;; YES SHE WOULD DEFINITELY SWITCH RIGHT INTO MEDICAL TRACK FROM THAT most likely

sighs in james t

yes he hacked the test but being an annoying bastard about it was certainly a choice

til the kobayashi maru wasn't a real-world ship that kirk was on

trickster88 SUCH A CHOICE

paperbacks omg...

Nope! Training simulation, named after the civilian freighter you doom yourself trying to save

my trek osmosis failed!

i did start writing a fic once where instead of the academic tribunal in AOS being interrupted by an emergency, jim is stupid enough to debate spock into revising the test and letting him take it a fourth time

i never finished it but god the concept is enough to make me laugh

leans into the mic kirk would hack it again

spock has never taken it but has no interest in taking it why would he when he can just support kirk

also lbr he'd lie his way out of it

be bonkers enough to be like yes i accept the results but also depending on his period of time the needs of the many etc.

find a way to sacrifice himself to sa- oh, he already does that in WoK

"What do you think...of my solution?"

fakealchemist: EXACTLY

WEH.....!!!

god. one of the scenes of all time.