Why Starfleet Academy shouldn't include the Kobayashi Maru as part of the cadets' training

facebooktwitterreddit

The Kobayashi Maru test was designed to be unwinnable, forcing cadets to face the fact that they might eventually end up in one of those scenarios. Of course, we all know that Captain James T. Kirk doesn't like to lose so he rigged the test so he would win. Though William Shatner's Kirk revealed the truth, it was Chris Pine's Kirk who performed the cheating onscreen. And now, hundreds of years in the future, Starfleet Academy has enrolled its first batch of cadets in over a hundred years. But with the knowledge from centuries past, is the test even beneficial anymore?

In the hundreds of years since the test was created, many Starfleet captains and first officers have been placed in seemingly unwinnable situations, and they've all managed to best their enemies. Star Trek: The Next Generation's Captain Jean-Luc Picard was assimilated by the Borg, something no other human had returned from at the time (Seven of Nine would make that transition later on Star Trek: Voyager). Yet, the crew of the Enterprise managed to bring him back and restore him. Prior to this, Captain Kirk from The Original series faced so many virtually impossible scenarios only to win in the end.

All of this information and more will be available to the cadets, and would perhaps be more beneficial than the actual test. The fortitude of captains and first officers in the past have proven that they, too, don't like to lose so they figure out a way to win. Isn't that a better lesson to teach the cadets than to subject them to an archaic test they are guaranteed to lose?

There are many things I'm hoping to see on Starfleet Academy, but the Kobayashi Maru isn't one of them. With different times come different methods of learning, and the cadets need to learn to think outside the box, to get creative in finding ways to accomplish their goals. They don't need to learn there may come a time when they can't win because some may see that as an excuse to give up. And that's not the Starfleet way.

Starfleet Academy adds three Discovery cast members and a Voyager cast member. Starfleet Academy adds three Discovery cast members and a Voyager cast member. dark. Next