Unwinnable Training Simulation: Difference between revisions

Such a scene shows that the character is not invincible but has a critical flaw which might lead to his demise later without actually affecting the [[Plot]]. This will cause additional suspense later on when the character inevitably gets into a similar "real" situation and must show that he overcame this flaw (or is able to [[Take a Third Option|find a clever workaround]] for it).

 

 

The former [[Trope Namer]] is the training simulation shown in the first scenes of ''[[Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan|Star Trek II the Wrath of Khan]]'' where a bunch of Starfleet cadets attempt a simulated rescue of the space freighter ''Kobayashi Maru'' in hostile Klingon space. Compare [[Danger Room Cold Open]], in which an '''Unwinnable Training Simulation''' (or some other "safe" action scene) is used to introduce the characters and their abilities before the real action starts.

* In ''[[Martian Successor Nadesico]]'' the titular ship has landed on the surface above an underground refugee camp and Captain Yurika Misumaru attempts to save everyone underground, but the ship is crippled and she must face the choice of taking off and retreating (thus causing the ground to collapse and kill everyone below) or the ship itself getting blown up; only it's ''not'' a training simulation. Lest the series end early, she chooses to retreat.

* ''[[Crest of the Stars|Banner of the Stars]]'' opens with a fierce battle which results in the [[Main Character|main characters]]' ship being destroyed. It turns out it was a mock engagement.

 

== Comic Books ==

* Played with in ''[[Preacher (Comic Book)|Preacher]]''. Herr Starr must take unarmed combat lessons with an instructor infamous for badly injuring students on the first day. Starr “beats” him by shooting him in both knees. Perhaps not a straight example though as while it supposed to be an unwinnable situation it was never officially sanctioned.

 

* Many [[Fan Fiction]] writers have written their take on how they would win the ''Kobayashi Maru'' scenario, but very few have felt as within the realm of the possible as [http://www.eyrie-productions.com/Forum/dcboard.cgi?az=show_thread&om=71&forum=DCForumID24&omm=15&viewmode= "The Final Simulation"], a mini-story from [[Eyrie Productions, Unlimited]]'s ''[[Undocumented Features]]''. In this story, Ben Hutchins' [[Author Avatar]] Gryphon captains the simulated ''Enterprise'' through the encounter with Klingons menacing the wayward fuel carrier with a plan to beat the "no-win scenario." Monitoring them are Admirals Christopher Pike (the original Jeffrey Hunter version) and Roger Cartwright (from the classic ''[[Star Trek|Trek]]'' movies) as he and his crew pull off the ultimate Starfleet Academy stunt - outsmarting the scenario '''without cheating'''. Aiding him are fellow Starfleet cadets from a wide range of sources:

** Science officer Saavik (the [[Star Trek III: The Search For Spock|Robin]] [[Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home|Curtis]] incarnation), helmsman John Harriman (before his stint as captain of the ''Enterprise-B'' in ''[[Star Trek Generations]]'') and engineer Peter Preston (''[[Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan|Star Trek II the Wrath of Khan]]'') come from the classic ''[[Star Trek|Trek]]'' movies.

** Tactical Officer Winston Zeddemore (yep, from ''[[Ghostbusters]]'').

* A Warhammer/Mass Effect crossover called Hammerfall has a Space Marine trying to beat one of these. The AI tries to persuade him that "winning" the simulation is impossible, since it has no ends and simply keeps spawning more and more (and more powerful) enemies until you die. The point is to die as late as possible.

 

== Film ==

* ''[[Sherlock Holmes]] A Game of Shadows''. Sherlock is capable of deducing what an opponent would do in response to his own actions, simulating entire fistfights in his head before committing to them. When he concludes the final fight is unwinnable, {{spoiler|he just jumps off the balcony taking his opponent with him}}.

* In ''Moving Violations'', the corrupt judge and policeman set up an unwinnable driving course to ensure the traffic-school students will all fail, allowing the pair to sell off their cars and keep the money.

 

== Literature ==

* In [[The Culture]] novel ''Surface Detail'' a protagonist in an Orbital militia does one of these and complains that it serves no purpose.

 

* In addition to its original appearance, the Kobayashi Maru simulation is found or mentioned in a number of ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]]'' episodes. (''TNG'' also includes fresh instances and variations of the trope; for instance, the Bridge Officer qualification test on the Holodeck in the episode "Thine Own Self", in which Troi realizes that she can only succeed if she {{spoiler|1=orders holographic LaForge to his death}}).

*** The failed invasion of a Borg ship to steal some [[Phlebotinum]] that leads to Borg storming the ''Voyager'' proves to be a simulation. Also, "Learning Curves" subverts the No Win Scenario with a test similar, but not identical to, the original Kobayashi Maru is used by Tuvok when assigned to instruct some unruly ex-Maquis in the Starfleet way. It ends the way the original Kobayashi did. However, Tuvok suggests that the test is built with a victory condition: retreating. had they tried to run they'd have lived and passed, while [[Stupid Sacrifice|dying pointlessly]] helped no one.

*** [[Fridge Logic]]: Why is it so easy to remove all safety locks but [[Are These Wires Important?|so hard to just turn it off?]]

*** "Threshold" starts off with Tom Paris trying to break the Warp 10 limit in a shuttle. As he reaches Warp 9.95 the nacelles are ripped off and the shuttle explodes. Paris appears sitting on the holodeck floor and B'Elanna Torres says "You're dead." How they were able to program a simulation for what would happen at Warp 10 without any data one what happens when you approach Warp 10 is unclear, but that's the least of the problems the infamous episode has.

* ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' does it with "Avatar", wherein Teal'c is trapped in a training simulation designed to learn from him and become harder to beat as a result. It did this by either spawning enemies right around corners to shoot him, spawning new enemies after the conditions of the simulation had been beaten, and adding factors to make the enemies harder to beat. It took Daniel being added in as an ally (with the ability to see the future as a cheat) for the computer to finally give Teal'c a victory scenario.

** Worse, it turns out {{spoiler|it was a reverse-[[Clap Your Hands If You Believe]] scenario. Since Teal'c's mind was driving the game, it turns out that Teal'c had to ''believe'' he'd won}} or every time, he'd find that [[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard]] and would change the rules on him. And he {{spoiler|could ''never'' see the battle against the Goa'uld finally being over.}}

** ''[[Stargate Universe]]'' also uses the trope in "Trial and Error". {{spoiler|''Destiny'' projects a battle scenario into Young's dreams wherein the ship is attacked by aliens. Young tries to attack them, but they overpower and destroy the ship. Young tries to turtle behind the shields until the ship can jump to FTL, but the simulation just generates more ships. Then he tries to agree to their demands (handing over Chloe), but that just causes the shields to drop, allowing the aliens to board and kill everyone. Young never wins; Rush just shuts it off when he gets tired of it interfering with the ship.}}

* ''[[MacGyver]]'', multiple times ("Lost Love", "The Survivors").

* In the short-lived series ''Heist'', a cliffhanger has professional thief Mickey locking himself in a vault to motivate his team members to figure out how to open it quickly before he suffocates. The next episode begins with the team members apparently failing to unlock the vault in time, only for Mickey to yell at them and for the camera to reveal the giant hole they had cut in the vault to get him out.

* In ''[[Leverage]]'', it is mentioned that a master hacker with the handle "Chaos" is referred to as the Kobayashi Maru by CIA and NSA computer specialists, in reference to the fact that Chaos' hacking methods are unstoppable.

** Becomes a [[Shout-Out]] when you realize that Chaos is [[Wil Wheaton]].

** The scene where this is revealed could also be viewed as a [[Crowning Moment of Funny]] for that episode.

* In ''[[CSI]]'', David Hodges also mentions that he called his cat Kobayashi Maru (affectionately known as 'Kobe' or 'Mr. K').

** Another time was when Sam and a much taller, muscular man were yelling at each other when suddenly the man tackled Sam to the ground, where we can see that there are mats on the ground. Turns out it was a training session for nurses to deal with violent patients.

* An episode of ''[[JAG]]'' ends with Harm crashing on a carrier landing. Turns out Harm was running a simulation of the doomed flight of the Defendant of The Week. It's implied that Harm's run the simulation several times, crashed every time, and went down with the jet, rather than eject, every time.

 

== Video Games ==

* ''[[Demon's Souls]]'' all the way.

** To clarify, the tutorial takes you through all the basics: movement, attacking, defending, counters, items, etc... Then you face your very first boss, who is capable killing you in one hit, no matter what armor you have on, and is very likely to do so... On the off chance that you manage to survive the fight and defeat him, you are transported to another area where a massive (were talking as big as the ''whole frickin room'') delivers a single instant death punch right to your face in a cutscene, resulting in your death.

 

== Western Animation ==

* ''[[Kids Next Door]]'', "Operation T.U.R.N.I.P.", where an attack by a hostile mecha turns out to just be Numbuh 3 testing the treehouse defenses.

* The ''[[Legion of Super-Heroes (TV series)|Legion of Super Heroes]]'' [[Season Finale]] "Sundown: Part 1" opens with the entire team being destroyed one by one by the Fatal Five. Then the simulation ends, and they prep to start again. Phantom Girl is not amused. "There's only so many times a girl can face her simulated doom in one day!"

* ''[[X-Men: Evolution]]'' does this the most times in its short run, twice forming the plot for the episode. (In the first, Cyclops doesn't want to train against Rogue's simulation, and in the second, the young'uns learn teamwork.)

* The 1990's ''[[X-Men (animation)|X-Men]]'' cartoon and the concurrently-running ''[[Spider-Man: The Animated Series|Spider-Man]]'' cartoon once did a [[Crossover]]: ''The Mutant Agenda'' introduces Spidey to the X-Men by his sneaking into the mansion to find Professor X... and getting waylaid by Sentinels. Turns out it's the Danger Room, of course.

* Used in the "Glitter N' Gold" episode of ''[[Jem]]''. Jerrica wants to tell her boyfriend, Rio, that she is Jem's secret identity. She uses Synergy, her hologram-making super-computer to make an illusion of Rio to see what will happen; it goes badly. Synergy assumes that she might be wrong—but then the real Rio explodes at Kimber after she reveals that she made a mistake - using almost the exact same words the holographic Rio did. This came from Christy Marx, the writer of most of the episodes of the ''Jem'' series, who wanted Jerrica to have a reason to keep her other identity a secret from Rio.

* ''[[Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends]]'', in keeping with its Marvel Comics roots, pulled a Danger Room on Iceman in a late episode.

** Lampshaded when Brian describes it as "a huge middle finger to the viewers."

* One ''[[Time Squad]]'' episode began with the heroes fighting a pyromaniac George Washington in a training simulation (bizarrely this ''wasn't'' part of the simulation's design: Larry just wanted to see what would happen if they invited "virtual Washington" for a tour of the space station...)

* The episode "Failsafe" of ''[[Young Justice (animation)|Young Justice]]'' is one of these that had [[Gone Horribly Wrong]]. No matter what, winning was completely impossible. no matter what they did, the situation would continue to get worse and worse until they failed. That said, the simulation ended up having to [[Ass Pull]] a second alien mothership to win, so they did pretty well. As for the [[Gone Horribly Wrong]] part? It wasn't supposed to be ''really'' dangerous but Miss Martian's subconscious hijacked the simulation and made it so.

 

== [[Web Comics]] ==

* ''[[Full Frontal Nerdity]]'' has [http://ffn.nodwick.com/?p=538 its own version] of [[Konami Code|how]] Kirk cheated that test in ''Star Trek''.

 

*** It's turned into a [[Noodle Incident]], but Team Kimba used what Ayla learned in "Ayla and the Birthday Brawl" to come up with two ways to win that sim. And apparently, Jade's [[Crazy Awesome]] 'Radioactive Condor Girl' idea ''actually worked''. And completely freaked out the people running the sims.

 

* A prank puzzle called "The Inescapable Island". The teller begins with "imagine that you are stranded on a tiny little island", then goes on to describe with detail how the surrounding sea is vast and borderless and filled with hungry sharks and how the island is a bare spot of sand with thousands of poisonous scorpions and this and that. Once the situation is inescapeable enough, the teller then asks the victim to find out a way to save themself. The only acceptable solution is along the lines of "stop imagining".

 

== Real life ==