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Unwinnable Training Simulation: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
{{quote|'''Lt. Saavik:''' [[Permission to Speak Freely?|Permission to speak candidly, sir.]]<br />
'''Admiral Kirk:''' Granted.<br />
'''Saavik:''' I don't believe this was a fair test of my command abilities.<br />
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'''Kirk:''' A no-win situation is a possibility every commander may face. [...] [[Arc Words|How we deal with death is at least as important as how we deal with life]], wouldn't you say?<br />
'''Saavik:''' (stiffly) As I indicated, Admiral, that thought had not occured to me.<br />
'''Kirk:''' Well, now you have something new to think about. Carry on.|Informal debriefing from the former [[Trope Namer]] exam, "Kobayashi Maru", in ''[[Star Trek II:
Our hero is executing an impossible mission. It's full of action and adventure, and he gets to show off how heroic he is, but at the last minute, something unexpected goes badly -- [[Diabolus Ex Machina|often ridiculously so]]. The killer robot swoops down to off [[The Hero]] and...
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Occurs most often in [[Speculative Fiction]], series about teams of criminals, series set in the military, and shows about ninjas. Sometimes leads to a [[Training Accident]] plot, if the people involved don't know it's not real.
The former [[Trope Namer]] is the training simulation shown in the first scenes of ''[[Star Trek II:
An [[Unwinnable Training Simulation]] may double as an [[Hidden Purpose Test]], often of how the trainees deal with unwinnable situations. If this type of scenario is featured at the beginning of an episode, the character flaw the rest of the episode focuses on will either be the character's own pride or inability to accept that sometimes, [[Shoot the Shaggy Dog|crap happens]].
Occasionally, this will be subverted in that the character ''will'' win the scenario, by 'cheating' (which is how Kirk in both ''[[Star Trek II:
A type of [[False Crucible]]. See also [[Endless Game]] and [[Secret Test of Character]]. If the simulation becomes legitimately dangerous, that's a [[Holodeck Malfunction]]. If the simulation was legitimately dangerous all along, it's [[Deadly Training Area]]. If the situation is not a simulation, but instead a real life situation where the character is set up to fail, it may be [[A Lesson in Defeat]].
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* ''[[Soukou no Strain]]'', when Sara trains for sub-lightspeed permission.
* Many times in the ''[[.hack|.hack//]]'' series, although they're in a virtual world to begin with.
* Somewhat used in the second ''[[
* Used once in [[Outlaw Star]], where Gene goes through several launch simulations. Each time, something goes badly wrong as a test to see how he's react in unanticipated situations. Needless to say, it pissed him off, and the first launch went perfectly...Well, if you don't count the thousands of dollars worth of damage he caused to the landing dock, that is.
* ''[[Code Geass]]'' doesn't use it, but in one interview the show's director offered a [[Unwinnable Training Simulation]] situation to illustrate the differences between the two male leads. As the story goes, there's a car wreck and two men are injured, one worse than the other; there's also a hospital some distance away. Lelouch, an "end justifies the means" type, would consider the factors, then take the man with less severe injuries to the hospital; that man lives, and Lelouch consoles himself over the other's death with the knowledge that at least he saved one person. Suzaku, a "means justifies the ends" type, would do his best to get both of them to the hospital, but they'd both die along the way; at first he'd curse his own weakness, but then he'd assuage himself by saying that he did the right thing.
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{{quote| "Bang! You're dead."}}
* This appears in one of the flashback sequences of [[Ex Machina]], with Bradbury and Kremlin acting as well-equipped robbers to test out Mitchell's equipment and reflexes.
* ''[[Star Trek: Voyager
* Played with in [[Preacher (Comic Book)]]. 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.
== Fan Fiction ==
* 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 "The Final Simulation," a mini-story featured in the [http://www.eyrie.net/ Eyrie Productions] universe, ''[[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
** Science officer Saavik (the [[Star Trek III:
** Orion navigator Gaila comes from the [[Star Trek (
** 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.
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== Film ==
* The former [[Trope Namer]] was the "Kobayashi Maru" training scenario seen in ''[[Star Trek II:
** Responses to the scenario are varied, with several characters improvising solutions but losing anyway (Scotty, for instance, used a physics trick that worked on paper but not in the real world; the computer's response was to spawn more ships than the entire Klingon fleet ''had''). Only [[The Kirk|James T. Kirk]] ever defeated it, and that was by [[Take a Third Option|reprogramming the simulation beforehand]] so that the Klingons would be respectful of the reputation he intended to have. Computer cheats? [[The Kirk|Kirk]] cheats back. (According to semi-canonical novels by [[William Shatner|Shatner]] himself, the test later becomes used to encourage this sort of outside-the-box thinking.)
*** Other ''[[
*** In [[Star Trek (
*** As [[The Kirk|Kirk]] himself says in the 2009 reboot, "It depends on how you define 'winning', doesn't it?"
** The novels had Sulu go the diplomatic route, the most 'correct' decision. Nog used his [[Planet of Hats|Hat]] and bribed the Klingons. Chekov self-destructed his ship, taking the Klingons with him. However the explosion was bad enough the lifepods of the crew were also taken out. [[Expanded Universe]] has many other characters taking the test. At least [[Off the Rails|one blew up the ship rather than rescue it...]]
*** Two characters ''deliberately'' blew it up, [[Star Trek: New Frontier|one]] rationalizing that either it was screwed to hell anyway, or that it was actually working with the enemy to lure him into a trap. The other was completely apathetic to the plight of the Maru's crew, and simply exploited the ship's volatile cargo to win the fight with the Klingons.
*** Scotty in the [[Expanded Universe]] is mentioned to have beaten it by constantly improvising new and ingenious engineering solutions, forcing the computer to respond by amping up the stakes, leading Scotty to perform yet another off-the-cuff fix and so forth. This kept Scotty and the Computer at a stalemate for ''hours'' until it was shut down by the Examiners who determined that the only way that the Computer could ''potentially'' beat Scotty would be if he spent ''[[Determinator|several days]]'' of outwitting it before collapsing out of sheer exhaustion.
*** [[The Spock|Spock]] comments in ''[[Star Trek II:
*** One of the novels has [[The Kirk|Kirk's]] nephew {{spoiler|save the ship by [[Heroic Sacrifice|sacrificing himself]], challenging the enemy commander (Romulan rather than Klingon in this version) to single combat and having the ''Enterprise'' beam off the ''Kobayashi Maru'' crew and run away while he fights to the death. The admiral in command assumes he must have cheated like his uncle, but [[The Spock|Spock]] explains that it all would've worked. It's just that Peter Kirk knew far more about Romulan culture (including a challenge that - if properly given - is punishable by death to refuse, even if issued by a non-Romulan) than a cadet normally would.}}
*** A recent ''[[Star Trek: Enterprise
** Referenced in ''[[Dog Soldiers]]'', when a platoon on a training exercise finds out their "opponents" have bugged their communications: "It's the Kobayashi Maru test - they've fixed it so we can't fucking win!"
* ''[[Apollo 13]]:'' "If I had a dollar for every time they killed me in this thing (the simulator), I wouldn't have to work for you, Deke."
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* The Agent training scenario in ''[[The Matrix]]'' ("Were you listening to me, Neo, or were you looking at the woman in the red dress?") Even Neo is fooled into thinking it was the real thing. The scenario is designed to always end with the trainee's death, because a human ''cannot'' beat an Agent. The only recourse when faced with one is to attempt escape, and even that is iffy at best.
* The virtual reality wargaming scenes in ''[[Avalon]]''.
* The beginning of ''[[The Avengers (1998
* Used at the very beginning of ''[[Mind Hunters]]''.
* ''[[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}}.
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== Literature ==
* In ''[[The Acts of Caine
* "The two .38s roared simultaneously". [[James Bond]] concludes something like this in the first chapter of ''Moonraker'', which is basically a quick-drawing contest. He puts the other "guy" (a cardboard target) in hospital, but is "killed".
* This occurs several times in the ''[[Star Wars Expanded Universe]]'', especially the ''[[X Wing Series|X-Wing]]'' books. As in [[Real Life]], cockpit-shaped simulators are essential tools for fighter pilot training - but here, holographic and gravity-altering technology makes the simulations ''much'' more realistic. They get used for all kinds of things, from training to testing new tactics to teamwork-building exercises, and they tend to be either this trope or [[Fictional Video Game]]. There are even a few times when the one in the simulator [[Training Accident|doesn't know it's a sim]].
** Most notably, the opening of the first ''[[X Wing Series|Star Wars X-Wing]]'' book by Michael A. Stackpole has a literal unwinnable simulation, popularly called the [http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Redemption_scenario Requiem scenario]. In it, a flight of four X-wings must protect an Alliance corvette called the ''Korolev'' from waves of TIE fighters and bombers (flown by other pilots rather than the AI). Also, only two of the X-Wings could engage the [[TI Es]], since previous runs showed that if at least two X-Wings didn't stay with the convoy, the Imperial frigate acting as a carrier for the [[TI Es]] would join the battle, making the situation even worse. Corran Horn beat the scenario after coming up with the strategy to quickly eliminate the more threatening bombers with proton torpedoes and then finish off the fighters afterwards, which as it turns out was how the scenario went originally.
*** This training mission was based on [[Scrappy Level|a mission in the]] [[X
** Another book, ''[[Death Star]]'', has a pilot compulsively replaying a simulation that had been made from a scan of one of the top fighter pilots. Even as a simulation, the top pilot kept gunning down the compulsive pilot within seconds, but this pilot was pleased to note that he was lasting a couple seconds more than when he'd started.
*** Later in the book, that same top pilot is said to have engaged in a practice fighter duel with [[Improbable Piloting Skills|Darth Vader]] [[Curb Stomp Battle|and lasted about the same amount of time]]. The viewpoint pilot, who'd seen it and been morbidly fascinated, swore that if ''he'' was ever in Vader's sights, he'd just overload his engines and kill himself.
* In the novel ''Reach'' by Edward Gibson the Wayfarer 2 astronauts are approaching their destination when one looks out the window to find they're about to collide with...his house! It turns out they're in the simulator, and the people running it were trying to demonstrate the importance of staying focused even when something unexpected happens.
* Mentioned in one of the ''[[
* [[Ender's Game]]: Pretty much all of the games in the school when Ender is given his own team are designed to be unwinnable. {{spoiler|Of course, he wins them all.}}
** Also inverted at the end, when {{spoiler|Ender discovers all the "simulations" were actual space battles. The deception was crucial because the final "simulation" was unwinninable by any conventional means. Ender, thinking that it was all just a game and that he nothing to lose, destroys the enemy homeworld by sacrificing his own fleet in a kamikaze attack. When he finds out that he ordered ''actual'' soldiers to their deaths - as well as utterly destroying an entire alien race - Ender feels incredibly guilty.}}
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== Live Action TV ==
* In addition to its original appearance, the Kobayashi Maru simulation is found or mentioned in a number of ''[[Star Trek:
** The holodeck in general made for a convenient and simple premise for a lot of invocations of this trope in many of the series. In the ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
** ''[[Star Trek: Voyager
*** 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.
*** Tuvok provides an interesting twist in the episode ''Worst Case Scenario'': Paris discovered an unfinished "Maquis Rebellion Scenario" that Tuvok never completed since he saw the Maquis having virtually zero problems fitting in. Paris and Torres have fun trying out different scenarios, and it proves to be so popular among the crew that Tuvok is pressured to complete it. When Tuvok and Paris attempt to modify the simulation, however, they find that former Maquis (and defector to the Kazon) Seska had discovered it and rigged it to be a true no-win scenario with [[Everything Trying to Kill You]], and with the safeties disabled, Tuvok and Paris would be [[Killed Off for Real]]. The bridge crew couldn't shut it down quickly, but they did have access to the writing interface. So Janeway stepped in by becoming the [[Deus Ex Machina]] until they could turn it off.
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*** His encounter in the books led to a disaster in Boogeymen.
** The episode of TNG in which Picard, Crusher, and Worf storm a Cardassian base also uses this.
* ''[[Power Rangers]]'' is fond of this one, using it in episodes of ''[[Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue]]'' ("Trial by Fire"), ''[[Power Rangers Ninja Storm]]'' ("There's No 'I' In Team"), ''[[Power Rangers SPD]]'' ("Beginnings"), and ''[[
** "Gung-Ho" from MMPR is a very interesting twist -- using the carrier zord, Titanus as this.
* ''[[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 Atlantis'' has a blatant one in Progeny where {{spoiler|they think they escaped, make it back to Atlantis and then the city gets attacked by 9 hive ships with 15 more on the way. Sheppard has to stay behind to trigger the self-destruct.}}
** ''[[
* ''[[War of the Worlds (TV series)|War of the Worlds]]''
* ''[[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 The Listener, paramedic main character Toby and his partner get stuck while trying to reach a woman with a head wound. She is annoyed, but amused; if it hadn't been an exam, she could have died.
* 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
** 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').
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* Arguably the most famous cutscene from [[Final Fantasy VII]] [[Crisis Core]] involves a [[Melee a Trois]] between Angeal, Genesis and Sephiroth. Everybody was just plain fighting when Genesis entered [[Let's Get Dangerous]] mode and Sephiroth started ''slicing off the Sister Ray'' in retaliation (they were fighting on top of it). During the climax, Angeal's sword broke off blocking Genesis's attack, the piece cuts Genesis' shoulder, and the "sky" came off as bright color pieces. It was all just a training simulator.
** Not to mention how the game itself begins with one of these, with Zack and Angeal on a simulated mission to the Sector 1 train station ([[Continuity Nod|which was not entirely unlike that of the original game...]]). At least it explains [[Violation of Common Sense|why Zack was acting so casual with a dozen soldiers firing machine guns at him...]] At the end of the mission he engages Sephiroth who viciously and effortlessly defeats him, only for Angeal to end the simulation as Sephiroth holds his sword business-edge over Zack's face.
* [[James Bond]] likes this trope. The first mission in [[
** Which is entirely silly for so many reasons, including the fact that the death wasn't really caused by him (IIRC, Bond is hanging on to a ledge and falls) and getting fired caused the agent to turn evil.
*** Specifically, the helicopter was shot down and crashed through the roof of Fort Knox. Bond was barely hanging from the hanging chopper, and Goldeneye was too far to reach out to him. He had no choice but to let the craft fall on Bond.
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* ''[[Space Quest]] V'' opens with Roger Wilco at the helm of a spaceship facing a dire red alert situation (a direct homage to the Kobayashi Maru scenario). He's then interrupted by on the viewscreen by an actual captain who tells him to stop messing around in the spaceship simulator and get back to class.
* ''[[Star Trek Elite Force|Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force]]'' couldn't resist: the game opens with you playing as Ensign Munro with an away team on a Borg cube. Then things go horribly wrong and you end up killing yourself and your team mates, only to reveal that's a Holodeck simulation all along. True to form, Tuvok is there to tell you what a sorry excuse for a Starfleet officer you are. Even worse, he tells you, as you board the turbolift, to consider the scenario to be your personal Kobayashi Maru.
** The comic book adaptation has the same scenario, more or less; the holodeck mission is actually combat training, it ends with Munro being unable to shoot his assimilated teammates as they attack him (instead of impatiently blowing up a console like the game), and Tuvok states Munro has even harder training to go through before calling the scenario a Kobayashi Maru. [[Atop the Fourth Wall
* ''Starfleet Academy'' games tend to have the actual Kobayashi Maru as a level. In the old PC version by Interplay, you're given the option to cheat in a similar way to Kirk - in fact, you ''have to'' in order to [[Multiple Endings|get the best ending]]. Your bridge crew's reactions when the Klingons recognize you are priceless.
* One of the "Tales from New Terra" short stories from ''Outpost 2'' opens up with a crew heading to the spaceport to fight a fire. It is later revealed that they are firefighters training in a simulator.
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== Western Animation ==
* An opening sequence on ''[[Batman:
* ''[[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
** And "The Man From The Edge of Tomorrow: Part 1" opens with Brainiac 5 seemingly [[Ho Yay|dying tragically in Superman's arms]], complete with melodramatic music [[Sorry I Left the BGM On|(which Brainy apparently also programmed into the simulation)]].
* ''[[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 (
* 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
* ''[[
** Lampshaded when Brian describes it as "a huge middle finger to the viewers."
* The [[Powerpuff Girls]] use a holographic training room in one episode as a [[Shout
* 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 (
* The direct-to-video/pilot episode three-parter "The Adventure Begins" of [[Buzz Lightyear of Star Command]] has this. At Star Command's training deck, Commander Nebula calls Buzz up to watch one of the rookies, Mira, with the intention of making her Buzz's new partner. Mira beats Buzz's level, Level 9, and goes on to Level 10, which is comprised of three huge and presumably impenetrable robots. {{spoiler|Where any normal Ranger, even Buzz (since we never hear that he beat it), would have been blasted to Game Over, Mira succeeds by using her ghosting abilities.}}
* ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
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