How would you deal with Kirk's cheating?

[Captain Seafort]

The KM is likewise winnable - it just costs the lives of the crew of the KM.

[stitch626]

Winnable depends on what the goals are.

In the KM, the goals are to survive and save the KM.

[Tsukiyumi]

I'd say that as long as you save the KM, you've "won".

[Captain Seafort]

That's one way of looking at it - another way would be to say that loosing your ship and crew at starting a war with the Klingons constitutes failure.

[Sionnach Glic]

The victory conditions for the KM scenario are simply centered around the survival of the KM itself. But reality simply isn't that black and white. Sure, you may have saved the KM and completed your primary mission, but you also got yourself and your crew killed and started an inter-stellar war that will likely result in the death of millions. Sorry, but you failed hard.

[Tsukiyumi]

The way I understand it, the Klingons start the conflict (by attacking the KM), so you wouldn't be starting the war; the war is already started, and this is just the opening battle. I'd say wiping out three battlecruisers for the cost of yours would be a good opening engagement.

[Sionnach Glic]

You ventured into their space in a military vessel. They have every right to percieve you as a threat and take action.

The war itself hadn't already started. The problem was that they were in the middle of a cold war, with tensions high on both sides. That one incident could easily spark off a full scale war.

[sunnyside]

Wow. Did not expect flaming in this thread.

Anyway one important distinction here in regard to the cheating is that he was being obvious about it, from the apple business to the sheilds totally going down, instead of something subtle like messing with the AI so the enemy warbirds would blow it if you executed a certain maneuver. This wasn't like somebody sneaking in with some answers on their forearm, this was like walking up to the teachers desk, opening up the book, writing down the answer, and handing it to them.


As for passing/failing the test I'm not sure if it's like that. A little while back I was reading an excerpt from a book about how Marines train their NCOs. They have to go through a number of tests with a squad.

Not all the tests are winnable.

In any case they often aren't "graded" based on wether they actually "pass" the objectives of the tests. Maybe one of the people in the squad tripped or is so capable they make up for a poor NCO. What they're looking for is how they react.

I imagine the purpose of the KM being somewhat similar. Everybody knows going in that they aren't going to "win", however there are a large number of ways to "lose".

You might refuse to enter the neutral zone.
You might charge in and go down fighting.
You might try going in alone with a shuttlecraft
You might flee once too many emimies arrive.
or any number of other things (I'd be trying to extend the range on the tractor beam).

And mixed in there is how you react to all the little details and how you give orders to a crew who also expects to lose.

It might not even be as simple as passing or failing. It could be profiling, and used by commanders that look up someones file.

The guy who goes down fighting might be ideal for a suicide mission in a military action (such as delaying an enemy fleet for as long as possible), while the person who refuses to cross into the neutral zone might be ideal in some powderkeg of a political situation.


I'd consider Kirks response to indicate you want him for those situations where you need someone to succed regardless of regulations, conflicting orders, or other obsticles, but be wary in many other situations where you want them to follow orders etc.

I suspect that might be why he was made into first officer. If I thought I was about to be tortured in some alien vessel I'd want someone like that out there to try and get me.

[SomosFuga]

2) So what? He still cheated. His motivations for cheating do not matter one bit. His attitude, however, does matter, and the fact that he didn't appear to have any moral or ethical reservations about cheating and did not even admit that he did anything wrong when held to account for his actions obviously proves that he does not have the integrity necessary to be a Starfleet officer (further proof came over the rest of the movie).

And yet he became one of the best officers in SF history.

4) Cheating doesn't count as beating it. Haven't you ever played video games?

And yet he won. In a life or death situation, even a simulated one, you cheat if you have to.
Anyway, if i were in a really hard situation like the one on the simulation, i would pray for someone like Kirk sitting in the captain's chair because that is what he does, he wins.

[Mikey]

Yes, he became "the" James T. Kirk, and yes, he won. None of this has anything to do with the ethics of what he did as a cadet at the Academy.

[Sionnach Glic]

And you can hardly judge that such a cadet would become a great captain. On the contrary, the natural assumption would be that he would make an exceptionaly poor officer.

[Captain Seafort]

We also don't know (IU, of course) if Kirk will become a great Captain, or even a marginally competent one - there's no way of knowing if his approach to the KM was the same in both universes.

[Graham Kennedy]

Well, I'll tell you this. If I were to serve on a Starfleet ship, and I had a choice between a Captain who would go down with his ship in a brave way, overcoming his fear and being all manly and ethical to the end... or a Captain who would actually win and go home happy and arrogant while everybody whined about how he cheated... I know which one I would pick.

[Graham Kennedy]

We also don't know (IU, of course) if Kirk will become a great Captain, or even a marginally competent one - there's no way of knowing if his approach to the KM was the same in both universes.

Details may well have varied, but "I reprogrammed the simulation so it was possible to rescue the ship. I changed the conditions of the test" is certainly an accurate description of what we saw happening.

I did get the impression that nuKirk got into more trouble for it than Kirk did though. From how he talked about it it was like he'd walked out of the simulator to warm handshakes. Though perhaps one wouldn't expect Kirk himself to dwell on the near-censure aspect of how it went.

[Mikey]

Well, I'll tell you this. If I were to serve on a Starfleet ship, and I had a choice between a Captain who would go down with his ship in a brave way, overcoming his fear and being all manly and ethical to the end... or a Captain who would actually win and go home happy and arrogant while everybody whined about how he cheated... I know which one I would pick.

All true. If I were a proctor at the Academy, however, none of that would change the reaction to what he did on the test.

Let's say my daughter cheated on a test at school. She did so in an extremely clever, unique way - a way which boded well for her creativity and unique approach to problem-solving. It wouldn't make me praise her for her outstanding efforts at cheating instead of taking her to task for having cheated at all.