Kobayashi Maru

The Kobayashi Maru was a Class 3 neutronic fuel carrier and a component of the Kobayashi Maru simulation, a no-win-scenario at Starfleet Academy.

The home port of the vessel was Amber, Tau Ceti IV. The ship's master was Kojiro Vance.

According to the scenario, the Kobayashi Maru was located in Gamma Hydra, section ten, nineteen periods out of Altair VI. The vessel had struck a gravitic mine, and its hull was breached. The ship had lost all power, life support was failing, and its crew had sustained many casualties. 

James T. Kirk said "the Kobayashi Maru has set sail" on his way to hijack the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) from Earth Spacedock right after breaking Leonard McCoy out of jail. 

The term "kobayashi maru" was used by Dr. McCoy when imprisoned in the Rura Penthe dilithium mines in 2293. He commented to James T. Kirk in their first night there, "One day, one night... Kobayashi Maru," making a throat-slash motion before Kobayashi Maru, to suggest they weren't going to last another day. 

Apocrypha
The Pocket ENT novel Kobayashi Maru, set in 2155, details the historical events which became the Academy simulation. Meanwhile, David Mack's novel A Time to Heal, Ensign Carmona identifies the Kobayashi Maru as having been lost in the Tezel-Oroko system, the location of the planet Tezwa, where most of this book occurs.

The novel The Kobayashi Maru, written by Julia Ecklar, details the Kobayashi Maru tests taken by Kirk, Chekov, Scotty, and Sulu during their respective enrollments at Starfleet Academy. The depiction of the Kobayashi Maru on the cover of the novel was that of a, originally designed by Rick Sternbach for the Spaceflight Chronology. (pg. 130) Peter Kirk became the second Kirk to beat the no-win scenario in A.C. Crispin's Sarek, although doing so in a matter more in keeping with the rules.

An updated version of the test was featured in Peter David's New Frontier book Stone and Anvil. In the book Elizabeth Shelby, then a cadet, was given the task of updating the scenario, with one of its first participants being Mackenzie Calhoun (also a cadet). In the updated version of the scenario the Klingons were replaced by Romulans, and an extra degree of difficulty was added with a radiation leak on the freighter. Calhoun's solution to it was to fire upon and destroy the freighter on the grounds that the Romulans were using it as bait to provoke an incident and possibly a war.

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Kobayashi Maru Kobayashi Maru USS Kobayashi Maru