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 --
almost Deus Ex Machina badly. The killer robot swoops down to off the hero and...
Computer, end program.
It was all just a simulation, training exercise, or
Dream Sequence. In most cases, the hero steps outside to discuss what he did wrong with the simulation operator, who will point out, "If this had been an actual emergency, you'd be dead."
The rest of the episode will typically focus on his overcoming whatever character flaw prevented him from succeeding in simulation.
Sometimes leads to a
Training Accident plot.
Typically the first scene of an episode (though it may come between the planning and execution phases of an
Impossible Mission story).
Occurs most often in
Speculative Fiction, series about teams of criminals, series set in the military, and shows about ninjas.
Named for the training simulation shown in the first scenes of
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. It should be noted that the Kobayashi Maru is actually a scenario which is designed to be "unwinnable", as a test of a cadet's command temperament. Only James T. Kirk ever defeated it, and that was by reprogramming the simulation. (
Sure, it was cheating, but they hadn't yet
actually said that reprogramming the simulation
wasn't permitted.) According to the books, others, including Sulu, managed to survive (if not technically win) by simply completing the inital mission, judging the
distress signal too risky to respond to. Scotty managed to fail
despite cheating (He engineered an attack that the simulation couldn't tell was physically impossible).
Compare
Professor X Likes Watching Teenagers Sweat, in which
The Kobayashi Maru (or some other "safe" action scene) is used to introduce the characters and their abilities before the real action starts.
See also
Kobayashi Mario.
Examples:
Live Action TV
- 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 of the trope; for instance, the Bridge Officer qualification test in the episode "Thine Own Self", in which Troi realizes that she can only succeed if she orders LaForge to his death).
- Also used in the Star Trek Deep Space Nine episode The Magnificent Ferengi where the Ferengi are shown in a botched attempt to rescue Quark and Rom's mother, in which she ends up being shot by one of her rescuers, before it is revealed that they are practicing for the real thing, in a holosuite.
- In 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, 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, but there's a twist: turns out they could have survived by retreating if they hadn't been too proud to.
- In the Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force videogame, a similar scenario is used by Tuvok. It's winnable, again.
- Mackenzie Calhoun found an interesting way to get through the Kobayashi Maru in Stone And Anvil: he gives the orders to destroy the ship himself.
- There is also a Super Nintendo videogame based on Starfleet command training. One of the missions the player must complete is the actual Kobayashi Maru scenario, and it IS unwinnable (unless, of course, the player cheats the game into letting him play as Kirk...)
- The start of Generations has everyone aboard an old-timey sailing ship called the Enterprise, with Worf being forced to walk the plank. It becomes clear pretty early on that this is a Holodeck game everyone is playing.
- 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") and Power Rangers SPD ("Beginnings").
- Stargate SG-1 did it at least twice ("Proving Ground", "Avatar").
- 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.
Film
- The Agent training scenario in The Matrix ("Were you listening to me... or looking at the woman in the red dress?") Even Neo is fooled into thinking it was the real thing.
- Ocean's Eleven
- The first Tomb Raider movie.
- The opening of X-Men: The Last Stand, with a homage to the "Days of Future Past" storyline in the original comics.
- The beginning of Monsters Inc., in which the monster comically stops being scary, but more importantly, leaves the closet door open, potentially allowing a child to escape into the monster world.
- Later revisited when Waternoose goes into a Motive Rant, thinking that he's alone with the heroes in the human world.
- In Die Another Day, Bond is seen in a virtual training scenario, in which he shoots M to rescue her.
- At the beginning of Never Say Never Again, James Bond infiltrates a terrorist hideout to rescue a kidnapped woman. After he frees her, she stabs and kills him. Then we find out that the whole thing was a live-action simulation. M chides Bond for not realizing that the woman could have been brainwashed by the terrorists during her captivity.
- In The Silence Of The Lambs, FBI trainee Clarice Starling bursts into a room, gun drawn, and orders a hostage taker to surrender. He does so, and as she prepares to handcuff him, someone behind her puts a gun to her head, cocks it and says "You're dead, Starling". The lights come on and the person with the gun is revealed to be one of Clarice's trainers.
Trainer: Starling, where's your danger area?
Starling: The corner.
Trainer: Did you check?
Starling: No.
Trainer: That's why you're dead.
Comic Books
- Try to count how many times the X-Men did this in their Danger Room. Between the comics and cartoons, Wolverine has had his butt kicked by simulated robots in order to learn an important lesson at least once per Story Arc.
- 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.
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 episode "Sundown: Part 1" opens with a training exercise, in which the entire team is apparently destroyed by the Fatal Five.
- And "The Man From The Edge of Tomorrow: Part 1" opens with Brainiac 5 seemingly dying in Superman's arms, complete with melodramatic music (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 older X-Men cartoon and the concurrently-running 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. 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.
- Family Guy two parter, Stewie Kills Lois/Lois Kills Stewie
Anime
- Soukou No Strain, when Sara trains for sub-lightspeed permission.
- Many times in the .hack// series, although they're in a virtual world to begin with.
Literature
- "The two .38s roared simultaneously". James Bond concludes something like this in the first chapter of Moonraker.
- This occurs several times in the Star Wars Expanded Universe, especially the 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.
Video Game
- 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 Lets 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. But hey, What Do You Mean Its Not Awesome?
- James Bond likes this trope. The first mission in GoldenEye: Rogue Agent is one of these. Afterward, the titular agent is fired from MI6 for allowing Bond to be "killed" during the simulated mission at Fort Knox.
- Ninja Gaiden for the original Xbox begins with what turns out to have been a training mission. What makes this a bit disconcerting is the fact that you kill a good 200 ninjas (absolutely no ambiguity about whether they're dead or just knocked out here) before the audience is let in on this.
