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== See also ==
* [[Bridge Officer's Test]]
== Appendices ==
=== Background ===
Screenwriter [[Jack B. Sowards]] named the scenario after the Kobayashi family who were his neighbors.
Spock stated that he had never taken the ''Kobayashi Maru'' test, suggesting the test may have been introduced in the period between Spock's Academy training and Kirk's. However, it is also possible that, as a [[science officer]] for much of his Starfleet career, Spock was not required to take the test. It is also possible that, as in the [[alternate reality]], Spock had a role in designing the ''Kobayashi Maru'' test; he may have never taken it himself precisely because he was the program's designer. In his death scene at the conclusion of, Spock describes his sacrifice as his solution to the scenario. On the ''Star Trek'' [[audio commentary]], Orci states he imagined that Spock also programmed the test in the prime reality, and that Kirk met him the same way after cheating.
=== Apocrypha ===
The ''Kobayashi Maru'' scenario has appeared in several novels and short stories. [[Julia Ecklar]]'s ''[[The Kobayashi Maru]]'' tells how Kirk, [[Pavel Chekov]], [[Montgomery Scott]] and Sulu each faced the problem. In the novel, Kirk won the scenario by reprogramming the simulation so that the Klingons believed he was a famous starship captain, though he was only a cadet at the time. Chekov self-destructed his ship, taking the Klingons with him; to his humiliation, his instructor pointed out that ejecting his crew in lifepods did not save them, due to the explosions of the four warp-drive vessels and the attending radiation. Scott tricked the simulation into overestimating the effectiveness of a theoretical attack against the Klingon ships' overlapping shielding. Faced with proof that such attacks, although quite valid in theory, would not work in reality and that Scott knew this, Academy staff reassigned Scott from command school to Engineering. Sulu, given the consequences of entry into the Zone versus the slim chance of recovering the crew of the freighter, elected not to conduct a rescue operation.
The origin of the ''Kobayashi Maru'' scenario was finally revealed in [[Michael A Martin]] and [[Andy Mangel]]'s ''[[Star Trek: Enterprise]]'' novel ''[[Kobayashi Maru (ENT novel)|Kobayashi Maru]]''. In it, the ''Kobayashi Maru'' is hit by a gravitic mine in the [[Gamma Hydra Sector]]. When ''[[Enterprise (NX-01)|Enterprise]]'' comes to save the ''Maru'', the Romulans attempt to use a telecapture device on ''Enterprise'' and bring in three [[D-5 class]] Klingon battle cruisers to ensure the elimination of ''Enterprise''. [[Jonathan Archer]] is faced with the decision of losing his ship and the survivors or sacrificing the survivors and ensuring the survival of ''Enterprise'', thus the no-win scenario, as Archer had been told to protect the freighter at all costs.
The ''[[Star Trek: Starfleet Academy (game)|Starfleet Academy]]'' game provides the test as one of the missions in the game scenario. Imitating Kirk, the player character has the choice to reprogram the simulator and win the mission. One of the options is to make the AI-Klingons believe that the cadet protagonist is a famous captain and obey him at once.
[[comics|Comic book]] stories of the [[Star Trek (DC volume 2)]] series are based on Ecklar's scenario. Three short stories in the ''Strange New Worlds'' anthology series have also tackled it. In "The Bottom Line" by [[Andrew Morby]] (SNW III) and [[Shawn Michael Scott]]'s "Best Tools Available" (SNW VI), Cadet [[Nog]] solves it in two entirely different (and thoroughly Ferengi) ways. [[Kevin Lauderdale]]'s "A Test of Character" (SNW VII) depicts a different solution from Ecklar’s, one in which Kirk’s tampering is "cheating without cheating," since Kirk merely creates a level playing-field, where success is not guaranteed. The [[Pocket TNG]] novel ''[[Boogeymen]]'' depicts [[Wesley Crusher]]'s ''Kobayashi Maru''-type test. In [[Peter David]]'s [[New Frontier]] novel ''[[Stone and Anvil]]'', cadet [[New Frontier characters#Mackenzie Calhoun|Mackenzie Calhoun]] "wins" the scenario by destroying the freighter, disabling the attacking ships in the process, escaping with his ship and crew but killing those whom he had been attempting to rescue (he later defended his actions by claiming the scenario was clearly a trap and the freighter crew were most likely already dead). By this time, the scenario had been upgraded with holodeck technology, enabling variations on the basic theme of a starship in trouble. In the novel ''[[Sarek (novel)|Sarek]]'' by [[A.C. Crispin]], [[Peter Kirk]] beats the scenario by using a knowledge of Romulan customs unanticipated by the test's designers.
