In Star Trek, command-track cadets at Starfleet Academy are given a test to judge their character and discipline. Via Memory Alpha:
The test primarily consisted of the cadet placed in command of a starship, the USS Enterprise. The ship would soon receive a distress signal from the Kobayashi Maru, a civilian freighter within the Klingon Neutral Zone that had been heavily disabled. Being the only ship in range, the cadet cannot choose to withdraw from the rescue mission and are forced to enter the Neutral Zone to rescue the vessel in risk of violating the treaties. The ship would then be confronted by Klingon K’t’inga-class battle cruisers, which typically engaged in a firefight.
Saving the civilians means violating the treaty. Honoring the treaty means abandoning them to near-certain death. A cadet cannot simultaneously save the civilians, avoid a fight, escape the Neutral Zone intact, and honour the treaty so you don’t provoke a war. The Kobayashi Maru is a no-win scenario.
Well, no-win unless you’re James T. Kirk. As we see in Star Trek II, Kirk was the only cadet to beat the Kobayashi Maru — by sneaking in and reprogramming the simulator.
By rewriting the test, Kirk rejects a no-win scenario. The only way to win was to change the game. When faced with two bad choices, Kirk decided to break out of the system and make his own scenario.
But I don’t think that was what the Kobayashi was meant to test.
The point was never to win
In the real world, decision-making requires knowing the limits of your power. We try to make choices that result in good outcomes, and avoid choices that result in negative outcomes. But the constraints aren’t necessarily within our control. We make decisions based on imperfect data, surrounded by imperfect people doing whatever the hell they like. And that means sometimes, none of the available choices are very good.
Young Kirk reprogrammed the Kobayashi because he didn’t see the point. He thought it was a test of whether you can save everyone given these circumstances. By that logic, the circumstances were unfair, and rewriting it made sense.
But winning was never the point. The Kobayashi is a test of what you do when you can’t save everyone — or when your best efforts have created a situation where you can’t save anyone. It’s a test of character and judgement, and the real test only happens after the scenario.
How do you respond to your choices in the Kobayashi? How do you go on from here? Do you recognize that the universe may present you with terrible situations that all your knowledge and power can’t avoid? Do you see that sometimes, least-bad is the best you can do?
It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness; that is life.