StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Bounty wrote:

Darth Wong wrote:

Atlan wrote:I never said that it is a valid justification for the above.

I pointed out that the accusation of academic cheating is unjust.

So if you cheat but you make a big joke out of it all, then you're not cheating? Precisely what definition of "cheating" do you use?

He never had the intent to pass the test for any sort of academic credit?

Since he made his cheating so blatantly *obvious* it seems extremely unlikely he thought he'd get away with it, and if he knew he wasn't going to do this unnoticed he did it because he wanted attention drawn to the test being unwinnable. So yes, he "cheated", but not with the intent of getting any sort of personal gain out of it.

If he'd sabotaged a compulsory test and tried to cover his tracks; yes, that would have been ground for severe disciplinary action. And he should still be in trouble for hacking the simulator. But as a formal charge, I doubt cheating would have stood up very long.

Darth Wong wrote:What the fuck kind of lame argument is this? The test is unimportant, so it's not cheating when you cheat at it? That's not how cheating is defined, kiddies. And quite frankly, I think the only reason you're focusing on this made-up narrow definition of "academic cheating" is because you're desperate to find some way to blunt the charges against his character. Otherwise it comes off as pure nitpicking.

Knife wrote:

Darth Wong wrote:What the fuck kind of lame argument is this? The test is unimportant, so it's not cheating when you cheat at it? That's not how cheating is defined, kiddies. And quite frankly, I think the only reason you're focusing on this made-up narrow definition of "academic cheating" is because you're desperate to find some way to blunt the charges against his character. Otherwise it comes off as pure nitpicking.

I'm not so sure. In lots of vocations, there are 'checks in a box' you have to have that is not necessary dependent on how you do on that box. You can fail miserably at doing CPR on a dummie as long as you can recite 30:2 on chest compressions to breaths. You still get the card and nobody knows how you'll do with real CPR untill you jump ontop of your first dying body and do so. You still get the card and the card is all a lot of places want for employment or whatever.

Patrick Degan wrote:Kobayashi Maru really needed to be left out of this film. It worked once, as a set-up for the personal tragedy Admiral Kirk would face in TWOK. It should been buried with TWOK. But if it had to be a part of this film, it should have been as Kirk expressing a protest over the scenario through his monkeying with it (making it fairer to make success possible, not installing God-Mode Cheat™ and making the thing a cheap prank) and later, as part of his defence, pointing out how illogical and unrealistic the scenario is and therefore meaningless as a training or evaluation exercise of any sort. When Spock tries pointing out at the hearing how the whole point of the exercise is to acquaint cadets with facing fear and death which Kirk undermined, have Kirk rebutting that by saying, point-blank, "That's something you can only face Out There; not in some damn simulator where you KNOW it's not real and the game is rigged."

Have the film then fade to "Three Years Later", after Kirk's been a serving lieutenant in Starfleet and coming to the Enterprise when the scramble to Vulcan is taking place. Show him boarding the ship with split-second flashbacks to "the Farragut Disaster," which he survived but from which he still suffers some lingering trauma. Would have made Kirk a far more grounded character and wouldn't have taken all that much additional screen-time. One of the earlier fluff scenes could have been dropped to accommodate it if run-time was critical to the final cut of the movie.

Darth Wong wrote: I don't see what lax requirements like that have to do with the notion that something which is obviously considered cheating by the Academy is somehow not cheating because it was voluntary and he was "just kidding". Hell, Kirk himself didn't even deny that it was cheating; he simply tried to pull a Tu Quoque fallacy on Spock.

Darth Wong wrote:How do we know that the Kobayashi Maru carries no academic weight whatsoever, anyway? Why would anyone bother taking it at all if it's worth nothing? Why would they bother administering it?

The fact that you can voluntarily take it more than once doesn't necessarily prove it's academically worthless. It might simply mean they have a policy of allowing retries.

Uraniun235 wrote:Er, I don't think the captain knows he's going to get swarmed by a whole heavy attack squadron. Well, he might have heard about it beforehand, but they might deduct points for acting with "out of character" knowledge.

I mean, do the Klingons really hang around the Neutral Zone in droves, waiting for Federation starships to wander across the border? If so, where are the droves of Federation starships to counter them and make sure the Klingons don't just charge across the border?

Uraniun235 wrote:Er, I don't think the captain knows he's going to get swarmed by a whole heavy attack squadron. Well, he might have heard about it beforehand, but they might deduct points for acting with "out of character" knowledge.

I mean, do the Klingons really hang around the Neutral Zone in droves, waiting for Federation starships to wander across the border? If so, where are the droves of Federation starships to counter them and make sure the Klingons don't just charge across the border?

Darth Wong wrote:

Uraniun235 wrote:Er, I don't think the captain knows he's going to get swarmed by a whole heavy attack squadron. Well, he might have heard about it beforehand, but they might deduct points for acting with "out of character" knowledge.

I mean, do the Klingons really hang around the Neutral Zone in droves, waiting for Federation starships to wander across the border? If so, where are the droves of Federation starships to counter them and make sure the Klingons don't just charge across the border?

Even if he genuinely doesn't know beforehand, the Enterprise was always supposed to be faster than Klingon ships, so it could just flee. I don't know if the Enterprise is still faster in this new continuity, but still, it seems like you want to just run away as soon as you realize you're horrendously outmatched. Any captain who stubbornly stays and fights in a hopeless situation is just throwing his ship and crew away.

Fingolfin_Noldor wrote: Erm, it is well known that the Federation regularly patrols the Neutral Zone, and you would also expect the Klingons to do so. It's for the same reason that on DMZ in Korea, there are troops parked on both sides of the zone.

The Klingons have listening posts. The minute crossed the Neutral Zone, you will be detected. That happened when the Enterprise crossed the Neutral Zone in Star Trek VI.

Uraniun235 wrote:In TWOK, Saavik tried to retreat. Sulu said he'd "try", and the Klingons managed to overwhelm the Enterprise anyway.

Don't get me wrong, I agree that retreat in the face of overwhelming odds is appropriate, I'm just saying that running didn't work when we saw the scenario in TWOK.

Darth Wong wrote:

Uraniun235 wrote:In TWOK, Saavik tried to retreat. Sulu said he'd "try", and the Klingons managed to overwhelm the Enterprise anyway.

Don't get me wrong, I agree that retreat in the face of overwhelming odds is appropriate, I'm just saying that running didn't work when we saw the scenario in TWOK.

I haven't seen that in many years. Did they attempt to retreat the moment they detected the Klingons approaching, or did they wait until they were already being pounded?

Darth Wong wrote:They did not appear to be at warp speed when the Klingons began firing at them. Just how hard were they trying to escape?