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Short Trek S2E3 Ask Not
azrael605
Member Posts: 11,135 Arc User
in Ten Forward
Very good, also very reminiscient of the "Psych test" Wesley experienced in TNG in all the best ways.
Spoilers below,
I'll have to check but I'm fairly sure all of the Starfleet regs referenced have been mentioned in episodes or films previously. The "reserve activation" reg is how Kirk got Bones on the ship in TMP. There was one from Voyager, the Equinox 2 parter actually.
Testing simulations that use the test subject's past are also an established fact of Starfleet, as when Wesley was given a test where he was forced to choose who to save and who to let die, just as Picard had to let his father Jack Crusher die.
It may have been the shortest so far but man I loved this one. TBH though I think it was only the shortest because it ran without opening credits.
Spoilers below,
I'll have to check but I'm fairly sure all of the Starfleet regs referenced have been mentioned in episodes or films previously. The "reserve activation" reg is how Kirk got Bones on the ship in TMP. There was one from Voyager, the Equinox 2 parter actually.
Testing simulations that use the test subject's past are also an established fact of Starfleet, as when Wesley was given a test where he was forced to choose who to save and who to let die, just as Picard had to let his father Jack Crusher die.
It may have been the shortest so far but man I loved this one. TBH though I think it was only the shortest because it ran without opening credits.
There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.
One man's theology is another man's belly laugh.
You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once.
Don't ever become a pessimist... a pessimist is correct oftener than an optimist, but an optimist has more fun, and neither can stop the march of events.
Robert Heinlein
#BringBackJoshuaRiker
One man's theology is another man's belly laugh.
You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once.
Don't ever become a pessimist... a pessimist is correct oftener than an optimist, but an optimist has more fun, and neither can stop the march of events.
Robert Heinlein
#BringBackJoshuaRiker
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Comments
They have not shown Starfleet tests that often actually. Of those, the command ones Doctor Crusher took in TNG were not that bad, and neither were most of the others. I have no idea what they showed on the DSC short though so cannot compare it to the others.
Barclay might have actually performed well under more "physical" pressure, like a tight deadline, consoles exploding around you. But once you add a significant social component, it might have been more of an issue. And maybe he didn't face those because the career he was pursuing wouldn't require many of such situations.
The Kobyashi Maru is not a normal Starfleet test at all, it is the big all-stops pulled mysterious command-school final that everyone hears rumors of but only those on command track actually take. The weirdest part of the test is that it is implied that the person taking it is given something to intensify the experience (and possibly make them forget it is just a test until it is over), and the official novelization even implies that it runs for several days with the attempted rescue as the final step (Savik's expressions in the movie during the test scene, especially when it ends and the 'house lights' come up actually support that immersion-enforcement idea).
Some third party novels have taken that intensification thing idea a bit further, like Diane Duane's "Dreadnought!" where the main character causes a major ruckus by using a pirate trick that she would not have used had she remembered it was just a test (not wanting to remind people of her origins) though third party stuff is not canon of course.
In any case, unless the movie novelization is right about the length of the test and there are grueling parts we never see on camera leading up to the "rescue", the test is not particularly grueling, just very intense at its end. It is a test of character, not something that can be trained for.
Dr. Crusher's tests, according to dialog, were all just ordinary paper tests except for one practical in the holodeck (it could have even been the Kobayasi Maru though she was rather blasé about it whatever it was). She even made a joke about how easy it was iirc.
I do not directly recall Deanna's test unless you mean the novel "Breakaway" (I must have missed that particular episode), but Memory Alpha says it is the standard test that Dr. Crusher took and was so blasé about. Troi's empathy is probably what made it so difficult for her in the holodeck practical, though she would have faced a similar test already in the initial cadet program (the difference being that instead of "fate" and having to choose who to save she would be ordering someone into the fatal situation to save the ship).
Some of the psychosimulator tests seem to be customized for the cadet, to test a perceived weakness of some sort or another to make sure it is not insurmountable for the character or a potential psychotic break trigger or the like. Overall though, they are in theory not any worse than the real world jump test where if the cadet balks completely at the door they are washed out (and yes, some do wash though most make it through ok).
1. As I said, only command track take the Kobyashi Maru test, department heads do not take it which is why Bones, Scotty, and others never took it while Sulu, Uhura (who was a command track full lieutenant when first seen), and later on Checkov (who was not a lieutenant yet in TOS so wasn't back to command school at that time, but who went though command school before TMP) did.
As a side note, Scott is unusual in that he never went though the academy basic program, only department head school later on, one of the minority of Starfleet officers who started out as enlisted and had a field commission given to him. Most enlisteds are actually a type of contractor borrowed from the Federation equivalent of the merchant marine from hints that have been dropped in the various shows. .
2. I am not so sure that Troi's test was watered down from the description of what Riker told her, especially since it seemed to be the usual Starfleet combination of test and learning experience. I get the feeling it takes an unusually high level of bungling to fail one of those tests badly enough that it cannot be taken again. Also, the story was a fairly standard one, the plot almost always goes like it did in that episode, with the same failures as the character works the problem, followed by success but with self-doubts that are dispelled as the mentor explains that they were supposed to figure it out for themselves like that.
3. Granted, those are generally customized to the cadet. With Troi's extreme empathy it is also quite likely that it would be similar to Wesley's though for a different reason.
5. In TOS they never said that it was the most unforgiving training regimen in the known galaxy, just one of the most advanced. They never said it was easy either, the impression is that it is difficult and with high standards, but not unusually grueling and they expect most who actually make it into the academy will graduate (getting in in the first place is where the biggest filter is).
The basic program takes in raw recruits and is supposed to be between real-world basic training+MOS and West Point and turns out ensigns while the command school/department head school takes in lieutenant JGs ready for promotion and is bit more than West Point difficulty but not as difficult as something like Seal Team training and turns out full lieutenants. It is not one of those over the top nonsense things where hundreds go in and all but a single handful wash out.
If we are going to solutions in novels I prefer Piper's solution in "Dreadnaught!", where she took control of her own ship's main computer with a communicator. Not only did it solve the inevitable "no response to controls" issue, it also set the simulator computers at each other throats which was rather amusing.
http://www.treknews.net/2019/11/14/review-star-trek-short-treks-ask-not-captain-pike/