Somewhere in the Klingon neutral zone, a ship of civilians reels and thrashes on the verge of destruction. A distress signal is sent out to all sectors. A Starfleet commander in the vicinity picks up the cry for help, and ponders his next move. If he rescues the ship, the act will surely be seen as a forbidden territorial intrusion, unleashing hostility. If he does nothing, the innocent inhabitants of the vessel will surely die. What is the correct call?
For the sake of a little galactic perspective, let’s rouse the development division, and contract a rewrite.
Somewhere in the idyllic town of Brattleboro, a group of disenfranchised skaters sends out a call to establish a permanent base. Yet after scouring the territory, all flagged spots are deemed parcels of a neutral zone, with either residential or circumstantial restrictions that rebuff easy accommodation of the request. The governing board assembles to make a decision. If they act to establish a skater’s base among their chosen options, either battle could ensue, or they risk alienating skaters. If they do nothing the skate movement dies, years of effort is dashed, and the credibility of the governing board itself is seriously put in question.
Actually, for aspiring leaders of the Enterprise, the quandary is merely a simulation, a test, a trick with no easy answer. More precisely, any and all answers are certain disasters, and the situation is a just contrivance to gauge a prospective Captain’s mettle. It’s a way of determining what a candidate is made of before they are charged with the responsibility of lives and missions.
Over the years, the test is given many times, and many times failure and loss is logged. Over time, the storied predicament becomes something different, not so much a test of ingenuity, but a framework for measuring how dissapointment and defeat is taken.
Then one day, a candidate comes along determined to not be another notch in the belt of the Academy. He sees the inherent fatalism in the test, and knows somehow, probably intuitively, that the fairest response to an unfair problem is to tweak the underlying nature of the set-up. In his heart and mind, driven by his ethos, “failure is not an option.”
What did Kirk do? It was never made explicitly clear, but it had something to do with reprogramming, diffusing the belligerent impulse that was the assumed response from the Klingons.
What will the governing board of Brattleboro do as they face their Kobayashi Maru? This is not a test.
Change the rules of the test
Kirk reprogrammed the software and changed the rules, and therefore the outcome of the test to a winning result…and received a commendation.
James Tiberius Kirk, the only Starfleet Cadet to pass the Kobayashi Maru, was not fond of no-win scenarios.
Solomon’s wisdom and concision
According to this 2013 website history of U.S. skateparks http://skateexpo.com/history.html there are currently 5000 skateparks operating nationally.
Perhaps, what we need is not a James Kirk, but a decision maker with King Solomon’s wisdom and concision.
impossible situations
Fun analogy. Captain Gartenstein, I’m sure, is intrigued by the situation as are crew-mates.
It reminds me a bit of the intro Philosophy question of whether we should kill one person to save many.
It also reminds me of a scriptwriting tool – the impossible situation. Once you know about it, you recognize it everywhere. The lead character must face an impossible situation and overcome it. It adds tremendous drama (compared, to say, the hero needing to make a peanut butter sandwich,) to have a hero be on a sinking ship, under fire, out of ammo, with enemies approaching… and then the phone fails, the computers shut down, a tornado whips up, aliens land, the tidal wave approaches…
Or Charlie Bucket, upon completing all the required tasks, being told by Mr. Wonka that he failed.
I don’t see agreement on a site, which is too bad. If BASIC could walk in with the Site Selection Committee and tell the Selectboard a site with a single voice, it would go a long way toward putting this project back on track. I get the impression that BASIC felt left out of the very-publicized site selection process, which is confusing. I expected them to be fully involved, and thought they were when I saw the criteria submitted and comments received.
Another possible solution: How about just drop the anti-skateboard laws in town? Then the park can be everywhere without any decisions being required or lawsuits being threatened,
who, what when and where
Good question Chris.
I’ve been asking from the beginning why the town enacted an anti-skateboarding law.
Why can’t we have both, a skatepark and freedom to skateboard in town, as we do with bicycles?
When we outlaw it, we should build a park for it
If bikes were outlawed, we’d likely soon be debating bike parks and bikers.
Stardate update request
So, how did the crew do with their run through the simulator?
Tune in Next Week...
“These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its
fiveten year mission… to boldly go wherenoman has gone before.” – Gene RoddendberyLive long and Prosper, skaters!