In the Star Trek universe, The Kobayashi Maru is the name of a Starfleet Academy test that all cadets must take in order to graduate. The test is designed to be a no-win situation, so that students' behavior under pressure can be observed. From these evaluations, cadets are put onto tracks that ultimately decide what their careers within Starfleet will be.

The test itself is a battle scenario. The cadets are stationed on a training starship that receives a distress call from an unarmed ship named "Kobayashi Maru." It is under attack by enemy forces and has no way to fight back. The signal is coming from inside the Klingon Neutral Zone, where, by treaty, Federation ships are not allowed to go. However, Federation ships are also required to answer any distress signal they encounter, Federation craft or no. The cadets plot a course to rescue the Kobayashi Maru.

Once the training ship reaches the given co-ordinates of the Kobayashi Maru, no disabled ship is found, only small pieces of wreckage. Several Klingon vessels decloak and attack the training ship. It's a trap. The cadets are outgunned and outclassed, in almost every way possible. As the attack continues, systems fail, the hull is breached, and cadets "die." The rescue ship cannot retreat and must face complete annihilation.

The simulation ends when the cadets' ship is destroyed. No one is really dead, though minor injuries (things like sprains, broken bones, burns, and small lacerations, abrasions and hematomas) often occur.

It is notable that in the history of Starfleet Academy, there is only one person who ever beat the Kobayashi Maru simulation. James T. Kirk hacked into the Academy's computer systems and reprogrammed the simulation to allow him to win. As a result, he was given a commendation for original thinking and kicked up into officer training.

In and around the Star Trek universe, and among its fans, the phrase "Kobayashi Maru" has come to refer to any no-win situation.

The information about Kirk's encounter with the simulation was culled from http://www.startrek.com on the Kirk biography page. "James T. Kirk" is a trademark of Paramount Pictures, as is "Kobayashi Maru".

I find it quite peculiar that this became the archetypical no-win situation among Trekkies, because, as it is described above, it isn't a no-win situation. It lacks the defining characteristic: the difficult choice between two evils. The initial decision between violating the neutral zone and not helping the vessel under attack might be considered one, but there is a very strong bias towards helping the vessel, both morally (breaking a treaty vs. letting people die) and in the expectations of the testers.

It might be of interest that Kobayashi is a common Japanese family name (meaning "small grove") while Maru is the generic Japanese suffix for cargo ship names.

When I was younger I was a big fan of the ST:TOS and ST:TNG series of novels. But if you read these series for any length of time you soon come to realize that most of these books are poorly written crap.

The Kobayashi Maru, however, is a hidden gem that stands the test of time. I own about 40 Star Trek novels and this is the only one I've read more than once. I recently read it for a fourth time after many years and it's still as good as I remember. What makes this book so special is that it relies on character development rather than plot to keep you entertained. Whereas most Star Trek books assume everybody knows about the characters and concentrate on interesting plot twists, this book goes behind the larger than life heroic aspect of the original crew and examines them as real people with real hopes and dreams and fears.

The novel is broken into four flashbacks of how Kirk, Scotty, Sulu, and Chekov each managed in their own way to beat Starfleet Academy's Kobayashi Maru combat simulation, the so called "impossible scenario," framed within the "present day" story of a shuttlecraft problem. What makes these stories so charming is that they each show something special about the four characters, who really come to life in new ways when we see them as cadets, but still ring true as the people we know them as in the "present" as Enterprise crewmembers.

This book is true quality, and well worth reading even for casual fans of Trek.