Star Trek: 10 Things You Didn't Know About The Kobayashi Maru
3. No-Win, The Janeway
"If you can't solve a puzzle, cheat," said Captain Janeway, channelling Seven of Nine, herself probably channelling the Collective's knowledge of Kirk's creative solution to the Kobayashi Maru. Well, "cheating is often more efficient". The 'Think Tank' of Think Tank was Voyager's own no-win scenario until Janeway decided to stop playing by the rules of someone else's game.
In essence, the initial premise of Star Trek: Voyager was equally a Kobayashi Maru. Use the Caretaker's array to get home, endangering the Ocampa, or destroy it, stranding your crew halfway across the galaxy? Neither was an enviable choice. Neither was a win, per se. Only one would get you high marks when you got home. A little later, Tuvok would put the wayward Maquis through their paces in his holographic version of Kobayashi Maru in Learning Curve. In Latent Image, the Doctor would face a no-win medical dilemma.
The Autobiography of Kathryn Janeway, edited by Una McCormack, also revealed certain details about the Captain/Admiral's "turn on the Kobayashi Maru" as a cadet in her final year. Janeway apparently received praise from mentor Admiral Parvati Pandey for her "grace under fire" during the test. "I'd like to think I made her proud," Janeway concludes in the autobiography. '70,000 lightyears' says she did.