Following the theatrical release of the generally well-received and box office topping Star Trek Beyond, all eyes are on the seminal science-fiction franchise - as the Gene Roddenberry created property continues on past its 50th birthday. With an all new, full-fledged Star Trek television series on the way courtesy of CBS All Access and chief showrunner Bryan Fuller (Hannibal), it would appear as though the property is aiming to keep up with other sci-fi franchises, stride-for-stride.
Now that the Kelvin Timeline has become an entity unto itself within the larger Star Trek canon, many casual viewers otherwise unfamiliar with the long-running series may just be getting acquainted with the larger collected works that make up the property's many featured crews of interstellar diplomats. Of the many facets of belonging to Roddenberry's original vision, none is perhaps more well known than the Kobyashi Maru no-win scenario field test designed to train Starfleet Academy officers in order to confront and resolve impossible situations. Now, a handy flowchart has just been created to test the layman's ability to confront a Kobyashi Maru in kind.
Courtesy of Lucidchart, a handy guide to navigating all of the circuitous ways in which one might attempt to resolve the Kobyashi Maru has just been provided, with plenty of clever allusions and callbacks to many of the more iconic moments and characters from the Star Trek series. With plenty of clever nods to the original origins of the classic moment first divulged in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan upon its theatrical release in 1982, this flowchart is sure to provide plenty of amusement for the more well read and novice Trekkie alike.
Check out the Kobyashi Maru flowchart below:
After reestablishing the classic Starfleet Academy examination in director J.J. Abrams' 2009 feature franchise reboot, the Kobyashi Maru has returned to the popular conscious among more people than your typical Star Trek shut-in. Even as the classic bit of science-fiction ephemera remains among the more nerdy facets of movie fandom, having a colorful flowchart to help guide the more unfamiliar viewer along the many winding paths of its convoluted logic may very well serve to bring a few more fans along for the ride as newly initiated Trekkies.
Justin Lin certainly made the franchise fun again with Star Trek Beyond, and with any luck Fuller will find commensurate success and acclaim when his Star Trek: Discovery premieres on CBS All Access early next year. With more and more viewers beginning to get back on board as fans of the larger science-fiction franchise, the Kobyashi Maru test may soon become a rite of passage among genre fans once more, making the flowchart featured above a "necessary" tool.
NEXT: Star Trek Beyond Proves We Need More Standalone Movies
Star Trek Beyond is now playing in theaters. Star Trek: Discovery premieres on CBS All Access in early 2017.
Source: Lucidchart