This article contains spoilers for Star Trek: Picard - Stargazer #1!In a story set between the second and third seasons of Star Trek: Picard, fans finally get to see how Admiral Jean-Luc Piccard has altered Spock's famous Kobayashi Maru training exercise, as Seven of Nine confronts what the diplomatic great considers an impossible situation.
Thanks to J.J. Abram's Star Trek film from 2009, more than just Trekkies are now familiar with the Kobayashi Maru, a training exercise that Spock specially designed to be unbeatable to gauge how Starfleet Academy cadets would react during a no-win scenario. The film also showed viewers in real time how James T. Kirk once famously won by cheating. As such a landmark exercise, the Kobayashi Maru remained unaltered until Picard returned to the Federation after stopping the Higher Synthetics from destroying all mankind at the end of Picard season one.
Now, Picard has created a newer version of the Kobayashi Maru, and fans get to see a special variation of it in action during Seven of Nine's training in Star Trek: Picard - Stargazer #1 by writers Kirsten Beyer and Mike Johnson, artist Angel Hernandez, colorist J.D. Mettler and letterer Neil Uyetake. After agreeing to leave the Fenris Rangers and join Starfleet officially, Seven is required to pass certain tests before earning a position. Part of the process of Seven enlisting in Starfleet involves taking Picard's Kobayashi Maru. But since Seven gained a great deal of experience when serving aboard the U.S.S. Voyager in an unofficial capacity, Picard increases the difficulty, since she's much more skilled than a normal cadet. What Seven goes through (and fails) is a diplomatic mission where she mediates peace between two warring races.
Picard's New Kobayashi Maru Is All About Diplomacy
While Stargazer #1 shares the version of the test caders will take for the show, it seems that Picard is favoring diplomatic sensibilities over the more "kinetic" original test. Rather than being all-action, Picard's Kobayashi Maru is about negotiation, psychology, and philosophy. Fans of Star Trek: The Next Generation will see Picard's personality and fingerprints all over this logic, though it does raise the question of whether Picard has managed to create a test that someone like Kirk can't find their way around. Given its cerebral approach and focus on achieving peace, that's entirely possible.
The Perfect Choice for Jean-Luc Picard
Diplomacy is undoubtedly Picard's forte, the best example being when he was once forcibly beamed to the surface of a planet with another man in the episode "Darmok." There, in what everyone believed to be a hostile hostage situation, Picard's diplomatic skills helped him come to the conclusion early that he was part of a ritual where historical moments were being used as metaphors. Given that this situation was possible to avoid, Picard's simulation must be even thornier and ask more of trainees.
With the comic's latest tease, it's highly probable that Star Trek: Picard season three will further appease fan's curiosities by showing Starfleet Academy cadets taking Picard's Kobayashi Maru (rather than just the version tailored for Seven of Nine.) Although Spock's Kobayashi Maru is legendary, it only makes sense to allow the next generation of Star Trek hero to update his test to more accurately reflect the current climate in the Federation and beyond.