TNG: Peak Performance

[rickgriffin]

I'm starting a thread because I'm in the middle of revising my novel and so my brain is stuck in "figure out how to do this better" mode. So, my revision notes for Peak Performance:

In order for Kolrami to actually be the villain of this episode he has to be doing something WRONG when it comes to the simulation. And that thing wrong should be . . . thinking of it only as a game, with explicitly defined boundaries. After all, his people aren't an established military power in the quadrant. Maybe they're just obsessed with incredibly detailed games, and so are some of the first to turn to when it means creating simulations. (Maybe they were the people who devised the original Kobiyashi Maru for Starfleet). And, specifically, they actually HATED the fact that Starfleet though Kirk's outside-the-box thinking was a valid solution. He broke the rules, dammit! You don't get to break the rules!

So the issue the crew should have with the simulation is the unnecessary boundaries foisted on them. Every time they think they can wring an advantage out of the disabled spacecraft, Kolrami shakes his head. "No, you're only allowed the stuff on the approved list," and forces them to disable those systems. And Riker should be thinking--yeah, maybe a mismatch is a valid strategic test, but this Kolrami guy keeps striking them down any time they figure out some interesting strategy, simply because it wasn't "intended" to be in the simulation.

Data, for his part, should actually seek out to challenge Kolrami at Strategema rather than be forced in. Maybe Pulaski prompts him to do it, and it gets Data thinking: if he could learn simulated combat the way Kolrami knows it, then a new strategic subroutine would be of extreme help to the crew. So he plays Strategema to test himself, but Kolrami wins. He does this again, and again, and Kolrami wins each time, and that puts Data into a crisis: maybe he CAN'T actually learn tactics the way Kolrami's people do, maybe he's not suitable to be at Ops.

This setup would make the latter part of the episode much better: Wesley sneaking antimatter onboard (I suppose we should roll with it . . .) swapping out the simulation for a real combat scenario when Ferengi show up and try to strongarm a salvage. Kolrami has absolutely NO idea what to do because this wasn't supposed to be part of the test. Riker reveals he had one other secret strategy, which angers Kolrami despite the fact their lives are now in danger. Save the day, etc. End of episode, now Data's new strategy of "play to stall" actually makes sense--it's a strategy that TECHNICALLY violates "the rules", but nevertheless results in victory. Maybe then Kolrami actually admits that . . . his simulations could stand to be more flexible.

[bronnt]

I do like your take on the episode. However, I wonder how much of a villain Kolrami was really supposed to be. Sure, he's smug, but not in a way that stands out, so it's an almost likeable form of smug. He comes off a bit like Dr. House. Very self-assured, but only because he's very competent. I always found him somewhat charming.

[rickgriffin]

Well he does get his "comeuppance" at the end of the episode so I think he was intended to come across as deserving it. Villain probably isn't the right word--antagonist is what I was going for. Star Trek has a habit of making villains LIKE Kolrami--experts in their field who are just assholes to the crew and are all "screw you we do things my way!" in face of logic and common sense. Kolrami just happened to actually come across as less of an asshole than most villain-experts.

[SuccubusYuri]

He's definitely meant to be an antagonist, in that non-existential-threatening way. He's like Sarek or the lady from the Drumhead, on our side but over their heads.

I think the problem is they aren't sure what message is being sent. Like the guy shows up, wants to get to work immediately, and the director's reaction, i guess, is "whoa, take a look at this asshole!" Like, I have mad respect for anyone who totally ignores jet lag cuz when I go long trips I always feel out of it for a couple days cuz traveling stresses me so much. Is the message that workaholics are assholes? If so what is all this shit about Wesley-ubermensch failing his first application like it's a stepping stone of life?

Also, Kolrami seems to have some sort of cerebral advantage as his race seems to be roughly Trek's Mon Calamari, and we're meant to feel good when he shows approval at Riker's unique approach to the tests. So do we WANT his approval? Because if we want someone's approval we should probably like and/or respect them. I mean they could be set up as on opposing sides, like Jellicho, but there really isn't a "both sides have a point" to these tiny, miniscule squabbles that the crew has with him. Kolrami is very clearly in the right, the episode even sets it up as "hey this is for the FUCKIN BORG" and everyone's groaning and dragging their feet.

[SlackerinDeNile]

Yeah Kolrami isn't the 'villain' he's more of a rival for our 'ideal' human cast to be irritated and challenged by.
It does seem as if the writers and director were unaware of just how arrogant and self-righteous the characters of the show were at this point, sure Kolrami is even more smug and in a slightly antagonistic way but it's not as if he's doing anything wrong, he's still doing his job competently. Considering the personalities of the main cast at this point it's kind of hard to sympathise with them considering their own flaws and issues at the time, like Chuck was saying.

At the end of the episode the writers and director intend for him to get some sort of comeuppance by Data but the problem is Data beats him not through actual strategic superiority, but by bending the rules of the game and breaking his patience. I'll admit thats kind of clever in a way but it doesn't really make Data seem more intelligent or skilled than Kolrami, just more cold and mechanical.

[bronnt]

He's definitely meant to be an antagonist, in that non-existential-threatening way. He's like Sarek or the lady from the Drumhead, on our side but over their heads.

I think the problem is they aren't sure what message is being sent. Like the guy shows up, wants to get to work immediately, and the director's reaction, i guess, is "whoa, take a look at this asshole!" Like, I have mad respect for anyone who totally ignores jet lag cuz when I go long trips I always feel out of it for a couple days cuz traveling stresses me so much. Is the message that workaholics are assholes? If so what is all this shit about Wesley-ubermensch failing his first application like it's a stepping stone of life?

And they even side-stepped ways in which he could have been overbearingly smug. For example, he actually accepts Riker's challenge and plays Strategema against him. That'd be like some random guy spotting Garry Kasparov in a coffee shop, challenging him, and Kasparov breaks out a chessboard right there. Or some kid challenging LeBron James to game of 21 and James stops to play with him. It's actually kind of cool that he grants Riker the honor of playing against him, so Riker can later have the story where he tells people about playing Strategema against the best player in the galaxy.

[MaxWylde]

I realize this is an old thread, but maybe I can offer some considerations from a military perspective.

Kolrami isn't the villain here, as you noted. It's the principal officers involved, but given that these clowns don't think they're in a military organization, their behavior does fit. Because, if you have a military who's officers don't think they're in a military, that should affect EVERYTHING about how they do their jobs.

In the real military, when we conduct wargames, we're not really interested so much in "winning" the game but in training. That's what this really is. It's a big test of units involved because what we're trying to find out is where we need to do more training, what works and what doesn't, and why. You don't "win" a wargame exercise so much as you learn from it. Because deploying a unit, even if it's one big spaceship with a crew of over 1,000, is a huge management undertaking. It involves so many things I don't know if I can go over it all, but, to just throw a few items to consider, there's logistics (moving men and materiel around to where they need to be in a timely fashion), there's personnel issues (handling replacements, promotions, assignments, disciplinary actions, etc.), medical issues, all before you get to tactical operations.

But these guys, in this episode, don't seem to be concerned about any of that, because, frankly, this exercise is rather bogus because the writers and producers of this episode don't know jack about how real militaries conduct such exercises. Kolrami wants to give them an asymmetrical combat scenario, where one ship is considerably weaker than the other. Okay, fine. What are the parameters? There are none, except "victory," meaning that one ship destroys the other.

In an asymmetrical confrontation, the goal of the weaker side should be two things: Gather intelligence of the enemy, his strength and disposition (who, what, where, how many, and what are they doing), and to evade and avoid the enemy long enough to notify friendly forces. That's it. Because if you cannot hope to defeat your enemy through force of arms, you do what Sun Tzu said: Avoid him!

But no. What we got here is a chance for Riker and Picard to show off a bit. Riker cheats in two fundamental ways that Kolrami ought to have put a stop to. First, he has Worf and his little computer hack of the Enterprise. Second, you have Wesley taking a project (involving antimatter) to power the Hathaway's warp engines to give them a two-second warp jump. In a real exercise, Kolrami would have multiple personnel on his behalf acting as Observer/Controllers, ready to stop everything if they even suspect that there's cheating going on. This is because in real combat, you cannot expect to do such things, and what's more, this is about training and evaluation; it's not supposed to be about "winning." You have to know what your ship and crew are capable of doing, and it's best to know this before you have to engage in a hostile action. (Also, Kolrami would have another ship there to both monitor the exercise from another vantage, to record data, and to protect the area from any threat or just some dink coming in and ruining the whole thing.)

Picard seems more interested in proving to Kolrami that Riker is a good combat officer. So much so that it affects his own performance. Why does he do this "Kuma" maneuver? Why bother? He knows he's got the Hathaway outmatched in every conceivable way. All he should've done was order the Enterprise to close and fire weapons. Done! End of engagement. But he doesn't. He does this to allow Riker to show off. There's no reason at all to do such a maneuver to get Riker to "disclose his intentions," because this is an asymmetrical situation. If it were a symmetrical situation, meaning that the two units are roughly equally capable of defeating the other in combat, then doing something like that might be prudent, but even so, aggression and determination would've won the encounter.

The report to Starfleet Command from Kolrami should've been "A waste of time, effort, and resources." Then Picard's commanding admiral would've had him relieved of duty.

[TGLS]

Honestly kind of seems weird that they have real space training exercises to begin with. They have access holodecks. They presumably have details of enemy ships. They could wargame out Wolf 359 a year ahead of schedule if they wanted to.

[McAvoy]

Honestly kind of seems weird that they have real space training exercises to begin with. They have access holodecks. They presumably have details of enemy ships. They could wargame out Wolf 359 a year ahead of schedule if they wanted to.

Probably not let's say Romulan commanders or Borg for example where they really cannot replicate them fully because not enough information. But they can certainly War game between two Federation vessels in a holodeck. If need be I am sure they can link two holodecks together to form the wargame to keep them seperate. Not sure if that was ever done in Trek, but it seems to be in their realm of possibilities.

Also this is Season 2 so we are talking about a period of TNG that has Gene's still live fingerprints all over it. Which means Starfleet 'isn't a military' but it should be. And Starfleet officers are not trained as military officers because they are explorers.

[Nealithi]

Honestly kind of seems weird that they have real space training exercises to begin with. They have access holodecks. They presumably have details of enemy ships. They could wargame out Wolf 359 a year ahead of schedule if they wanted to.

I can think of one great reason to use full ships over a holodeck. Space. Every crewmember can be at their own duty station in the ship and perform their duties. The holodeck does not have infinite space or is bigger on the inside. It pretends to be bigger.

As to the methodology of the wargame. I feel there are other ways to test asymmetrical combat. One example is the comedy movie Down Periscope. Could an on paper weaker vessel evade our vessels and do harm. Part of the exercise is testing new ships and training to handle the unexpected. So modifying the Hathaway to do strange things like a pirate might would be encouraged.
The other is related to the first. Show weaknesses of defense of a given area. I read on a security officer showing how he could get infiltrators to get into a New York area nuclear power station and cause significant damage. Then they removed him and set up the idiot games where the whole thing was totally scripted and security always won. (And yes they did these same scenarios on my base when I was in. Aggressor will approach X road at 1130. Security team will 'intercept' them at that time. Break for lunch.)

Also I personally think Riker's tactics were weaker than the tactics Lursa a Betor used on him in Generations.