| rdfs:comment
| - Our hero is executing an impossible mission. It's full of action and adventure, and he gets to show off how heroic he is, but at the last minute, something unexpected goes badly -- often ridiculously so. The killer robot swoops down to off The Hero and... It was all just a simulation, training exercise, or Dream Sequence. In most cases, The Hero steps outside to discuss what he did wrong with the simulation operator, who will point out, "If this had been an actual emergency, you'd be dead." Examples of Unwinnable Training Simulation include:
|
| abstract
| - Our hero is executing an impossible mission. It's full of action and adventure, and he gets to show off how heroic he is, but at the last minute, something unexpected goes badly -- often ridiculously so. The killer robot swoops down to off The Hero and... It was all just a simulation, training exercise, or Dream Sequence. In most cases, The Hero steps outside to discuss what he did wrong with the simulation operator, who will point out, "If this had been an actual emergency, you'd be dead." The rest of the episode will typically focus on his overcoming whatever character flaw prevented him from succeeding in simulation. This is typically used as the first scene of an episode or Film (though it may also come between the planning and execution phases of an Trope Workshop:Impossible Mission story), as an easy way of introducing the viewer to the kind of danger the main character(s) might experience on a regular basis. It will feel like In Medias Res, except that it's not really part of the main storyline. Such a scene shows that the character is not invincible but has a critical flaw which might lead to his demise later without actually affecting the Plot. This will cause additional suspense later on when the character inevitably gets into a similar "real" situation and must show that he overcame this flaw (or is able to find a clever workaround for it). Occurs most often in Speculative Fiction, series about teams of criminals, series set in the military, and shows about ninjas. Sometimes leads to a Training Accident plot, if the people involved don't know it's not real. The former Trope Namer is the training simulation shown in the first scenes of Star Trek II the Wrath of Khan where a bunch of Starfleet cadets attempt a simulated rescue of the space freighter Kobayashi Maru in hostile Klingon space. Compare Danger Room Cold Open, in which an Unwinnable Training Simulation (or some other "safe" action scene) is used to introduce the characters and their abilities before the real action starts. An Unwinnable Training Simulation may double as an Hidden Purpose Test, often of how the trainees deal with unwinnable situations. If this type of scenario is featured at the beginning of an episode, the character flaw the rest of the episode focuses on will either be the character's own pride or inability to accept that sometimes, crap happens. Occasionally, this will be subverted in that the character will win the scenario, by 'cheating' (which is how Kirk in both The Wrath of Khan and the 2009 reboot became the only cadet to ever win). A type of False Crucible. See also Endless Game and Secret Test of Character. If the simulation becomes legitimately dangerous, that's a Holodeck Malfunction. If the simulation was legitimately dangerous all along, it's Deadly Training Area. If the situation is not a simulation, but instead a real life situation where the character is set up to fail, it may be A Lesson in Defeat. Examples of Unwinnable Training Simulation include:
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)