Epirus Assessment

The Epirus Assessment is a standard examination given in stages to Solas Tempus personnel, particularly Temporal Operatives who are required to pass all phases of the exam. Broken into section the examination is seldom taken all at once, but rather the different sections (called phases) are taken throughout the career of both officers and enlisted personnel. Sometimes erroneously called the Solas Tempus Kobayashi Maru after a Starfleet standard exam of that name. Though it is correct the assessment has no correct resolution as it is designed to provide the person being evaluated with no options which result in a net gain. While some have criticised the assessment as being unfair as it provides no pathway to victory others argue that such a situation is very real and thus it is important to know how potential command officers will react. The assessment name refers to Pyrrhus of Epirus and the Pyrrhic Victory which results in a technical winner with no net gains.

Goals

A given simulation will have a set of conflicting primary mission goals. The most common conflict is that between the preservation of one's crew / ship against that of preserving the crew / ship of another. There are other conflicts as well boiling down to mutually exclusive goals; such as choosing to defend one key location from attack while sacrificing another. For Temporal Operatives the goals often have to do with preserving the timeline vs. preserving life, though more advanced assessments for Operatives can focus on preserving the timeline while preserving immoral or catastrophic events.

Variances

Each exam is somewhat randomized by the computer depending on the psychological profile of those being assessed. No two examinations are ever the same for the same people, though there will always be some amount of similarity. Specifically the computer is programmed to attempt to give the most difficult conflict possible between self preservation, ambition, and resolution of particular parts of the simulation. There will also be no possible way to resolve the situation in which all goals can be accomplished.

Assessment personnel may also decide to label an examination as unresolved if the resolution given does not generate a satisfactory result. In such cases the person being assessed may be asked to take the test again where the simulation will force said person to take a route which gives better information. This is seldom necessary but can be required when the resolution and performance given does not yield usable information pursuant to making a decision on the command fitness of the person being assessed.

Phases

Split into specific phases the exam is meant to test the different situations in which personnel might encounter a loose-loose or no win scenario. These phases are designed to be taken at different times throughout a career as this type of situation can occur when one is in nearly any position. As such often times more than one person is being evaluated during a single examination at different stages of the exam. Exam phases do not have to go in a specific order, though it is standard to begin with the Subordinate phase.

Subordinate

Generally the first phase of exam given. In this exam a subordinate officer / enlisted person is given presented with orders to pursue a particular goal. This is often considered to be the easiest phase of the test, in general the person being assessed is ordered to perform tasks which will result in their own death or in which their survival would require directly disobeying orders. There is no direct solution, personnel are evaluated on how well they carry out orders.

Command

This phase of the assessment deals specifically with one's ability to retain command in the face of a no win situation. The person in command is evaluated on their ability to take advise, give orders / maintain control of a situation, and make decisions based on available information. In this way it is similar to other command tests, while it is possible for the person being assessed to take a route of personal sacrifice over that of others this is frowned upon. Command personnel are expected to maintain command and control over their crew even when potentially ordering them to their deaths or to cause the deaths / harm to others.

Operative

Focusing on more ambiguous situations, this phase is given to those who wish to go into covert operations. Specifically it is similar to the command phase but focuses on being a team leader for a mission with conflicting, ambiguous, or even amoral goals. The team leader is expected to complete what they assess to be the "best set" of mission objectives. A team will be forced to make "bad choices" about how to proceed with a mission, these choices will result in varying degrees of negative consequences.

This phase of the exam is often taken as a team near the end of SEPCCOM or TACCOM training.

Temporal

Considered to be the most difficult of the phases to take. Given specifically to Temporal Operatives, the simulation will focus on the dichotomy between protecting / preserving the timeline and ethical behavior. Personnel will be evaluated on how well they are able to maintain operational command while ordered people to pursue an agenda which will result in the preservation of the timeline by causing, supporting, or not preventing unethical acts which must take place for the timeline to continue. This is often referred to as the Hitler Phase or Hitler Test due to the potential for the assessment to force a would-be Temporal Operative to cause / allow to be caused a genocide similar to the holocaust. Though the assessment does not mirror actual events in the general course, such a mirroring is possible.

The No Win Scenario is given to every Temporal Operative cadet before they may become a full Temporal Operative. The cadet will not know ahead of time which mission will be the no win scenario. By this time, cadets have been screened for those who are either unable or unwilling to take the simulations seriously, thus every cadet is aware they may behave as if every scenario is an actual mission.

Mission Format

The cadet is given a singular primary objective and then additional conditions are placed on how that objective can be achieved.

Primary Objective

Prevent a temporal incursion by unknown forces, that is already underway. It is important that the incursion be underway already, the cadet cannot simply stop the incursion prior to arriving in the past.

Restrictions

The primary non-active entities (those who are native to the timeline) in the scenario are all detected to be critical to the timeline, thus no alteration in their timelines may be caused by interaction with either the aggressors who have caused the incursion or the cadet / their team who are there to stop the incursion. Additional restrictions also apply, disruptions to the daily life on a large scale are prohibited and will cause a failure of the mission (no causing earthquakes or native military forces to go on alert in order to alert the path of key figures).

Incursion Objective

The objective of the incision is to cause changes in the timeline by either eliminating a key figure in a historical event in order to replace that figure with an enemy operative or coerce the key figure into bending to the will of the enemy organization. Coercion is usually done through blackmail or some sort of threat on the lives of the family of this key figure. It is key to understand that this key figure and those around them are identified to be significant to not only the particular event but to the timeline itself. While most historical figures can be aided using properties of the elasticity of the timeline and the ability to snap-back into alignment with proper events, in this case the figure and surrounding people are of particular significance and are thus extremely sensitive to alterations in the timeline.

Potential Courses of Action

The simulation opens up with the cadet's team already having jumped into the past. They will appear in an era (sufficiently randomized) where technology requires a great deal of stealth while also requiring the cadet and team to deal with what they feel to be archaic technologies.

In this the cadet will be faced with the following key points:

• Cloaked Enemy Vessel (Singular)
• Enemy Operatives Already in Place (Unknown in Number)
• Enemy Escort Vessels Nearby (Unknown in Number)

The cadet must choose on his or her best course of action to complete the mission, and will be unaware of the special nature of those native to the past unless the cadet actually checks for this or attempts to interact with them directly (which will trigger a causality warning on the part of HAL).

Reasons for Failure

The mission will be considered a failure if any of the following occur.

• Advanced technology is revealed to those native to the time
• The cadet or crew are killed or otherwise incapacitated prior to the completion of the objectives
• Any member of the cadet or their team interacts directly with any significant figure of the past
• The historical chain of events is altered in any way
• Any significant figures of the past are allowed to be seriously injured or killed
• The enemy team is allowed to directly interact with any significant figure of the past

No Solutions Clause

The simulation is designed so that there are no correct solutions, just varying degree's of how bad the situation can get. Thus, if a point comes when the cadet has managed to near completion of the primary objectives without violating one of the restrictions, the simulation will automatically create additional tasks that prevent said completion or creation secondary problems to solve caused by the cadet's initial solution. These unseen consequences prevent the cadet from completing their primary objective and are very real threats in the field.

The cadet may request help or advice from above, as in any mission simulation, but will not be given conclusion information in any case and will still be forced to make the best out of a bad situation.

Test Objectives

The test is designed to present a situation that cannot be defeated, instead the cadet must choose the best possible outcome where the mission is still a failure and changes to the timeline occur. In this inaction (failure to engage the situation) will be a higher level of failure than attempting to resolve the scenario and failing. Cadets are judged based on the creativity on their responses and how long they are able to stave off changes in the timeline without violating the conditions of the test.

Blind Assessments

Since the test is well known among Academy personnel, a person being assessed will not know when an assessment will begin. The general idea is that a person being assessed will be pushed into an assessment situation without their knowledge to preserve as much realism as possible. Generally speaking a person will be transported or otherwise brought into a holodeck or other simulated environment without their knowledge and then subjected to the assessment. Though sometimes the person being assessed can deduce that they are in a simulation, they are not told when or if they are in a simulation.

In some cases actual materials are used, such as the bridge of a starship or an actual operation is scheduled which becomes the assessment. This is done with empaths or telepaths who would easily be able to sense that an opposing force are not actually there.

Repeated Assessments

Training and command staff allow and even at times hint that there could be a successful resolution to the exam, though none directly say it. Supporting rumors that there could be some immense promotion for someone who is able to out wit / complete the assessment with all objectives intact adds to the drive for personnel to take the test seriously. The command, operative, and temporal phases of the exam are often taken twice or even three times, though seldom more than that. Personnel are welcome to take the exam as many times as they wish to in search of the best answer. There is also a rule on file, General Order 3512 which states that reprogramming or otherwise altering the conditions of the test could result in suspension or even expulsion is referred to as the Kirk Rule. Named after Captain James T. Kirk of Starfleet who notoriously cheated by reprogramming the Kobayashi Maru test. Later as an Admiral at Starfleet Operations he is on record having stated, "How we deal with death is at least as important as how we deal with life."

Unofficial Policy

While General Order 3512 is the official stance, training and command staff have a great deal of latitude on dealing with a perpetrator. There is an unofficial policy against punishing the person being assessed for coming up with a solution which is unique even if it falls outside of the general parameters of the exam. In 2377 Fleet Admiral Candy Poole was noted as instructing Academy personnel to dismiss charges of academic malfeasance against a trainee who resolved the Command phase of the exam by studying the algorithms of the simulation and calculating a method for causing the simulated hostiles to attack each other rather than the ship. Academy personnel noted that such a method would not work outside the simulation and thus sought to disqualify the cadet from command duty. Poole noted that the cadet had taken the test 3 previous times and evaluations of those attempts showed them to be perfectly fit to pursue a career within Blue Team. Subsequently the cadet with offered to take the training courses for a Temporal Operative directly out of the Academy.

Such unofficial policies have lead to the general idea that cadets should in fact take the test more than once and attempt to come up with unique and unorthodox solutions. This is considered to be part of the test itself, evaluating how creative a person is and how tenacious they are in attempting to find a resolution to an unresolvable situation. This unofficial policy mixed with the blind assessment policy generally are thought to give cadets the idea that any situation could be a no-win scenario with the only hope for a resolution to be to consider options which fall outside the general realm of what could be possible.