Kobayashi Maru (Hopeless Situations)

This is a discussion about  "Refusing to accept that defeat is inevitable in a hopeless situation" OTHER THAT CHESS. This is not about RESIGNING! It is about 'hopeless situations' in general.

He put his shoulders back and his heels together. "To hell with the handkerchief," said Waker Mitty scornfully. He took one last drag on his cigarette and snapped it away. Then, with that faint, fleeting smile playing about his lips, he faced the firing squad; erect and motionless, proud and disdainful, Walter Mitty the Undefeated, inscrutable to the last.  The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (by James Thurber).

The stage version features a slightly more upbeat ending than the short story, with Mitty outwitting a firing squad!!!

Battle of Thermopylae - 2300 not 300!

In the Battle of Thermopylae (as detailed almost entirely by Herodotus), which occurred in August 19 ^[6] , 480 BC,^[1] an alliance of Greek city-states fought the invading Persian Empire at the pass of Thermopylae in central Greece. Vastly outnumbered, the Greeks held back the Persians for three days in one of history's most famous last stands. A small force led by King Leonidas I of Sparta blocked the only road through which the massive army of Xerxes I of Persia could pass. After three days of battle, a local resident named Ephialtes is believed to have betrayed the Greeks by revealing a mountain path that led behind the Greek lines. Dismissing the rest of the army, King Leonidas stayed behind with 300 Spartans, 700 Thespian volunteers, 400 Thebans who had been pressed into service, and 900 Helots. 

The Persians succeeded in taking the pass but sustained losses disproportionate to those of the Greeks. The fierce resistance of the Spartan-led army offered Athens the invaluable time to prepare for a decisive naval battle that would come to determine the outcome of the war. ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Thermopylae

It is particularly ironic that in the latest outing by thespians, 300!  (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0416449/), the Thespians have not been credited in the title count. One of the reasons why this disppointed at the box office is that the body count is way less than for an Arnie movie.

Forlorn hope is a military term that comes from the Dutch verloren hoop, literally "lost heap", and adapted as "lost troop".^[1][2][3][4] The Dutch word hoop (in its sense of heap in English) is not cognate with English hope: this is an example of false folk etymology.^[5][6][7]

In the days of muzzle-loading muskets it was most frequently used to refer to the first wave of soldiers attacking a breach in defences during a siege. It was likely that most members of the forlorn hope would be killed or wounded. The intention was that some would survive long enough to seize a foothold that could be reinforced, or at least that a second wave with better prospects could be sent in while the defenders were reloading or engaged in mopping up the remnants of the first wave.

A forlorn hope was typically led by a junior officer with hopes of personal advancement. If he survived, and performed courageously, he was almost guaranteed both a promotion and a long-term boost to his career prospects. As a result, despite the risks, there was often competition for the opportunity to lead the assault. The French equivalent of the Forlorn Hope, called Les Enfants Perdus or The Lost Children, were all guaranteed promotion to officers should they survive, and on both sides men took up the suicidal mission as an opportunity to raise themselves in the army. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forlorn_hope 

It was pretty well illustrated in the TV drama / novel Sharpe's Company by Bernard Cornwell. Anyone recall that?