Starfleet Science/Medicalās version of the Kobayashi Maru is the Hypospray Maru. Youāre left in a room containing just a random hypospray, told its use has the potential to stop someoneās suffering but itās never been tried before, and if you inject it into yourself to see what it does, youāre officially crazy enough to lead a department.
Iām just picturing a timed test situation though where the cadets are supposed to deduce and delegate resources to figure out whatās in the hypospray.
Then Bones just rolls in, injects himself immediately, tests his own blood, and calls it a day.
To this day, he holds the record for fastest time completing the test.
#bones is the Jim Kirk of the medical world
That Fucking Tag oh my god
okay but for a true parallel Bones would have to be the first person to try that. like. can you imagine?
proctor: āWā¦.why the fuck did you inject yourself?!ā
doctor leonard horatio ābonesā mccoy: āWell we were on a time limit and we wouldnāt know if it worked until it went to human trials, soā¦ā
proctor: āAnd it didnāt occur to you to inform the rest of the group of your thought process? Maybe see if anyone had any other ideas or select a test subject?ā
bones: āNah they wouldāve stopped me or wasted time discussing it. This was faster.ā
proctor: āAnd if you died?!ā
bones: āEh, I couldāve fixed it in time. And I left notes, so. No biggie.ā
Bones passes with flying colors and a therapy referral for either egoism or suicidal depression.
ā¦ Now I want to know what the Vulcan Science Academyās version of the Kobyashi Maru is, and if/how Spock Kirked his way out of that
I think Spockās version of beating the Vulcan Science Academyās version of the Kobayashi Maru was refusing to go to the Vulcan Science Academy.
I donāt really see McCoy doing that at all Iām afraid. Heās a grouchy and intolerant of a whole bunch of things, but medical ethics and safety protocols are not among them. Kelvinverse!McCoy might be capable of slamming a mystery hypospray. Maybe. If heās just had a particularly stressful encounter with the ex and a shitty day and is just like āFuck it, dying is probably an improvementā. But even then Mr āSpace is dark and vast and wants to kill you in countless terrifying waysā doesnāt strike me as being that rash because who else is going to save Jim Kirkās gonzo ass this time?
I wrote this post in the first place because TOS McCoy canonically tested a mystery hypospray (that he helped create but couldnāt check via lab equipment) on himself in the episode Miri:
MCCOY: We canāt wait for those communicators any longer.
SPOCK: We must. The vaccine could be fatal.
MCCOY: The disease certainly is. How long do we have left? Hours, minutes? How much longer do you want to wait?
SPOCK: Bickering is pointless. Iāll check on the Captainās progress.
McCoy is absolutely that rash when it comes to saving othersā lives. He just happens to hang out on a ship where he still looks measured and sane in comparison.
Okay okay okay. Usually I would just move on, but people keep commenting on this post with takes like this. These takes are so prevalent, and such a fundamental misunderstanding of McCoyās character, probably inspired by the fanon interpretation of Bones as a grumpy stick-in-the-mud who only opposes Kirk and Spock, that I feel the need to give a more thorough response.
Bones absolutely takes medical risks all the time, in the context of the situation. It is not always his first choice, but often it is his only choice, and he sticks to it.
First of all, Bones injected himself in Miri neither because he was pushed nor because he was crazy. Bones did it because he was on the verge of being consumed by an illness that would cause him to eventually go insane, and then he would hurt others. The illness did make them snappish and short with each other, tempers fraying, but he didnāt choose to inject himself because he was crazy. At no point does what he says have any unreal aspect to it: if they donāt have the communicators and therefore access to the test results, theyāre sunk. He was desperate, but had no way to know that the communicators would be retrieved in short order, and having everyone out of the room was his only chance to do it without pushback. Very logical, actually.
Second, this is not the only instance of Bones performing a desperate act without enough time to set up a board of review. Heās also often shown himself to be intensely medically curious, to the point where he has no regard for his own safety.
Bones has:
Faked Jimās death by dangerous medical means to get them out of a deadly Vulcan ritual (Amok Time).
Sacrificed himself to torture with almost guaranteed death to avoid Spock getting tortured to insanity (The Empath).
Offered to wear The Teacher (NOBODY pushed him, and in fact Jim is initially reluctant and Bones convinces him), something no human had ever put on, knowing it could kill him instantly, because it could also give him the knowledge to put Spockās brain back in his head before time ran out (Spockās Brain).
Determined a way to treat a silicon-based lifeform on the fly after offering up one single line of āI donāt know what Iām doingā protest (The Devil in the Dark).
Tried to be the one to die by flying into a giant amoeba because he couldnāt pass up the chance to save everyone while studying āthe greatest living laboratory weāve ever seenā (The Immunity Syndrome).
Given Sulu cordrazine, a substance Jim calls ātoo risky,ā because it was necessary to bring him around. It winds up creating a terrible accident, not for Sulu, but for Bones himself; we see how dangerous the stuff is (The City on the Edge of Forever).
Seemed willing to stay on the android planet, simply because they had an amazing laboratory with all sorts of discoveries he could make (I, Mudd)
Decided to treat Eleen and her baby even though the council and she herself were willing to kill him over it (Fridayās Child).
Yelled at a probe in the hopes of resurrecting his dead friend that the probe had just killed (The Changeling).
Offered to stay on a planet-ship that was on a collision course with an asteroid in the hope of helping them (okay, he was under a bit of duress in this one) (For the World is Hollow).
I know you said the series, but as further evidence, Bonesā risk-taking tendencies only worsen in the films:Ā
He agrees to save Spockās immortal soul by stealing the Enterprise (and later crashing it).
He āchoose[s] the dangerā to himself to accept the Fal-tor-pan and put Spockās marbles back in his jar.
He decides purely on a whim to violate time travel protocol, potentially creating a world- or universe-changing scenario, simply to give an elderly, ailing woman a new kidney via a pill (and perhaps to introduce new technology, such as said pill and transparent aluminum, into the system), even though he knows more than anyone what can happen when you save a single life (City on the Edge). The last time he did that, Starfleet disappeared from existence. He still canāt stop himself, because thereās a suffering person and he has the means to stop it.
He yells at a being that considers itself God when it makes decisions he considers cruel.
And in the alternate universe of AOS (which gets many things wrong, in my opinion, but this isnāt one of them), he breaks his oath into tiny pieces and literally brings Jim back from the dead, which is not something youāre going to see in any medical ethics textbook under āitās totally normal to do this.ā
But hereās what Bones WONāT do:Ā
He wonāt sacrifice other peopleās bodies or lives for his life (The Empath) or those of his friends, not even by silence, even if it means more risk, pain, and death to himself, because he āwill not peddle fleshā (Return to Tomorrow).
He doesnāt like his friends taking stupid risks without what he considers a good reason/no other choice (many examples)
He wonāt risk a life to save another person without the consent of the person whose life is being risked: see Spock, in Journey to Babel. He wonāt put Spockās life at risk until he knows itās the only way to save Spockās father (and that, we can gather later even though it wasnāt a part of his character at the time, was likely motivated by his own guilt at not saving his own).
However, once he has consent, and he knows how much this means both to Spock and Amanda and to the peace conference? Then, still in Babel, he agrees to let Jim pretend he can still captain (after being stabbed) long enough to get Spock and Sarek settled down for the procedure to save Sarekās life. Otherwise, Spock had insisted on taking over the captaincy, preventing the operation from taking place. Once heād worked the procedure out, yes, itās dangerous, but heās not going to let Sarek die simply to preserve protocol. Even if the ship is in danger from an unknown spy.
He wonāt put Jimās life at risk until itās obvious that any other avenue of saving Jim or putting him back together is too dangerous; see The Enemy Within.
But:
He insists on going back to save Spock, physically in The Galileo Seven and verbally in The Immunity Syndrome, even though it puts the rest of the ship at risk, because he sees that incredible level of risk as acceptable when it comes to saving someone who would otherwise die for sure.
Risk-taking isnāt Bonesā first choice, but, to be honest, Iād argue it isnāt Kirkās either. Thatās also a fanon interpretation that most of us are guilty of perpetuating because itās funny (like Bonesā grumpy one-liners). The great thing about the triad of Kirk, Spock, and Bones is that each one of them takes turns being the āvoice of reason.ā In Return to Tomorrow, itās Bones, and Kirk says, āRisk is our business.ā In The Menagerie, Kirk tries to temper Spockās bid to fly to forbidden territory. In The Tholian Web, Bones tells Spock reluctantly that they have to think of the crewās lives, and leave before they get trapped. In Spockās Brain, itās Spock warning Bones that The Teacher is a massive risk. In The Empath, Bones has to knock them both out. Now, the original post is a silly shitpost thatās supposed to be a joking comparison not to be taken too seriously (you can tell because Hypospray Maru doesnāt make any sense as a term). But to me, Bonesā medical curiosity and his willingness to take medical risks as a last resort, especially on himself, is a major defining trait of his character, and the only risks he pushes against are the ones that might hurt others. Sometimes, he utters a one-liner of grumbling protest as heās already basically starting to do the thing, which I see as more of a verbal pattern than as him having to be ordered or pushed; he simply likes to kvetch.
He also is very willing to do something dangerous if he sees it as the only alternative, or as better than doing nothing. In fact, Jim is concerned about him in This Side of Paradise because he seems to want to continue doing nothing, and itās only a reminder of how he wonāt be able to help people medically that snaps him out of it.
So please, everyone, stop characterizing Bones as a scaredy-cat grump who never does anything under his own steam and only serves as resistance and the āvoice of reasonā against his charmingly madcap captain. Heās well proven himself as a risk-taker in his own capacity, all the more brave because heās always doing things that clearly terrify him. Heās willing to do what he must for the oath he puts far above the Prime Directive ā and the value of life he places even above that oath.
Good night from De Day 2026! Happy 106th birthday, DeForest Kelley.
