Kobayashi Maru

The Kobayashi Maru scenario has been a part of Star Trek lore since the release of The Wrath of Khan in 1982. In the film, it's a test of character that Starfleet command applicants undergo: The Klingons (or Romulans, depending on the era you're watching) are threatening a cargo ship called the Kobayashi Maru that is trapped in the Neutral Zone. The would-be captain has a choice to make: do you enter the Neutral Zone, threatening war with the Klingons(Romulans), or do you leave the Maru behind, knowing that it will be destroyed by the alien armada? Over the years, the test, and the responses different captains have given to it, has become a characterization shorthand throughout the Star Trek universe.

It's ...interesting, then, that not only does Jonathan Archer, in the original Maru scenario, give a rather standard response of “leave”, but the entire scenario is removed of its moral complexity: the Neutral Zone doesn't exist at this point in Federation history, and we learn that the Maru was carrying secret technology through disputed territory to spy on the Romulans, thereby giving the Romulans more cause to disable the ship. Furthermore, we learn that the Romulans have developed technology to take over starships and pilot them by remote control. This means that Archer's choices were really:
a) leave, allowing the Kobayashi Maru to be destroyed, or
b) stay and fight, allowing the Kobayashi Maru to be destroyed and Enterpise (which, is should be noted, at this point is 50% of Starfleet) to be hijacked to be used to attack other Federation outposts and colonies.

This is not exactly a difficult choice; definitely not the type of choice that would be used as a command test centuries later. By recasting the Maru scenario in this way, it not only creates bad fiction, it retroactively makes the other stories featuring the Kobayashi Maru poorer as a result.