Real world article
(written from a production point of view)
A hawk-dove strategic interaction game is a type of game in game theory. It is more informally known as "Chicken", and is related to the cold war concept of the balance of terror, after which the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "Balance of Terror" was named.
The script of Star Trek contained a number of questions and answers that could be used in the skill dome scene, including one about the hawk-dove game. The question-answer pair was as such:
- Q: How many equilibria exist in a classic Hawk-Dove strategic interaction game?
- A: Two in pure strategies and one in mixed strategies. (The mixed strategy equilibria is unstable.)
The question-answer pair does not appear to have made it into the film.