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1''Star Challenge'' is a collection of 10 ScienceFiction {{Gamebooks}} written by Christopher Black and published by Dell in United States in TheEighties, [[FollowTheLeader on the wave of the success]] of the famous ''Literature/ChooseYourOwnAdventure'' books, and later in the United Kingdom as well as translated to other languages.
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3The setting of these books is the year 2525, when mankind is able to travel across the stars and have met other alien races, eventually forming an alliance known as the "Network of Worlds". [[AnAdventurerIsYou You]] are an operative in the space station "Nebula", and under the command of Captain Polaris, you'll be tasked with solving troubles across the Milky Way.
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5As help in your mission, you're accompanied by a Task/Operational Robot Model 2 "(2-Tor)", that can "[[TeleportersAndTransporters warp]]" you anywhere in the known galaxy and [[ElectronicTelepathy talk directly with your mind]]. You can also pilot a shuttle named "Challenger", that more often that not [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything will end destroyed]], and -- if the book's choices allow you -- you can call the "Nebula" for reinforcements.
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7The books' unique gimmick is a score system, that determines how well you've fared and that is divided into five ranks, from the best ("Congratulations. You're a space ace!") to the worst ("Go back to the Space Academy!")... assuming, of course, that you survived ''and'' were able to report back to "Nebula". Because, as in the ''Literature/ChooseYourOwnAdventure'' books, mortality ([[AndIMustScream or]] [[FateWorseThanDeath worse]]) [[TheManyDeathsOfYou is pretty high]] and comes in often ''[[SarcasmMode funny]]'' ways, in which case instead of a text with "Mission Accomplished" you'll simply have a "'''ZAP!'''".
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9To take a small glance to them (covers, etc) [[http://www.gamebooks.org/show_series.php?name=Star+Challenge go here]].
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11'''Spoilers ahoy. Beware.'''
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13!!''Star Challenge'' provides examples of:
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15* AgeWithoutYouth: A bad ending in ''Dimension of Doom'': instead of entering into a NegativeSpaceWedgie, you can decide to warp out of a warp, which you are explicitly warned no one has ever survived. ''[[TimeAbyss Four hundred years later]]'', with your robot having been out of service for a long time, you reappear to find the Network of Worlds has found the aliens that wanted to establish contact with it, your biological support suit having been the only reason you did not die -- and at last it wears out, leaving you to die right then and there.
16* AllJustADream: A very cruel example in ''Dimension of Doom''. You end up in orbit around a big, green, asteroid, after abandoning ship and falling sleep. Polaris' voice asks to you to awake and find yourself again in the ''Nebula'', just for 2-Tor to really wake you and find you were just dreaming.
17* AndIMustScream: Quite a number of examples. One of the best ones is in ''Mysterious Moons'', where all that remains of you are just your brain and your eyes installed in a powered armor (''brains of heroes'' are far easier to maintain than entire heroes).
18* {{Animorphism}}: In ''Planets in Peril'', a winged mutant thing may sting you transforming you into a creature identical to it.
19* AnotherDimension: ''Dimension of Doom'' is entirely about exploring another universe. ''[[SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale Just you and your robot]]''.
20* ArtificialHuman: Mentioned in ''The Android Invasion''. In one bad ending ''you'' are that.
21* AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence. However this pretty much means a bad ending:
22** In one of the ''Lost Planet'' endings you can merge with a hive mind if you wish so. However, if you become one with it you lose your memories and become unable to think by (or for) yourself.
23** In ''The Android Invasion'', you can discover an habitable world inside a black hole. If you decide to explore it, you discover it's just an illusion. However, an entity living inside the hole saves your mind and the two of you stay there... forever.
24** Yet even another example in ''The Exploding Suns'', when after stopping the plans of the villain his mind, yours, and the one of your robot merge "[[SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale with the energy of 1000 suns]]" to form a supermassive star.
25* AsteroidThicket: Several examples across the series.
26* TheBadGuyWins: In those occasions with a villain, this is going to be invoked. Up to several times and including a future encounter.
27* BatmanCanBreatheInSpace: Averted as well as ExplosiveDecompression. If you end in space without your biological support suit, you're in for yet another ZAP!
28* BittersweetEnding: Some of the "good" endings merely consists in you surviving or stopping the BigBad temporarily, or implying that ''perhaps'' you will have success in the future.
29* CasualInterstellarTravel: Not only is your ship capable of warping across the galaxy, the technology exists for you to just warp to distant worlds without it.
30* ConvenientlyClosePlanet: Generally averted in the text. Nonetheless, it's hard to find an illustration of outer space (or even one from the surface of a planet) where one does not see planets and moons as big spheres, often pretty crowded.
31* CoolAndUnusualPunishment: In ''Mysterious Moons'', plant-like aliens of the Andromeda Galaxy can transform you into one of them forcing you to stay there forever.
32* CruelAndUnusualDeath: A lot of them, as being ripped apart and transformed into an sprinkling of atoms all over the Milky Way by an uncontrolled warping, "just" ripped apart by attempting to warp with little energy, dying slowly of radiation poisoning, or "simply" getting gruesomely killed by alien monsters.
33* CruelTwistEnding: The series indulged in a few instances of this. For example, in ''The Weird Zone'' 2-Tor possesses another, more advanced enemy robot that has captured you, and it looks like you're about to be freed... only for 2-Tor to kill you in the spot, as he likes the ideas of the other robot and thinks the plan must continue.
34* DeaderThanDead: In some endings you're destroyed to the ''atomic'' level or even become pure energy[[note]]And certainly ''not'' in the sense of EnergyBeings[[/note]], In others, you're sucked by a black hole, including the one that forms in the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Crunch Big Crunch]] the text in the latter narrates that [[NightmareFuel you feel how you disintegrate and merge with the black hole to vanish forever]].
35* DeflectorShields: A common defense system in this setting.
36* DeusExMachina[=/=]DiabolusExMachina: As typical of this kind of book, endings may come from nowhere.
37* DoAnythingRobot: 2-Tor. Besides what has been mentioned above, he can send [[SubspaceOrHyperspace subspace]] transmissions, has a sound system, chemical analyzers, and many more stuff.
38* DownerEnding: Aside from TheManyDeathsOfYou, a lot of the low-scoring endings have you technically accomplishing your mission, but not without pulling a NiceJobBreakingItHero or some other negative outcome.
39* EarthShatteringKaboom: Very few, although some of them implied to have happened in the past in some cases.
40* ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin: ''The Android Invasion'', ''The Cosmic Funhouse'', ''Galactic Raiders'', ''The Lost Planet''.
41* FaceHeelTurn:
42** In one course of ''The Exploding Suns'', one scientist that the "Nebula" sends to help you is just an spy of the evil aliens.
43** In ''The Weird Zone'', 2-Tor betraying you as stated above.
44* FailureIsTheOnlyOption: In some cases in the books, the two given choices lead to death. And even those two deaths are pretty similar.
45* FamilyUnfriendlyDeath: Quite a lot for a series aimed at preteens.
46* FasterThanLightTravel: Omnipresent.
47* FateWorseThanDeath: Too many examples to count: becoming a spirit guarding during the next millions of years a ghost space station, stranded in the far future when all stars have burned out, isolated in orbit with no robot and in a ship whose controls have been destroyed, being transformed into a mindless android, being used as a test subject for alien students of Medicine...
48* FeaturelessProtagonist: You. The illustrations depict you as a blonde, caucasian youth, while the covers show a young guy with black hair. The text, however, never physically describes you at any point.
49* GainaxEnding:
50** One of the (bad) endings in ''Dimension of Doom'' has the entire universe you're exploring filled with copies of you and your robot.
51** One ending of ''Mysterious Moons'' has both of you time-travelling to the birth of the Universe in a [[PlanetSpaceship moon-sized time machine]], that is destroyed by the Big Bang. You see at a very fast rate how the Universe expands and develops until the [[DeusExMachina scientist you're looking for deactivates the field that both protected you and stopped you from acting]].
52* TheFederation: The Network of Worlds.
53* GrandTheftMe:
54** An alien that looks like black pudge attempts that to you in ''Galactic Raiders''
55** Bad ending in ''Dimension of Doom'', where the only lifeform of that Universe swaps your body with its, condemning you to stay there forever.
56** In ''Mysterious Moons'' you can swap your body with 2-Tor's robotic one. Oddly enough, you do not feel disoriented at all after that.
57* GuileHero: As these gamebooks have no combat rules, the protagonist solves most problems with wits rather than violence.
58* HauntedHouse: ''The Haunted Planet''.
59* HaveANiceDeath[=/=]ItsAWonderfulFailure: See TheManyDeathsOfYou below. As in Literature/ChooseYourOwnAdventure, your demise is often described in all ''sorts'' of gruesome, gory detail.
60* HiveMind: ''The Lost Planet'' features one of these that [[TheAssimilator invites you to join them, and takes it very badly if you refuse]].
61* HoverBot: 2-Tor.
62* HumanAliens: A very few of the races you meet look quite human-like.
63* IfMyCalculationsAreCorrect: 2-Tor will often pull off probabilities of succeeding and failure, some of them being [[MillionToOneChance ridiculously low]]. Wherever you're lucky or not is up to the book.
64* IncredibleShrinkingMan: Can happen in ''The Android Invasion'' and ''The Exploding Suns''. In the former, you and your robot shrink to ''subatomic'' level.
65* {{Intangibility}}: ''The Haunted Planet'' mentions a sort of potion developed during [[The20thCentury the old XX Century]] in Earth, that was used by spies to pass through walls and gave them insanity, explaining why it was no longer used.
66* {{Invisibility}}: In ''The Haunted Planet'', a bad ending leaves you both bodiless and invisible.
67* KidHero: All the books in the series have illustrations depicting the protagonist as a young teen (at oldest).
68* LastWords: In some bad endings, be them from you or from 2-Tor.
69* LogicBomb: In ''The Cosmic Funhouse'', 2-Tor breaks down a machine that is projecting illusions by telling it to project an image of the Universe '''before it existed''', failing and self-destructing as consequence.
70* MacGuffin: The graviton in ''Planets in Peril''.
71* TheManyDeathsOfYou: ''A lot'' of them. In many different ways. Crushed, eaten, disintegrated, fading into nonexistence, and many more.
72* MeaningfulName: Captain [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polaris Polaris]], Commander of the "Nebula".
73* TheMilkyWayIsTheOnlyWay: In ''Mysterious Moons'', is implied that travelling to the Andromeda Galaxy would take hundreds of years even at high warp speeds.
74** [[AvertedTrope Averted]] in ''The Cosmic Funhouse'' with the Brakhen, a race of humanoid plant aliens that come from the Magellanic Clouds.
75* MillionToOneChance: In a few cases, while it's hard sometimes, the "safe" choice will kill you horribly, and the "unbelievably risky" choice will pay off big.
76* MultipleEndings: Obviously. The choices you make over the course of a story could lead you to the standard HappyEnding, a DownerEnding, or several different types of NonStandardGameOver.
77* NegativeSpaceWedgie: Several across the books.
78* NiceJobBreakingItHero: There are some endings that don't necessarily end with you dying, but you may still royally mess things up for everyone... [[FateWorseThanDeath or worse]]. For example, in ''The Weird Zone'' you can wreck all the work of those who are attempting to stop a plague of madness that is expanding across the galaxy, as you thought they were responsible of that. Polaris is ''not'' happy at all.
79* NoEnding: Or rather EndlessGame. After the scores, a blurb invites you to start again to live another adventure or to try the next book in the series. In the last one, it loops back to the first.
80* NoisyRobots: 2-Tor, complete with flashing red, green, blue, and yellow lights. Thankfully, this is just a book and cannot cause epileptic seizures.
81* NonstandardGameOver:
82** Several endings have you alive at the end. ''How'' alive is a [[FateWorseThanDeath different]] [[AndIMustScream story]].
83** Also, a very few of those endings may count as mission accomplished even if you do not return to the "Nebula" (or encounter it ''much'' later), and other few (but still more) count as bad endings even if you return.
84** There are also a number of "Mission Accomplished" endings, even high-scoring ones, where you achieve something that was certainly good, but had nothing to do with your original mission (which remains unresolved).
85* NotTheFallThatKillsYou: One bad ending in ''Planets In Peril'' has you falling into the (in vertical and separated by one line each) v o i d!
86* OhCrap: Many of the illustrations that accompany deadly threats feature the protagonist with a suitably frightened expression.
87* OurWormholesAreDifferent: Even if "warping" looks a lot like the classical teleport of ''Franchise/StarTrek'' fame. Note that the term "warping" is used both for teleporting and FasterThanLight travel, suggesting that are similar[[note]]In the Spanish version the FTL version was translated as "hyperspace"[[/note]].
88* PhotoprotoneutronTorpedo: Among others, photon cannons and negatron[[note]]Another name for the positron, the antiparticle of the electron that has positive charge instead[[/note]] missiles.
89* PlanetOfHats:
90** ''The Cosmic Funhouse''.
91** Gameland in ''Dimension of Doom''
92* PlanetSpaceship:
93** The entire planet in which you are in the ''Cosmic Funhouse'' in one ending is an offensive version [[EarthShatteringKaboom Things do not end well for it]].
94** A moon-sized time machine/factory/space station in ''Mysterious Moons''.
95* PlantAliens: You can find those in the Andromeda Galaxy in ''Mysterious Moons''. They're anything but friendly because you mined fuel on their planet.
96* RecurringCharacter: Among others, Captain Polaris, Commander of the "Nebula", or Ensign Janus, a woman who works in the warping section.
97* RecycledINSPACE:
98** ''Galactic Raiders'' is the Wild West In SPACE!, with pirates, space caravans, lawless planets, a futuristic equivalent of gold, and of course the equivalent of the GoldFever (the latter is even mentioned at the very first). Funnily enough, it's stated there that gold are just WorthlessYellowRocks, used only for kid toys.
99** One path in ''The Exploding Suns'' is Literature/MobyDick In SPACE!, complete with a futuristic {{Expy}} of Captain Ahab.
100** ''The Haunted Planet'' are ghosts and even magic [[RuleOfThree In SPACE!]].
101* RobotBuddy: 2-Tor.
102* RubberForeheadAliens: Some of those that appear in the series at least according to the illustrations.
103* SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale: Too many examples to list.
104* SecondPersonNarration: Like most gamebooks, the action is described in this way.
105* ShapeShifting: The Metamorph aliens in ''The Haunted Planet''.
106* SpaceBattle: Surprisingly very few for the type of setting.
107%%* SpaceOpera
108* SpacePirates: The central theme of ''Galactic Raiders''.
109%%* StandardSciFiSetting
110* StarfishAliens: A few, including one mentioned to look like a web with soft lights.
111* StarfishRobot: 2-Tor, that resembles a bit BB-8 of ''Film/TheForceAwakens'' fame[[note]]These books were written very roughly 30 years before BB-8 was developed[[/note]], or rather V.I.N.CENT from ''Film/TheBlackHole''.
112* StarKilling: The central premise of ''The Exploding Suns'', including to cause a star to collapse into a black hole simply by bombing it with "negatron missiles" and "anti-matter charges". [[SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale Yeah]], [[ArtisticLicenseSpace right]].
113* SwirlyEnergyThingy: Several across the series, all but the Andromeda Galaxy sort of space whirlpools.
114* TakeAThirdOption: Sometimes you'll get three or more choices as to how to proceed.
115* TakingYouWithMe: Several examples, some of them accidental and virtually all of them using the "Challenger" as projectile, but at least tend to work.
116* TeleportersAndTransporters: Or "warping" as are called there -- see also OurWormholesAreDifferent -- above. If you use it without the adequate precautions, you can suffer a TeleportationMisfire and/or a TeleporterAccident. The results tend not to be [[DeaderThanDead very]] [[FateWorseThanDeath pretty]].
117* ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill: Quite a number of endings. With ''you'', of course, in the receiving end.
118* ThrownOutTheAirlock: Some bad endings, but at least ExplosiveDecompression is averted.
119* TimeMachine:
120** If you are not careful, "warping" can be used as an unintentional version of that. Emphasis on "not being careful".
121** A moon-sized ship in ''Mysterious Moons''.
122* TimeTravel: Several examples both forwards and backwards in time ''and'' space. They are unintentional, however, and tend to result as stated above in to end in places quite far away and sometimes not [[DeaderThanDead very pleasant, as the moment of the Big Crunch]], or [[FateWorseThanDeath even worse]].
123* TranslatorMicrobes: Often [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]]. The way to explain how you can understand even those aliens the Network of Worlds have never meet before and to explain how ''everyone'', human or alien, seems to be speaking English or the language the books have been translated into.
124* UnrealisticBlackHole: Usually averted (illustrations are another topic, where they can look as a drainpipe [[OverlyLongGag In SPACE!]]). Falling into a black hole tends to be equal to death.
125* VoidBetweenTheWorlds: A bad ending in ''The Weird Zone'', you end stuck that way between two universes.
126* WeirdMoon: The little studied moon system of the planet Yoru, that you must explore in ''Mysterious Moons''. Despite the chaotic orbits of its moons, including close approachs, they never collide between them.
127* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: In some bad endings 2-Tor could have saved you, even if it's not mentioned at all. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] in the limitations that have 114 pages, some of them with half or even full-page illustrations, per book.
128* WhatNowEnding: See the previous trope. If was not for the limitations of this format, some of what are trated as bad endings could have been resolved with some thought.
129* WouldHurtAChild: As the targeted demographic of this series is 10- to 14-year olds and – with its use of second-person pronouns to refer to the main protagonist – thus implied to be the reader, there are many graphic, highly disturbing and brutal endings to be read, all committed by people or aliens who have no qualms about hurting children. See CruelAndUnusualDeath above for examples of these unconscionable acts.
130----
131'''ZAP!'''

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