Chapter 39: The Master of the Stars

KA-POW! The final saucer of the six invading fleets is blown into fragments by your photon blast. A triumphant digital fanfare sounds throughout the mothership, and the radar screen is all clear. “YAHOO!” shouts Melvin. “M-Network be praised,” says the Administrator, with a sigh of relief.

Slightly dizzy from tracking all those saucers and dodging all that saucer fire, not to mention looking at those pulsing rainbow stars, you rub your eyes, and stagger away from the console. The Administrator pushes a button, and the screen and console retract into the floor, and the tri-colored seal of the League closes back over it.

“So, are we safe?” asks Melvin?

The Administrator looks at various screens and printouts. “It seems that way. I don’t know who they were, or why they attacked us, but that seems to be last of them. Nonetheless, as soon as the jump engines are charged, we will depart this perilous universe.”

You stare out at the weird throb of the rainbow stars. “So… what do we do now?”

“During our difficulties, more requests for help have come in.” says the Administrator, peering at a printout.

“Anything from Solaris?” says Melvin excitedly.

The Administrator ignores him. “Specifically, there is one from the Star Masters, which, given your elevated rank with the Star Raiders, you should be eligible for.”

Melvin is frustrated, and whirls around. “Come on! We just saved the Mothership! Send us to Solaris to get the Star Stone!”

The Administrator takes off his glasses with his tail, and rubs his face. “Things with Solaris are… not that simple.” The tail replaces the little glasses on his nose, and then polishes them with a small green cloth. “However, the Star Masters need you now. It is a challenging mission. Are you willing to go?”

“How is it different than what we did for the Star Raiders?” asks Melvin.

“It’s… well…” the Administrator takes on a conspiratorial whisper. “It’s very similar. But… the Star Masters have a tendency toward the… dramatic.”

“Well,” says Melvin, “if it gets us closer to Solaris, I say we do it! Are you ready, Player?”

Your eyes are still bleary from the saucer attack. “Can’t I sit down for a little bit? All this Space Hero stuff is pretty exhausting.”

“Ah, you’re in luck,” says the Administrator. “The Star Masters require an elaborate orientation for all new recruits. I’m sure you can rest there.” The Administrator pushes a button, and suddenly the lights dim, and a spotlight shines down upon a pair of blue and white doors on one side of the hall. “Wow, dramatic,” says Melvin. “Yes,” agrees the Administrator with a sigh. “Why they can’t just have simple space battles like everyone else, I’ll never understand.”

You approach the massive doors, and a voice booms out, “A CRITICAL AND DIFFICULT MISSION AWAITS YOU. YOU MUST POSSESS A DETERMINATION, SKILL, SENSITIVITY AND POWER BEYOND THE ORDINARY TO PERFORM YOUR MISSION QUICKLY AND EFFICIENTLY.”

After a pause, you and Melvin look at each other. “Uh, okay, can we come in?” you ask.

The voice booms again, “TO SENSE DANGER, TO BE CALM IN THE FACE OF CRISES, TO MOVE FROM POWER TO FINESSE WITH EQUAL PROFICIENCY, TO BE THE MASTER OF YOUR SHIP AND YOUR GALAXY – THIS IS THE CHALLENGE. THIS IS THE POWER OF STARMASTER™.”

Melvin looks at you. “It’s weird that it said the ™.”

“RECRUIT, ARE YOU PREPARED FOR INSTRUCTION IN THE WAYS OF ADVANCED SPACE COMBAT?”

“Uh, sure?” you say.

With a great creak the doors swing open slowly, leading to a dramatically lit hallway. On either side of the hall are elaborate engravings of space battles. You walk past them toward another set of giant doors with huge letters reading “STUDY. MASTER. BELIEVE. THE POWER CAN BE YOURS.” As you approach the doors, they too swing open slowly, leading to hallway with engravings of circuit diagrams and computer interfaces. Another set of huge doors reads “BE ALERT. BE RESPONSIVE. BE SURE.” They too open at your approach, and the walls in the next section of hallway are portraits of dozens of pilots, men and women with serious looks and elaborate military decorations. Another set of doors reads, “CONCENTRATE, BUT DON’T HESITATE. BE PRECISE, BUT ACT QUICKLY.”

“How many more of these are there, you think?” whispers Melvin. You shush him, and these doors too swing open at your approach. Now the walls are carved with elaborate depictions of enemy starfighters that seem terrifying and threatening. The door reads “CONCENTRATE. CONTROL. MASTER.” Past that, you enter an area with depictions of bulbous starbases, with serious but smiling crew saluting from their windows. The doors here say “BE QUICK. BE SURE. MASTER THE POWER.”

“Come on,” says Melvin. “When is the ‘sitting down’ part, do you think?”

These last doors open onto a tremendous auditorium with hundreds of seats. “Finally,” says Melvin. It isn’t clear where to go, so you walk down the aisle a ways, and take two seats, somewhere in the middle. Melvin doesn’t sit, exactly, but, you know.

The lights dim, and digital trumpets blast, making you both jump. A sudden spotlight reveals a man wearing blue robes with white trim who shouts “RECRUITS! ARE YOU PREPARED TO TRAIN FOR THE MOST ELITE FIGHTING FORCE IN THE UNIVERSE?” and you recognize his voice as the one from the hallway. He seems to be waiting for a response. You and Melvin look at each other. He continues to wait.

“Uh, sure?” you volunteer.

Melvin breaks in. “Do you mean the Solaris Starcruisers? I thought they were the most elite.”

The man on stage ignores this. “PREPARE TO BE AWED BY A GLIMPSE OF YOUR STARFIGHTER, A VESSEL UNLIKE ANY OTHER!” Suddenly, a huge 3D projection of a rotating spaceship appears high over the auditorium. Melvin says, “That looks just like the Star Raiders ship… just blue and white, instead of blue and yellow.”

The instructor booms back “OUR SHIPS ARE NOTHING LIKE THE STAR RAIDERS SHIPS! OURS ARE EQUIPPED WITH MACC, THE MISSION / ATTACK CONTROL COMPUTER!” 3D holograms of an elaborate computer systems appear in the air above you.

“Aw, that’s just like the Atari Force Attack Computer. Next you’ll be bragging about your galactic map.”

“THE STAR MASTERS HAVE NO NEED OF GALACTIC MAPS,” he thunders. “WE USE A GALACTIC CHART, UNIQUE IN ALL THE MULTIVERSE.” A grid with dots and spaceships appears above.

“Oh, yeah,” says Melvin. “Really unique. It’s got 36 quadrants, just like the Terran ship.”

“THEY ARE SECTORS, NOT QUADRANTS,” he says. “COMPLETELY DIFFERENT!”

“Okay, let me guess,” says Melvin. “Now you are going to tell us about warp travel, and getting repaired and refueled at starbases.”

He pauses. “WELL… YES. BUT! OUR STARBASES ARE UNLIKE ANY OTHERS!”

“How?” asks Melvin.

“THEIR ELLIPTICAL ORBIT MEANS DOCKING AT THEM REQUIRES CAREFUL PILOTING! IT IS ONE OF THE MOST SENSITIVE MANEUVERS YOU WILL MAKE!”

“That sounds super annoying,” says Melvin. “Does that have any advantage at all?”

“ELLIPTICAL ORBITS ARE DESIGNED TO KEEP THE STARBASES SAFE FROM ENEMY ATTACKERS.”

“Oh,” reflects Melvin, “that actually sounds very helpful. So, the starbases can’t be destroyed by enemies?”

“ACTUALLY, THEY ARE DESTROYED QUITE FREQUENTLY. THAT IS PART OF THE CHALLENGE OF STARMASTER!”

Melvin puts his head in his hands, not that he has either of those. “So… pretty much, being a Star Master is just like being a Star Raider.”

The man on stage is silent, and seems to be thinking. “WE HAVE… WAIT, NO, THAT’S THE SAME. WE DO HAVE FEWER BUTTONS.” He thinks again. “OH! I KNOW. INSTEAD OF TWIN PHOTON TORPEDOS, WE HAVE TWIN LASER CANNONS.” A hologram shows two laser blasts vaporizing an enemy in a violent red flashing explosion.

“Ooooooo…” says Melvin, genuinely impressed. “Okay, that is a real improvement,” he says. He looks at you. “Shooting those Star Raiders photon torpedoes feels like throwing little balls of tinfoil.”

“Yeah,” you add. “And aiming them is almost impossible.”

“Okay,” says Melvin. “We’ve heard enough. We’ll do the mission.”

“BUT I HAVE SIX MORE HOURS OF LECTURE MATERIAL PREPARED.”

Melvin starts floating over to the airlock door to the far left of the auditorium. “No, we’re good. Put the rest in a booklet.” You crab walk between the seats to follow Melvin to the ship.

“HOW ABOUT TWO BOOKLETS?”

“Whatever,” says Melvin. You open the airlock valve, revealing a room identical to the Star Raiders spaceport, with a blue and white starfighter ready to go. You climb into the familiar ship, and peer at the simple controls. “Melvin, where is the switch for the galactic map… or chart… or whatever?” Everything flashes white, and you find yourself hurtling through space, bright white stars whizzing past you, not a rainbow one to be seen.

“It’s that one,” says Melvin, gesturing at a switch that inexplicably says “Color/BW.”

You flip it and see that there are dozens of enemies all through the galaxy. “Yeesh, Melvin. This might be familiar, but it won’t be easy!”

Place the Starmaster cartridge into your Atari 2600. Set difficulty switches to b. Use game select to choose level “S:” for Starmaster. Play until the victory trumpet sounds. Post a link to a video in the comments section of yourself completing the challenge.

Chapter 38: O Mother, Where Art Thou?

The zigzag bombs plus the zigzag shields are really getting on your nerves, and so when everything goes white and the aliens disappear, leaving you again looking up at a strange set of stars, you breathe a sigh of relief. Melvin suddenly reappears in the loading chamber. “Aww, I was just about to hit one of those red flying saucer things, too,” he whines.

“Sorry the Administrator interrupted your fun,” you say dryly.

“That guy wouldn’t know fun if it played jump rope with his tail. Say, what do you think those red saucer things are, anyway? They don’t seem to… do anything.”

You’ve been wondering the same thing. “At first I thought they were command ships, or something, but… blowing them up doesn’t seem to bother the invaders at all.”

“Jeez,” says Melvin, “I hope it’s not, like, an ambulance, or something. Or… a school bus! What if it’s a school bus?”

“What would a school bus be doing in a war zone out in… the infinite multiverse or wherever we are?”

“Oh yeah,” considers Melvin. “I guess you’re right. Still, it’s weird. It’s too small for any of those invaders to fit in.”

“Yeah. But… I mean, what even are those invaders? Are they robots? They don’t seem like aliens, they seem more like something… purely digital.”

Melvin rolls his eyes, not that he has eyes. “Everything here is digital. You know that, right?”

“Yeah, I know… but some things seem more digital than… oh, forget it. We should probably go back inside.”

“Ha, yeah,” says Melvin. He peers out the window of the laser cannon, at the fresh set of stars. “These new stars are pretty beautiful.”

You look up at the wonder of this mysterious new universe. The stars here are… weirdly colorful. Each one is a pulsing, vibrating rainbow. You’ve never seen anything like it. “Yeah… we sure do get to see some cool things.”

Melvin points, not that he has fingers. “Yeah! Like look there! Those stars are moving!”

You see some little grids of bluish white dots, not pulsing at all, but instead moving in formation. “Uh… Melvin, I don’t think those are stars.”

“Then… what?” He squints, not that he has eyes. “Some kind of comet?”

“Melvin, I think we better go inside right now.”

You open the airlock back into the Mothership. The Administrator is flipping switches with one hand, turning knobs with another, and rifling through papers with his tail.

“Hey, greenie!” says Melvin. “You seen those stars out there? Like rainbows! And some of ‘em are moving!”

“Yes… yes…” mumbles the Administrator nervously, continuing his frantic activity. Suddenly, you hear a rumbling. Just outside the massive floor to ceiling window that looks out on the laser cannon and the surface of the Mothership, an enormous hatch opens up, and a rocket suddenly launches out of it toward the moving stars.

“What was that?” shouts Melvin, alarmed. The Administrator’s frantic activity has stopped, and his tail is mopping his brow with his handkerchief. “That’s protocol 39G. We’ve entered a universe that may have hostile activity, and so I’ve launched a scout rocket to investigate.”

“So now what?” asks Melvin.

“Protocol 39H.”

“What?”

“Stand back.” He pushes a button. You are standing in the center of the floor of the main hall, on top of the huge blue, white and gold seal that represents the League of Civilized Planets. You scramble back as the floor opens up, and a huge screen rises up. On the screen you see rainbow stars racing by. “This is the camera view from the scout rocket,” explains the Administrator. In the center of the display is a bluish white grid of what you thought were stars, but as they are quickly getting larger, you think they might be… ships?

“Those aren’t stars,” says Melvin, “those are flying saucers!”

As the rocket gets closer and closer, you see the grid suddenly break formation, and start flying apart from each other every which way, in patterns that seem random. Suddenly, one of the saucers flies quite close to the camera, and you see it fire two red blasts of photon energy. They come right at the camera, and suddenly the screen is all static, and then goes black.

“Oh dear,” says the Administrator. He hits another button, and a large green display of concentric rings appears.

“What’s this?” asks Melvin. “A putting green?”

“This is a map of the area around the Mothership.”

“Where are we?” asks Melvin.

“We’re in the middle,” the Administrator explains.

“I don’t see us,” says Melvin.

The Administrator sighs. “That’s because we’re invisible!”

“What?”

“Do I have to explain everything? The Mothership is invisible at a distance, so enemies can’t find us. Those saucers should not be able to see us, but they have been moving straight toward us since we got here.”

“So… back in the laser cannon?” you ask.

“No, there are too many of them, and those photon blasts are much too powerful.” The Administrator uses his tail to pop two pills into his mouth, and takes a nervous drink from his glass.

“So, make with the button presses! Get us to a new universe!” yells Melvin.

“It’s not that simple!” The Administrator booms. “We just did a jump, and it takes time for the jump cells to recharge. We have no alternative but protocol 97F.” He turns a big wheel, which reveals three buttons, one blue, one white, and one gold. Using both hands and his tail, he pushes all three of them at once.

Another hole opens in the floor, and a battle console rises up. It faces the big screen, and features a large chair, a joystick, and red button. “In any case where the mother ship is under threat of direct attack, we have three squadrons of powerful defense ships that can be piloted remotely.”

“Remotely?” cries Melvin. “If these ships can be piloted remotely, why did we have to fly all over the galaxy chasing Zylons?”

“Remote control only works at short range. When you battled the Krylons, you were warping tremendous distances. But this is no time for a lecture in galactography. Player, those saucers are headed straight for us. If you can’t defeat those invading saucers, I fear that we are lost.”

You look at the battle console. It is painted blue to the left, gold to the right, and white above. You sit down and make some experimental manipulations. Both on the radar screen and out the window you see the blue, white and gold defense ships heading out to intercept the alien fleets.

“Your ships will be invulnerable,” says the Administrator.

“That makes me feel better,” says Melvin.

“Unless their blasts go down your gunsight – that’s your only vulnerable spot.”

“That makes me feel much, much worse,” frowns Melvin.

“It’s okay,” you say. “These controls are a little strange, but there are only six saucer fleets. I think we can do this.”

Melvin and the Administrator watch your every move intently, and you try not to glance out the window, where you can see the alien fleets getting closer and closer.

Place the Space Attack cartridge into your Atari 2600. Set both difficulty switches to a. Play until you are able to defeat all six saucer fleets and win the game. Post a link to a video in the comments section of yourself completing the challenge.

Chapter 37: Return of the Invaders

You are finally down to the last Krylon, but there are so many asteroids you can’t even see what kind of ship it is. Your Star Fighter has taken so much damage you think it is likely to fall apart any second, but you keep firing photon torpedoes as best you can, when suddenly the Zylon ship shatters into pieces. There is a white flash, and you are back in the spaceport, your new rank flashing on the screen.

Despite a comfortable air-conditioned cabin, you are sweating, and your hands ache from wrestling with the flight stick. Panting, you stare out the window at the comforting concrete wall of the spaceport. Melvin says, “That was… insane. I never thought I would miss that Terran Warship!” But… wait… the battle is over, so why are you still hearing explosions?

Your ship’s door opens and the pilot sticks his head in. “We’re under attack!” he shouts. “The Administrator needs you, now!” Without thinking, you leap out of your seat, and run after him back down the blue and yellow hallway to the main hall. “Here we go again!” says Melvin, zipping after you. In the main hall, again you see the aliens marching relentlessly through space. “Why do you think they march like that?” asks Melvin, as you turn the valve on the airlock. “They could just drop straight down, couldn’t they?” This time, though, something is different. At first you thought it was an optical illusion, but once you get into the laser cannon, you see that it isn’t. Not only are the shields unstable again, but now the terrible laser bombs the aliens drop zigzag around unpredictably. “Yikes,” says Melvin. “They don’t make it easy! Don’t worry, I won’t zigzag like that… I’ll just go where you shoot me!” He jumps into the loading chamber. “Fire when ready!” You sit down at the controls, and slide the laser cannon away from the station wall, wondering how many times you’ll have to fight these weird invaders.

Place the Space Invaders cartridge into your Atari 2600. Use game select 4. Set both difficulty switches to b. Play until you get 6000 points. Post a link to a video in the comments section of yourself completing the challenge.