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Starion is a wire-frame First-Person Shooter published in 1985 by Melbourne House. It was released on the ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC and Commodore 64.

In the year 2010, some time-travelling aliens have decided to mess up Earth's history by stealing important artefacts from various time periods. Each artefact has been moved to a different year and cunningly split into its constituent letters, with each letter stored on a separate alien ship. The protagonist, Starion, is provided with a time-and-space-ship and sent out to do battle with the aliens, reassemble the artefacts and return them to their correct times.

History is arranged in a series of "grids", with a different collection of artefacts jumbled within each grid. For timey-wimey reasons, progress is a One-Way Trip, meaning Starion can never to return to his/her own time.

The game is essentially a flight simulator In Space, with an unusually maneuverable "plane". Once all the letters of an artefact have been collected, there's a brief interlude to figure out the anagram and decide where - sorry, when - the item might belong, then it's back to flying.

Starion was released around the same time as Elite, and rumour has it that it was rushed out to compete with that title. Even so, the gameplay is smooth and fast, graphics are good (considering it's all frames and dots) and the game earned some excellent reviews - although the C64 version is said to be less well animated than the others. Including the names and dates of 243 genuine historical events might even make it count as educational.

Tropes used in Starion include:

Apotheosis: At the end of the game, "you become the earliest thing to exist and must by default assume the ultimate title of CREATOR of all that follows."^[1]
- It isn't stated whether you'd actually be able to create anything or do other godly deeds like, y'know, getting yourself home.
Check Point Starvation: 243 time zones with, several dogfights per zone, not to mention figuring out when all the artefacts belong. This is quite a long game for one sitting, but there's no way to save the game, or to continue once the lives have run out.
Covers Always Lie: The original cover art is based around 2D line drawings that look like parts of a diagram, making this a rare example of the in-game graphics being better than the cover.
Teleport Spam: Objects that appear near one corner of either scanner appear to teleport to the opposite side when the ship is turned to face them. This is an unintended consequence of a having smallish playing arena in which anything that leaves one side wraps around to the other.
Timey-Wimey Ball: More of a timey-wimey cube, according to the manual.
Video Game Lives: Explained in the manual as the ship having several hulls.

↑ According to the manual

[1] According to the manual

[1]

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 In the year [[Zeerust|2010]], some time-travelling aliens have decided to mess up Earth's history by stealing important artefacts from various time periods. Each artefact has been moved to a different year and cunningly split into its constituent letters, with each letter stored on a separate alien ship. The protagonist, Starion, is provided with a time-and-space-ship and sent out to do battle with the aliens, reassemble the artefacts and return them to their correct times.
-For [[Timey-Wimey Ball|timey-wimey]] reasons, Starion will [[One-Way Trip|never be able to return]] to his own time. History is also arranged in several levels, with the artefacts only being jumbled within each level.
+History is arranged in a series of "grids", with a different collection of artefacts jumbled within each grid. For [[Timey-Wimey Ball|timey-wimey]] reasons, progress is a [[One-Way Trip]], meaning Starion can never to return to his/her own time.
-''Starion'' is essentially a flight simulator [[In Space]], with an unusually maneuverable "plane". It was released around the same time as ''[[Elite]]'', and rumour has it that it was rushed out to compete with that title. Even so, the gameplay is smooth and fast, graphics are good (considering it's all frames and dots) and the game earned some excellent reviews - although the [[Commodore 64|C64]] version was said to be less well animated than the others. Including the names and dates of 243 genuine historical events might even make it count as educational.
+The game is essentially a flight simulator [[In Space]], with an unusually maneuverable "plane". Once all the letters of an artefact have been collected, there's a brief interlude to figure out the anagram and decide where - sorry, when - the item might belong, then it's back to flying.
+''Starion'' was released around the same time as ''[[Elite]]'', and rumour has it that it was rushed out to compete with that title. Even so, the gameplay is smooth and fast, graphics are good (considering it's all frames and dots) and the game earned some excellent reviews - although the [[Commodore 64|C64]] version is said to be less well animated than the others. Including the names and dates of 243 genuine historical events might even make it count as educational.
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-* [[Apotheosis]]: At the end of the game, the protagonist arrives at "Event Zero", the point immediately before the creation of the universe ("Event One"). As the only thing that exists, the he/she must "by default" assume the title of Creator of all that follows.
+* [[Apotheosis]]: At the end of the game, "you become the earliest thing to exist and must by default assume the ultimate title of CREATOR of all that follows."<ref>[https://worldofspectrum.org//pub/sinclair/games-info/s/Starion.txt According to the manual]</ref>
+** It isn't stated whether you'd actually be able to create anything or do other godly deeds like, y'know, getting yourself home.
+* [[Check Point Starvation]]: 243 time zones with, several dogfights per zone, not to mention figuring out when all the artefacts belong. This is quite a long game for one sitting, but there's no way to save the game, or to continue once the lives have run out.
 * [[Covers Always Lie]]: The original cover art is based around 2D line drawings that look like parts of a diagram, making this a rare example of the in-game graphics being better than the cover.
+* [[Teleport Spam]]: Objects that appear near one corner of either scanner appear to teleport to the opposite side when the ship is turned to face them.  This is an unintended consequence of a having smallish playing arena in which anything that leaves one side wraps around to the other.
 * [[Timey-Wimey Ball]]: More of a timey-wimey cube, according to the manual.
-* [[Video Game Lives]]: Explained in the manual as the ship having several hulls - although [[Fridge Logic|the fuel temperature drops when a hull is destroyed]]
+* [[Video Game Lives]]: Explained in the manual as the ship having several hulls.
-.
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