Starfish Groups

Depth: The sunlight zone (at the top) You are a weird starfish with lots of arms. The arms are covered in little hairs that are designed to fly in the water. You are a feather star. [[Go to the midnight zone]]

Depth: really deep You're floating down to the midnight zone to find deep sea corals to hide in. You see some cushion stars blocking the rocks and coral. Some crown-of-thorns starfish pop out of the rocks. [[Ask the king for help]] [[Dig down into the sand]]

Depth: Really deep; the surface; really deep again The king feathered star tickles the crown-of-thorns and cushion stars and they all climb back up to the shallow sea. You dig a hole so you can make a home. You dig too high and go out of water and turn gray. Then you go *back* in the water and the king is waiting for you. [[Call all the chocolate chip starfish]] [[Find the king cushion star]]

Depth: the midnight zone; the beach You dig too far and pop out on a beach. You see your horned hercules beetle friends Bobby, Jojo and Joey looking for shark fins and shells, and playing games. They don't notice you. A red and yellow icon starfish pops out and wants to be friends with you. You're a red feather star but you turned gray since you're out of the water and got sick. [[Follow the icon starfish into the water]] [[Use your arm to wave at the starfish]]

Depth: Really deep The king feathered star hits the wall and all the oceans wiggle a tremor and all the chocolate chip starfish come down and some bad guys come down by accident. The bad guys are zombie starfish, crown-of-thorns starfish, and cushion stars. The cushion stars can jump on you, the crown-of-thorns can poke you, and the zombie starfish can scare you. [[Fight the badguys]] [[Get gulper eels to help]]

Depth: Really deep The king cushion star says, "I saw a nautilus take a blue starfish." You say, "Really?" The king cushion star says, "Yeah, really. I'm serious. It was blue, and it was heading towards where the king feathered star was." You say, "Ok, can you take me there?" [[Hop on the king cushion star]] [[Walk with the king cushion star]]

Depth: Really deep A sea spider creeps all the bad guys out and they try to hit the good guys but they keep missing. Then suddenly something was really gross: you see a ringed pipefish. The stripes are creepy. And then you see a weird wall that just hit the badguys, and it was *not* a wall, it was a king-sized-bed-sized opah. Then you hear a snap, snap, snap. It was three hundred and fifty piranhas in a group. At the bottom of the ocean. They eat all the badguys but then they are so full that they went away. There were a few more bad starfish left and a norway lobster grabbed them all and they weren't quite dead, so the sea spider tricked them and they all ran all the way to one ginormous thing. The thing was so big that you don't know what it is. Then it moved away and it was a giant whale shark, which kicks them, and then a tiger shark eats the rest of the starfish. The tiger shark says, "There you go, now all of your unfriendly bad guys are all away. Can we become friends?" [[Make friends->Ending Everybody]]

Depth: Really deep The king feathered star hits the wall again. Two gulper eels, one purple and one dark blue, both arrive and bump their heads and say "Watch out where you're going, man!" "Sorry, I always do that; we gulper eels can't see very well!" Then they make their way and eat the crown-of-thorns, zombie stars, and cushions. But then a bigger danger comes: a giant *anaconda snake* that swam all the way from the amazon river to the [bottom of the] Carribean Sea (where you are). [[Then something crazy happened]]

**Star Fish Groups** A story about a few starfish who keep joining in with other characters. *This interactive story was dictated by a 6 year old with some prompting for player options. It has been lightly edited for clarity, but not content or accuracy. Please do not take your marine biology cues from a 6 year old.* [[Start]]

Depth: shallow The icon starfish doesn't talk with you and goes back to its home, which is not the Mariana Trench. You chase it back to the beach and use your arm to wave at it but it just goes back into the water. You go back to the midnight zone and meet an orange fiddler crab. [[Meet the crab]]

Depth: really deep The anaconda snake got poked by the king crown-of-thorns starfish and then the king crown-of-thorns starfish and the king feathered star all became friends. But then a giant smacking big-armed starfish smacked you all the way to the other side of the midnight zone. [[Get smacked]]

Depth: the other side of the midnight zone You were smacked so hard you fly to the other side of the midnight zone. You meet a very friendly starfish named Cumming's Plated Starfish. Suddenly, a chambered nautilus grabbed the plated starfish and swam off. Then Squidona, a giant squid, grabs you and takes you back to an orange fiddler crab. [[Meet the crab]]

Depth: the surface; the midnight zone The icon star changes its mind and then follows you into the hole down to the midnight zone. [[The icon star changes his mind again and crawls back out]] [[The icon star follows you all the way to the midnight zone]]

Depth: the midnight zone The orange fiddler crab just walks around and finds you. And then he says, "Do you want your starfish back?" You say "What starfish?" "Follow me." [[Find the granulated sea star]] [[Find the king cushion star instead|Find the king cushion star]]

Depth: the midnight zone You bounce while the king cushion star bounces and then you say, "What's that?" The king says, "You want to know? Cuz I do want to hear that name again." Then he says: "It's a barrel-eye fish and it's pretty creepy because its head glows." You say, "Yikes! That's a pretty creepy fish." Then you see something really gross down there: a common dead man's fingers, which is a type of coral. "That so gross; a dead man's fingers!" says the king. [[See more corals and sponges]] [[Go back to the king feathered star->Ending Everybody]]

Depth: the midnight zone The king cushion star asks, "Why are you walking in the water?" You answer, "I'm a feather star. Feather stars can float in the water with their wings." Then the king cushion star says, "Oh. Now I get it." [[12 minutes later]]

Depth: the beach You say, "What is taking you so long? Are you going to answer me, man?!" The icon star says, "Oh sorry, I was just paying attention to that shark fin." Bobby (the horned hercules beetle) says, "You saw a shark fin? Well now we've got nine shark fins that we saw! And what's that pokey thing on the beach?!" The icon starfish says, "I'll dig that up for you!" Bobby says, "Ok! Thanks SO much!" "Oh," says the icon star. "It's a sea shell." Bobby says, "Now we've got one hundred twenty sea shells that we've found. And watch those pinchers!" The icon starfish says, "I'll move my arm through the pincher and see if it grabs me. Ouch! It's a crab shell! Wow, we found one crab!" You say, "Are we not going to pay attention to beach things now?!" "Oh sorry!" says the icon star. "We do need to dig that tunnel, it looks like it's caved in!" [[Dig a tunnel]]

Depth: the beach; the midnight zone The icon star says, "Why are you up here?" You say, "No, I just can't find my home. I got a little lost because my brain was not working when I was digging; I kept coughing because the dirt was falling down on me. It looks like it got caved in from all that dirt." And then he says, "I'm a great digger, can I help you, red feathered star?" "Of course, I really need help, because all of these feathers are not good diggers, and I *don't* know how I got up here, cuz I *did* dig. So *that's* a little annoying but un-annoying." The icon star says, "I know a place I saw when I was a little kid. I saw a *whale fall* and not just any whale fall, it was incredible. And it was in the midnight zone and I saw your king feathered star there." You ask, "How did you know? I didn't even tell you about him!" "Oh, I've seen him before, remember that big guy? Let's go down the hole!" "Ok," you say. "You can go down first so you can dig the hole; I'm not going to dig it." [[Dig a tunnel]]

Depth: the midnight zone "Uh oh! We went the wrong way!" you both say. You ended up in a deep sea jellyfish bloom. You both say "We need to hop back that way before they sting us!" [[Hop back that way|Hop on the king cushion star]]

Depth: the midnight zone You see something called an azure vase sponge. The azure sponges are surrounding a few lemon sponges. One lemon sponge is alive; he says, "Help! This barrel sponge is eating me!" The king cushion star says, "Ok, we'll help you!" The lemon sponge says, "Thanks, cuz it's really feeling tight in here!" Then a few moon jellyfish in a group show up and pass by because they don't have any mouths (so they don't say anything). You see a few bamboo corals in a lion's mane jellyfish's tentacles. You say, "Hey, can I borrow that?" The jellyfish responds: "Blub, blub." The king cushion says, "He's saying, 'yeah man, you can take it out of my tentacles.'" So you do. You see a few sea anemones in front of the king cushion star and say, "Watch out! Those are sea anemones!" and the king cushion star says, "I know." You see a mushroom coral who says "Hey, can I have those bamboo corals?" "Yeah, sure," you say, "I've got a few rotten ones." "Thanks," it says, "those are my favorite." [[Turn sideways and look for the king feather star->Ending Everybody]]

Depth: the twilight zone The granulated sea star just got to the twilight zone. You fly up and say "Hey Granule, can you help me find the king?" "Yeah, sure, man. What does he look like?" the granulated sea star says. You say, "He looks like me but bigger." "Oh yeah man, was he the one when I smacked you? I saw him." "Yeah that's the one." [[Float with him]] [[Let him know to go down by himself]]

Depth: the mariana trench The granulated star is really good at finding homes or places where you've lived, so you have to follow him if you want to get back really fast. On the way you meet a yellow feather star on the wall. He says, "Greetings; do you want me to come with you?" A cute squid appears on the way, too. The squid is called a *Berry's Bobtail Squid*. Then you see a giant shell. The shell is empty; it's just furniture. It's so big that the king feather star and all the others can fit in it. They bring the shell down and find the king feather star and all of them crawl into the shell. [[Afterwards->Ending Everybody]]

Depth: still in the midnight zone "Granule, can you go by yourself?" you say. He says: "Oh yeahhhhhhh, you don't even know where you're going and I know much better than you. I know where food is way up there; I've got a feeding ground with a ton of granulated star fish. Where are you going to go anyway?" You answer, "Oh I was just going to look for some food up in the-- what's it called again?" The granulated star says: "Um, are you referring to the sunlight zone?" "Oh yeah, that's what I'm talking about." He says, "Oh that's a great idea. You know, I'm going to go in a few minutes so you can do whatever you want. You know, I really just appreciate us splitting around." "Bye, bye," you say. Afterwards, he says: "This is so fun. I don't even know what you're gonna do; I just hope we do anything longer and where are you going?!" [[But you were already up at the sunlight zone.->Sunlight Zone]]

Depth: the midnight zone All of the good guys have to do a long trip back, even the granulated sea star. Something that was not supposed to be there but which accidentally joined in was a blue starfish. The blue starfish says, "Sorry, I just wanted to join in. I didn't mean to be here by accident." He loves making new friends. You say, "It's ok, you can still be with us." The the granulated sea star says, "Uh, where are we going??" A purple sea urchin rolls by and says, "Up there! To the surface of the ocean!" You float up to the surface. Then, something bad happens: there's a wall of purple sea urchins. The urchins fall backwards as they yell, "whaaaaa!" Then every character was safe and sound. **The End.**

Depth: the sunlight zone "Mmm, my favorite!" you say. "Sea lily! And not just one-- there's *basically a thousand sea lilies!* Sheesh! Now who is going to eat the rest after I eat ten? Because that's how much I eat every day." Then something strange happened. A whale shark came and at half the sea lilies that were left. You say, "Thanks, whale shark!" The whale shark says, "My pleasure. And cheerio!" That's how he says bye. [[Catch up with the granulated sea star->Float with him]]

Depth: a tunnel from the surface to the midnight zone You say, "Stop throwing dirt at me!" (throwing dirt at me, says the echo of the tunnel) The icon star says, "Sorry!" (sorry says the echo) You keep digging and the icon star says "Phew, we're out of the tunnel, and I see the king feather star!" "Hurray!" [[Join the king->Ending Everybody]]