Basic Trope: Stars either go out or fall from the sky, usually as a sign of an impending Apocalypse How.
- Straight: One by one, well-known stars just suddenly go out, like Christmas lights. No one knows why.
- Exaggerated:
- Stars and/or other celestial bodies (or manmade space colonies) actually fall out of the sky towards Earth.
- ALL stars vanish at the same time, with not even ghostlight remaining.
- Downplayed: One well-known star at the end of its lifespan (for example, Betelgeuse) goes out in a supernova.
- Justified:
- The Big Bad caused the apocalypse by making multiple stars go supernova at once.
- The history takes place in a very distant future when the last stars are dying out.
- Inverted:
- After the End, new stars start shining in the sky.
- Turns out that the sky was actually darkened by the Big Bad and the stars did not actually winked out. Once defeated and whatever caused that effect (a forcefield, etc.) ceases to function they begin to shine again.
- Subverted:
- It's just a meteor shower.
- The stars are just being blocked out.
- Humans have long since left Earth.
- It's just one star that's reached the end of its stellar lifespan and is going supernova.
- Stars are missing from the night sky After the End because it's set in the far future and they've gone supernova.
- Double Subverted:
- The meteor shower is in advance of a large asteroid that's on a collision course with Earth.
- … by smog that's choking Earth's ecosystem.
- They're facing this situation on terraformed Mars/manmade space colonies floating on the La Grange points/an Earth-like exoplanet/wherever they are.
- The supernova results in an Unrealistic Black Hole that threatens to suck up Earth, or a magnetar.
- The supernovas actually caused the apocalypse.
- Parodied:
- The sound of (presumably) God screwing lightbulbs back in or resetting the circuit breaker (perhaps with some Angrish) is heard, followed by the stars coming back on.
- A cardboard star falls to Earth from Fluffy Cloud Heaven.
- Zig Zagged: ???
- Averted: The night sky looks more-or-less the same as it has for millennia.
- Enforced: "We need a bad omen for our Apocalypse How story."
- Lampshaded: "Hey, where'd Polaris go? It was right here!"
- Invoked: ???
- Exploited: Someone uses the Colony Drop-related chaos to assume power.
- Defied: ???
- Discussed: We see how stars fizzle out for whatever reasons (far future of the Universe when star formation has ceased and the remaining ones die, the Big Bad using magic to dark the sky/extinguish the stars, etc.)
- Conversed: ???
Has anyone seen Orion's belt? It was right here a minute ago...
