In the Sonic the Hedgehog series of games, a character's progress through a stage is saved by passing by a star post. Star posts resemble lamp posts, but instead of a light they have a round star symbol at the top. When a character passes by a star post, the top of the post spins to indicate it is activated.
In Sonic the Hedgehog 2, activating a star post while possessing 50 rings or more will cause the post to generate an expanding ring of stars which act as a gateway to bonus stages allowing the player to win one of the chaos emeralds.
In sonic the hedgehog 3 and Sonic and Knuckles, passing a star post with more than 50 rings will grant access to one of several bonus stages which allow the player to gain rings, power-ups and lives, but not emeralds. In Sonic the Hedgehog 3 the bonus stage is a giant gumball machine, in Sonic and Knuckles the player enters a vertical forced-scrolling board in which the object is to use a series of gravity spheres to fling Sonic into powerups and lives.
In the original Sonic the Hedgehog game the star post serves no purpose but to save player progress.
In Sonic CD, starposts function differently. There are two kinds of posts, "Future" and "Past". When a player passes one of these posts, they gain a temporary "time-charge" which will allow them to teleport through spacettime to alternate future or past version of the stage if Sonic can quickly reach and maintain top speed for a specific amount of times, a-la Back to the Future.
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