2024 is gone, and 2025 is here! Happy New Year, Everyone!

As per a tradition started in 2005, the Spectrum Headquarters website offers you, as a gift, its unofficial Captain Scarlet Calendar, for the year 2025.

Follow the link below and enjoy!

The Christmas Challenge will continue until February 2025. Which gives you plenty of time, if you so wishe it, to write and submit your own Captain Scarlet story, either related to Christmas, or any festivities of the Holiday Season or simply set during that period. You can also send pictures, montages, drawings that you made on the same subjet.

For more information just check the rules below.

You can send your story at spectrum_hq@hotmail.com.

Merry Christmas to all, from Spectrum HQ!

Just like last year, this year, we start our Christmas Challenge on the 25th of December. And we start with three stories!

Enjoy the followings!

Welcome all to this 2024 launch of Spectrum HQ yearly Christmas Challenge!

The Spectrum Headquarters Christmas Challenge presents for fans all around the world an occasion to write Captain Scarlet Christmas and Holidays inspired stories, and to submit them to this site, so that other fans like them may read and enjoy.

Whatever his of her age, any Captain Scarlet fan (either from the classic Supermarionation series or the computer animated series) from ANY corner of the World can participate to this Challenge. Each year, new writers answer the call and submit stories . We're hoping that this year will be the same! Of course, this Challenge is not exclusive to newcomers. Long-time collaborators, writers of experience, people who have come and gone and now wishes to return, EVERYONE is welcomed and can participate to this as well!

In a true spirit of giving, the Christmas Challenge is meant as a gift this website offers its visitors for the Holidays Season. We've been doing this for the past two decades, so clearly, it is our own Holiday tradition, here on the Spectrum Headquarters site.

So now's the time again to make a call to writers and artists. Once again, you are invited to participate in great number to this new edition of the challenge, with new stories that will prove as entertaining as those submitted in the previous years. This year might prove a different Christmas for all of us, perhaps not as joyful as it should normally be with. And YET, maybe we can offer everyone a balm of some sort and make it JUST a little happier. Doing our part to keep everyone's spirit up if you will!

If you are a regular visitor to this website, you already know what the Christmas Challenge is all about.  But for those of you who are new to the site or the challenge, here's how it goes:

Christmas Day will be on us in about a month, and then, a week later, we'll cross over to a new year. 

The main event of the Christmas Challenge is, of course, to write a Captain Scarlet and Christmas-based fan fiction story.  But also you can participate, by submitting other kind of projects, like drawings or montages.  See the rules below for more on this subject.

Of course, this challenge is short notice, which is the reason why it always last beyond Christmas Day and even after January 1rst. We'll start posting stories, if possible, on the first week of December and all through the month. Then, the Challenge will continue all throughout the Holiday Season, and with a little chance, might end around the first or second week of February 2024.

In the previous years, during the Christmas Challenge, so many various stories, of very good quality, have been submitted to this site. And this is all the question:  can YOU do the same this year, and answer the Challenge?  Will you have the inspiration to write a Captain Scarlet/Christmas related-story, be it from the classic series, or based on the more recent CGI series? Will we discover new writers, as we did in previous years?

Answer the Challenge and find out - and see your story posted on this website during the Holidays Season! 

Remember, the information you can find on the Spectrum Headquarters site is there to help you write your story with better accuracy of the Scarlet mythos and backgrounds (Classic or CGI series).  Feel free to consult it!

So if you have a project  for a Christmas story, that you're sure will be finished on time, contact the webmaster at scarlet1bishop@hotmail.com, or submit your story  directly at spectrum_hq@hotmail.com. There is more then enough time!

Announcement and submissions of Christmas-related stories will appear on a list that you will find on this page. Check it often to know what stories will be posted this year!

Also listed on the Christmas stories page are the stories submitted in the previous years. Feel free to check them out too for a good read... or to see what other writers offered already! Maybe that'll inspire you.  These stories are available all year's long.

Read for rules and more  information below.

To participate:

RULES AND CONDITIONS OF THE CHRISTMAS CHALLENGE:

As always, the same basic rules as any fan fiction challenge project apply:

FAN FICTION:

• The story could be related to Christmas itself, New Year's Celebrations, or to one of the many subjects generally associated to them, or can simply be set during the Holidays Season. The story should keep true and faithful to the Captain Scarlet mythos, either from the Original Captain Scarlet series, or the New Captain Scarlet series. 

• The story could be as short as one page, or as long as you wish.  

• You can write your story alone, or team up with another writer.

• You can illustrate your story if you wish.

• Slash stories are acceptable, if presented in a tasteful manner. No porn allowed. And remember - Christmas is a family holiday!

• You can write one-shot stories, or multiparts.  If more than one part, note that, to avoid an unfinished story,  all the parts should be completed before posting.  Contact the webmaster for more information or for special arrangements.

• Check our Submission Guidelines before submitting your story. This document can provide you with wonderful tips that may help you for your writing and may facilitate the submitting process.

• If you need the service of a beta-reader, and don't have one at your disposition, ask the webmaster for the possibility of finding one. Take note that the use of beta-reader is not required, but recommended.  Please take beta-reading time into consideration when you submit your story!

• Even if you don't use a beta-reader, your story will be read at least once, to insure that it meets the minimum quality requirements of this website.

• The stories will only be accessible from the first week of December onwards. The final deadline date for posting will be determined in January, but should be around February 3rd. As we found out these last years, it's rather difficult to impose a precise deadline to any annual challenge, so we have decided that we would keep our options open. Although we asked that stories to be sent to us at the latest on January 25, we will allow ourselves the time needed to prepare the late story for posting. Depending on how many stories are received, one or more stories will be posted each week. The stories will STILL be accessible after the ending of the challenge, and will remain so all year long.

PICTURES:

You can also submit other projects, like drawings or pictures  - to be put with your story if you are a writer, or as a stand-alone artist rendition of a Christmas/Captain Scarlet  scene.  Your contribution would make a nice addition to the Christmas Challenge, and will be posted on the Christmas pictures page.  There's already a few items from previous editions, so you can visit the page, if ever you want some inspiration or ideas to what you might send.

Accepted will be original drawings, paintings, pictures, montages, collages,  comic strips, gif animations, etc.  Just contact the webmaster and propose your project(s).

We hope a lot of you will be able to participate. Don'tt be shy, and contact us to inform us of your projects. You can use this site regular e-mail scarlet1bishop@hotmail.com, or the spectrum_hq@hotmail.com email.

Some of the pictures already posted may also inspire you to write your own story! So go ahead and check it out!

A SPECIAL NOTE: As always, we won't refuse multi-parts stories ,  or stories out of theme, that will come along during the time this Challenge will last.  These stories will be posted as 'regular' Captain Scarlet stories, but they will not be considered part of the Christmas Challenge, and won't have a link through the Christmas page.  Depending on the webmaster or this website's collaborators' availability, for beta-reading (if required), these stories might get posted only after the Christmas Challenge.  The webmaster will contact you in case of delay.