Armada (novel)

Armada is a science fiction novel by Ernest Cline, published on July 14, 2015.^[1] The sale of Armada to Crown Publishing Group (a division of Random House) was announced on December 5, 2014.^[2]

Wil Wheaton, who narrated the audio book version of Cline's previous novel, Ready Player One, performs the audio book of Armada as well.^[3]

Plot summary

High school student Zack Lightman glances out his classroom window and spots a UFO. The ship he’s staring at is straight out of the video game he plays every night, a hugely popular online flight simulator called Armada, in which gamers protect Earth from alien invaders.

A shuttle from the video game Armada picks Zack up at his school and delivers him to a top-secret military facility in Nebraska. There, he and other top performing players learn about the existence of the Earth Defense Alliance (EDA). The EDA reveals that the Armada video game was actually developed as a simulation of an imminent alien threat from aliens on Europa, called the Europans. The threat was kept secret from the public, and Armada was then used to train video gamers to pilot drone ships to protect Earth from the Europans, and identify which gamers would be best for the task. The EDA reveals that the Europans plan on attacking that day in a series of three attacks. These recruits have been chosen for special missions during the attack. Shortly after the briefing, Crystal Palace is attacked by a scouting party, Zack disobeys orders, causing the destruction of over five hundred EDA drones.

Zack is stationed at an EDA base on the moon with other top performing Armada gamers. There he finds his father, who was assumed to be dead in an explosion that occurred when Zack was just an infant. Zack's father is also an EDA soldier, and has lived on the moon for 17 years with two other soldiers. In the first wave of attacks, EDA moon base is attacked by Europan drones. The new recruits attempt to defend it, but ultimately fail and flee to earth. After helping to end the first wave of attacks on Earth, Zack and his father realize that the entire Europan invasion was a test to discover how earth would respond to a civilization ending threat. The test would prove whether Earth was ready to join a conglomerate of advanced alien civilizations and benefit from their technology and partnership. During the second wave of attacks, Earth passes the test partially due to the sacrifice of Zack's father's life during battle, and Earth joins the group that was testing them.^[4]

Film adaptation

On December 7, 2015, Cline announced the sale of the film rights to Armada to Universal Pictures for a reported seven-figure sum.^[5]

See also

• The Last Starfighter— 1980s science fiction adventure film with the similar premise of playing a video game outstandingly to be recruited into a real space force.

References