Armada (novel)
Cover to the first printing
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| Author | Ernest Cline |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Science fiction |
| Publisher | Crown |
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Publication date
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July 14, 2015 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover) |
| Pages | 368 |
| ISBN | |
Armada is a science fiction novel by Ernest Cline, published on July 14, 2015. The sale of Armada to Crown Publishing Group (a division of Random House) was announced on December 5, 2014.
Wil Wheaton, who narrated the audio book version of Cline's previous novel, Ready Player One, performs the audio book of Armada as well.
In the spring of 2018 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 have a three-phase attack commencing within a few hours. These recruits have been chosen for special missions during the attack. Shortly after the briefing, the secret base is attacked by a scouting party, during which 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, Xavier, who was assumed to be dead in an explosion that occurred when Zack was just an infant. Xavier is an EDA General, and has lived on the moon for 17 years with two other officers. In the first wave of attacks, the 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 theorize that the entire Europan invasion is only a test to discover how earth would respond to a civilization-ending threat. After sabotaging the EDA's efforts to attack the now-undefended Europa, during which Xavier engages in a suicide mission, the Lightmans' theory is confirmed. Earth passes the test, which was designed by a conglomerate of eight advanced alien civilizations to confirm whether Earth was worthy to join their group and benefit from its technology and partnership. As the person most responsible for Earth's passing the test, Zack is chosen to accept or reject the offer on behalf of his home planet. He accepts, and is later named Earth's ambassador to the group of alien worlds.
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