Status Updates From Armada

His team consists of the six through 10 ranked players a pair of kids younger than him a hefty older gentleman, a Philadelphia native(asshole), and a Mom

Complaint on the cover design of this book. He is wearing a VR goggle and also has a TV in front of him which he definitely can’t see because of the goggles.

He’s called to the admirals office and learns that his father is redjive. The number one ranked Violet and a total asshole. He also learns that the admiral is the fourth ranked player meaning he has met one four and five.
He sent to the moon base. Which is on the dark side of the moon reading. This is ironically timed with the Artemis missions in real life. He makes out with Alexis and then meets his team.

He follows the ship into the launch tube and notices that this one is seemingly much harder to deal with than the others. It makes it all the way down and then explode it’s blowing up 500 or so ships. He quickly learned that because he followed it. The safety door was not allowed to close if he had listened to orders the ship would’ve been destroyed and there would’ve been no damage.

He and the others all enlist and start battling with the alien ships above again something feels a bit uncanny in how accurate the video game was things seem a little bit too easy. He really said to how storm troopers never are very good soldiers. He takes out 20 or so planes and eventually one ship remains which kamikaze bombs itself towards a launch tube. He is sold to stop following it which he ignores.

They are told that the European fleet is only eight hours away and that they expect to have a sneak attack before the main fleet arrives like clockwork and explosion goes off above their head and they’re all ushered to their flight stations. Something just doesn’t feel right dizzy it feels too scripted. Then in order to fight back, he has to enlist in the army, which pisses him off. It feels like a manipulation.

Shortly, following this, they could be seen from a satellite building, a massive fleet of starships. Scout ships were found on earth and scientist re-engineered them to keep up somewhat with the technological juggernaut.

Z noted that he felt like this was kind of a half assed answer. He wasn’t buying the full story.

On a return ship a probe burrowed into the ice where before vanishing from sight. The scientists received a message back with a synthesized voice stating “you have desecrated our most sacred temple, and now we are coming to kill you”

The recruits are shown a video that contains information about first contact back in the 70s.
In a Hubble like mission a satellite was sent to Jupiter where a large swastika was seen on the surface. This terrified scientists as we were not that far removed from the world was and the psychological effect if space nazis would have been insane.

When he sits down for orientation he sits with the hot chick because of course he does. Despite her being atleast 5 years older she has no qualms with flirting with a high schooler. A bit icky. She is a super nerd

More ready player one parallels
The main characters name is Z.
Lexi is just a reskinned Artemis. They interact with the main characters the same exact way
Cynicism about humanity

Everything in armada is real except the names. This secret government organization has been funneling money into the game industry as anti alien propaganda for years (ironically our own government does this with call of duty and war movies)
He enters the base and is given a futuristic smart phone that doubles as a gun and drone control
He is being recruited along with many of the other highly ranked game characters

Everyone freezes as a ship straight out of armada lands on the lawn. Zack’s boss from the game store steps and and looks for him before taking him to a secret base in Nebraska. Along the way he tops him off to the fact that he was sent to watch over him due to his great skill but anger management issues
Z’s dad was 100% right. Z asks his boss but he blames not to know the full story but there is some connection

The first mission in space does not go well. They get about halfway through the mission before the icebreaker that is trying to punch a whole into the planet, is destroyed and everyone loses. Zak passes out in his Star Wars sheets.
The next morning his mom makes dinner for breakfast and they exchange I love yous. when he gets to school He is engaged by his bullies, but threatens them with a tire iron.

A chapter dedicated to how hot his mom is and how that’s makes his life harder. She’s also nerdy, smarty, and caring but has been spending less time with him as he gets closer to his father’s age when he died (assassinated) and he looks just like him.

He’s is #7 in the world at armada. Tonight’s mission is the first to attack the alien planet.

Hard not to make connections between ready player one and this game both characters are on the edge of graduating high school obsessed with a decade that their male idolize role models grew up in. references a lot of the same movies and video games. There is a rush band reference, which is in ready player two
Fun book so far this game is definitely going to be used in income against aliens unless he’s just crazy

He goes to “work” which is a game store with a Rich and eccentric owner that doesn’t care about turning a profit and just wants to hang around with like-minded nerds. The man is also obsessed with this game developer who made Armada, but is instead of playing one of the earlier versions of the games that instead of dog fighting drones is focused on ground combat drones. Two are both very skilled.

Zak idolize his father from the ages of 0 to 10 until he found a manuscript hidden in the attic that outlined his father’s theory that the military was using video games to train every day people to find against alien invaders
He had kind of repressed this memory, but now I was putting the strings together between his favorite game Armada and this theory. This game is a drone combat style alien invaders game

After seeing this, he realizes that his class bully is picking on a kid again and retaliates. Him and this bully have a long history including getting into some kind of altercation back in middle school that earned him the name Zak attack. Before you can get any further storms out of the classroom and head home, terrified that he has developed schizophrenia like his father.

Zack Starman, who is essentially Wade Watts with a 80s obsession instead of a 70s is sitting in class one day when he sees a UFO out the window except it’s the exact model seen in the video game Armada that he has been playing obsessively for months. He quickly determines that he is hallucinating partially because of his obsessive playing and partially because his late father seems to have had schizophrenia