Armada Ernest Cline Quotes

I’d spent my entire life overdosing on uncut escapism, willingly allowing fantasy to become my reality.

Shit!" I heard Diehl shout over the comm. "I just lost my gorram shields because I'm already out of frakkin' power!" "Dude," Cruz said. "You shouldn't mix swears from different universes.

I know that the future is scary at times. But there's just no escaping it.

The only thing crazier than hallucinating a fictional videogame spaceship would be to blame it on a frosted breakfast pastry.

If there were other civilizations out there, why would they ever want to make contact with humanity? If this was how we treated each other, how much kindness could we possibly show to some race of bug-eyed beings from beyond?

The apple had fallen right next to the crazy tree.

I had been hoping and waiting for some mind-blowingly fantastic, world-altering event to finally shatter the endless monotony of my public education.

Now whenever I watched a Star Wars film, I found myself wondering how the Empire had the technology to make long-distance holographic phone calls between planets light-years apart, and yet no one had figured out how to make a remote-controlled TIE Fighter or X-Wing yet.

Now I feel bad,” Diehl said. “Like we’re about to nuke Aquaman. Or the Little Mermaid.…” “Pretend they’re Gungans,” Cruz suggested. “And that we get to nuke Jar Jar.

I tried to remain skeptical. I reminded myself that I was a man of science, even if I did usually get a C in it.

That’s how you know you’ve mastered a videogame—when a bunch of butt-hurt crybabies start to accuse you of cheating in an effort to cope with the beatdown they’ve just suffered at your hands.

We were all probably stuck here for the duration, on the third rock from our sun. Boldly going extinct.

You know, sort of like Obi-Wan, watching over Luke while he was growing up on Tatooine.” “You’re a bold-faced liar like Obi-Wan, too!” I shot back. “That’s for sure.” Ray’s smile vanished, and his eyes narrowed. “And you’re being a whiny little bitch, just like Luke!

Being forced to sit between my mortal enemy and my ex-girlfriend every afternoon made seventh-period math feel like my own private Kobayashi Maru, a brutal no-win scenario designed to test my emotional fortitude.

No, we always get killed because of you, Leeroy Jenkins!

This human understands enough to know when he’s being messed with.

Maybe they seeded life on Earth millions of years ago, and now they're here to punish us for turning out to be such a lame species and inventing reality TV and shit?

I’m a gamer, Zack. Like you. When I find myself confronted with a puzzle, I can’t help but try to solve it.

The bastard even refused to watch E.T.! Who doesn’t love E.T., I ask you?

He died when he was only nineteen years old. I was still a baby at the time, so I didn't remember him. Growing up, I'd always told myself that was lucky. Because you can't miss someone you don't remember. But the truth was, I did miss him.

I tried to slip past her again, but she blocked my path and then stomped her foot down in front of me again, pretending like she was Gandalf and I was the balrog.

You cannot escape your destiny,’ 

A mission where you have to blow up a Death Star while being attacked by two Borg Cubes inside an asteroid field?

I knew Knotcher was trying to push my buttons. Unfortunately, he'd pushed the big red one first.

Somebody set up us the bomb,’ pal,” he quoted. “Now it’s time to take off every zig for great justice.

These new helmets can read your thoughts, too,” Ray joked. “But you have to think in Russian.

I was staring out the classroom window and daydreaming of adventure when I spotted the flying saucer.

Mr. S was finally retiring this year, which was a good thing, because he appeared to have run out of shits to give sometime in the previous century.

I knew Armada was only a videogame, but I’d never been one of the “best of the best” at anything before, and my accomplishment gave me a real sense of pride.

As I watched them embrace, there on the front lawn, my heart was rocked by waves of unbridled joy. It occurred to me that up until this moment I’d only ever experienced the bridled kind.

In reality, videogames did not come to life and fictional spaceships did not buzz your hometown. Implausible shit like that only happened in cheesy ’80s movies, like TRON or WarGames or The Last Starfighter.

I'm sort of like Q in the James Bond films. Except, you know, I only get to hand out this one thing.

Many species lack the ability to defy their own animal instincts and allow their intellect to prevail.

When my father saw the jacket, he grinned wide and spent a minute looking over each and every patch.

I knew there was probably life elsewhere. But given the vast size and age of the universe, I also knew how astronomically unlikely it was we would ever make contact with it, much less within the narrow window of my own lifetime. We were all probably stuck here for the duration, on the third rock from our sun. Boldly going extinct.

I had spent hundreds of hours gazing out at the calm, conquered suburban landscape surrounding my school, silently yearning for the outbreak of a zombie apocalypse, a freak accident that would give me super powers, or perhaps the sudden appearance of a band of time-traveling kleptomaniac dwarves.

My father looked as if I’d just gutted him, and I felt a pang of regret—but it was mingled with a twisted sense of satisfaction. It felt good to hurt his feelings—it was payback for the way his choices had irrevocably damaged my own.

What could possibly be worse?” Cruz asked. “A mission where you have to blow up a Death Star while being attacked by two Borg Cubes inside an asteroid field?

The Force will be with you,” Ray said, giving my shoulder one last squeeze. “Always.

I felt like I’d just been picked last for the world’s biggest game of kickball.

Why would real aliens behave exactly like videogame simulations of themselves?

If there was a bright center to the universe, I was on the planet it was farthest from. Please pass the blue milk, Aunt Beru.

Stay frosty, everyone,

We were at the edge of space. The boundary I’d dreamed of crossing my entire life. I’d never really believed I’d get the chance to do it during my lifetime—let alone today, when I should’ve been in my first-period civics class.

My whole life, I felt like I was destined to do something important, but I was only ever good at videogames, which I always figured would be completely useless. But it’s not useless, and neither am I. I think this is what I was always destined to do with my life. I just never knew it.

You have been recruited by the Star League to defend the Frontier against Xur and the Ko-Dan Armada.

This realization allowed me to calm myself enough to heed the whispered advice of Master Yoda now on repeat in my head: Let go of your anger.

No weapons designer or engineer would build something with such an arbitrary weakness,” he said. “The Disrupter is more like something a videogame developer would come up with, to create a big challenge at the end of a level—a boss that requires a huge sacrifice to destroy.

Welcome to Crystal Palace,” Ray said. “That’s the EDA’s code name for this place.” “Why?” I asked. He shook his head. “Because it’s easier to say than ‘Earth Defense Alliance Strategic Command Post Number Fourteen,’ ” he said. “Sounds cooler, too.

Watching Knotcher torment Casey while the rest of us just sat and watched filled me not only with self-loathing, but with disgust for my whole species. If there were other civilizations out there, why would they ever want to make contact with humanity? If this was how we treated each other, how much kindness could we possibly show to some race of bug-eyed beings from beyond?

Superheroes don’t use swords?” Diehl said gleefully. “What about Nightcrawler? Deadpool? Electra, Shatterstar, Green Arrow, Hawkeye—oh, and then there’s Blade and Katana! Two superheroes who are actually named after swords! Oh, and Wolverine had that idiotic Muramasa Blade made with part of his soul. Which, while incredibly lame, was still a far cooler magical weapon than Sting!

Even if alien visitors did decide to drop by this utterly insignificant little blue-green planet, no self-respecting extraterrestrial would ever pick my hometown of Beaverton, Oregon—aka Yawnsville, USA—as their point of first contact. Not unless their plan was to destroy our civilization by wiping out our least interesting locales first.

What if they’re using videogames to train us to fight without us even knowing it? Like Mr. Miyagi in The Karate Kid, when he made Daniel-san paint his house, sand his deck, and wax all of his cars—he was training him and he didn’t even realize it! Wax on, wax off—but on a global scale!

no self-respecting extraterrestrial would ever pick my hometown of Beaverton, Oregon—aka Yawnsville, USA—as their point of first contact.

I reminded myself that I was a man of science, even if I did usually get a C in it.

The only legitimate use of a computer is to play games. —Eugene Jarvis, creator of Defender

Now I’m in a top-secret government base somewhere in the middle of fucking Iowa, waiting to find out what the hell is happening. In short—I’m totally losing my shit.

I was going off the rails on a crazy train. You could practically hear Ozzy screaming “All aboard!” Don

This story doesn’t make any damn sense,

They may have used alien technology in these things,” she said. “But the software they installed to run it all was clearly created by humans—overworked, underpaid programmers like me who take all kinds of shortcuts. The security protocols on the file-sharing system are a total joke. It only took me about five minutes to jailbreak this thing.

This is just great,” he grumbled under his breath. “Here I thought I was being recruited for an epic space adventure, but it turns out I’m a guest star on Love Boat: The Next Generation.” “Set course…for romance!” Shin quoted, doing such a perfect Patrick Stewart impersonation that Milo and I both laughed out loud.

Now for wrath, now for ruin and a red nightfall!

Besides, now I was thinking there just might be a God after all—that would explain who was currently fucking with my whole notion of reality.

Nebraska,” I said. “What’s in Nebraska?” “A top-secret Earth Defense Alliance base.

humans were still just a bunch of bipedal apes, divided into arbitrary tribes that were constantly at war over their ruined planet’s dwindling natural resources.

As dazed as I was, I still remembered to say I was from Portland instead of Beaverton, to avoid sounding like a hick—or having to endure any beaver-related attempts at humor.

There’s no way they weren’t aware that we were watching them. They wanted us to see! It was like they were running a nonstop, year-round episode of How It’s Made by Aliens.

Ray was in his usual spot behind the counter, hunched over “Big Bootay,” his ancient overclocked gaming PC.

People who were cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs, that’s who. Cats with a serious marble deficiency.

You're welcome.

If we don’t end war, war will end us. —H. G. Wells

That was a giant ball of fail. What now?

he appeared to have run out of shits to give sometime in the previous century. Today,

Someone had keyed my car.

You promised to consider going to college to study how to make videogames, like Mike Cruz is planning to do?

Like nearly every race of evil alien invaders in the history of science fiction, the Sobrukai were somehow technologically advanced enough to construct huge warships capable of crossing interstellar space, and yet still not smart enough to terraform a lifeless world to suit their needs, instead of going through the huge hassle of trying to conquer one that was already inhabited—especially one inhabited by billions of nuke-wielding apes who generally don’t cotton to strangers being on their land.

I’ll still be sitting on my ass all day, five blocks from where I graduated, working the same crappy retail job I had when I was sixteen?” I finished for her. “Exactly.” I tried to look hurt. “I find your lack of faith disturbing.

Arbogast had then assembled a dream team of creative consultants and contractors to help make his bold claim a reality, luring some of the videogame industry’s brightest stars away from their own companies and projects, with the sole promise of collaborating on his groundbreaking new MMOs. That was how gaming legends like Chris Roberts, Richard Garriott, Hidetaka Miyazaki, Gabe Newell, and Shigeru Miyamoto had all wound up as consultants on both Terra Firma and Armada—along with several big Hollywood filmmakers, including James Cameron, who had contributed to the EDA’s realistic ship and mech designs, and Peter Jackson, whose Weta Workshop had rendered all of the in-game cinematics.

Several paragraphs of dense text began to scroll across the screen, an unreadable blur of legalese outlining all the details of enlistment. It would have taken hours to read it all, and then I still probably wouldn’t have understood a word of it.

And I was just there, less than an hour ago, debugging subroutines in my cubicle, when a motherfucking Earth Defense Alliance shuttle suddenly shows up and lands right outside my office building! I figured I must be losing it. Now I’m not sure what to think.

I spent a few more minutes puzzling over the timeline before turning my attention to the notebook’s first page, which contained a pencil drawing of an old-school coin-operated arcade game—one I didn’t recognize. Its control panel featured a single joystick and one unlabeled white button, and its cabinet was entirely black, with no side art or other markings anywhere on it, save for the game’s strange title, which was printed in all capital green letters across its jet black marquee: POLYBIUS. Below his drawing of the game, my father had made the following notations: No copyright or manufacturer info anywhere on game cabinet. Reportedly only seen for 1–2 weeks in July 1981 at MGP. Gameplay was similar to Tempest. Vector graphics. Ten levels? Higher levels caused players to have seizures, hallucinations, and nightmares. In some cases, subject committed murder and/or suicide. “Men in Black” would download scores from the game each night. Possible early military prototype created to train gamers for war? Created by same covert op behind Bradley Trainer?

Lila!” she said, wincing again. “Such language, honey! Your parents don’t let you swear like that around them, do they?” Whoadie folded her arms. “Well, no, they didn’t used to,” she said. “But they both died in a hurricane when I was little, so now I get to say whatever the fuck I want.

As I watched them embrace, there on the front lawn, my heart was rocked by waves of unbridled joy. It occurred to me that up until this moment I'd only ever experienced the bridled kind. Having the reins slipped off my heart after a lifetime of wearing them was a bit overwhelming - in the best possible way

Your love of the halflings’ leaf has clearly slowed your mind,’ ” he quoted. “Sting was an Elvish blade, forged in Gondolin in the First Age! It could cut through almost anything! And its blade only glowed when it detected the presence of orcs or goblins nearby. What does Mjolnir detect? Fake accents and frosted hair?

Busted,” I said, raising my hands in a gesture of guilt. “That’s what you get

Admittedly, all the time I’d had to devote to the game had shaved a full point off my grade average, and it had probably cost me my relationship with Ellen, too.

you’ll be flying a cargo plane full of rubber dog shit out of Hong Kong.

tried to keep my cool. I tried to remain skeptical. I reminded myself that I was a man of science, even if I did usually get a C in it.

flash of silver as the craft streaked laterally

The sorts of movies my late father had been nuts about.

Cats with a serious marble deficiency.

All I’d eaten that morning was a raw strawberry Pop-Tart I’d wolfed down in my car on the way to school—and

I unclenched them. Then I glanced back at Ellen, to see if she was watching all of this. She was staring at Casey with a helpless expression, and her eyes were filled with pity.

CHRONOLOGY

I clearly had a few daddy issues myself, but you didn’t see me pulling the wings off of flies. On the other hand, I did have a slight anger-management problem, and a related history of physical violence, both well documented by the public school system. And, oh yeah, that whole “hallucinating alien spacecraft from my favorite videogame” thing. So perhaps I wasn’t in the best position to judge the sanity of others.

about his origins from the holographic ghost of his own long-dead father. But now I was thinking of a young Jedi-in-training named Luke Skywalker, looking into the mouth of that cave on Dagobah while Master Yoda told him about today’s activity lesson: Strong with the Dark Side of the Force that place is. In you must go, mofo. So in I went. When I unlocked the front door of our house and stepped into the living room, Muffit, our ancient beagle, glanced up at me sleepily from where he was stretched out on the rug. A few years earlier he would have been waiting for me just inside the door, yapping like a madman. But the poor guy had now grown so old and deaf that my arrival barely

I found myself wondering how the Empire had the technology to make long-distance holographic phone calls between planets light-years apart, and yet no one had figured out how to make a remote-controlled TIE Fighter or X-Wing yet.

Shin told me that the EDA spent decades engineering a special strain of weed that helps people focus and enhances their ability to play videogames! Once they had it perfected, that was when the government finally started legalizing it in the States.” He raised his arms in victory. “This ganja is part of the war effort! I love it!” He broke into song, and Shin immediately joined him. “ ‘America. Fuck yeah. Comin’ to save the motherfuckin’ day, yeah!’ ” They broke up into another laughing fit.

You see, ever since the first day of kindergarten, I had been hoping and waiting for some mind-blowingly fantastic, world-altering event to finally shatter the endless monotony of my public education. I had spent hundreds of hours gazing out at the calm, conquered suburban landscape surrounding my school, silently yearning for the outbreak of a zombie apocalypse, a freak accident that would give me super powers, or perhaps the sudden appearance of a band of time-traveling kleptomaniac dwarves. I

I just turned sixteen last week,” she said. “But I don’t have my license yet.” “You sound like you’re from New Orleans,” Debbie told her, doing her best to pronounce it N’Awlins. Whoadie nodded. “I live in the Ninth Ward,” she said. “That’s actually where my nickname comes from. Whoadie is how the locals say wardie. That’s a person who lives in the same ward as you,” she explained. “My parents called me Whoadie ever since I was a baby. I didn’t always like it, because there were some boys at school used to call me Whoadie the Toadie all the time. But then I punched their fucking lights out and they stopped.