By Ernest Cline

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A clear image of the Glaive Fighter reappeared in my mind, cranking up the tension in my nerves a few more notches. I tried to calm them once again – this time by reminding myself of the Drake equation, and the Fermi paradox. 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. 

(Cline 2015, 10)

In Greek mythology, Phaeton, aka Phaethon, is an idiot kid who guilt trips his dad, the god Helios, into letting him take his sun chariot for a joy ride. Phaeton doesn’t even have his learner’s permit, so he promptly loses control of the sun, and Zeus has to smite him with a thunderbolt to prevent him from scorching the Earth.

(Cline 2015, 19)

“You said the EDA was formed over four decades ago. So we’ve known this alien invasion was coming for that long?”

He nodded. “Since the mid-seventies,” he said. “That was when the EDA first began using certain elements of pop culture to subliminally prepare the world’s population for the invasion. That’s why the EDA secretly poured billions into the fledgling video game industry back then – they recognized its potential military training applications.” He smiled. “They helped get Star Wars made back in 1977 for pretty much the same reason.”

(Cline 2015, 91)

Even humanity’s lack of concern for its rampant overpopulation problem now made a terrible kind of sense. What difference did it make if our planet was capable of supporting all seven billion of us in the long term when a far greater threat to our numbers was waiting in the wings? And despite the overwhelming odds, humanity had done what was necessary to ensure its own survival. It filled me with a strange new sense of pride in my own species. We weren’t a bunch of primitive monkeys teetering on the brink of self-destruction after all – this appeared to be an altogether different kind of destruction we were teetering on the brink of.

(Cline 2015, 101)

“Oh, yeah, of course,” Milo said, chuckling. “Just one question, church lady – in what part of the Bible did Jesus warn us about this alien invasion?” He glanced around the cabin at the rest of us for support. “Because I must have missed that verse!”

Debbie stared back at him, instantly livid. She opened her mouth, but his question seemed to have her so flustered that she didn’t know how to respond. 

Whoadie did, though. 

“ ‘And the fifth angel sounded,’ ” she recited, locking eyes with Milo, “ ‘and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit. And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace. … And the sun and the aire were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit.’ “

“What pit?” Milo asked. His smile was gone. “What are you talking about, kid?”

I’d been raised to believe there was no real difference between religion and mythology, but Whoadie’s words spooked me nevertheless. The verse she quoted conjured up a vivid memory of the cataclysmic fire and smoke roiling off the Crystal Palace blast doors as they buckled and warped under  a hail of alien laser fire.

“ ‘And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast,’ “ she said, “ ‘and they worshipped the beast, saying, who is like unto the beast? Who is able to make war with him?’ “

When she finished, everyone just stared at her for a moment.

(Cline 2015, 184-185)

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References

Cline, Ernest. 2015. Armada: A Novel. N.p.: Random House Publishing Group.

ISBN 978-0-8041-3725-6