To combat "Miz's" growing influence, the Tallest assemble all the Invaders for a grand tournament, with Zim forcing his way in as well. Meanwhile, Team Save Earth take the repaired Spittle Runner for a ride, only to meet the Resisty.
- Cliffhanger: The chapter ends with the damaged Resisty ship, with Team Save Earth aboard, crash-landing on Conventia.
- Destination Defenestration: Purple has this done to an Advisor he's mad at in lieu of his usual Thrown Out the Airlock approach, since they're currently on a planet, not in a spaceship.
- Didn't Think This Through: While Tak talked the Tallest into giving her a chance at conquering Earth, she was never officially re-encoded as an actual Invader, meaning she's nearly barred from entering the tournament until the Tallest vouch for her. Similarly, it turns out that she's technically AWOL from her janitorial assignment, so she almost gets arrested for desertion.
- The Dreaded Dreadnought: This chapter introduces a new Irken battleship, the Dreadnut — and no, that's not a typo, it's a combination of Red and Purple's suggested names, Dreadnaught and Donut, respectfully — which is second only to the Massive in size and armament, and which is meant to act as a secondary flagship to the Armada. Command of it is being offered as the prize in the tournament.
- Gambit Pileup: The Tallest are hosting the tournament as a publicity stunt to turn the Irken public away from Miz's message, Zim is entering to both spite them and gain a propaganda coup for Miz, unknown to him the various NIO cells are working together to launch an attack on the tournament in Miz's name, and the allied Resisty and Team Save Earth are planning to launch an attack of their own.
- Insanity Immunity: As it turns out, Zim's defective, insane nature renders him immune to Darth’s Psychic Powers; the latter notes that just being near him is almost physically painful.
- Loophole Abuse: Zim gets into the tournament despite being banished by exploiting its Exact Words — the invitation was extended to "all current and former Invaders", and Zim was once encoded as an Invader before being stripped of his rank, so he technically counts.
- Multipart Episode
- La Résistance: The Resisty is introduced into the story.
- Shout-Out:
- Shloonktapooxis describes the readout of a screen warning of a missile approaching the Resisty's ship as "a red thingy and a green thingy".
- The appearance of the Dreadnut is based on the Blade Ship.
- Stealth Hi/Bye: Darth does this several times, first surprising the Tallest’s group when they arrive on Conventia, and then appearing behind Wiyn as she’s confronting Tak at the arena entrance.Wiyn: Stop doing that!
- Tournament Arc: The first part of one.
- We ARE Struggling Together: The NIO movement is shown to be suffering growing pains, in the form of clashes between the leaders of its various cells over the best means of carrying out their goals.
- Wham Episode: While Zim forces his way into the tournament, unaware that the New Irken Order is secretly planning to assault it, Team Save Earth meet the Resisty, whose ship crashes on Conventia with them all aboard after being shot down by the Irkens.
- "You!" Exclamation: Red's reaction to Zim showing up for the tournament.
