So, it’s War…?

This morning, Illyria’s largest and oldest Alliance, Harmless?, declared war on the second largest, Valar. Two smaller alliances, with somewhat belligerent leaders, had previously declared war on Valar. Since all of these have Confederations with other alliances, this could swiftly draw in more and more people, engulfing the world in a huge war.

For those without the patience to work out what’s going on here, there are several possible reasons:

1. Harmless? are jealous. Valar beat them in a tournament some months ago, and in a forum post earlier one of H?’s leaders said that they had been building up to this for some time, perhaps since that fateful tournament; on the other hand, this is so petty that it sounds unlikely.
2. It’s all the work of a few stroppy loud-mouths and belligerents. The leader of Persona Armoniosa has been talking up a crusade against Valar for  months, and Valar’s own leader tends to be quite firm in his negotiating. Presumably all of the alliance leaders who have declared wars had their reasons. But most of the rank and file (certainly most of the Valar and PA) have no idea at all why this has happened.
3. The Valar are evil bullies. The Valar have tended to include some aggressive players, so, while the assumption itself is massively exaggerated it is true that Valar members have ruffled feathers in the past and the alliance has had rotten PR.
4. The Valar have stupidly taken in blood-soaked refugees. This is my favored theory at the moment, and I may blog on this in more detail in future, but certainly it seems like Valar have made few friends by taking in players who were embroiled in their own battles at the time, thus drawing the Valar into existing conflicts, for example a limited set of battles with Curse of Wolves.
5. It’s all a conspiracy! There’s a bizarre message being circulated at the moment, purporting to be some weeks old and from one of the Eternal Champions, which makes it look like the whole situation is being orchestrated by a shadowy cabal of duplicitous players; but of course, the message could easily be a fake.
6. Several big players are bored. There is a war because there hasn’t been one for a while, and warlike players want to do something with their troops: Harmless?’s declaration of war on the forum cited “fun” as one of several motives.
7. All of the above, several of the above, or none of the above.