Causus Belli

casus belli: an event or action that justifies or allegedly justifies a war or conflict.

Mirriam-Webster Online

Since I joined The Tuskers we've been on the receiving end of a handful of war declarations. Every time we get one of these mails the whole corporation's overwhelming response is puzzlement. Why are people spending their hard-earned ISK declaring war on a bunch of outlaws. They can already engage us at will and we can only return fire on targets that aggress us. And that means individually too. If I'm shot at Ka Jolo can't come to my aid until they shoot him too.

So why do people declare war on us? When I posted about our first war declaration one of the Dark Sun Collective replied to the comment saying that they'd done it so that we could engage their camps in our smaller ships. That's fair enough. Wars aren't all that expensive and it must be pretty dull watching cruisers and frigates move through your camps without engaging.

Most of our wars have passed by without explanation. We were dec'd by Army of One after Ka Jolo and Kor Anon ganked Kessiaan's Ishkur but we haven't seen hide nor hair of him since then and the war dropped quietly when CONCORD stopped being paid. We've had a couple of others like this as well with no attempt to actually engage us. Maybe the plan is to disrupt our high sec logistics but because we're all outlaws we all have friends who do this for us and they're not members of The Tuskers.

Our latest war is with Major Engagement. About a week ago CONCORD sanctioned hostilities between our two corporations but most of that week passed very quietly. The war was declared after another gank. This time it was Errica21's Megathron in Jovainnon. Errica is the CEO of Major Engagement and the war was declared very shortly after this. Since then we've seen very little of them. Before the war became active a handful of them ran into Toady's Vexor but other than that it's been all quiet on the western front.

Last night we were finally able to stir up the hornet's nest a little bit and get some action. We discovered sizeable numbers of war targets in Old Man Star but didn't have the right ships to take them on so mostly stayed out of their way. If we fight them it'll be on our turns. Later on a gatecamp was reported in Meutralle. It seems Major Engagement were trying to camp us into Hevrice using a pair of Deimoses and a couple of other ships that escape my memory. With the intel reported we acted accordingly and carried about our business, aware of the threat next door.

Eventually they sent a Wolf to tackle outside our headquarters. At first he tried to engage PreZidenT's Thorax but PreZ smelt a trap and docked up without returning fire. I, however, like traps. I like springing them. I like sneaking kills while a support fleet watches helplessly. I undocked my Rupture and began to beat on the Wolf. PreZ quickly joined me and we taught him not to venture so far from his support fleet. As his reinforcements were landing I squished his pod and warped away.

Unable to catch our smaller ships, Major Engagement dispersed and went about their business while we continued ours.

So all of this begs the question. Why have they gone to war with us? Without the war PreZ and I would have had to be much more tactical about killing the Wolf but with the declaration in action we could seize the upper hand and kill him before his fleet could save him. Maybe they are just looking for fun fights. It doesn't matter either way to us. We'll just carry on doing what we do best.