The Elephant War or Ankle-Biter War was a small war that was initially between two alliances, the definitely larger and much more powerful alliance, the Independent Republic of Orange Nations, and the small, pseudo-religious alliance, the United Mahouts of Epicaricacy, or UME, who claimed to be the elite servers of their god UTOPOS. UME officially declared war on the CN forums on January 25, and most of its 11 members began declaring on as many members within their range as possible. The reason for their war was, in the declaration on the CN forums, that IRON "scoffed at the seven tenets of the way of the mahout...they did not meet our alms for the grand mahout". They claimed the following excerpt from IRC to be proof: