Ed Ranks Fictional Seafood Wars

Allergy Warning: This ranking contains pictures of fish.

Do you remember those news stories last summer about the "Scallop War?" No? Well, go ahead and click these hyperlinks that I conveniently just included in this ranking for you.

Have you read them yet?

If not, read them. You'll need them for context.

Is your context acquired?

Great! Either way, even if you didn't read it. Because who cares if you read it anyway! Here are 20 other seafood wars that happened throughout history, with the slight qualification that I'm making them all up on the spot and none of these events actually happened.

20. Salmon Battle (2008) - This one just involved a couple of Oregon rednecks on the Columbia River who went done and got a couple of black bears to fight one another over a wheelbarrow full of delicious salmon. That is until officers from the Oregon State Office for the US Fish and Wildlife Service showed up and broke the whole thing up. So this one is pretty anticlimactic, really.

19. Mako Strike (2004) - After the initially successful use of the U.S. Navy Marine Mammal Program (NMMP) in deactivating antiship mines and booby traps set up in Iraq, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Vern Clark approved the creation of a team of mako sharks to be an elite attack force. After launching one strike against the insurgent Iraqi forces, the program was abandoned because mako sharks are crazy as hell and don't listen to orders. Hasn't anyone seen deep blue sea?

18. Mussel Massacre of 2008 - After a heated debate between representatives from Belgium and New Zealand, each claiming their mussels to be more delicious, a Maori delegate to the UN snaps and kills 26 Belgian diplomats. Belgium does nothing about it because, honestly, does anyone at all fear being attacked by fucking Belgium?

Darius the Great.

17. Oyster Assault, 490 BC  - In the definitive battle of the first Persian Invasion of Greece, King Darius I is devastated when Miltiades the Younger of Athens lunges 4,000 tons of oysters at his army. Needless to say, the Persians retreated because those oyster shells have really sharp edges.

16. Skirmish of Char (2005) - In the FUTURISTIC YEAR of 2005, the Decepticons have retreated from Cybertron and now live on the rocky planet Charr. Wanting to defeat the Decepticons once and for all, the Autobots decide to launch an assault on Charr. Unfortunately, Optimus Prime decides that fucking WARPATH gets to lead the assault. POW! Needless to say, Warpath is a moron. KAPLAM! Instead of attacking the planet Charr, Warpath accidentally attacks char, the genus of salmonid fish known in Latin as Salvelinus, although commonly referred to commercial as "trout."  ZANG! KABLAM-O! The Deceptions therefore escape and we get Season 3 of Transformers.

15. Lobster Crusade of 1192 - Following his treaty with Saladin and guaranteeing the free passage of Christians to Jerusalem, ending the Third Crusade, King Richard I (aka Lionheart) was super psyched to go back home to England. Do you know what else he was psyched to do? Tell those fucking assholes in Maine that their lobster is bullshit and only tastes good after a ton of butter is drenched all over it. Richard immediately declared war on Maine, a territory that England would not itself definitely control for another 571 years (the end of the French and Indian War). Richard was always ahead of his time. But before he could sail across the Atlantic in an unprecedented move that English sailors were not yet capable of doing, Richard would be captured by Leopold V, Duke of Austria and held for ransom until Michaelmas of 1194. Thus ended the abortive Lobster Crusade of 1192.

14. Kipper Carnage of 1991 - On March 15, 1991, the day after the airing of "Dimension Jump" (episode five of Series IV of the British sci-fi comedy Red Dwarf), an obsessed fan named Oliver Smith (which is, like, the most English name ever), goes around smacking everyone in the rural village of Wapley, South Gloucestershire, with kippers (smoked herring). After smacking dozens of people in the head with kippers, he's eventually arrested and sentenced to die. That's right. The punishment for smacking someone in the head with a kipper in Wapley in 1991 was death. I dare you to dedicate enough time to research that to figure out if it's true or not. Which it's not. Because the title of this ranking specifically says "fictional," and to further clarify, in the introduction I also stated, "I'm making these all up on the spot and none of these events actually happened."

13. Crab Clash of 1815 - The 16th Brigade of Prussian Field Marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher decimates the resurgent forces of Napoleon at Waterloo by sending a bunch of snippy-snappy crabs into the French Imperial Guard's camp. The crabs, obviously, pinch all of the Frenchmen who throw up white flags and surrender because being pinched by crabs is super painful and shit.

Diocletian's Palace, where the deadly assault occurred.

12. Dalmatian Calamari Fray of 305 - After Roman Emperor Diocletian abdicated the throne and retired to his palace on the Dalmatian coast (modern day Split, Croatia) in 305, he was expecting asome peace and quiet at last. But that wasn't to be the case, as Constantine was furious that Valerius Severus was declared as the new emperor instead of himself. In jealousy, Constantine sent agents to poison all of the calamari being served at Diocletian's Palace. Little did Constantine know that Diocletian thought that calamari tasted like "rubbery horse ass," and he didn't eat any of it. While many of Diocletian's advisors died, he remained safe himself and lived for several more years.

11. Tuna Onslaught of 1967 - Initially when Aquaman heard that there was a group called the "Awesome Threesome," he was super psyched and wanted to check it out. But then he learned that it was a group of robotic villains that wanted to attack Atlantis, and he was less happy. Fortunately, Aquaman can talk to fish and stuff like that, so he ordered a bunch of Atlantic Bluefin Tuna (which can weigh over 800 pounds!!!) to crash themselves into the trio of evil robots. Needless to say, there is only so much damage that even metal robots can take after they've been repeatedly bashed up by massive, 800+ pound tuna. The Awesome Threesome was never seen again.

This ceviche is from Peru. If you care.

10. Ceviche Scrimmage, 2015 - In a contest hosted by Colombian chef Eduardo Martinez (leader of the “nuevo Colombiano” cuisine revolution and owner of Mini-mal restaurant in Bogota), famous rival chefs from Peru and Chile faced off to see who could make the tastiest ceviche in South America. The end result is NOBODY CARES because this isn't a damn food blog. Do you want to read a food blog instead? Here you go: Beer & Pork Belly is the best food blog in the world. Ever. Enjoy it.

9.  Fight for Shrimp (2018) - When the Red Lobster in Twelve Oaks Mall (Novi, Michigan) opened for business on Saturday, November 17, 2018, a very fat man name Gary came up and asked if they still has the "Endless Shrimp" deal going on. Now, times are really hard for restaurants these days with the economy and all. So the person working at the front was like, "No, sorry." They could tell this fatass would suck them dry.  But Gary had just seen the commercials and wanted that endless shrimp. They again refused him, citing that Twelves Oaks Mall had just increased their rent, and the local franchise owner had recently taken a pretty big financial hit with all his stock in Sears and everything. Furious, Gary took his fight to court and sued Red Lobster. Usually these things take years to settle themselves out in court, but this one went straight to the Supreme Court when Brett Kavanaugh saw that Gary had a pretty hot lawyer that maybe he could expose his penis to her and sexually assault her while drunk. After arguments from both sides, the Supreme Court decided that Red Lobster can't deny someone unlimited shrimp just because they are SUPER fat. I'm not sure how I feel about that, because I can feel both sides of the argument, ya know.

8. Sashimi Barrage (1904) - When Captain Hikojirō Ijichi of the Japanese pre-dreadnaught battleship Mikasa engaged with Russian Naval forces at Port Arthur in 1904, he ran out of ammunition for his 8-inch guns. Not wanting to appear foolish in front of Admiral Tōgō Heihachirō, he loaded up all his crew's sashimi rations are fired them at the Russians. It was largely ineffective with the Russians simply saying, "Eww, what is this? Raw fish? Nasty!" Although one Russian Commander slipped on some eel, smashed his head against a pipe, and died. So that was pretty cool.

7. Flounder Bombing (1975) - in January of 1975, an explosion at the U.S. State Department headquarters in Washington, DC destroyed nearly two dozen offices on three different floors. Luckily, nobody was killed in the attack, which the domestic terrorist organization "Weather Underground" took credit for (this was before they decided to change their ways and create a website to tell people the weather). When FBI forensic analysts reconstructed the bomb, they discovered that the bomb was 100% made out of flounder. Yep. The wires? Flounder wires. The dynamite? Flounder dynamite. It doesn't seem to make any sense, does it? But that's what they found. A flounder bomb.

Seriously though, it's better than clam chowder.

6. Cullen Skink Attack of 2006 - One day in 2006, an American tourist walked into a pub in Glasgow and ordered a bowl of cullen skink. He had it and said to the waiter, "This is okay, but I don't think it's as good as New England Clam Chowder." The waiter immediately threw the scalding hot bowl of cullen skink into the man's face and beat him so harshly that the man needed to be taken to the hospital. Strathclyde Police investigated and almost arrested the waiter until they learned the story of what happened. After which, the Strathclyde Policeman ALSO punched the American tourist in the face and simply said, "Welcome to Glasgow, bitch!" The American tourist was deported and both the waiter and the policemen were knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. 

5. [Classified] - Sorry, the CIA made me remove this ranking. It's apparently still classified until 2037. It involved a bunch of mackerel, Ronald Reagan, and the Sandinista National Liberation Front. I dare not say any more.

4. The Great Amberjack Strife of 1892 - As anyone who has read Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" knows, working conditions in factories in the late 19th century weren't pretty. The workers at the Swift & Company slaughterhouse in Fort Worth, TX had it no different than anyone else, but at least they were given some tasty amberjack as part of their work rations at lunchtime. Honestly, these guys were seeing and slaughtering cattle all day and got pretty tired of eating beef. And since Gustavus Swift had built a global empire on refrigerated container cars, it was pretty easy for him to source fish from the coasts for delivery to his workers in the middle of Texas. But when Swift & Company cut the amberjack rations in half, the slaughterhouse workers went on strike. Swift attempted to hire scabs to cross the picket line, but threats from the picketing workers largely scared them all off. President Benjamin Harrison almost intervened by sending the military down to Fort Worth to bust the strike, but held off in fear of lowering his already poor poll numbers in Texas (which was firmly behind former President Cleveland in the upcoming Presidential Election of 1892). Finally, Swift & Co. relented and restored the workers' amberjack rations to their initial level.

3. Perch Blitzkrieg (1940) - Beginning in May 1940, the Germans launched a six-week assault on France and the low countries in what would become known as the "Battle of France" or the "Fall of France." While Hitler's tactics in the invasion of France after his forces crossed the Maginot Line differed somewhat from his earlier invasion of Poland, no German strategy was stranger and more confusing than his "Perch Blitzkrieg," in which the Germans attacked French forces with millions and millions of perch. The French, of course, simply took the delicious fish and made Perch á la Meuniér.

2. Paella Sortie of 1668 - After years of conflict there was still no end in sight to the devastating war of Portuguese Restoration. Finally, António Luís de Meneses, 1st Marquess of Marialva (and General in the Portuguese Army) challenged John of Austria the Younger (General and bastard son to King Philip IV of Spain) to a Paella cook-off that would determine: A) which country had the best paella, and B) the independence or continued subjugation of Portugal the Spanish crown. Well, Portugal is a country today, so you can pretty much figure out that António won the sortie.

RIP Steve. We miss you.

1. Barramundi Conflict (2002) - When the government of Australia learned in 2002 that the Tri Marine International seafood company had been mislabeling Nile Perch as "Barramundi" for sale in the United States, it initially tried to respond to the offense with words. Once Tri Marine International responded negatively to Australia's complaints, and indicated that it would continue to sell their shitty gutterfish perch that way, Australia had no choice but to send in their most valuable operative, Steve Irwin, to kick the shit out of Tri Marine's CEO. Once ol' Steve-o had their CEO tied up in ropes and being slowly lowered into a pit of hungry crocs, the CEO relented and promised that only the (sustainably-sourced) Pacific species Lates calcarifer would be sold under the name "Barrimundi" in the future.