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The "Birds" vs. "Burbs" nickname confusion between the Long Beach Flightless Birds and Salt Lake Turbulence boiled over into a full-blown psychological conflict during the Toroidal Cup era, inadvertently sparked by the radio announcer for the Elko Astronauts , Mission Control - a cold and detached chorus of engineers making observations on ongoing matches. In an inadvertent mixup, Mission Control began to refer to the Turbulence as the "Birds" (rather than the "Burbs"), and refer the Flightless Birds as the "Burbs" (rather than the "Birds").

The irony of the mix-up was particularly delicious because of how cold and clinical the incorrect nicknames were as Mission Control called the games. Clips of the mixed-up nicknames made the rounds on social media and went viral. The two teams had very different reactions to the whole affair:

• The Long Beach Flightless Birds found it hilarious, leaning into the absurdity and irony of the nickname. Fans began to show up to matches with lawn chairs, plastic flamingos, and portable ovens for baking apple pies, mocking the idea of their dense industrial port city having a suburban core.

• The Salt Lake Turbulence were incensed by the mix-up, which they considered a case of stolen identity. That their stolen identity was handed to their chaotic, jobless, and beach-dwelling rivals was an unbearable insult. In the leadup to the Toroidal/Season 11 LCS (the first half of the DPRR), the Burbs announced the start of the War of the Suburbs, dramatically increasing the stakes of the LCS faceoff.