Octarians as a species were nearly wiped out by Inklings and forced to live underground and are still being hunted down to this day by an insane war veteran who indoctrinates 14 year olds

Everything Octavio did was in direct retaliation to Cuttlefish's barrages of attacks
Stealing the zapfish is heavily implied to have been an act of desparation, you can literally hear their society collapsing without any sources of energy

Because their population is so weak from constant attacks they're easy targets for outside forces like the deep sea metro and commander tartar

The Inklings won the turf war but for the Octarians it never ended

Anyways the squid v octo splatfest was fuckin rigged thanks for coming to my tedtalk