Can Fallen Empires declare war without awakening?

[Sgt. Sarge]

I know they can declare war as a sort of punishment but I never expected them to eradicate a potential crisis

Basically the holy guardians spawned right next to determined exterminators and 100 years before late game the fallen empire declared war, does this actually happen or is my game bugged

[Scibro]

If they settled a holy world, they will
I think if they chose the crisis perk I think the will also destroy them(emphasis on think)
They can become robots, and they will destroy them.

[Sabaithal]

Under certain circumstances, yes. But they will generally warn you before this occurs.
- Militant isolationists - Will declare war if you expand your territory too close to theirs.
- Enigmatic observers - Will declare war if you commit too many genocides
- Holy guardians - Will declare war if you settle (or blow up) one of their holy worlds
- Machine empire - Refuse too many of their requests, then found a colony after they warn you not to

Keepers of knowledge give you warnings but I don't think they ever declare war on you for anything.

[ShinZed]

Yeah it happens. I pretty much only play as rogue defence systems so I get threatened with war on the regular. The upside is that you can just tell the fallen empire "Sorry, won't happen again, pinky swear!" and they leave you alone.
The humiliated debuff is basically nothing to machine empires.

Sometimes AI determined exterminators get wardecced though because they tell the fallen empire to screw off.

[Geoff]

Originally posted by Sgt. Sarge:

Basically the holy guardians spawned right next to determined exterminators and 100 years before late game the fallen empire declared war, does this actually happen or is my game bugged

In my experience, driven assimilators, fanatic purifiers, and devouring swarms do not get along well with Fallen Empires. If you let them grow of their own accord, they usually get warred on when they get near a Fallen Empire, who then shatters their fleets, allowing other AI neighbors to swoop in and grab the territory. The Fallen Empires are the likeliest thing to bring down a galactic threat if the player chooses not to.

[Xaphnir]

Originally posted by Sabaithal:

- Enigmatic observers - Will declare war if you commit too many genocides

This was removed from the game a long time ago.

Originally posted by Sabaithal:

- Machine empire - Refuse too many of their requests, then found a colony after they warn you not to

The machine FE will never declare war unless they are awakened by the Contingency.

Any FE (besides the machine empire FE) may declare war on you if you anger them (their opinion of you falls below -200), with wargoals specific to their ethic.

[PackieTackie]

at higher difficulties like commodore dormant FEs wage war with regular AIs almost every game, most likely because the AI are strong enough to dare colonizing worlds just outside of the FEs borders