Originally Posted by
sunofdarkchild
My idea is: Tim's father has moved him out of Gotham to get him as far away from Bruce, Batman, and Robin as possible. He still calls Steph from time to time, but since Batman cut her off she's completely alone in the field. The entire scenario is instigated by Balck Mask, with Steph playing no active part in starting the war. Black Mask is looking for a way to both take over the Gotham Underworld and to defeat Batman at the same time. He thinks Spoiler might be the weak link of the Batfamily, so he hires Scarab to tail her. Scarab sees Batman approach Spoiler. Bruce is only there to ask about how Tim is doing since he does care and is cut off now that Tim is out of Gotham, but Scarab and Black Mask take it as confirmation that Spoiler is working with Batman, and after following Steph home Scarab hacks her computer for Black Mask and finds fles from the brief period she was allowed to be in the batfamily. Steph was supposed to delete the files after she was cut off by Batman, but she couldn't do it.
After decrypting the files, Blaxk Mask realizes that while Batman has a contingency for many scenarios, he does not have a plan to deal with a sudden influx of super-weapons into Gotham, namely the 'tiastmakers' which were created by John Henry Irons before he became Steel. Batman had determined that the introduction of such a weapon into Gotham would cause an arms race among the gangs which would lead to an all-out war. Between the toastmakers being too expensive, too difficult to maintain and repair, and most gang-leaders in Gootham being more old-fashioned this has not been a problem before, but now that Black Mask knows what Batman knows he begins poring money into flooding Gotham with toastmakers, selling them to everyone at a huge loss. This is my explanation for how the gangwar got so bad - it was because all the gangs acquired a huge amount of these super-guns.
When the gangwar starts, Batman and the other vigilantes struggle to determine the source of the influx of toastmakers so they can end the war, but with the files he got from Steph's computer Black Mask knows how to keep his operations hidden. Spoiler tries to keep the peace in her neck of the woods, but during a fight with Scarab she learns how her computer was used to cause the war, and feeling responsible she goes after Black Mask. Because Batman had cut her off, she is unable to share with any of the bat-family what she knows and is forced to go herself to the facility where the toastmakers are being imported/produced. She causes enough chaos there to attract Batman and the others to the facility, but is fatally wounded just before they arrive. They are able to stop the influx of toastmakers, effectively bringing an end to the war since the weapons are so high maintenance and difficult to replace.
As she's dying, Steph apologizes for her carelessness causing the war, but Batman tells her that she did good and the last thing he says to her before she dies is that she saved the city. Batman realizes that he is more to blame than Steph, and that if he had treated her with more respect they could have have realized what was happening far sooner, prevented the war from getting so out of hand in the first place, and most of all she would not have had to die to stop it.