All instances of particle emitter prefab are emitting when emit=true

I'm not quite sure why I'm having this problem, I've created a particle effect which I saved as a prefab, then instantiated and set emit=false.

When needed, I set emit=true on the emitter attached to the gameobject and ALL the instance of the emitter attached to other objects begin to emit as well.

Declarations:

 public ParticleEmitter explosions;
 
 ParticleEmitter combatMarker;

Instantiation:

 combatMarker = (ParticleEmitter)Instantiate(explosions, transform.position, transform.rotation);
         combatMarker.emit = false;
         combatMarker.transform.parent = this.gameObject.transform;
         combatMarker.name = this.gameObject.name + " combatMarker";

Emit checks and assignment

 if (localFleets.Count > 1)
         {
             if (isFighting)
             {
                 Fleet.Battle(localFleets);
                 combatMarker.emit = false;
                 isFighting = false;
             }
             else
             {
                 combatMarker.emit = true;
                 isFighting = true;
             }
         }

This is beyond frustrating...I've done scripts that use particles as projectiles without issue, but this is giving me an all-star headache. Any insight is appreciated.

Has anyone else had something similar to this happen? I'd love to know how you fixed it.

Thanks in advance.