Why Should An Interstellar Civilization Be Unstable?

 

The Peregrine.

See:

In The Stellar Union Period

I set out to summarize Trevelyan's account of the Stellar Union but found that I had already done it. He says that cross-purposes have clashed and that this has:

"'...meant annihilation.'" (CHAPTER XII, p. 105)

But why? Each home planet of an intelligent species must be economically self-sufficient. Trevelyan states that there are no strong economic ties with colony planets. Apparently he has said somewhere, on- or off-stage:

"'...that there was no reason for interstellar empire...'" (CHAPTER XVIII, p. 159)

- although he then makes a single exception, as a defence against ideological attack.

But surely space is big enough for starfaring races to bypass each other or to communicate, at most, at a distance? What purposes would clash? Let alone seriously enough to mean annihilation? This requires further elucidation.

I think that there would be not one civilization, not many, and that, if one went under, others would not.