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When apparent stability disintegrates, people tend to give in to fear and depression, to need and greed. When no influence is strong enough to unify people, they divide. They struggle one against another, group against group, for survival, position, power. They remember old hates and generate new ones. They create chaos and nurture it. They kill, and kill, and kill, until they are exhausted and destroyed, or until they are conquered by outside forces, or until one of them becomes a leader most will follow or a tyrant most fear.

⁠— Octavia E. Butler