They will tell you that conflicts are decided by power.
They will claim that the stronger Civilization crushes the weaker, that superior technique overwhelms inferior methodology, that the being with greater authority inevitably triumphs over the being with less. They will point to battlefields littered with the dissolved foundations of the defeated and declare that strength alone determined the outcome.
They are wrong.
Power is merely the currency through which conflict is conducted. It is not the conflict itself.
Two beings of identical strength can clash, and one will still fall while the other stands. Two Civilizations of equal scope can war across eons, and one will still crumble while the other endures. If power alone decided outcomes, every conflict between equals would end in mutual annihilation.
Yet they do not.
