Escalation

"This is completely unacceptable."

"Yes, sir.  I understand, sir."

"No, you clearly don't, or you'd never have let it get this far in the first place."

"Yes, sir, I--"

"Our peace is founded on the status quo!  The good of ourselves, the good of our 'clients', and the good of the galaxy, the status quo is the ONLY way to preserve them with those two Forces constantly trying to rip each other apart!"

"Yes, sir."

"For a knife, a knife.  For a blaster, a blaster.  For a robot, a robot.  High numbers with low technology countered with low numbers and high technology.  Lightsabers, Force Sensitives, starships--the components and proportions don't even matter!  They don't matter, do you hear me?  All that matters is there be BALANCE!  Enough of a challenge that neither side can make much headway and all their effort goes into shifting the lines a little!  Now, tell me how you were possibly able to let things get to this sorry state!"

"Well..."

---

It had started out normally.  One of the gang alliances in a small town on an insignificant planet had started gaining ground against the other.

This was a common occurrence, and the local manager had called for some more equipment to sell to the weaker side.  But, before the shipment could even arrive--

"--we think there was some family relationship.  An entire mercenary troop armed with blasters flew in from the other side of the country."

It had been a massacre.  Hopelessly outgunned, the stronger gang alliance had been wiped out overnight, and the town was thrown into chaos.  Within a week, the entire county had been suppressed, and the mercenaries were preparing to leave while overseeing the transfer of power.  The county manager had been frantically coordinating with the town manager how to ease a balancing force back in once they left, but--"

"--all the organisations had too many connections.  The neighbouring country which had been getting intelligence from those gangs took it as an insult, and they sent in the border army--"

Another massacre, robots sweeping through and gunning down the mercenaries.  More chaos, more homes and lives destroyed.  A huge chunk of the country taken out, the unprepared defense army and country-level managers hastening to respond, but--

"--this time one of the larger countries stepped in to 'help', Force Sensitives dropped down and smashing through both countries' forces, annexing them and a few smaller countries as well before the news had even reached me--"

Instead of waiting for a balance with the other countries, opposing forces of more-developed nearby planet had delivered an orbital bombardment, laying claim to the entire planet.

Instead of waiting for the other planets to back a resistance, a neighbouring solar system had unleashed a massive armada to take over all the solar system's planets.

Instead of waiting for other solar systems to take action, a neighbouring constellation had swept in to...  you get the idea.

The armada had been destroyed by Death Stars which exploded planets.  The Death Stars had been destroyed by larger spacecraft which exploded stars.

"Escalating, escalating, they kept escalating!  At every turn, before our people could reestablish the balance higher-level reinforcements would come over from somewhere else!  Even if the two sides were balanced there, it barely changed their balance when stopping to crush flies until an even bigger force took offense and came for revenge!"

There had been no hot-blooded clashes, no grand battles that kept the people safe while exhausting both Dark and Light sides while filling the managers' coffers with their wealth.  Instead, at every stage, the superior forces had casually and tediously easily wiped out the inferior forces.

Every time, the prior brutal escalation had been used to justify future brutal escalation, and the balanced forces that the managers had carefully arranged had begun annihilating each other in a bloody war of mutual destruction.

So...

"...So, what do we do, sir?"

---

Whitened knuckles unclenched themselves through force of will.  "I see the problem, and I also see YOUR problem.  You lack imagination.  The galaxy requires balance!  At each step you tried to balance things with forces on near the same level, which was useless against escalation!  Weaker forces would be even more useless!  When I put it like this, can you see the only option left?"

"Arrange a force to balance the next level of escalation?  But sir, the prediction difficulty--"

"No.  No, there's no need to /match/ the reported forces anymore in this sorry pile of chaos.  No.  Get the highest-level technology and forces we have, equal amounts, and send them in on /both sides/.  This insignificant escalatino will will be flattened back to a level plane, and then we'll have stalemate again.  Setting up the low-level stalements to bleed off money and energy can be carried out while we dial down the top-level balance's intensity."

"...Sir."

"Go.  Who knows who's going to stick their necks into this situation next."

"I--yes, but--I--sir--sir, that will--the cost, the people--sir!"

"If you have something to say, then spit it out.  Otherwise, go!"

"I--it's just--sir--sir, this harms ourselves!  This harms the two sides!  This harms the people of the galaxy!  Sir, if we do this, aren't you afraid they'll both turn on US!?"

"Don't forget our position!  With every conflict in this galaxy holding ties to the Dark and Light sides, with the natural balancing force we've seen, if we didn't mediate the conflict into stalemates then waves of supremacy would have swept back and forth the galaxy and wiped out civilisation ten times over!  Nobody knows what we're watching!  Nobody knows what we're doing!  Nobody knows what we're protecting!  Each side can only see the other, and it's only because we keep them locked in balance that the wars between them are kept at the level of 'interesting'!"