I figure there is an emergent behavior parasitical relationship where a subset of the population that benefit from pushing things to the edge of instability sometimes accidentally push things over the edge. We’ve not been able to reach a steady state symbiotic relationship due to the sheer size and duration of empires.

normal culture rot happening to any empire? Greens vs. Blues (byzantine), Guelph vs Ghibelline (HRE), etc.?

What factions had the pre-Suez brits?

[Edit: Joseph de Maistre has a most excellent rant about how the rot sets in first in the Universities, and then spreads to morals and national spirit and institutions — only he is writing in the early XIX about the doom which awaits Europe, what with these newfangled Republics and all...

Essai sur le Principe Générateur des Constitutions Politiques, ca. 1814

cf https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k57137914/f72.item.r=u... et seq]

That picture cracked me up. I was not expecting that. He looks bored, too, like he's watching Rings of Power.