Some perspective:
I’ve maintained again and again around the web that the incessant chatter about which overlord will come to dominate which, when, and how, is more about the chatterati than it is about reality.
Reality, is resources. The finite resources this planet has to prop up all this madness. Energy, minerals, and water. It can’t go on. So, the imperials will have a war to control what’s left.
But, the thing is, everyone but the imperials hates the imperials. And, the imperials don’t have the energy to fight both the other imperials, and their own domestics at the same time. Once the war begins, it’s the end of the imperials. They know this. It’s the only thing that stays their hands. They know their own domestics will tear them apart from within.
Socioculturally, it all comes back to sociopath theory. The war will be the trigger for the masses with morals to mob up and pull the sociopaths to the ground and trample them into the mud. Then, moral masses will once again build something worth having again from the wreckage.
The energy gets consolidated, and then bang. The energy gets released.
This is the way of the universe. We are not but stardust.
Hope this helps.