The Last Colony (Old Man's War, #3)

by John Scalzi

“Look at our civilizations,” Gau said. “We’re all the same size because we limit each other through war. We’re all at the same level of technology, because we bargain, trade and steal from each other. We all inhabit the same area of space because that is where we began, and we choose to control our colonies rather than let them develop without us. We fight over the same planets and only occasionally explore to find new ones, which we all then squabble over like carrion animals fighting over a carcass. Our civilizations are at an equilibrium, Administrator Perry. An artificial equilibrium that is sliding all of us toward entropy.