Growth & expansion

"Nations who are aware of your presence, who are not intervening in your world, will respect your sphere of influence if it is established within this solar system alone. But beyond that, any intrusions into space or into the territories or worlds governed or owned by others will be intensely resisted. You have boundaries and constraints now, and these are new to your experience, for you have been growing and expanding for so very long. But there are limits to this. Your world will limit you, and the Greater Community will limit you.... Your notions of growth and expansion, therefore, will have to change. For you cannot plunder the Earth without bringing yourself to a devastated state, a state that can be easily taken over by others in the universe. While outright conquest of your world is not permitted in this region of space, other nations are free to intervene under two conditions: first, if the native peoples of your world appear to others to welcome intervention and to not resist it; and, second, if humanity were to fall into a truly deprived and declined state. Under the second set of circumstances, other nations would be free to come and take the world for themselves, using humanity as a resource for their own ends."