Imperialism.
It was a word that carried weight across every corner of Observable Existence, even if most entities never consciously recognized it for what it was.
At its core, imperialism was simple. It was the extension of power beyond one's original boundaries. The reaching out of influence to encompass that which did not originally belong to you. The transformation of the foreign into the familiar, the independent into the dependent, the free into the claimed.
Many viewed imperialism through a narrow lens of morality, as if it were simply good or evil, justified or unjustified. But existence itself didn't operate on such clean distinctions. The truth was far more uncomfortable.
Nearly every force of power utilized imperialism.
If you had power, you were a colonizer.
