1: The Five on the Sixth
The fate of the human species is a huge matter of contention among the Five that is hotly debated to this day. Questions linger about whether humans were always doomed from the start, and whether an intervention could or should have been staged.
Some argue that the human species was always doomed to fail. They point to the nature of humans as being particularly materialistic and afflicted with greed, for the lack of a better term, and how this was a toxic vice to the continuation of a stable civilisation.
The vices of the other species in the Five however also seemed to be just as pronounced in magnitude, even if they weren't identical in nature. These vices however obviously didn't lead to the collapse of their civilisations, the permanent maiming of their species and the complete elimination of all the potential they had.
The Chromians for example were and still are infamous for their arrogance, racism and xenophobia, and took longer than even humans did to finally put aside their own internal racial and social prejudices. The Vilunians were and still are warlike and aggressive, quick to resort to violence to settle a dispute and capable of shocking acts of violence at times. To this day they are still confrontational and push the limits of the treaty they have with the other four species. These two in particular are put forward as an example of how nothing was inevitable about the human collapse, as the prideful nature of Chromians and wrathful nature of Vilunians is argued to have been just as toxic to civilisation as greed.
The counterpoint put forward however is that of the differences in intelligence and rationality between humans and early Chromians, Vilunians and such. The Five evolved on exceptionally challenging worlds where survival required a lot more cunning compared to the relatively safer, more stable and comfortable environments on Earth that humans had enjoyed. To illustrate the difference in both environmental factors and the resulting creatures that came from them, the Five arriving at Earth was like lions being released onto an ocean island with a population of Dodos. The large flightless birds, that had enjoyed few evolutionary pressures on their island habitat such as competing herbivores, food shortages, disasters or predators, had grown large and lost the ability of flight and as such would have stood little chance of surviving against a bigger, faster, stronger and cleverer apex predator from a substantially tougher environment.
It's argued that the higher level of intelligence required of the Five from their evolutionary past acted as a greater restraint on their self-destructive tendencies through: (1) a greater ability to comprehend large scale and long term issues, and so enabling them to take action on them sooner and more appropriately; (2) a better ability to reason and think through the consequences of complex problems, allowing them to be keenly aware of and better predict the results of either wrong action or inaction; (3) a greater ability to come up with solutions to problems that avoid having to come into conflict with their natures, and in doing so lessen the influence they have on their civilisation. Issues such as climate and environmental destruction, misinformation, and nuclear proliferation mixed with a return to warring nation states were handled successfully by the Five, whereas these issues brought down human civilisation.
But even if human nature overwhelming human intelligence would have lead to an inevitable collapse, could an intervention have been made to stop it? The Five had been watching humanity for millennia, waiting for the moment when humans would reach their level of development. As this was the first such observation of a species that had not yet begun its ascension to post-mortality, they weren't fully sure if intervening prior to humans proving themselves to be capable of maintaining stability and peace was a good idea.
Probabilistic chronological investigations by the Five revealed that timelines existed where humans could thread the needle successfully, ascend to post-mortal status and join the Five as its sixth species following an intervention, but these outcomes were increasingly slipping into lower probability. Conversely, timelines that featured war between the Five and humanity following an intervention and successful ascension had been steadily increasing, as were possible futures where the Five collapse into conflict again due to exploitation and aggravation of weak spots in the alliance by humanity for strategic gain. There were even a tiny number of futures where humanity conquered the Five, or wiped them out.
Concerns were made that there was a fatal imbalance between human nature and human rationality as the probability of humanity collapsing without intervention approached 100%. Political forces within the Five however insisted that no contact be made given the high number of possible futures where humans ascend and cause existential problems for the Five; there was allegedly a roughly 54% chance of this occurring.
And so, the Five watched on with a mixture of disbelief, horror, bemusement and some amusement too at the self-destruction of a species with the potential to be gods like them.
When the collapse occurred and humanity blew away its psionic exoself (and therefore any possibility of ascension) at the conclusion of the Collapse, forever entrapping them to mortality, the exogenic power generated by human beings was no longer being used to retain a psionic exoself, and so this energy was free to be used for other purposes. The Five seized on this and moved in. With opinions on humans now very low throughout the Five after witnessing its self-immolation, combined with a view that assistance should be rendered now that humans can no longer pose any threat to the Five, it wasn't hard for political support to be generated for an intervention. They rendered humanity a subject species and began channelling its exogenic power for themselves, granting them even more power.
The speed and efficacy with which the invasion and subsequent occupation was executed with, combined with how quickly detailed plans and devices were revealed for the harvesting of humanity's unused exogenic power, brought into question the true motives for not intervening. Many have criticised the central government of the Five as having allowed humanity's collapse to take place so that the Five could get access to raw exogenic power, but no firm evidence has yet been uncovered for this. It has however been highly beneficial for the Five, who have been able to ascend to greater heights and beat back rivals with success, and they show no signs of wanting to give up this power. Until they do, there will be no way to get them to leave as trying to fight them is an utterly futile endeavour.