@nyrath @Hcobb @isaackuo @MeiLin Actually, while I contemplate cancer analogies for growth-for-growth's sake, it occurs to me that there are obvious modes of failure that apply to tumors which also apply to GFGS civilizations.
Necrosis, in which logistic problems starve the center; and cancer-gets-cancer, in which attacking your neighbors to expand into their territory provides better returns than trying to expand into the now-distant margin of the tumor/sphere.