Singularity One Book Four Green the Unstoppable March of Technological Progress

What is life without joie de vivre?
After a long series of adventures, the Fireflyteam settled on a cluster of 130 naturalplanets in a relatively well-populated part of the Cosmos,no more than one thousand light years from Sol, butdifficult to see from Earth. Wil remained their muchrevered leader, basking in the glory due a leader whosepalpable charisma, beneficently employed, had broughtthree millennia of almost totally uninterrupted peace,in an empire the like of which had never been seen byany species, and the hitherto undreamt of stability andprosperity that came with that. The first few centuriesof life on the cluster passed quickly, as the early wavesof foolhardy but courageous volunteer settlers, a merehandful of millions of them, enthusiastically busiedthemselves with matters such as establishing peacefulcooperative relationships with the roughly twentymillion indigenes.