theres a Asimov series of books, " Foundation" sci fi stuff about a scientist who can predict the future through math equations or some such thing, but he sees the empire falling into a dark age that will cost billions of lives and take generations to climb out of, but he sees that if they can bring about the fall of the empire prematurely, before it reaches the real "fall" then they can save millions of lives and have the empire back to full strength in half the time, The dark age can't be stopped, its about limiting the length and effects of it