And now that it's in Politics...
ECS: this may well be the case - but one of the rules of drama is that drama works better when it's plausible. The less we have to suspend disbelief, the more gripping the story - and suspending disbelief on subtle, worldspanning things (like human nature) is more costly than suspending it on blatant, easily definable things (handwavium exists and these are its properties). It is thus in our best interests dramatically to come up with practical, by-the-rules-of-reality reasons why it works under its own power.
ECS: this may well be the case - but one of the rules of drama is that drama works better when it's plausible. The less we have to suspend disbelief, the more gripping the story - and suspending disbelief on subtle, worldspanning things (like human nature) is more costly than suspending it on blatant, easily definable things (handwavium exists and these are its properties). It is thus in our best interests dramatically to come up with practical, by-the-rules-of-reality reasons why it works under its own power.