Paul Beakley I’m no Exalted expert but I think there’s something of an implied premise in the setting, with the Realm crumbling from the inside, Immaculate Order hit squads going after the PCs, the Wyld and the Deathlords closing in and the world being a mess in general.

Where Exalted falters in this regard, as far as I can tell, is (1) in lacking subsystems for the PCs to actually fix Creation, and (2) arguably in populating Creation with bigshot antagonists most PC circles might not be realistically able to take down (though I admit challenging demigod PCs means walking a fine line).