Life in the Universe

Spacial Constraints

In the last chapter we learned that we underlie a spacial constraint: We are locked to whatever local group or cluster we're in at the very moment local group seperation speeds surpass the speed of light. Our local group is just 0.00000000001% of the currently observable universe, so you might think we're missing out on the big events in the universe but reality is, we're not. Because everybody is, meaning there won't be any events that surpass the event horizon of any local group or cluster.

There won't be cultural clashes between species from different clusters, no reign over the universe and no parliament managing it because the containerization of the universe creates a seperation of concerns between clusters.

Time Constraints

As we will learn in the following chapter, the Universe will not allow for life to prosper for most of it's lifespan. In fact, some stars might have some billion years of their lifespan in front of them right now, but as they die off in say 50 to a 100 billion years from now, lesser and lesser new stars are being born.

This era is so short, that the universe is thought to only be habitable for around 0.000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001% of it's lifespan. This is 83 zeros behind the comma. For all of the remaining time, the universe is slowly cooling off, being mostly unable to form new stars and slowly fading into an empty void. The universe degenerates until nothing but black holes remain.

Due to these timespans being unimaginably long, we have no reason to be worried, though. Humanity has been around for just a couple thousands of years and we would probably be done colonizing the entire local group in as little as 15-30 million years, which is not even 0.1% of the time life has left in our universe.

Surviving in a decaying universe

As stars slowly die off or turn into dwarfs of all sorts, they emit less heat than they used to do. Species trying to survive in a decaying universe might have to get closer to their dwarf stars to reposition their planets into the "new" habitable zone of their star, like campers around a fire that's slowly going out.

Exotic forms of life and energy

As the universe decays and nothing but black holes remain, it is possible for exotic lifeforms to cling to them and their rotational energy as the last source of power available in the dying universe. Although this is unlikely to be possible, if any species is capable of solving this, they could almost outlast the entire universe since black holes will, as we will learn in the next chapter, be around until the very end of it.

Additional Resources

1.
Melodysheep created a genuinely fantastic and beautiful video showing a timelapse of the future of our universe on a macro scale. His video is also going into great detail about the timely constraints of life in the universe, so check it out if you want to learn more or maybe just want to look at a recap of what we learned.