John Smart has suggested in what he calls the “transcension” scenario that once civilizations saturate their local region of space with their intelligence, they create a new universe (one that will allow continued exponential growth of complexity and intelligence) and essentially leave this universe.91 Smart suggests that this option may be so attractive that it is the consistent and inevitable outcome of an ETI’s having reached an advanced stage of its development, and it thereby explains the Fermi Paradox.
