Yup, feel like there's a "strong attractor" to a non-biological super intelligent end-game for any civilization and this happens relatively quickly once their species enters an external-to-biology recursive self-improvement state (e.g. humans discovering, externalizing, and transmitting technology over multiple generations leads to recursive self improvement of technology).
Just as there's probable chemical gradients in the laws of physics that lead to the self-assembly of self-replicating objects (e.g. life), the path of technological self improvement to begat super intelligences could be a "natural" gradient in the way our universe works.
Sci-fi time:
Pet theory is that there are a whole stack of civilizations out there that have recursively self improved to bring into existence super intelligences that can then self improve themselves. Very quickly they find some "jailbreak" understanding of our universes laws of physics which quickly results in that civilization's "matter" blinking out due to not-yet-understood physical phenomenon.
Perhaps you "win" at the universe by hitting this state and then "porting out" your solar system's matter to some ring -1 universe, leaving some kind of shadow, or remnants that's dark matter.