The timescale issue is fun to think about. Even in my own life, there have been times that I've responded to a message within a second and other times that I've

The timescale issue is fun to think about. Even in my own life, there have been times that I've responded to a message within a second and other times that I've taken multiple years. Our lifespan also seems quite arbitrary. Some sophisticated animals live quite a bit longer than us and others live a tiny fraction of a percent as long. One would imagine that between solar systems there is a much greater degree of variance. It would be difficult to understand the time horizons of a collectively intelligent swarm of fruit flies or a serene pod of whales, but imagine if interstellar life has a geologic component to its life cycle?