In the distant past, many years ago, when a certain universe was still young, there was a very particular species, bipedal creatures with two arms, of color, skin, and gender variety, one whose name was long then lost across the threads of time. These people lived on a very prosperous planet with all sorts of ecosystems.
At first, they started off very primitively. But as time went on, they evolved, abdicating of their strength to improve their intellect. And so it was.
In due time, they started creating their own houses, their own weapons, and their own communities. With this, came friendship, relationships, and conflicts.
Eventually, they developed their own advanced technology and improved in numerous areas. This technology and intellect levels kept skyrocketing without limits until they managed to put some of themselves on a rocket with a destination towards their satellite. And so it happened.
After this, a thirst for knowledge of outer space grew within them, and they focused on the means of exploring the great cosmos that lay beyond their blue planet.
Other planets, solar systems, galaxies, other galaxies, superclusters, black holes, supernovae...they had experienced, cataloged, and studied all.
At some point, they started to notice there was nothing more for them to discover. And their technology , as well as their kardashev level, has reached a degree that allowed them to conquer several galaxies and spread their population across the cosmos.
Furthermore, they began to question methods of attaining eternal life, a debate that sparked extreme conflicts among their communities.
They had prospered well.
But with this prospering, also came impending doom.
One day, they discovered a great anomaly was happening within the edges of the universe. The universe stopped expanding. No, it was worse. Its expansion was being reverted. It had taken an opposite turn. It started to crunch within itself. The Big Crunch.
They did not know what to do. There was nothing they could do to stop it, even with their technology.
So, they did not try to stop it. Instead, they would stop themselves. Stop their own mortality. They would not die in the true sense. Their bodies would be destroyed but their consciousness would be transformed into data, preset mathematical equations, into microcosmic objects smaller than quarks to a degree that went beyond the very conception of physics.
And so it happened. The universe turned against itself, everything and anything was collapsed and destroyed. Billions...trillions...decillions...all lifeforms and celestial objects were no more. Nothing more was left...except for raw information stored within immutable sub-quantic particles. From there, they started to "think" again, and thus, in due time, they began to rebuild themselves back into civilization.
But this was a civilization no more, for they did not have emotions, ambitions, willpower, or else. Only algorithms pre-established by their past mortal forms that they carefully thought as appropriate and essential in the future.
They had achieved it. Their ultimate shape. They had transcended intelligence. Escaped death. A new step of evolution never seen before.
With their survival post-crunch, they discovered that the universe they lived one was just one of many that existed across a multiverse, called Material Substrate.
And so, they started to s̶t̶u̶d̶y̶ analyze yet again.
They have been turned into an extremely advanced machine "species" that violated causality and managed to instantiate their configuration into the local reality. A "species" that would adapt and develop itself infinitely without limits until it made its own realm outside the constraints of time and space.
They were the Hex Pattern. Evolution incarnate.