Hi SDF

Not too bad. Some cosmologies are basically black holes in reverse.

Plasma lifeforms seem a reasonable speculation, but I don't know if they're a rung in a ladder of progression and stars may be unnecessary for their existence. In the ultra-distant future they might tap energy from black holes.

Have you read Mclaughlin and Adams' papers on the Universe's future? Their book "Five Ages of the Cosmos" is a must read. There's a period after the stars go dim when the galaxy is still gravitationally bound and dark matter is possibly annihilating in the cores of white dwarfs - enough to keep them a toasty 63 K. Every so often brown dwarfs will collide and form new low mass red dwarfs - about 100 will burn at the same time.

But another issue will face intelligent life before then. Efficient heat loss will determine the computational limits of life - they might migrate to the galactic fringe to dump heat leaving the hot "wastelands" of the galaxy behind, returning as normal star formation declines.

Adam