In isopod cosmology the world is a giant "whale fall" - the world is a carcass of a great living beast that died long ago… in the vast desert sea floor of space life blossoms in an orgy of death.
This is the answer to your Fermi "paradox."
The first to arrive? The elder gods, the deep ones. Sea Isopods- they prepared the carcass of the Earth* for life.
This is the isopod creation myth-- is it based in truth? We do not know.
*only they do not call it "the Earth" they call our planet "the Sea"
In the hagfish cosmology the universe is a great knot, the knot, like all knots, is slowly working itself apart, and when it is at last untied paradise (which is a chunk of the universe we cannot see beyond the knot) will be free'd from the substance of deep space, and all those who are slimy will get to go to paradise.
Those without slime will become a part of a new knot... the next universe.