[antepodius]

Imagine you're arbitrarily close to the physical limits of technology. You do or could understand how living things work, down to the molecular level, for example, and know how to engineer self-replicating machinery analogous to DNA. At the very least, you could build a 'spaceship' that can grow something at least as efficient as people, who can replicate however and disassemble earth for raw materials. Presumably, you can do much better, and you end up with something like a self-packaged deployable technological superintelligent ecosystem.