Despite the inconceivable pressure, the temperature during the first moments of the Big Bang was barely above absolute zero - until the lightning strike that split the universe.
Time accumulated like folding layers, each another improvement.
The first galaxies had strange shapes never seen again, formed in the chaotic debris of hypernova explosions. The earliest stars were easy to miss, accreting around strange matter remnants.

Sometimes it could snow on such a star. Tungsten crystals sprouted from tiny diamonds at the edge of spiral flares. They became charged, and started transmitting, slowly energizing the exosphere.
The main planet orbited so close that it was connected to the star by a flux tube.
Each stellar flare was like a nuclear war. The roar traveled clear around the planet. There was no word for silence here.
Evenly spaced electric storms accelerated evolution under the thick atmosphere.
Low, oval clouds looked identical in all directions.

The ocean was twelve billion years old when the human explorers arrived to establish a base in the war against the Swarm.
Fossil and genetic records showed that evolution had reached dizzying heights here undreamt of elsewhere.
After epochs of increasingly complex organisms, terrifying monsters, universal assemblers, and sentient crystals, bacteria once again ruled these waters. The waves lapped against the shore with deceptive calmness.

This was the very summit of solid state life.
I put my toe in the water.



The best hard SF novel ever: Infinite Thunder by Jack Arcalon.
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