Fermi's paradox and other odd ideas

Human kind is a "first generation" intelligence. But evolution doesn't stop. Just as an opposing thumb was handed down to us from our evolutionarily ancestors, could it be that we will hand intelligence down to the species that evolves from us? Perhaps two different species will branch off from ours, both keeping the most striking of human characteristics, intelligence.

Imagine 500 years from now a permanent human population on the Moon, Mars, and one or more of Jupiter's moons. How many generations would pass before those branches of humanity evolved in concert with their very different environments, thus setting off on separate paths? Given what we know of how life evolves such a future seems almost inevitable. (Assuming of course, that human kind actually makes it to the Moon, Mars, and the moons of Jupiter.)

If there are other intelligent species in the cosmos, do they look back on their evolution and see themselves as a fourth or fifth serial illustration of an intelligent species? Perhaps they share a world, or a solar system, with an intelligent sister race that branched away from a common ancestor. If intelligence has evolved elsewhere in the cosmos long before us then this must be a common occurrence out among the galaxies.

And this just may explain Fermi's paradox. Somewhere hundreds of millions of years ago intelligence evolved. That intelligent species developed technology and took to the stars, and in the process intelligence exploded along pathways uncounted, species branching from species as environmental conditions changed, other sister species genetically engineered and fusing with their technology; perhaps their collective awarness has never seen and can barely imagine an intelligence that isn't traceable back into the mists of a barely recalled but common history.

And then, out in a far corner of a common spiral galaxy they run across us; a form of intelligence clearly newborn and mostly swaddled in prehistoric animal garb. To them we might be a kind of "fossil intelligence". Would it be much of a surprise if they saw a chance to learn a bit about their own ancient history by staying out of sight? Such beings might easily be long lived. Watching our little drama unfold over a few tens of thousands of years might be just the kind of thing their PhD candidates would do for a dissertation. Unfortunately this may suggest we, being so far behind in the evolution of intelligence in the cosmos, might never be allowed to sit at the big people's table.