"In the beginning there was a Machine..."

[Ripheus23]

The meta-premise for this story is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain but set during the initial expansion. The idea is that there was a random flux-confluence during the IE, that took the form of a sort of computer. Since all particles were close together, all become entangled with the particles of the computer (which is not necessarily made of metal as we know it; think of it more like a sort of proto-leptonic* "artifact"), so the "programs" of the computer become "entities" (angels and demons, say) that influence/interfere with the subsequent evolution of the universe. When sentient life emerges later, it comes pre-loaded with the "program"-spirits, which is the cause of "demonic possession" and like phenomena.

A corollary to the above is grounded in a philosophy of ethics like so: moral value/goodness is defined as a specific object in the universe (in the same way that we think of, say, a given galaxy as a specific object). This object is intrinsically good, and other objects are good if and only if they become parts of the good object. (This is hypo-Platonic [not hyper-Platonic], so to speak, in that the Form of the Good is in re instead of ante rem.) Living things, on average, when they exist, automatically become part of the object of good. Now likewise, good actions, or right actions, are first defined as the natural activity of the good object (which is then conceived of as a sort of cosmological animal), and then secondly as actions by other objects that are integrated into the universal justified action of the good object. So, the Machine from the beginning is defined ethically, and hence subserves an eventual good-versus-evil narrative for the entire cosmos.

QED-ish...

EDIT: The motivation for this idea is as a reflection of City at the End of Time and The Familiar, which are both stories about technology developed at the end of time and then sent back into the time of the initial expansion. Here, the cosmological technology is an effect of the initial expansion in itself, rather than a long-term corollary.

EDIT 2:

*Made up of something like muonium or tauonium [apparently atomic/molecular matter devoid of quarks, if I'm reading the source material right]. Or maybe even made of neutrinos, if that's possible, or whatever neutrinos are made of. OR, for the most exotic/coolest/powerful image, allowing that there were ever unitary inflatons [particles whose decay brought about the particles that decayed into everything else as such], the "metal" of the ur-computer would be inflatonic-crystalline in structure.

Edited November 27, 2018 by Ripheus23

[Kingsdaughter613 she/her]

You missed a brilliant Asimov story: The Last Question. One of my favorites that has this concept too. (Essentially the computer starts the universe again after its destruction.)

[Ripheus23]

Yeah the computer computes the answer to entropy as 'let there be light'. It's similar and probably inspired me subconsciously at this point haha but I would end up with a more heretical god-machine...