What if a galaxy itself could evolve into a lifeform? A novel that asked this question was The Forge of God written by Greg Bear, and it's a pretty interesting idea.
Before talking about it though, I have to talk about something called the Gaia hypothesis. The Gaia hypothesis originated from the ideas of James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis and the general idea is that Earth's biosphere as a whole can be considered a living organism (note: I'm not going to go over arguments for or against the hypothesis or take a specific stance as to its truth or falsehood, this post will treat it as true for the case of speculation in this post only).
The Forge of God then asks a question: if a planetary ecology is itself a living being, what role does intelligence play for it?
Planets with an ecology (and therefore alive) but no intelligence can be considered analogous to a mule, living but unable to reproduce. In the planetary organism's case it's because non-intelligent organisms tend not to have civilizations and therefore no space programs. This dooms the planetary organism (or "planetism" as referred to in the novel) to die whenever there's a catastrophe in the stellar neighborhood or when its star ages.
But what about planetisms that have developed intelligent agents? In this case the planet could reproduce by these intelligent agents colonizing and maybe terraforming planets, moons, asteroids and building various kinds of habitats. In this sense the planetism spreads throughout the star system by virtue of its "seed pods" in the form of intelligent members of civilization.
Why stop at one star system though? Spreading farther afield into the galaxy proper would ensure its survival long into the future.
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