Imagine three great nations under three great queens. The first Queen writes a great book of law and her rule is just. The second Queen builds a high tower and her people climb to the stars. The third Queen raises an army and conquers everything. The furture belongs to one of these Queens. Her rule is harshest and her people are unhappy, but she rules. This is why the universe is the way it is and not some other way. Existence is a game that everything plays, and some strategies are winners: the ability to exist, to shape existence, to remark it so that your descendants -molecules or stars or people or ideas - will flourish, and others will find no ground on which to grow. And as the universe ticks on towards the close, the great players will face each other. In the next round, there will be three Queens and all of them will have armies, and now it will be a battle of sword - until one discovers the cannon, or the plague, or the killing word. Everything is becoming more ruthless and in the end, only the most ruthless will remain, hunting the territories of the night and extinguishing the first glint of competition before it can even understand what it faces or why it has transgressed. This is the shape of victory: to rule the universe so absolutely that nothing will ever exist, except by your consent.

(Hopefully that made your visit here worthwhile...)