One thread in the book is launch of an expanding wavefront of intelligence, converting matter into nano-engineered computronium that is then assembled into M-brains. These then send out seeds that encode the ability to bootstrap new nano-manufacturing capacity on suitable worlds, where minds can take up residence, either downloaded from the seed or transmitted through the UniverseNet.
A look into the future and what it may be like at year 1000000.
Now how do we live long enough to see it and what will be called the Marauder?