The probability of a random civilization anywhere in the universe becoming intergalactic is astronomically lower than the probability of that same civilization being wiped out by a cosmic event like an asteroid hit. I’ve been thinking about this and I believe the reason we’ve never been contacted by any alien civilization, and never will be, is because intelligent life tends to vanish long before it ever gets the chance to reach out. It’s the default outcome. Survival to the interstellar stage is impossible. This Milky Way’s little planet called Earth will have the same fate. We might colonize Mars and become interplanetary but we will never become intergalactic. We’ll be gone long before that taken out by a similar cosmic event that erased many others before us.