Firstborn (Stephen Baxter)

Firstborn is a 2007 novel by Stephen Baxter and Arthur C. Clarke. It is book three in the A Time Odyssey series. Arthur C. Clarke's Time Odyssey series contains hints about the Firstborn, who were the first intelligent beings and started an endless mission to regulate the development of sentient life in the Universe, in order to prevent other (un-civilized, in their view) species from harnessing too much of its energy. They believe that this will at the very least delay the inevitable heat death of the Universe, supposedly just enough for them to make up a plan to escape. They see Humanity as one of the biggest threats to their project, given its unusually accelerated rate of development as well as human's own tendency towards self-destruction (which would mean that all of humanity's progress has been in vain).