To me this is a vision of futility - one in which a future light cone that could have been full of happy, safe agents having complex fun, is mostly wasted by agents trying to seize resources and defend them so they can send out seeds to seize more resources.

At least this keeps the defenses of the agents well primed. If agents are in control of their own evolution, there's a danger that they will get lazy and put their feet up - and then when they finally run into aliens or a face a rebellion, the lazy civilization will simply be munched through as though it was made of marshmallow - destroying their seed forever.