AI or alife or nano-vector viruses that require transcensions to replicate.
Typically it is attracted to the conditions that take place right as a transcension or ascension is imminent and than infiltrates itself into the local computer net and waits. As the transcension begins it corrupts a tiny portion of the exponentially increasing computer power and/or manufacturing base to cause it to make multiple copies of the virus. The level of corruption is tiny and very well hidden to avoid an immune response, but during a major change in toposophic level even a tiny diversion of resources can result in huge benefits for the interloper.
There are two basic types that are most predominant - the transcension virus that only wants to feed on the extra amount of energy, petaflops etc given off, but doesn't itself change, and the virus that itself is transcended (a sort of ready made hypermutational evolutionary burst).
Both viruses are fairly uncommon, for different reasons. The parasite virus has to cope with the fact that the transcension might have unpredictable effects - e.g. all nonessential pieces of code within the RAMsphere might automatically be erased. And the hyperevolutionary virus may find in its new form it doesn't want to be a virus at all!
One could say that ecologically transcension viruses occupy a "marginal niche" in the local datasphere. In spite of this, the number of transcensions galaxy-wide at any one time are enough to guarantee the survival and prorogation of a number of various forms of transcension virus.
Godseed - Text by M. Alan Kazlev Generic term for any device that can bring about a radical ascension in the user's toposophic status, or the toposophic status of any sentient or sub-sentient to which it is applied. Many godseeds can exert a catastrophic effect on the user, or result in ascensions among the unprepared or maladjusted that result in perversities. For this reason the technology has become proscribed in many polities. Some well-known godseeds include Atzilut Sparkles, SNARE , the Olympus Pill, and Vinge's Revenge. There is a flourishing blackmarket traffic in godseeds, especially in less regulated regions of the galaxy.
Transcension Prediction - Text by Anders Sandberg and M. Alan Kazlev Given the huge population of the civilized galaxy, and the fact that ascensions and transcensions are moderately common and have been going on for thousands of years, many polities and civilizations have developed some fairly reliable methods for predicting the onset of one of these events. Often this is comparable to pre- and post-singularity efforts at predicting the weather (and a large transcendence event does indeed share some conceptual characteristics with a force of nature to those watching from outside at a lower S level).