To be fair, this is with our current understanding of physics. The SoL barrier is VERY unlikely to be 'broken', however, more interesting things may crop up. I mean, 'dark matter' is ~20% of the universe and all we really know about it is that it falls down. Then you have 'dark energy' which makes up ~70% of the universe and all we know about it is that it makes other things not fall down (maybe).

There is a whole heck of a lot of physics out there still so I think calling a galaxy-wide intelligence impossible is premature (let alone the debate over what 'intelligence' is counted as).