What if this is CAUSED by intelligent life?

Maybe this is part of a galactic-scale engineering project?

Actual pic btw: https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01GWQ1FTQCCZS72F2GPD4QTJXK.png

Perhaps we could play some galactic billiards someday with a good gravitational model and plenty of computation.

Send a flair out lasting over a hundred millions years, letting others know, “hey, we lived here.”

Thanks for the pic. Actually much more exciting than the artist's imagination.

yes. like the black hole is clearing up the path for intergalactic super highway in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Please note that the black hole is causing star formation from gas, not moving star systems. From what I gathered from the article, there are very few stars actually in its path, and it is mostly just plowing through a large gas cloud.

If they could do something on a scale to stop (or even avoid) a runaway black hole they'd have to be enormously powerful. I would think even for species well beyond our capabilities the only option would be to flee.

By our current understanding the only thing one could do to a black hole is increase its mass (useless) or attempt to change its path gravitationally (requiring a massive amount of gravity -> requiring a massive, massive amount of energy)

Fleeing probably makes the most sense for any species.

Or this itself just two alien race fighting with each other. Wait till we see another black hole going other way.

Or an act of creation in cosmic husbandry by some extremely advanced intelligence

Unlikely. It has been seen no where else.

And what would we do if we saw it? It's likely beyond the cosmological horizon, meaning that a reply is impossible.