It's a machine. I think we too often focus on the traveler itself, which is a powerful device, but a device none the less, and not focus enough on who created it and why. The traveler didn't create life, it has visited well established civilizations and improved upon them. The OP theory doesn't seem to consider that. The star fire protocol seems to reference the destiny version of the Big Bang, the creation of light from nothing. From that light, stars and life formed. The traveler wasn't necessary to be around for that to occur. Life grew without the traveler. If anything, I'd venture the traveler was created by the Sky, after the sky realized the deep was fighting against the light, and the sky needed an agent to help it fight back, aka the traveler.