I think he says early on that the archive trap doesn't have self-awareness, except for a few subroutines that need to be self-aware like the simulations of the researchers which facilitate the escape. Even the name blight evokes a fungus. I was thinking of it's cruelty to lower civs as analogous to the cruelty of a fungus secreting an antibiotic.

Hunting down the OOBII comes down to the escaped personae having data that could be used against it by another power.