Let us review what we do know. From a Science point of view:
1. We have life on Earth.
2. Single Cell life started fairly early on Earth.
3. Multi-Cell life didn’t appear until 3.5 billion years after the formation of Earth.
4. Only Dwarf stars (yellow and red) last more than one or two billion years. Most stars that are bigger don’t last more that a few 100 million years before they collapse into a white dwarf (which is not a star...just a cinder), neutron star(another cinder), or black hole. So, they may have planets with single cell life, but, very unlikely that multi cell life would form as there isn’t enough time before the star goes bye bye.
5. The stars in the inter-galaxy bulge are old, very old, red stars, but, they have no elements in their make up other than hydrogen and Helium. You can’t make planetary systems without heavier elements, so, they are out as they can’t make planets. Current theories have stars like Arcturus in this category. It’s a halo star, very old, but, not a lot of elements, and certainly not a lot of metals. (Population II and III stars is the usual designation)
6. Stars with planets would have to come from the destruction of Pop II and Pop III stars. Heavier elements come from the destruction of older stars in supernova explosions. Those elements can be seen in the spectra of those stars. They are known as Population I stars (aside...the reason the older stars aren’t Population I and younger stars II and III is that when the designation was first come up with, they got it backwards).
(stopping here to break up the length of the post. More below)
Doesn't that exclude/ignore a lot of other possibilities?