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Abusing the Kardashev Scale For Fun and Profit: Difference between revisions
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, 2 years agoThe crossover of Magic: the Gathering with Dungeons & Dragons has been done by now, though.
(The crossover of Magic: the Gathering with Dungeons & Dragons has been done by now, though.) |
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[[File:rsz kardashev 2010 12 8 3891.jpg|frame|How advanced are you?]]
{{quote|''"Your race hasn't even reached Type 1 on the Kardashev scale. It doesn't control the resources of this one planet, let alone a solar system or a galaxy. The Time Lords were '''the''' Type 4 civilization. We had no equals. We controlled the fundamental forces of the entire universe. Nothing could communicate with us on our level. [[Blasphemous Boast|Most races pray to lesser beings than the Time Lords.]]"''
[[Technology Levels]] has some actual reference in the real world in the form of the [[wikipedia:Kardashev scale|Kardashev Scale]], which indicates how much power a civilization uses. This was originally used in the context of astronomy, speculating about what advanced alien civilizations might look like from afar, particularly the implications of enormous energy demands. It has since been used to compare the [[Power Levels]] of fictional civilizations and, sometimes, individuals.
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{{examples}}
== Type 0: Less than Type I. Clear cases go here. If it looks like a large fraction of a planet's power, it's borderline. ==
=== Anime and Manga ===
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* ''[[Farscape]]'' seems to have dozens of civilizations at around this level, depending on just how much power the phlebotinum uses.
* ''[[Firefly]]'' might just be Type I, depending on its population. ''Serenity'' (considered old in-universe) takes minutes (say, 1000 s) to get out of an Earth-like gravity well (Earth's gravity well has a depth of 6×10<sup>7</sup>J/kg), and is capable of carrying herds of cows (say, 50 cows weighing 700 kg each); putting all that together, ''Serenity'' herself has a power output of at least 2×10<sup>9</sup>W.<ref>(actually more, because she has to lift her own weight as well as that of the cows, but since she could be made of some random ultralight futuristic material that's harder to estimate)</ref> So, if ''Serenity'''s engine represents one part in 10<sup>8</sup> of that civilization's power output, the total civilization's output is at least 2×10<sup>17</sup>W. (For comparison, note that 1:10<sup>8</sup> is roughly the ratio of a car engine's power output to the power output of our entire civilization.)
* The 12 Colonies of Kobol in ''[[Battlestar Galactica
* The sub-Vorlon/Shadow civilizations of ''[[Babylon 5]]'' seem to be in this neighborhood.
=== Video Games ===
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=== Comic Books ===
* In his most outrageous [[Silver Age]] incarnation, [[Superman]] could blow out stars with his super-breath, and reignite them with his heat vision. He was thus ''personally'' a Type II on the Kardashev scale.
=== Fan Works ===
* The [[Sailor Moon|Silver Millennium]] as depicted in flashbacks in ''[[Heir to the Empire]]'' by Ozzallos. As a polity, they controlled a significant fraction of the galaxy. They possessed world-destroying weapons that make the Vorlons look weak and inefficient -- and used them in war when the enemy deserved it. ''And'' they had access to magic as well as technology. Finally, Queen Serenity ''by herself'' qualifies as a high Type 0, being personally able to generate energy blasts in the ''2.75 terawatt'' range.
=== Literature ===
* The unseen aliens in ''[[The Space Odyssey Series]]'' have the ability to make stars. This might indicate midlevel Type II power use, depending on just how they go about it.
* The ''[[Cordwainer Smith|Instrumentality of Mankind]]'' controlled a significant region of the Milky Way, including several Type I worlds, had effective immortality (though they limited lifespans to 400 years for most its history) and could intimidate other interstellar empires with ''<s>balloons</s> starships an AU in diameter''.
** It's explicitly stated more than once in-universe that creating a tachyon bubble (the faster-than-light travel method of the Lords) "consumes" a star. Whatever that means, precisely, it's almost certainly a ''lot'' more energy than simply using its entire power output, and is arguably sufficient to categorize them as Type III, though they don't seem to ''continuously'' require this amount of power. It's also possible... no details are really given... that the technology is extremely inefficient and most of the power is actually wasted.
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== Borderline Type III: power use roughly equivalent to a galaxy's radiant output. 1E36W ==
=== Fan Works ===
* In his battle with the [[Killer Robot|hostile war gynoid]] T-ELOS in the [[Mega Crossover]] ''[[No Tendo]]'', [[Ranma ½|Ranma Saotome]] keeps pushing himself and his techniques to new heights, utilizing and expanding on lessons learned during the [[Year Inside, Hour Outside|six months]] he spent in a higher dimension. When he attempts to draw directly on that higher dimension for the power he needs to defeat T-ELOS, the android's sensors detect what he is doing and it extrapolates that if he is successful he will have sole direct access to power equivalent to a Type III Civilization.
=== Film ===
* The Galactic Republic/Empire of [[Star Wars]], a galaxy-spanning society with very fast FTL and at least a million heavily developed planets, is a very high Type II, possibly a Type III (at least when the guy with the underbite helmet pulls the lever).
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=== Literature ===
* [[The Culture]] is an interstellar civilization that draws most of its power from the "[[Applied Phlebotinum|hyperspace Grid]]" rather than from the visible universe, and its ''demiliatarised diplomatic ships'' are capable of destroying whole planets. Their theoretical power level might be even higher; they are stated to be a "post scarcity" society and could have the capability to harness energy that might possibly qualify them as a Type IV, but if so they deliberately choose not to.
* The Galactic Union of E. E. Smith's ''[[Lensman]]'' series has starship engines (combined total-conversion nuclear power and [[Zero Point Energy]] devices) generating hundreds of exawatts (roughly
** That's child's play next to their [[Nuclear Option|weapons of mass destruction]]. Which include [[There Is No Kill Like Overkill|antimatter bombs of Earth-like mass]]. [[More Dakka|Oh, and they throw those around by the thousands, too.]]
* The ''[[wikipedia:Star Maker|Star Maker]]'' by [[wikipedia:Olaf Stapledon|Olaf Stapledon]]. The stellar energy output of the whole galaxy is utilized by the ''Galactic Community of Worlds''
* A rare single being example, Nuklear Man from Brian Clevinger's ''[[Nuklear Age]]'' is capable of using half the power of ''every star in the Milky Way'' to kill [[Reality Warper|Nihilus]].
=== Video Games ===
* Human civilization in the [[Xenosaga]] series and to its extent, Xenogears, by proxy, have come ''very'' close to this level thanks in part to the Zohar Engine, which in and of itself is a relic of a type IV or above civilization. or, as some have suggested, just a well placed deus ex machina. The ships seemed to be powered by zero point energy units called "Logic Drives". In addition, the device shown at the end of the series, Zarathustra, is a extreme example of something that would be a type IV...being able to "reset" heat death.
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== Other: Unconventional or hard to quantify in watts. ==
=== Anime and Manga ===
* In the ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'' verse, it's never revealed specifically if there's an upper limit to just how much power an S2 organ can generate. As shown in ''End of Evangelion'', at least ten of them<ref>the nine MP
=== Comic Books ===
* The holder of the Infinity Gauntlet in the [[Marvel Universe]] possesses pretty high order omnipotence, capable of moving multiple universes and effortlessly deposing the living incarnation of all matter, energy and time in the universe.▼
* The Beyonder from ''[[Secret Wars]]'' is probably unmeasurable. In his first appearance, he effortlessly ''destroyed a galaxy'' [[Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale|to provide an empty corner of the universe]] for the various metabeings to battle each other.▼
** That was more or less retconned away later.▼
=== Film ===
* The Arquillians from the first ''[[Men in Black (film)|Men in Black]]'' movie possess "the galaxy" which is stated to be a power source. The creatures playing marbles with galaxies at the end [[Readings Are Off the Scale|don't really fit on the scale]], at least from our reference point.▼
* The [[Precursors]] in ''[[Contact (film)|Contact]]'' are anyone's guess, since even the (Type III-ish) aliens don't have the foggiest idea when or how ([[God|or if]]) the [[Portal Network]] was made. It's strongly implied they can even [[Reality Warper|leave messages by manipulating the value of pi]].▼
** [[Fridge Logic]]: If pi is "normal" (has an infinite decimal expansion
=== Literature ===
* The Tar-Aiym and Hur'rikku from the ''[[Humanx Commonwealth]]'' series developed superweapons that, respectively, could annihilate an entire star system by broadcasting gravity waves through [[Subspace or Hyperspace|subspace]], and could punch a hole into [[Another Dimension]] to release an anticollapsar (or "white hole") as massive as an entire galaxy. While that sounds awfully impressive, there isn't enough real physics there to get them into a ballpark. The Xunca have them beat hands-down, however, at one point in their existence being capable of transporting an entire galactic civilization to an alternate dimension and turning a galactic supercluster ''into a superweapon''.
* It's hard to put a protector - or group of protectors - into any category, given the time, resources and incentive to cooperate instead of trying to kill each other. In the original "Protector" story, Brennan and his childless protectors converted the entire colony planet of 'Home' into a Trojan Horse deathtrap for an incoming ''fleet'' of protectors. (Although it's never explicitly outlined what they did to it. The fact it was later colonized implies that it wouldn't have been substantially deterraformed. The fact that Known Space is not later populated entirely by Pak implies that whatever they did allowed Brennan to ''win''.) Protectors also built the Ringworld, which was theorized to require kind of energy/matter conversion, and the atomic-level engineering technology needed to create a Ringworld-sized amount of building material. Not to mention the shadow square system and the energy to spin the whole thing up to the required 770 km/s to create the artificial gravity. In Ringworld's Children, we see a ''single'' protector develop technology to almost entirely redesign and rebuild the Ringworld "from the ground up" with captured nanotech - and turn the entire thing into a Bussard ramjet powered spaceship.
** Also from Niven's [[Known Space]], it's not clear where Outsiders fit. They seem to have a nearly unlimited range of technology at their disposal, at least up to inertialess spacecraft engines, which would imply being able to manipulate the (known) laws of physics. However even asking questions about the kind of technology they may have access to is prohibitively expensive, much less getting access to any of it. Despite the availability of super-advanced technology, they enjoy taking their time, travelling from the core to the rim of the galaxy at sublight speed.
* The Markovians from Chalker's ''[[Well World]]'' series are here, given that they built planet-sized megacomputers that could freely revise physical laws, edit the course of history, and indeed kept the universe stable. Specific estimates of energy usage are probably a moot point, as they were the ones deciding how much energy there ''is'' in the universe.▼
* Human civilization in [[Walter Jon Williams]]' novel ''Implied Spaces'' is at a similar level, and indeed features pocket universes full of anitmatter being used as weapons.▼
* The neutron star dwelling cheela from the [[Show Your Work|hard sci-fi novel]] ''[[Dragons Egg]]'' are difficult to classify as they have accelerated development. When humans first make actual contact with them, they are roughly equivalent to the late Middle-Ages or early Renaissance. After we give them the basics of science they begin developing on their own at approximately a million times the speed our civilization did. By the end of the novel (a matter of days our time) the cheela have mastered anti-gravity, faster-than-light travel, the creation of stable singularities, the manipulation of natural singularities (as a favor to their former teachers they remove several small black holes from our sun that were shortening our star's life), and manipulation of matter at the subatomic level. It is uncertain to what extent they have developed as they stop giving us knowledge once it becomes clear they are beyond our achievements (technically they give us the information, but they encrypt it so it cannot be read; the encryption key is always something related to the information itself, so that humanity will have to make the discovery on its own, but will be able to "check their answers" once they get them). Additionally, every 29 of our seconds is another year of advancement for them. If they are not a Class III by the end of the book, they will be shortly thereafter.▼
** Or at least they would have been if not for the titular event of the sequel ''Starquake''. They're probably there by the end of ''that'', though.▼
=== Live-Action TV ===
* The Ancients from ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' invented a machine to harness all the power of this universe and other universes, by using Zero-point energy. Unfortunately it never worked properly. Also there was that whole Ascension thing. Of course they will not lift a finger to help anyone now, and their activities aren't very quantifiable.
** However, one of their primary power sources was a miniature universe in a bottle, which were probably mass-produced before they fell.
** The Ori of ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' are probably comparable, though since they actually do stuff in the physical universe, they probably could be rated if more information were available.
* In ''[[Star Trek]]'', the Q Continuum are hard to judge based on technology, since by all accounts they appear to be, in their natural forms, transcendent beings with no fixed shape who exist in another dimension called The Continuum. They may have outgrown the need for technology, as they can reshape reality around themselves, reverse time and entropy, teleport to any point in space and time, shapechange themselves and others, tweak natural laws (Q: "Simple. Just change the gravitational constant of the universe, thereby altering the mass of the asteroid.") so their powers can pretty much be described as "magic".▼
▲* The Arquillians from the first ''[[Men in Black (film)|Men in Black]]'' movie possess "the galaxy" which is stated to be a power source. The creatures playing marbles with galaxies at the end [[Readings Are Off the Scale|don't really fit on the scale]], at least from our reference point.
▲* The [[Precursors]] in ''[[Contact (film)|Contact]]'' are anyone's guess, since even the (Type III-ish) aliens don't have the foggiest idea when or how ([[God|or if]]) the [[Portal Network]] was made. It's strongly implied they can even [[Reality Warper|leave messages by manipulating the value of pi]].
=== Radio ===
▲** [[Fridge Logic]]: If pi has an infinite decimal expansion (it does) and is non-repeating (also true), then any sequence you can imagine occurs eventually, simply because ''that's how infinity works''. (It is, however, implied that these sequences occur suspiciously ''early'' in the expansion.)
* Magratheans from ''[[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy]]''. They constructed entire planets in hyperspace, as well as the biggest and most advanced computer in all existence. The blueprints were given to them by a hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional race, i.e. those whose "protrusions" in our dimension are mice. The blueprints were in turn the output of the ''second'' most advanced computer in all existence: Deep Thought. As for the construction zone, the Guide says it's a spherical/spheroidal "fold" in space-time with a radius of around 13 light seconds. Assuming hyperspace construction zones in a folded space-time and that planetary engineering was a fun hobby, you get a really powerful civilization, albeit one that's hard to classify.▼
=== Tabletop Games ===
* Pre-Mending Planeswalkers from [[Magic: The Gathering]] tended to have enormous reality-warping power, frequently creating entire planes of existence by themselves. The entity Yawgmoth was powerful enough to overlay multiple realities over one another for the purpose of invasions, and apparently survived the detonation of his personal plane of existence, caused by the essence of several god-level beings being fired at him. This would probably indicate Type IV+ if anything like real physics applied.
** Post-Mending 'walkers are still powerful, but much less so. Still, they probably would easily exceed Type III.
** To put the sheer power of the typical <s> MtG player</s> Planeswalker, a crossover with Dungeons and Dragons would be nearly impossible, or at least hard to make sense of, since even achieving epic level (level 20 or above in 4e) is still only a fraction of the power MtG planeswalkers are capable (probably level 25 and above, in D&D terms).
*** It has been done by now, though.
▲* The holder of the Infinity Gauntlet in the [[Marvel Universe]] possesses pretty high order omnipotence, capable of moving multiple universes and effortlessly deposing the living incarnation of all matter, energy and time in the universe.
▲* In ''[[Star Trek]]'', the Q Continuum are hard to judge based on technology, since by all accounts they appear to be, in their natural forms, transcendent beings with no fixed shape who exist in another dimension called The Continuum. They may have outgrown the need for technology, as they can reshape reality around themselves, reverse time and entropy, teleport to any point in space and time, shapechange themselves and others, tweak natural laws (Q: "Simple. Just change the gravitational constant of the universe, thereby altering the mass of the asteroid.") so their powers can pretty much be described as "magic".
* The 4-D beings from ''[[Star Ocean: Till the End of Time]]'' could be considered an example, if a very strange one. Sure, our entire universe is just an MMORPG that they created, but by our standards, the energy output needed to manage our universe as well as all their own affairs would be absolutely incredible.▼
▲* The Markovians from Chalker's [[Well World]] series are here, given that they built planet-sized megacomputers that could freely revise physical laws, edit the course of history, and indeed kept the universe stable. Specific estimates of energy usage are probably a moot point, as they were the ones deciding how much energy there ''is'' in the universe.
▲* The Beyonder from ''[[Secret Wars]]'' is probably unmeasurable. In his first appearance, he effortlessly ''destroyed a galaxy'' [[Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale|to provide an empty corner of the universe]] for the various metabeings to battle each other.
▲** That was more or less retconned away later.
* The Tyranids of [[Warhammer 40,000]] are an interesting case. If the statement that they've consumed multiple entire galaxies is true, they might be an unconventional Type III, though that depends greatly on the dormant metabolism of Tyranids drifting through space, as even if they have that much mass available,<ref>questionable even then, as they seem to only assimilate parts of planets rather than entire stars and nebulae</ref> actual power use is what counts. Their typical MO of removing a good chunk of terrestrial planets' mass and draining the heat from what's left operates fairly slowly, so probably represents a mid Type I power expenditure per planet being consumed. They may consume up to few planets at any given time, though hive fleets take a while to travel between systems, so this output probably isn't sustained. A full hemisphere-darkening invasion force probably represents about a Type I expenditure for each planet under attack.
** The Necrons and their masters the C'tan are also hard to pin down. The C'tan feed off stars, so might individually approach Type II, though they're not usually very active. The Necrons have the goal of separating the Warp from physical reality, a universe scale goal, though they seem to confine their efforts to one galaxy for now. They have the most advanced technology in the setting, and have fought on galactic scales in the distant past, but virtually all now lie dormant in buried tombs. Though their technology is very potent, they may be low on the Kardashev scale of the major factions of WH40K in the present setting due to their extremely small active numbers. Like the Tyranids, all bets are off if they become active en masse, particularly since they are known to possess at least one Dyson Sphere.
▲* Magratheans from ''[[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy]]''. They constructed entire planets in hyperspace, as well as the biggest and most advanced computer in all existence. The blueprints were given to them by a hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional race, i.e. those whose "protrusions" in our dimension are mice. The blueprints were in turn the output of the ''second'' most advanced computer in all existence: Deep Thought. As for the construction zone, the Guide says it's a spherical/spheroidal "fold" in space-time with a radius of around 13 light seconds. Assuming hyperspace construction zones in a folded space-time and that planetary engineering was a fun hobby, you get a really powerful civilization, albeit one that's hard to classify.
=== Video Games ===
▲* The 4-D beings from ''[[Star Ocean: Till the End of Time]]'' could be considered an example, if a very strange one. Sure, our entire universe is just an MMORPG that they created, but by our standards, the energy output needed to manage our universe as well as all their own affairs would be absolutely incredible.
* The Forerunners of ''[[Halo]]'' at the height of their power were more or less masters of the galaxy, though it's hard to put a number to their power use. They built rather large structures around the galaxy, which might indicate low to mid Type I depending on how fast they did it. Their higher-end stuff, like the "kill everything sapient in the galaxy" function of the halos could potentially get them into Type III, though its actual workings are pretty sketchy on the power needed, especially since it doesn't appear to be a brute-force effect, and the halos would appear to not have nearly the mass-energy available to fuel Type III power use.
** Turns out they successfully built an actual Dyson Sphere (and contained it within another dimension to be only a couple meters wide in normal space), so at least Type II.
* The Reapers of ''[[Mass Effect]]'' are the most militarily powerful faction in the galaxy. They "farm" the galaxy for intelligent life, letting civilizations develop and periodically culling them. However, they are not so much more powerful than the Citadel civilizations as even a few tenths of a Kardashev point would suggest, and when not actually reaping, they seem to float around their own territory doing pretty much nothing. If their standby systems are pretty efficient, they might even rate Type 0, but there isn't much to indicate what they do when fully active. It seems that they don't reach Type II, however.
* The villains in the ''[[Callahan's
▲* Human civilization in Walter Jon Williams' novel Implied Spaces is at a similar level, and indeed features pocket universes full of anitmatter being used as weapons.
▲* In the ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'' verse, it's never revealed specifically if there's an upper limit to just how much power an S2 organ can generate. As shown in ''End of Evangelion'', at least ten of them<ref>the nine MP Evas plus Yui who got hers from Zeruel; Adam surely doesn't have one after being regrown into an embryo</ref> put together has the power to terraform Earth. In fact, Fuyutsuki's monologue about the Fruit of Knowledge (a human mind) plus the Fruit of Life (an S2 organ) equalling what is essentially God sounds like a borderline type I.
* The author-stated badly written ''character habitat Or Something Like That'' has at least six layers of existance (he got to stuff like Omniverse and We Gave Up So Let's Just Call It Points) and the three most powerful attacks are throwing literally EVERYTHING else at them, ''breaking the story'', but forcing the target to take some form of major backlash from it and ''imposing reality (or at least a semblance of logic) on the setting''. The people who use those are leaders, but it is stated that the rough estimate is that newborn babies have the ability to break the story at least a hundred times on birth and it only gets stronger from there. And ''that's'' the ''civilians.'' Military or police forces use inquantifiable amounts of energy breaking the flimsy-in-the-first-place rules of reality, omniverses (in jewels) are somewhat expensive and require much care but multiverses and universes are cheaper and easily cared for, plot devices are medium-class weapons, hybridizing of technology and magic is the equivalent of tools, and throwing existence at someone is the effective-ish method of killing supervillains, although it's not perfect.▼
▲* The neutron star dwelling cheela from the [[Show Your Work|hard sci-fi novel]] [[Dragons Egg]] are difficult to classify as they have accelerated development. When humans first make actual contact with them, they are roughly equivalent to the late Middle-Ages or early Renaissance. After we give them the basics of science they begin developing on their own at approximately a million times the speed our civilization did. By the end of the novel (a matter of days our time) the cheela have mastered anti-gravity, faster-than-light travel, the creation of stable singularities, the manipulation of natural singularities (as a favor to their former teachers they remove several small black holes from our sun that were shortening our star's life), and manipulation of matter at the subatomic level. It is uncertain to what extent they have developed as they stop giving us knowledge once it becomes clear they are beyond our achievements (technically they give us the information, but they encrypt it so it cannot be read; the encryption key is always something related to the information itself, so that humanity will have to make the discovery on its own, but will be able to "check their answers" once they get them). Additionally, every 29 of our seconds is another year of advancement for them. If they are not a Class III by the end of the book, they will be shortly thereafter.
▲** Or at least they would have been if not for the titular event of the sequel ''Starquake''. They're probably there by the end of ''that'', though.
<!-- MOD: I have no idea what this is supposed to be, so commenting it out. If you are going to un-comment this, please re-write it and provide a link to a description on- or off-wiki of whatever work this is about.
▲* The author-stated badly written ''character habitat Or Something Like That'' has at least six layers of existance (he got to stuff like Omniverse and We Gave Up So Let's Just Call It Points) and the three most powerful attacks are throwing literally EVERYTHING else at them, ''breaking the story'', but forcing the target to take some form of major backlash from it and ''imposing reality (or at least a semblance of logic) on the setting''. The people who use those are leaders, but it is stated that the rough estimate is that newborn babies have the ability to break the story at least a hundred times on birth and it only gets stronger from there. And ''that's'' the ''civilians.'' Military or police forces use inquantifiable amounts of energy breaking the flimsy-in-the-first-place rules of reality, omniverses (in jewels) are somewhat expensive and require much care but multiverses and universes are cheaper and easily cared for, plot devices are medium-class weapons, hybridizing of technology and magic is the equivalent of tools, and throwing existence at someone is the effective-ish method of killing supervillains, although it's not perfect. -->
== Multiple: For the upwardly/downwardly mobile. ==
=== Literature ===
* In the ''[[Master of Orion]]'' games you can arguably build a civilization from a borderline Type I to a well developed Type II civilization.▼
** In ''Master of Orion 2'' the weapon ''Stellar Converter'' is capable of destroying planets in matter of seconds (debatable as it takes a turn to do so), meaning their energy output has to be in order of 10<sup>30</sup>J - give or take few magnitudes - in order to overcome the gravitational binding energy of a planet sized object. Also, you can also construct Earth-like planets from asteroid belts and gas giants. This would suggest mid to high Type II power use.▼
* Civilization in the ''[[Lensman]]'' novels progresses from what's probably a low Type II (a significant portion of the Milky Way colonized, FTL travel, 'super-atomic' and energy weapons) at the beginning of ''Galactic Patrol'' to a probable Type III (two galaxies colonized, travel between parallel universes, faster-than-light planets used as weapons powerful enough to cause supernovas) by the end of ''Children of the Lens''. The Children of the Lens themselves are near-godlike beings.
* Each portion of [[Isaac Asimov]]'s science fiction short shorty "The Last Question" takes place in a human civilization at a different point on the scale—each time the Last Question is asked, man is so much more advanced yet still powerless to answer it. It finishes by outlining a possible Type ''V'' scenario: ''reversing'' entropy even after the apparent heat death of the universe.
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** An update is published online as [http://tmp2.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page The Millennial Project 2.0].
* Michio Kaku talks about the Civilization Levels a fair bit. Might want to look up his books.
=== Tabletop Games ===
* There's another scale as well, though of course it's rather less scientific...that found in ''D20 Future''. In it, there are Progress Levels, at least eight or nine.
** Level 1 is stone age, prehistoric...Basic stone tools, agriculture, and so forth.
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** Level 9 is essentially, the Q Continuum. If they aren't Omnipotent and Omniscient, they're close to it, and can fairly safely be considered living gods.
** Still, one funny thing. Functional immortality is probably enormously easier to achieve scientifically than FTL travel, as it likely hinges on a mixture of nano, cyber and/or biotechnology already theoretical by our science (just tricky to achieve) as opposed to nudging the laws of physics in ways that we don't even have any idea how for FTL travel.
** The PL scale being lifted wholesale from TSR's defunct RPG ''[[Alternity]]'' which Wizards of the Coast inherited and then let die.
* ''[[GURPS]]'' also has its own Tech Level scale, and may have been one of the
** In 2000, Steve Jackson Games [http://www.sjgames.com/pyramid/sample.html?id=1861 officially announced] that we had reached TL8 and that they were forced to rewrite the old Tech Level scale from the 1985 rulebook because science had progressed faster in some fields (like biotech) than expected and slower in others, which affects the Tech Level descriptions in the current 4th Edition rulebook. [http://www.sjgames.com/ill/a/2006-03-21 This article] from March 2006 lists another example that modern bio-science is close to breaking through to TL9.
** Interestingly, even a TL 12 civilization doesn't have much in the way of technology above Type II. This is likely a problem of game balance (when handguns can take out a planet it doesn't really matter what Advantages characters have).
** The
*** TL 0
*** TL 1
*** TL 2
*** TL 3
*** TL 4
*** TL 5
*** TL 6
*** TL 7
*** TL 8
*** TL 9
*** TL
*** TL
*** TL
** ''GURPS'' is also notable among RPGs because it gives rules for mismatched tech levels. An enlightened and peaceful civilization might have figured out bodily immortality (TL 11) yet have no weapons more advanced than "mere" 20th-century nukes (TL 7).
** ''GURPS'' also allows fantasy/alternative technology forms, For example, a Steampunk world like ''[[Girl Genius]]'' would be
* [http://www.orbitalvector.com/Essays/TECH%20LEVELS%20OF%20SCIENCE%20FICTION%20GROUPS%20AND%20CULTURES.htm This page] has a list of [[Sci Fi]] civilizations ranked by tech level. You could disagree with at least a few placements, but it's there.▼
* Human civilization in ''[[Warhammer 40,000]]'' merits mention here. Humanity's technology level is ''ridiculously'' schizophrenic thanks to tens of millenia of war and upheaval. At its height, humanity had true AI, rapid interstellar travel, controlled the vast majority of the galaxy, is implied to have mastered matter-energy conversion, and bent the laws of the universe to its whim. Twenty thousand years of devastating galactic war later, scraps of technology from that era are worth destroying star systems over. Though the Imperium of Man and Adeptus Mechanicus don't understand how much of their most advanced technology works anymore, they still show hallmarks of a borderline Type III civilization, notably whenever the technologies of war come into question. Meanwhile, any given Imperial planet can range from the Stone Age to high type II. [[Schizo-Tech]] at its finest, folks.
=== Video Games ===
▲* In the ''[[Master of Orion]]'' games you can arguably build a civilization from a borderline Type I to a well developed Type II civilization.
▲** In ''Master of Orion 2'' the weapon ''Stellar Converter'' is capable of destroying planets in matter of seconds (debatable as it takes a turn to do so), meaning their energy output has to be in order of 10<sup>30</sup>J - give or take few magnitudes - in order to overcome the gravitational binding energy of a planet sized object. Also, you can also construct Earth-like planets from asteroid belts and gas giants. This would suggest mid to high Type II power use.
* ''[[Star Ruler]]'': You start at star-faring. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJJEMmzKzR4 Galaxy-sized ships are possible, if ridiculously lategame.]
=== Web Original ===
▲* [https://web.archive.org/web/20140130071018/http://www.orbitalvector.com/Essays/TECH%20LEVELS%20OF%20SCIENCE%20FICTION%20GROUPS%20AND%20CULTURES.htm
== [[Schizo-Tech]]: For cases that appear contradictory. ==
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