Abusing the Kardashev Scale For Fun and Profit: Difference between revisions

[[File:rsz kardashev 2010 12 8 3891.jpg|frame|How advanced are you?]]

 

 

[[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.

 

{{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 ===

* ''[[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 6×10⁷J/kg), and is capable of carrying herds of cows (say, 50 cows weighing 700&nbsp;kg each); putting all that together, ''Serenity'' herself has a power output of at least 2×10⁹W.<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 10⁸ of that civilization's power output, the total civilization's output is at least 2×10¹⁷W. (For comparison, note that 1:10⁸ is roughly the ratio of a car engine's power output to the power output of our entire civilization.)

* The sub-Vorlon/Shadow civilizations of ''[[Babylon 5]]'' seem to be in this neighborhood.

=== Video Games ===

=== 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.

=== Literature ===

* 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.

 

== Borderline Type III: power use roughly equivalent to a galaxy's radiant output. 1E36W ==

=== 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).

=== 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.

** 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.]]

* 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.

** 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).

* 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.

 

== Multiple: For the upwardly/downwardly mobile. ==

* 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.

** 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.

* 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.

** 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.

* 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.

* ''[[Star Ruler]]'': You start at star-faring. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJJEMmzKzR4 Galaxy-sized ships are possible, if ridiculously lategame.]

 

 

== [[Schizo-Tech]]: For cases that appear contradictory. ==

[[Category:Just for Fun]]

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