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

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Abusing the Kardashev Scale For Fun and Profit (view source)

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* Earth in ''[[Power Rangers]]'' is probably here. While it does have some nifty technology, it is in the hands of the government or can only be afforded by the very wealthy, and overall development seems to take up a pretty small fraction of the planet's energy budget. Other civilizations might be a bit higher.
=== Real Life ===
* The [[Real Life|human civilization on Earth]] is currently hovering around a 0.72, with a [[Power Levels|power level]] of about ''1.6 x 106×10<sup>13</sup> W'', the vast majority extracted from high-density chemically stored solar energy (fossil fuels), with some nuclear fission on the side and other direct and indirect solar energy harvesting methods contributing a small fraction.
* A very, very powerful car<ref>(rated at 1350 horsepower or so)</ref> could achieve about 1 MW at its peak, yielding a personal 0.00. As the scale is logarithmic, anything lower would generate a negative rating.
* The Sandia National Lab in the U.S spikes to 0.85 for about 95 nanoseconds on the scale (3.5 x 105×10<sup>14</sup> W) each time it activates the Z-Machine, a thermonuclear bomb simulator.<ref>(Each activation uses a bit more than 33 megajoules in 95 nanoseconds, which works out to 350 terawatts.)</ref> Said lab intends to eventually increase the power of the machine to 1 x 101×10<sup>15</sup>W for 100 nanosecond pulses to operate as an experimental pulsed power fusion reactor (1 petawatt being the input for one very short Z-pinch pulse - not the output) - hitting a rating of 0.9 on the scale.
* The National Ignition Facility at the U.S Lawrence-Livermore National Lab is another pulsed inertial fusion experiment, with its massive laser system capable generating nanosecond-scale flashes of 5 x 105×10<sup>14</sup> W on the fusion target, making a spike up to about 0.87 for a very, very short time.
 
== Borderline Type I: Power use roughly equivalent to a terrestrial planet's insolation. 1E16W ==
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* ''[[Transmetropolitan]]'' explicitly references the trope—or an older version of it, anyway. Type I is described not only as harnessing all the power, but having eliminated internal conflicts. The other two types are largely the same. Spider notes that they can perform miracles with engines too small to be seen and have turned all of Mercury into a solar battery enough to power the entirety of Earth continuously... but they are still divided. Approximately 10<sup>17</sup>W if 60% or so of Mercury's light is harnessed.
=== Literature ===
* [[Ender's Game|Ender's Saga]]. As the typical interstellar travel time is tens of years at close to light speed, we can assume humanity still inhabits a relatively small patch of Galaxy after thousands of years. The shown planets have smaller civilizations than our current one, but they are numerous. It is hinted that nearly all of them were conquered in the Third Invasion, and that means no more than a few a day during a few years. Some of the more impressive technology, like interstellar travel, is noted to take relatively little power. So probably less than 1.5×10<sup> 17</sup>W.
* ''Triplanetary'', the prequel([[Dolled-Up Installment|-ish]]) [[Lensman]] novel, covers humanity going from a Type 0 to a Type 1. At the end, relatively easy interstellar travel has been achieved, and power is generated through (almost) completely efficient matter-to-energy conversion.
=== Live-Action TV ===
* ''[[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&nbsp;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 Reimagined|Battlestar Galactica]]'' (prior to the Cylon nuclear bombardment), given that they used at least a fraction of the power available on 12 planets, and have a decent fleet in a setting where nukes are plentiful and considered powerful.
* The sub-Vorlon/Shadow civilizations of ''[[Babylon 5]]'' seem to be in this neighborhood.
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== Solid Type I: Clearly more than a single planet's energy budget, but less than a star's. ==
* The [[Mnogo Nukes|Tsar Bomba]], the most powerful device ever built by humanity, achieved about 5.3 x 103×10<sup>24</sup>W, near the top of this category.
* The human civilization in ''[[Freelancer]]'', a system-spanning bunch of colonies with lots of stars and planets at their disposal. They also have Jump Gates that interconnect their systems by carving holes through spacetime. Space travel is fairly cheap and common.
* The United Federation of Planets of ''[[Star Trek]]'' is composed of a whole group of Type I-ish civilizations banded together for truth, justice, and <s>the American Way</s> interesting plotlines.
** In one episode, the power output of the ''Enterprise-D'' is given at "12.75 billion gigawatts", which is the same power output of an entire Type 1.3 civilization. So either the ''Enterprise-D'' alone uses an appreciable fraction of the Federation's resources, the Federation is well into Type 2 territory, or [[Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale|the writers just picked a really big number that sounded impressive]].
** For comparison, a Nimitz-class carrier's output is about .001% the total global output, and a Saturn V's was about 3%. So, assuming a similar ratio between the Galaxy-class and the Federation, the whole civilization would be between 4 x 104×10<sup>20</sup> and 1 x 101×10<sup>24</sup>W, solidly in Type I territory. This seems to be in line with the widespread use of fusion and bulk antimatter for power.
** The Borg Collective probably weighs in as a pretty hefty Type I, with galaxy spanning communications networks, massive fleets, extensive space installations, hundreds of civilizations assimilated, and a fairly decent ability to beat up other Type Is.
* The Zentradi of ''[[Macross]]'' are the slowly decaying remnants of [[Precursors|an ancient (perhaps Type II) civilization]]. At the time the series takes place, they are probably mid-to-high Type I. In the course of the various series and movies they become progressively assimilated by humanity, which is itself an upwardly mobile Type I.
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== Borderline Type II: Power use roughly equivalent to a G type star's radiant output. 1E26W ==
* The Sun puts out about 3.86 x 1086×10<sup>26</sup>W, as a largish G type star using mostly proton-proton chain fusion, converting slightly over 4 million metric tons of mass into energy every second.
* The various human groups in ''[[Hyperion]]'' are very much capable of building living Dyson Spheres/rings around stars, but seem to generally stick to single planets. By way of comparison the AIs are considerably more advanced (they can teleport planets) and are considered God-like by most people, and probably use rather more power. Likely scenario is a decent number of partially utilized stars for the humans, maybe somewhat more for the AIs.
* The [[The Precursors|Dom Ka'vosh]] from ''[[Freelancer]]'', who built an almost galaxy-wide empire long before Humanity colonized the Sirius sector. You must enter a [[Dyson Sphere]] in the last mission, and nothing contradicts the possibility that there may be more of them.
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== Borderline Type III: power use roughly equivalent to a galaxy's radiant output. 1E36W ==
* The Milky Way shines with about 4 x 104×10<sup>37</sup>W.
* Human civilization in the [[Xenosaga]] series and to its extent, Xenogears, by proxy, have come VERY''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.
* The Pa'anuri of ''[[Schlock Mercenary]]'' designed a gadget that overwrote the Milky Way galaxy with a pocket universe (ok, so they didn't build it themselves, but they provided the plans and 'observers' to the F'sherl-Ganni), and use entire ''star systems'' as projectiles, so they might be here, though that's highly dependent on the efficiency of their phlebotinum. Given that they're fighting over a single galaxy, they're probably not higher or much lower than this.
** That's their expeditionary force though, the combined 'power' of their population in Andromeda...
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== Solid Type III: More power than a single galaxy, but probably less than a galactic supercluster. ==
* Quasars vary, but 1 x 101×10<sup>40</sup>W is a ballpark.
* ''[[Manifold Time]]'' by [[Stephen Baxter]]. In the distant future, descendants of humanity maintain vast Dyson nets around the supermassive black hole remnants of galaxies until they evaporate via Hawking radiation, accessing the power equivalent of multiple galaxies.
** A star puts out a lot more energy from fusion than a black hole of the same mass would from Hawking radiation. Also, the more massive the hole, the lower its effective temperature. This might be more of a Type II or borderline Type III, depending on exactly how many "multiple" is.
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== Solid Type IV+: Universe-scale power use/control. ==
* The observable universe glows with about 2 x 102×10<sup>49</sup>W.
* The highest possible transient power output for a point source is about 9 x 109×10<sup>51</sup>W based on Relativity predicting the formation of an event horizon around anything more. The final word on this will probably have to wait for a working theory of quantum gravity, however.
* The Time Lords of ''[[Doctor Who]]''.
** Their ultimate weapon was so powerful that only the Time Lord president could wield it and it requires a hidden key only the president knows about to operate. The weapon in question is the Demat Gun. It doesn't just destroy a target, it ''erases'' the target from time and space so that the target never existed in the first place with nobody even remembering what the target was.
** The Doctor probably ranks as his own personal Type IV. He uses supernovas when needed, which produce 101×10<sup>45</sup>W (100 [[wikipedia:Foe (unit of energy)|foes]] over 10 seconds) during the stellar collapse.
** The Master with his 100,000 Black Hole Converters also gets this distinction, assuming they harness the same energy conversion of the gravitational potential energy to neutrinos.
** If you are wondering why they have so many headaches, Time Lords have a big thing about not interfering. You see, the Silver Nemesis, the Time Scoop, all of these things are ludicrously powerful. In "The Three Doctors", they seem to have a monitoring station capable of keeping track of all of the energy in the universe. They are, however, an indolent bunch of bureaucrats and politicians and rarely ''use'' any of their power. The Osirians were said to be able to defeat even the Time Lords. As for the Black and White Guardians, they appear to be personifications of universal concepts, effectively gods, so they are probably beyond even a type IV.
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* In ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'', the aliens seen [http://sluggy.com/daily.php?date=010826 at the end] of the "GOFOTRON Champion of the Universe" arc are able to contain hundreds of exploding stars within a sphere the size of a soccer ball. And this device was created by a ''waffle company''.
* The [[The Culture|Overarch Bedeckants]], the civilisation that built the probe in ''Excession'' travel between universes so as to avoid extinction by being trapped in one when it undergoes heat death. Their lone probe brushed off the most powerful weapon the Culture wielded without any apparent effort. However, most of the information about the Excession comes from Intelligence report suppositions and a single largely incoherent rambling rant from the Excession itself.
* Traditional view of a God creating the universe ex-nihilo means you need to take the current mass-energy content of the universe (4 x 104×10<sup>69</sup>J) and have expelled it in the time before time existed (one unit of Planck time, or 5.39124 x 1039124×10<sup>−44</sup> seconds), coming up with 7 x 107×10<sup>112</sup>W. This would put God, at a bare minimum, as a [[Beyond the Impossible|Type X]].
* A bizarre example in the ''[[Family Guy]]'' episode "Not All Dogs Go To Heaven"—the Earth and all the galaxies in the universe are shown to be part of Adam West's bedside table lamp.
* For the denizens of the ''[[Futurama]]'' universe, traveling to the ''edge of the universe and back'' is a trivially easy task. As is killing everything everywhere. They also posses the ability to alter universal constants and other physics across the whole universe (scientists changed the speed of light in 2208), which can also be used to power technology (changing the properties of dark matter, 200% efficient engines <ref>which the writers should know would require breaking time symmetry of the laws of physics, i.e. changing them and exploiting that to extract more power than was put in</ref>). Planet exploding weapons are operated by single person demolition companies, the use of which is considered mundane. Multiple universes can be created by a lone inventor on the budget of a small delivery company (said delivery company having made only 100 deliveries in 10 years, as of 'The Mutants are Revolting'). In said delivery company, interstellar/intergalactic spaceships are as mundane as small pieces of wire.
** And consider that in the ''Futurama'' universe, Earth/humanity is a pathetic third-rate wannabe power, only able to bully the very smallest and weakest other cultures - comparable to fascist 1930's-era Italy.
* The Xeelee from the novels of Stephen Baxter's ''[[Xeelee Sequence]]'' have absolute mastery over the entirety of all baryonic matter in universe. Entire galactic clusters are just bricks to these guys. Future humans make it to Type III and try to attack them by shooting a whole neutron star at near light speed at them like a bullet, and they all but ignore it as insignificant. In the same universe are the Photino Birds, creatures of dark matter against whom the Xeelee fight a multi-billion year existential war and '''lose''' , because the photino birds have absolute mastery over all the dark matter in the universe, and dark matter outmasses baryonic matter by about 9 to 1.
* Humanity in the Dancers at the End of Time series: they abused the universe so much that the heat death of the universe is on the verge of happening merely one million years in the future, instead of several trillions. The worst part is that they could fix it, and the ''only thing'' preventing them is... intellectual lazyness.
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