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

{{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.]]"'' |'''Time Lord Marnal''', ''[[Doctor Who Expanded Universe]]: [[Eighth Doctor Adventures|The Gallifrey Chronicles]]''}}

 

 

Note that the Kardashev number of a civilization indicates only its power use: it is at best just a proxy for the scale of technological capabilities at play, and it can become less proximate the [[Mohs Scale of Sci Fi Hardness|softer]] the Sci-Fi gets, which also makes it harder to evaluate where a civilization rates on the Kardashev scale [[All There in the Manual|if no hard numbers are given]]. As an example, consider the human civilizations of ''[[Avatar (Film)|Avatar]]'' and ''[[Ender's Game]]''. Both use relativistic craft and travel between fairly local systems. Though there are world-destroying weapons and much larger scale space travel in ''Ender's Game'' and its sequels, the [[Applied Phlebotinum|phlebotinum]] involved is specifically said to use enormously less energy than normal physics would suggest for accomplishing those tasks. In ''Avatar'', the necessity of brute-forcing relativistic travel may put that civilization higher on the Kardashev scale, despite the largely inferior technology and scale of development. Keep this in mind when placing examples, and try to include some explanation. After all, a hallmark of improving technology is increased efficiency, which would actually ''lower'' a civilization's Kardashev rating, all else equal.

The problem of pinning down these various entities to a nice level could imply a nice subtrope. Most [[Mohs Scale of Sci Fi Hardness|Soft Sci-Fi]] is powered by a Large Convenient Energy Source (LCES), which in theory provides [[No Conservation of Energy|as much energy as the plot requires without refueling]] ("Scotty, I need more power"). Meanwhile, since they are using magic, anti-matter, dark matter, white holes, or black holes, the theoretical power that these devices provide to our protagonists does not result in the expected megascale [[Dyson Sphere|Dyson Spheres]], [[Ringworld Planet|ring orbitals]], or [[Space Elevator|space elevators]]. Unfortunately (or fortunately for the sake of comprehensible story telling) we relate "better" to this soft Sci-Fi even though it does little to represent the actual technology needed to power replicators, transporters, shields, and artificial gravity on grand scales.

 

 

==== Unmarked Spoilers Abound From This Point Onward ====

* The ''major'' races in ''[[Mass Effect (Video Game)|Mass Effect]]'' (the turians, the asari, the salarians and arguably mankind) are probably meager Type Is, with highly developed homeworlds and numerous yet sparsely populated colonies. The remaining races inhabiting Citadel Space are somewhat less, maybe high Type 0.

** Debatable. They were able to reverse-engineer technology from the Reapers (below), quite fast, and put them onto their Fighters and Frigates. Also, it's only humanity's colonies that are sparsely populated; the turians had colonies big enough for several wars to be fought between them millennia ago.

* ''[[Battle Angel Alita]]'' is probably around here, considering the power of individuals at the Zenith of Things Tournament. Jupiter seems to have a Dyson sphere variant, and a laser that can cut a shield that can block nuclear blasts. Zekka has an internalized anti-matter reactor of sorts, and Don Fua has a black hole generating technique.

 

* 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 (Franchise)|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.

** 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 10²⁰ and 1 x 10²⁴W, 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 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.

* The unidentified builders of the Dyson Sphere in the ''[[Star Trek the Next Generation (TV)|Star Trek the Next Generation]]'' episode "Relics".

* The [[Ascend to A Higher Plane of Existence|Ascent to Transcendance]] victory text of ''[[Sid Meiers Alpha Centauri]]'' indicates that building a structure intended to mimic the theoretical effects of the Dyson sphere is a project currently being undertaken and which will be completed relatively soon.

* The [[Warhammer 40000|Imperium of Man]] probably goes here. It possesses myriad hive worlds, each probably rating about Type I, and countless Type 0 worlds across much of the galaxy. Their more powerful weapons can blow up planets, indicating transitory mid Type II scale power use, though that happens fairly rarely.

* The elusive Geth of [[Mass Effect (Video Game)|Mass Effect]] may be in this territory. The small amount of their space shown features low to mid Type I scale development per system, with tens to hundreds of thousands of ships and orbital platforms, especially around gas giants. If they control a good part of a galactic arm, which they may, they'd be around here.

* 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 5x10^20 W) at peak power. A starship can have anything from one or two to hundreds of these engines. And most fleet battles engage thousands or millions of these ships, if not more.

** 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]].

* The aliens in ''[[Contact (Film)|Contact]]'' engage in [[Terraforming|galactiforming]]. It's implied they're pushing the limits of their capabilities by doing this, though the extent of their works isn't very clear.

* The observable universe glows with about 2 x 10⁴⁹W.

* The highest possible transient power output for a point source is about 9 x 10⁵¹W 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.

** 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 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.

** One of the [[Expanded Universe]] novels states that their stunning ''lack'' of personalities is a cultural defense to make sure no Time Lord gets [[Drunk With Power]]. It works. [[The Master|Mostly.]]

*** Note that The People are collectively a massive "[[Captain Ersatz]]" of [[Iain M Banks]]' "The Culture."

** Considering the Daleks were able to fight the Time Lords to a draw in the Last Time War before the Doctor consigned both of them to seeming oblivion, the Dalek civilization at some point had to be at least within an order of magnitude of the Time Lords, a level of power not even hinted at in the original series. Note, however, that most of the Doctor's encounters with them occurred during Davros' (first?) lifetime, which, even if it extended into the thousands of years, would still be pretty insignificant over the whole of time. Considering the [[Timey-Wimey Ball]] nature of the Whoniverse, the idea of the Daleks developing over a period of thousands or millions of years from a postapocalyptic [[Super Soldier]] race to one of the biggest threats in the universe during the assumed [[San Dimas Time|real world time period of ~50 years]] isn't even remotely unbelievable.

* 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.

** That was more or less retconned away later.

* The Tyranids of [[Warhammer 40000]] 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.

** 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 (Video Game)|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.

* 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.

* 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.

* [[Isaac Asimov]]'s stories, in chronological order, begin with mankind as a type 0 or a borderline type I. Then they establish Spacer colonies, invent faster-than-light travel and eventually colonize almost an entire galaxy, having reached a Solid II level.

** 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.

** GURPS also allows fantasy/alternative technology forms, For example, a Steampunk world like ''[[Girl Genius (Webcomic)|Girl Genius]]'' would be [[TL 5]]+4 (Steam engine/victorian with flight, death rays, and mechanical AI), while ''[[The Flintstones]]'' would be [[TL 0]]+6 (Stone age with TV and cars! )

* [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.

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

 

 

* ''[[Supreme Commander (Video Game)|Supreme Commander]]'', considering that you field forces that seem representative of much less than a Type I resource base to fight over tiny areas of individual planets in a conflict between empires that supposedly extend across sizable chunks of the galaxy, powered by nanomachine assemblers that ought to be capable of more impressive mobilization.

* Where [[Transformers|the Transformers]] fit on the scale depends on the continuity. But in the Movie-verse, they have devices that can suck the energy from stars, destroying them in the process. Though that would suggest Type III-IV, their on-screen activities look far below Type I. Though other continuities aren't necessarily entirely consistent, they do better than an apparent forty orders of magnitude mismatch.

[[Category:Just for Fun]]

[[Category:Abusing The Kardashev Scale For Fun And Profit]]