Civilization Types using Kardashev Scale

As a civilisation grows forever larger and more powerful its energy demands will increase rapidly due to its population and machines and so the Kardashev scale is a way of measuring a civilisation’s technological advancement based upon how much usable energy it has at its disposal. Originally designed in 1964 by the Russian Nikolai Kardashev (who was looking for signs of extraterrestrial life within cosmic signals) the scale has 3 classes . Other Astronomers have extended the scale to Type IV and Type V (the energy available to this kind of civilisation would equal that of all energy in all universes, in all time-lines) considering not just energy consumption but the amount of knowledge of the universe that is controlled by them.

Firstly it is important to note that the human race is not even on this scale yet because we sustain our energy needs from dead plants, oil and gas. We here on Earth are merely a lowly Type 0. The famous physicist Michio Kaku claimed that he believes we will reach Type I in 100 – 200 years time. But what does each of these categories actually stand for ?

A Type I civilisation is a species who have been able to harness all the energy that is available to their planet from its parent star, storing it to power society and supply it’s ever energy hungry population. This means that we would need to boost our current energy production by over 100,000 times to reach this status. However, being able to harness all Earth’s energy would also mean that we could have control over all natural forces. Human beings could control volcanoes, the weather, and even earthquakes! These kinds of feats are almost hard to believe, but compared to the advances that may still be to come these are just basic and primitive levels of control. 

The next step up, a Type II civilisation can harness the power of their entire star! Several methods for this have been proposed most popular of which is the hypothetical ‘Dyson Sphere’, this is a team of satellites that orbit the star capturing its energy in storage for use (Jaime already covered this strange contraption in an earlier post, link below). Alternatively, if fusion power had been mastered by the race a reactor on a truly immense scale could be used to satisfy their needs. Nearby gas giants can be utilised for their hydrogen, slowly drained of life by an orbiting reactor. 

What would this much energy mean for a species? Well, nothing known to science could wipe out a Type II civilisation. Take for instance humans survived long enough to reach this status, and a moon sized object had entered our solar system on a collision course for our little blue planet, we’d have the ability to vaporise it out of existence.

Onto Type III and the species has become galactic with the knowledge of everything to do with energy they are a master race. Although in terms of humans hundreds of thousands of years of evolution, biological and mechanical, may have left them incredibly different to the current human race just like Borgs in Star Trek. 

These may be cyborgs (or cybernetic organism, a being both biological and robotic), with the descendants of regular humans the sub-species living in this highly advanced society as how disabled people do in some less developed countries in the world today.

We would have designed colonies of robots capable of ‘self replication’; these may increase to in the millions as they spread out across the galaxy colonising star after star. Building a Dyson Sphere to encapsulate each one and creating a huge network that would carry energy back to the home planet. But stretching over the galaxy faces problems; the species would be constraint to travelling at the speed of light. Maybe they could bend space time to create worm holes? Or quantum teleportation could be an option.

Kardashev believed a Type IV civilisation was ‘too’ advanced and didn’t go beyond Type III on his scale because surely this would be the extent of any species’ ability to manipulate for its own advantage? Many think so, but very few believe there is further that could be achieved. Type IV would almost be able to harness the energy content of the entire universe and with that they could traverse the accelerating expansion of space. To previous methods of generating energy these kinds of feats are considered impossible. A Type IV civilisation would need to tap into energy sources unknown to us using strange laws of physics.

Type V. Yes, Type V might just be the next possible advancement to such a civilisation. Here beings would be like gods, having the knowledge to manipulate the universe as they please just like Q in star trek.

Now humans are a very, very long way from ever reaching anything like this. But it’s not to say that it cannot be achieved as long as we can develop our society so that we are sustainable enough to preserve our tiny home, extinguish war, and continue to support scientific advances and discoveries. Just a small thought for you - maybe someday one of your descendants will roam the stars as a cyborg?