What could an alien civilisation be able to do? Well, as we have not found any alien civilisations then everything is guesswork based on the laws of physics and our experiences here on earth. This could be completely wrong or it could be completely right or it could be somewhere in between. It is great jumping into the future and theorising but the time involved in moves from type to type in some cases is enormous and unless we start living forever, a little off putting to say the least.
The Kardashev scale is a method of measuring how advanced a civilisation could be. It relies on energy consumption of the whole civilisation and then applies it to the universe. As you might have guessed a bloke called Kardashev, a Soviet Russian astronomer, thought of it in 1964. It sounds a little out of date but is still a good idea and today SETI, science fiction writers and futurists use it.
Type 0 Civilisation.
You can probably guess that our poor old civilisation or should I say new civilisation is in this category. We’re
basically a day old child not even being able to walk yet. Most of our power use is from natural resources, oil, gas and coal which as we all know we can’t win renew. We are only just thinking about using solar power, geothermal power, wind power and similar. Our civilisation is around 0.73 on the civilisation scale and slowly climbing, I wonder if we get a present when we reach type 1 status.
There is speculation that we will reach type 1 civilisation status in 100 to 200 years. It’s all big jumps and achievements that move a type 1 civilisation up the scale after this. As we rise up through the civilisation types we begin to learn more and more and move up the scale exponentially. Remember that it took over 3000 million years for humans to evolve to this state today (and what a state).
The Kardashev scale covers from levels 1 to 3 and just covers energy used. SF goes further and puts some detail in so the following is a best guess. If anyone is in contact with a type 7 then please let me know and I’ll edit the post.
1 The discovery of fire.
2 The development of stone tools.
3 The industrial revolution.
4 The technological expansion of the 19th century to the 20th century.
5 Nuclear weapons and fission power.
6 Achievements from the late 20th century to the early 21st century.
7 Fusion power and Space elevators.
8 Up to the Type I technological breakpoint, with either civilization destruction or survival.
Controls the energy of an entire planet. This civilization can control the weather, can prevent earthquakes. Though advanced, a Type I civilization still faces danger of extinction by natural disasters such as comet impacts.
Advancing from type 1 to type 2 civilisation could take about 1000 years exponentially. To put it another way, the more you know the more you can know. Currently, the total sum of human knowledge roughly doubles every 10 years.
1 Near space industry and colonization.
2 Asteroid mining.
3 Planet Mining for fuels and energy.
4 First Interstellar travel.
8 Civilization extends to the entire Solar System.
9 One nation without boundarys on earth.
Controls the energy of an entire star. It has the ability to directly mine a star. This civilization will have completely explored its own star system and will have established a number of colonies in neighboring star systems. The energy factor mastered by a Type 2 civilization is about a 10 billion fold increase over that controlled by Type 1. A Type 2 civilization is virtually immune to extinction.
1 Dyson Sphere completion, where a star is totally or partially enclosed to gather the suns energy.
2 Creation of the nearest star colony.
3 Star lifting, where stars are mined for raw materials.
4 Colonization of the nearest 100 stars.
5 Star Trek type civilization. Perhaps but then again perhaps not.
Controls the energy of an entire galaxy, show offs. Such a civilization can manipulate space-time and possesses almost godlike powers. It would be threatened with extinction only by the death of the universe itself (and even this might be avoided). Energy mastery for a Type 3 civilization marks a 10 billion-fold increase. There begins to be events and things we don’t understand at this level and onwards.
1 Space time manipulation control of the energy output of a galactic supercluster.
2 Star Wars type civilization (debatable).
3 Ability to survive the end of the Universe.
4 Controls the whole galaxy and has controlled it for millennia.
Energy control over the entire universe. Such a civilization approaches or surpases the limits of speculation based on current scientific understanding, and may not be possible. Frank J. Tipler’s Omega point may ocupy this level.
Energy control over multiple universes, a power level that is technically infinite.
The civilization may have gained the ability to alter physical laws across multiple universes
These civilizations can escape a dying universe, and thereby become eternal, it is possible that less advanced civilizations can do so as well.
This would be a God or a deity, able to create universes at will, using them as an energy source, and a large one at that. Type 7 though is well beyond the stage of understanding that humans can incur beyond a technological singularity.
The above skills are reliant on the energy produced by the civilisation but there could be other ways of classifying steps in our evolution into the universe. Information available to the civilisation could be used and has been suggested by Ray Kurzwell.
As you might have guessed, we cannot understand alien civilisations we can only dream about what they would be like. Therefore some people argue that the above types of civilisation may not actually occur and future development might occur differently.
There may also be unique conditions on Earth that allow quicker development (or slower development perhaps) than the civilisations forming around us. There could be lots of unique things about the earth from the tilt to the Moon producing tides and it’s protection from asteroids, comets, and radiation.
The existence of these types of civilisations may be incorrect considering the little we know about the universe. It’s a good start though. Let’s hope there is a party every time we advance a civilisation type.