How to Measure a Sci-Fi Civilization | Worldbuilding Advice

[@d1j16]

Always great content! Everyone needs a quick-reference to ensure the world they create remains consistent, so this can be quite helpful. Thanks!

[@WorldAnvil]

Happy to be helpful!

[@e.christopherclark7367]

Great video. That said, I now find myself wondering about technology levels below the Level I (of the revised scale).

[@WorldAnvil]

Classifications forever!

[@ChrisLontok]

I missed the premier! Great video! Thinking about how to apply this to my fantasy world-building.

[@WorldAnvil]

Thanks! Glad you found it useful. :)

[@knitcrochettiger361]

what about doing a MAGIC based Kardashev.....so magically advanced that they create magical devices and ships that can explore space....you get all the wonderful tech effects as Star Trek or Stars Wars while using magic instead of electricity based tech

[@WorldAnvil]

"Any sufficiently advanced technology..."

[@ElJorro]

Excellent advice!

[@WorldAnvil]

Glad it was helpful!

[@josephyoung2593]

In the late '90s the RPG Aria offered rules for designing fantasy civilisations as characters; the idea was you'd use their stats to generate important individuals and adventures about important events; the campaign encompassed the entirety of the fantasy history. The game system was never completed but I've often wondered if you could cross-pollinate it with the Universal World Profile codes from earlier (and possibly later) editions of Traveller and retrofit it to space-opera milieus so you could meaningfully compare Star Wars, Lensman, 40K etc.

[@WorldAnvil]

That's a really intriguing idea!

[@RyanNerdyGamer]

Honestly, I don’t think the Kardashev Scale can accurately define any of my settings… 🤔

[@enonknives5449]

Too much power and technology make things too easy. Limitations make more interesting stories.

[@RyanNerdyGamer]

@ It’s kinda hard to explain 😅

[@WorldAnvil]

It's a limited tool for fictional purposes.

[@isaacthewebcomiccreator9750]

This may or may not be the best example, but Planetary Romance is often considered to be a subgenre of Space Opera, and the planet Mongo from Flash Gordon usually tends to be a Type One Civilization that’s causing problems for Earth, especially Ming himself, who is essentially the arch nemesis of Flash Gordon.

[@WorldAnvil]

We should probably do a breakdown of space opera worldbuilding for our genre series... 🤔

[@chrispy_091]

It feels to me like writers never get the numbers right because they think the numbers are too absurd even for fiction. Warhammer 40K as an example is a pretty absurd universe, but even if they allied with a bunch of other fictional universe to include Star Wars, Star Trek, Halo, etc. they still wouldn't come close to the numbers or firepower needed to take on a fully realized K2 civilization on the classic scale. The numbers given by the writers are just too low.

[@AlbertaGeek]

Glad to see someone who understands the numbers. If you don't subscribe to Isaac Arthur already, you might like his videos. He explores, using as much known science as possible, many SF themes and tropes, among which are entire playlists about harnessing the power of an entire star or stars or black hole(s).

[@chrispy_091]

@@AlbertaGeek I listen to his videos every Thursday and I learned every single one of the 600 first rules of warfare.

[@WorldAnvil]

They're fairly ridiculous numbers to conceptualize for a lot of people.

[@ghostdreamer7272]

Thanks for the video, and covering all the options at the end! I wish there were more stories with functionally post-scarcity economies. Also, the Kardashev scale describes nothing well in science-fiction or the realistic future, it just needs to be dumped.

[@AlbertaGeek]

No offense, but if you could do the math, you'd find that it describes it quite well.

[@ghostdreamer7272]

@ how? It’s much more accurate, and more intuitive, to describe something as a galactic civilization, or interplanetary, etc. Each planet is different, and if you don’t want to strip it down, that means any K1 civilization had a presence on multiple planets to equal how much it would get from its home planet. Same with K2… that is basically talking about a Dyson Sphere (or swarm, since I guess a sphere is near impossible to realistically make) and therefore you could have a civilization in multiple star systems and not considered K2, not equal to their home star’s energy output (and one K2 could be on a different level of another K2 since stars are different). K3 being a Dyson sphere/swarm around every star in the galaxy is so difficult, and so boring, and probably impossible without FTL (which remains a fever dream).

[@AlbertaGeek]

@@ghostdreamer7272 _"you could have a civilization in multiple star systems and not considered K2"_ You could if you had a K1 in 10 *billion* star systems. This is what I mean about doing the math. Most people who have heard of the Kardashev scale still fail to appreciate that it is a logarithmic progression and subsequently how insanely more powerful each +1 on the scale is over the last.

[@ghostdreamer7272]

@@AlbertaGeek Yes, it does become insanely more powerful with each level. Which is why it's useless. Especially if we accept no FTL. What's the point of a scale where we aren't even at 1, and could possibly never even achieve 2 while still being a galactic civilization. It's quite worthless.

[@AlbertaGeek]

@@ghostdreamer7272 _"Especially if we accept no FTL"_ I have no problem accepting that. STL between stars is possible, it just takes time. But time is also why a K2 civilisation makes more sense than some Star Wars/Star Trek "galactic civilisation": it is quicker and easier to build habitats as needed around one star than it is to find and travel to whatever habitable planets that may exist and average who knows how far apart from one another. _"What's the point of a scale where we aren't even at 1"_ All I'm hearing from you is "What's the point of dreaming?" Edited to add, for what it's worth, Earth is currently at about 0.7 on the scale.

[@markwrede8878]

Civilization advances only through cooperation, competition derails advancement and wastes resources.

[@WorldAnvil]

That's one potential answer to the Fermi paradox...

[@stephenferguson9756]

Competition has greatly advanced our own civilization technologically.

[@markwrede8878]

@@stephenferguson9756 No, competition is only useful to distinguish among choices. The data tables which advance computing could have always been made, they needed cooperation to be created. Competition is just which machine is a little more efficient.

[@howardnenno1806]

Love the content and world anvil, please stop with those focus on the face wipes.

[@WorldAnvil]

Forwarding along the suggestion