Earth and civilization as we know it has come a long way in the past 200,000 years and has
experienced a multitude of changes in that time. The human species has only existed for a mere
0.0015% of the immense 13.7 billion year age of the universe. However, humanity has conquered some
of the most daunting tasks in that time period. We have come from hunting and gathering in the fields
of Africa to colonizing the entire planet in a time period that is relatively a blink of an eye
on the cosmic level. Some of the greatest minds to ever exist have helped push modern civilization
forward and achieve goals that were once thought to be impossible. In just the past 150 years,
we have gone from being stuck to the Earth’s soil to landing on our closest cosmic neighbor,
the Moon. Humanity’s success is nothing short of spectacular,
but on the universal scale, we may be rather insignificant. What would happen if we met
an advanced alien species with technology more advanced than we could ever imagine?
In 1964, a Soviet astronomer by the name of Nikolai Kardashev introduced a hypothetical
scale that could be used to measure a potential civilization’s level of
technological advancement based on the amount of energy this civilization can produce. It is
known today as “The Kardashev Scale.” The scale has 3 traditional types, but many extensions
and modifications to the scale have proposed since its creation. The scale is logarithmic,
meaning as we go on, the amount of power of the civilization gets much, much more substantial.
In 1964, Kardashev defined the three base levels of civilizations,
based on the power available to them. Type I, the smallest of the original types,
is also called a planetary civilization. This is most similar to our good old ol’ friend,
Earth. Type I civilizations are capable of storing and using all of the energy which reaches its
planet from its host star which, in our case, is the sun. This amount of energy would amount to an
enormous 7x10^17 watts. Notice how I said “most similar” though, as our modern civilization here
on Earth does not quite exactly fit into the Type I civilization category. Yes, I know, we pathetic
humans can’t even fit into the lowest level of advanced civilizations. Rather than fitting into
a Type I civilization, we humans lie in one of the “proposed” types of civilizations, Type 0.
You see, when this scale was proposed, famous astronomer and astrophysicist Carl
Sagan produced a formula to define a certain hypothetical civilizations Kardashev rating.
K= (log10P - 6)/10
This is that formula where K represents a hypothetical civilization’s Kardashev
rating while P represents the amount of power this civilization uses in watts. A
proposed Type 0 civilization would control approximately 1 MW, or 1 million watts, of
power. Which is miniscule compared to the amount of power we use on a daily basis. In 2015 alone,
the total world energy consumption was 17.35 TW or 17350000000000 watts. Plugging this number into P
and cranking out the numbers, our Kardashev rating as a civilization would be approximately 0.72.
Even as a civilization with 7 billion humans on our planet, 12 of which ventured to the moon,
with spacecraft sent billions of miles into the abyss of interstellar space and plans to
colonize Mars in the near future, we still only score a measly 0.72 on the Kardashev
scale. According to Carl Sagan, “humanity is going through a phase of technical adolescence,
typical of a civilization about to integrate the type I Kardashev scale." Michio Kaku,
another brilliant theoretical physicist, suggests that humans may attain Type I status in the next
100 to 200 years, Type II status in perhaps the next few thousand years, and Type III status in
100,000 to 1 million years. This really goes to show the truly immense timescales it would
take to advance to the next type of civilization. However, we are heading towards becoming a Type I
civilization in the next couple hundred of years or so, and this is a huge step for humanity. As
a Type I civilization, we would have complete control over our own planet. Perhaps we could
influence the weather, change the geological makeup of our own planet, and much, much,
more. But even this amount power is tiny compared to the next type of civilization, Type II.
A Type II civilization, also referred to as a stellar civilization, can control the total
energy of its host star, and transfer the energy throughout the entire solar system. One popular
hypothesised device or devices used to harness the entire energy output of a Type II civilizations
host star are called Dyson structures. You may have seen these before as they are rather
popular in science fiction. The name was coined by Freeman Dyson and is essentially a system of
orbiting solar power satellites. Basically, it’s an insanely massive hollow sphere built around a
civilizations host star to milk all the energy of the star. Zepherus made a great video on this idea
and you should check it out, I’ll be sure to leave a link in the description to it. Another
rather exotic idea to harness energy for a Type II civilization would be to feed a stellar mass
(for example, a star) into a nearby blackhole and collect photons emitted by the accretion
disc. Now how a civilization could somehow deposit a star into a blackhole is beyond me,
but it is a means of energy nevertheless. A Type II civilization would not only build these massive
superstructures, but would control and live within them. They would control every single planet in
their solar system, mine all the asteroids at their leisure, and essentially do whatever they
want inside their solar neighborhood. The amount of power this civilization
would have is remarkable, but is nothing when compared to a Type III civilization.
A Type III civilization, also referred to as a galactic civilization, can control the total
energy of its entire host galaxy. The amount of power this civilization would have is truly
frightening and is sorta in the realm of science fiction, but I’ll cover it anyway. You see,
this civilization would function extremely similar to the way a Type II civilization would work. It
would harness the power of stars, mine planets and asteroids, and so on but not only for one star,
but for billions of stars. A civilization such as this would use planets and solar
systems like Legos, building and deconstructing planets to build up their empire elsewhere in
the galaxy. The galaxy would seemingly become their playground, and everything they do and
use is merely a toy. Harnessing the energy of quasars would be like hitting the lottery for
them. The supermassive blackhole at the center of their galaxy could be a huge energy source for a
Type III civilization. Galactic real estate would become a reality, with planets, stars,
or even complete solar systems being auctioned off by some supreme leader.
Interestingly enough, this hypothetical galaxy may not even be noticeable. If such a civilization did
exist, all of the energy from the stars would be held and used for whatever the civilization
may need. This means all the starlight, gas, and elements in an entire galaxy would become
like your kitchen pantry. If all of the matter in their entire galaxy was exploited for energy,
an outside observer would view the galaxy to be completely invisible. It would appear as there was
a hole in the galaxy, or if they have colonized the entire galaxy, perhaps nothing at all (in the
visible spectrum at least). There is a place in space known as the Boötes void aka the Great void.
At nearly 330 million light-years in diameter, the Great void is one of the largest known voids
in the entire universe and is commonly referred to as a supervoid. This region of space is seemingly
devoid of life and galaxies as we know it. A region of space with such a massive size as the
Boötes void contains, scientists estimate that there should be at least 2000 galaxies in this
area of space, but, to date, there have only been 60 galaxies that have been discovered in the great
void. This is a mere 3% of the amount of galaxies that should occupy an area this large, so,
where are they? Could it be Type III civilizations completely dominating an entire region of space,
milking a 330 million light year wide region for resources? Leave your thoughts in the
comments below, and I’ll be sure to respond to them as quickly as I can. Thanks for watching.