Well what if one of these Alien species lasted the entire 14 billion years. I wonder how advanced they would be.
This makes me think of K-Scale of Civilizations
Type I
"Technological level close to the level presently attained on earth, with energy consumption at ≈4×1019 erg/sec[1] (4 × 1012 watts.) Guillermo A. Lemarchand stated this as "A level near contemporary terrestrial civilization with an energy capability equivalent to the solar insolation on Earth, between 1016 and 1017 watts."[2]
Type II
"A civilization capable of harnessing the energy radiated by its own star (for example, the stage of successful construction of a Dyson sphere), with energy consumption at ≈4×1033 erg/sec.[1] Lemarchand stated this as "A civilization capable of utilizing and channeling the entire radiation output of its star. The energy utilization would then be comparable to the luminosity of our Sun, about 4 × 1026 watts."[2]
Type III
"A civilization in possession of energy on the scale of its own galaxy, with energy consumption at ≈4×1044 erg/sec."[1] Lemarchand stated this as "A civilization with access to the power comparable to the luminosity of the entire Milky Way galaxy, about 4 × 1037 Watts."[2]
-------------------------------------------------
Type 0
A Type 0 civilization extracts its energy, information, raw-materials from crude organic-based sources (i.e. food/wood/fossil fuel/books/oral tradition); pressures via natural disaster, selection, and societal collapse creates extreme (99.9%) risk of extinction; it's capable of orbital spaceflight; in fiction, societies that fail to improve social, environmental and medical understanding concurrently with other advancements, frequently accelerated their own extinction:[22][23]
Cyberpunk genre (and post-cyberpunk) is frequently centered on the transitional inter-periods between Type-0 and Type-I status. While frequently focused on how the concepts of "Transhumanism" and "Singularity" will eventually overcome the problems that have, up until now, been endemic to human nature, Cyberpunk subverts this to describe the Dystopian side should a civilization "self-destruct" in the process of achieving Type-I status. In such fiction, most current world problems are local in warfare, local in culture, and usually mono-cultural, and theistic; further aggravated by various groups trying to retain a Type-0 monoculture through religious fanaticism and opposition to technological progress, and others trying to move forward to a Type-I global civilization through technological advances and institutional change.[24][25][26]
Type I
A Type I civilization extracts its energy, information, and raw-materials from fusion power, hydrogen, and other "high-density" renewable-resources; is capable of interplanetary spaceflight, interplanetary communication, megascale engineering, and colonization, medical and technological singularity, planetary engineering, world government, trade and defense, and stellar system-scale influence; but are still vulnerable to extinction:
Mundane science fiction is frequently characterized by its setting on a "Type I Earth", or within the "Sol"-solar system, and a lack of interstellar travel or contact with aliens.
In Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, which takes place in the 22nd century, mostly in Walt Disney World. Disney World is run by rival adhocracies, each dedicated to providing the best experience to the park's visitors and competing for the Whuffie the guests offer. Synthesized memory, suspended animation, life extension, rejuvenation and genetic enhancement technologies have made death obsolete, material goods are no longer scarce, and everyone is granted basic human rights that in our present age are mostly considered luxuries.[27]
In "Gears of War", the humans of Sera have obtained type I status. By 16 A.E. they were capable of controlling the weather, using the Adaptive Atmospheric Manipulator which would create artificial hurricanes.
Type II
A Type II civilization extracts fusion energy, information, and raw-materials from multiple solar systems; it is capable of evolutionary intervention, interstellar travel, interstellar communication, stellar engineering, and star cluster-scale influence; the resulting proliferation and diversification would theoretically negate the probability of extinction:
Michio Kaku, in a lecture, said that the Star Trek fictional universe is considered as Type II.[28]
In the Ringworld series by Larry Niven, a ring a million miles wide is built and spun (for gravity) around a star roughly one astronomical unit away. The ring can be viewed as a functional version of a Dyson sphere with the interior surface area of 3 million Earth-sized planets. Because it is only a partial Dyson sphere, it can be viewed as an intermediary between Type I and Type II. Both Dyson spheres and the Ringworld suffer from gravitational instability, however—a major focus of the Ringworld series is coping with this instability in the face of partial collapse of the Ringworld civilization.
Stephen Baxter's "Morlock" of The Time Ships occupy a spherical shell around the sun the diameter of earth's orbit, spinning for gravity along one band. The shell's inner surface along this band is inhabited by cultures in many lower stages of development, while the K II Morlock civilization uses the entire structure for power and computation.[citation needed]
In the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Relics", the Enterprise discovers an abandoned Dyson sphere.[29]
In the Halo universe, the United Nations Space Command (UNSC) and the hostile alien society known as the Covenant have both attained Type II status. The UNSC is shown to be able to induce a star to go supernova, terraform entire planets and has a territory consisting of more than 800 planetary systems. The Covenant are able to perform exceedingly accurate slipspace navigation, near-instantaneous interstellar communication and man-portable application of energy manipulation.[30]
In the Mass Effect Universe, according to Michio Kaku,[31] Humanity has advanced to a Type II civilization, having uplifted earth species, colonized several planets, and competing with other Type II civilizations (such as the Asari, Salarians, and Turians).[32]
Type III
A Type III civilization extracts fusion energy, information, and raw-materials from all possible star-clusters; it's capable of intergalactic travel via wormholes,[28] intergalactic communication, galactic engineering and galaxy-scale influence:
Michio Kaku, in a lecture, said that the Star Wars fictional universe is considered as Type III.[28]
In Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon. The stellar energy output of the whole galaxy is used by the Galactic Community of Worlds.[33]
While not much is known about them, the Ancient Humanoids from Star Trek have manipulated the course of biological evolution across the entire galaxy billions of years ago. As a result, the vast majority of species in the Milky Way is humanoid, and possess a secret code embedded in their DNA.[34]
Type IV
A Type IV civilization extracts energy, information, and raw-materials from all possible galaxies; it's effectively immortal and omnipotent with universal-scale influence, possessing the ability of theoretical time travel and instantaneous matter-energy transformation and teleportation (their apparent abilities may include moving entire asteroid belts and stars, creating alternate timelines, and affecting universal states of nature such as the gravitational constant); in fiction, these civilizations may be perceived as omnipresence/omnipotent gods:
Certain factions of Humanity in Peter F. Hamilton's Commonwealth Saga and Void Saga would be Type IV, death has been all but removed, and transportation via wormholes and teleportation has been achieved. Some factions have technology to move planets with a hyperdrive.
The backstory of The Dancers at the End of Time series by Michael Moorcock describes a civilization which consumed all the energy in all the stars in the universe, save Earth's own star, in order to fuel an existence in which the inheritors of Earth lived as near omnipotent gods.[35]
In a rare mention of the scale within a work of fiction, the Doctor Who novel The Gallifrey Chronicles, a Time Lord named Marnal asserts that "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." It also could be argued that the Daleks -also from Doctor Who- were a Type Ⅳ civilization at the time of the Last Great Time War, as they had the same universe-altering capabilities of the Time Lords.[36] Throughout the entirety of the TV series' history, Timelords have been shown to manipulate the very fabric of the universe, such as the TARDIS being powered by a dying star caught in the event horizon of a black hole (the tenth doctor had mentioned that timelords invented gravity in the satan pit.) As suggested in Genesis of the daleks, Time Lords also are capable of manipulating the evolution of life itself, including themselves when they gave themselves their ability to cheat death.
Michio Kaku, in a lecture, said that in Star Trek: The Next Generation, the god-like Q Continuum could be considered above Type Ⅳ, drawing their energy from outside the universe.
The Players of The New Cosmogony, a fictional Nobel Prize oration in A Perfect Vacuum by Stanisław Lem, are altering the laws of physics for their own purposes.[37]
In Lexx a character named Mantrid uses exponential growth to make copies upon copies of his constructor arms called "Mantrid drones", eventually using all the matter in the light universe, which ends up destroying the universe when too much matter accumulates in one place, "unbalancing" it.
In The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov, a sentient species from another universe reaches Type Ⅰ in conjunction with humanity, by developing a technique of exchanging electrons and protons across universes. To combat the flux of energy, humans reach Type Ⅳ by developing a technique of harvesting the energy from yet another universe, which exists in a pre-big-bang state, or a "Cosmic Egg" state.[citation needed]
In the Bionicle universe, the Great Beings attained this type. While they have not been shown travelling through space, they have shown to be capable of constructing a 40 million foot high sentient robot that is capable of moving planets, and capable of creating fully sentient and synthetic cyborg civilisations. They have the ability to genetically engineer creatures to give them superpowers. Amongst their notable achievements are objects capable of manipulating fundamental forces of the universe, such as the Mask of Life and the Mask of Creation. They also possess the ability to travel between dimensions and even universes.[citation needed]
The immortal "Guardians of the Universe", creators of the Green Lantern Corps (DC Comics), have manipulated events on an intergalactic scale for three billion years.
The Xeelee from Stephen Baxter's Xeelee Sequence are present throughout the universe, have instantaneous communication and constructed an artefact 10 million light year across, using the material of many galaxies. They possess time travel capabilities which they used to construct closed timelike curves in which they modified their own evolution, becoming the most advanced baryonic civilization.
The "Ancients" from the multiple Stargate series. The building of wormhole travel devices, time travel devices as well as the potential to bridge parallel universes for the purpose of travel and energy production classify these as a class IV civilisation. The Stargate Atlantis series is based with technology hundreds of thousands of years beyond that of space travel on a universal scale, as shown in the Stargate Universe series, potentially classifying them as class V, but with no proof.
The Forerunners from the Halo series are also to be classified as a Type IV civilization. They had had the power to move planets at will, and create ringworlds (Halo Rings) whose purpose was to destroy all organic life in the galaxy in the event of contamination of the Flood. They also had the capabilities to create "Shield Worlds" (essentialy Micro - Dyson Spheres) which contained a time locked reality, which is much larger on the inside. They created ships that could travel across the galaxy in a matter of seconds, and had a galaxy-wide information network that could be accessed at any time from anywhere in said galaxy. They had the ability to manipulate gravitational force, create synthetic intelligence, fabricate extremely dense and artificial materials, perform highly accurate slipspace navigation, the ability to create life, and the ability to create worlds powered by man-made stars.[30] It could be argued that the Forerunners are only a Type III civilization by the fact that they are mostly confined to their own galaxy, but that is mainly for the reason that they didn't wish to leave their own galaxy, even though they fully had the capabilities to do so. Their power sources are said to draw energy from entire alternate universes.
Type V, and beyond
Such hypothetical civilizations have either transcended their universe of origin or arose within a multiverse or other higher-order membrane of existence, and are capable of universe-scale manipulation of individual discrete universes from an external frame of reference. In fiction, their "god-like" artifacts or endowed abilities (such as monolith) find their way into the hands of relatively juvenile "Type 0" civilizations (such as humanity):
The 2011 God and the Universe episode of the American History Channel television series The Universe explored the possibility of sufficiently advanced civilizations custom-building new universes.[38]
The organization known as the Infinite Consortium from Magic: the Gathering stretches between the planes of existence throughout the multiverse.[citation needed]
The Downstreamers from Manifold: Time, after completely controlling their universe, used time travel to induce the creation of a multiverse.[citation needed]
The Combine from the Half-Life video game series are a multi-dimensional empire capable of traversing between Universes.
In the webcomic Homestuck, the unknown creators of the game "Sburb", as the game is capable of altering reality, opening wormholes, endowing players with godlike capabilities (e.g. control of time or space, creating objects out of nothing, transforming into wind, etc.), and creating or destroying entire universes, along with all of their individual timelines.
