The Kardashev Scale is so vague as to be useless and doesn't really scale down (without needing multiple decimal places), and the Three Age system doesn't really scale up. Neither of them gives a handy way to know just what goes on in any of the societies they "describe," or what kind of challenges each society might face.
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| The Vulcans (Type-10) arrived on Earth to investigate an anomaly; the development of FTL travel (a type-10 technology) by a post-apocalyptic Type-6 society. (Star Trek First Contact, Paramount, 1996) |
What I settled on was a system of 19 factors that each represent a baseline for any given society. Particular societies will deviate in different ways, but by averaging out each of these variables, it becomes possible to assign a type --or even to extrapolate, where some data might be unavailable.
Footprint: the area that this society has direct knowledge of --this flows both ways, since it is also the area in which the society will be recognized by outsiders. The Roman Empire ruled "the Known World," yet the Olmecs, Polynesians, and Aboriginal Australians probably had no idea it even existed.
Sustainable Population: what sort of numbers (hundreds, thousands, millions, billions) could this society reasonably support? A pre-industrial infrastructure won't be able to maintain a population of several billion, and a population of a few hundred won't be enough to support a planet-spanning empire.
Government: what sort of centralized authority would this society likely have, whether a simple Alpha or a massive representational Senate, and how would this leadership exert its authority (either directly or via intermediaries)?
Bureaucracy: this reflects the internal complexity of the society and its leadership: does the leader actually rule, or is s/he at the mercy of political, corporate, administrative, or international red tape (and who or what is actually in charge)?
Language: how complex a language will this society have (to discuss advanced concepts), and how widespread (to facilitate trade and foster unity)?
Literacy: will literacy (and its related benefits to communication, learning, and history) be the province of a specialized social class (scribes), an industry, or universal?
Network: this describes how information is disseminated through the society (by word-of-mouth, carrier-ravens, radio transmission, a worldwide digital network, or subspace), and how easily any given member can communicate with any other individual.
Religion: this is less concerned with the specifics of the religion (which will vary wildly), than with the complexity and sophistication of the religious landscape. Religions can range from simple animism to complex cosmogonies and organized rituals, or politically-active bureaucracies in their own right.
Science: this encapsulates the scientific and technological breadth and depth of the society, and the relative importances of various fields of study ranging from alchemy to an atomic theory to advanced engineering and cybernetics.
Medicine: Will an injury be brought to a local shaman or an emergency room, or will symbiotic nano-repair systems obliviate the need for hospitals?
Education: this describes the format of education available to a citizen, whether via apprenticeship, organized academics, or databases downloaded directly into one's brain. This also considers what material will likely be covered in a standard education. (What technologies and lifestyles are considered "normal" for a young adult --will "high school" include hunting/trapping, driving lessons, astronaut training, or advanced warp theory?)
Energy: what types of energy will be present in this society? Will work rely on manual labour, a hydro-electric grid, or portable cold-fusion cores?
Industry: this describes how the society manufactures its tools and goods, whether by chipping rocks, blacksmithing, mass production, 3D printers, or personal replicators.
Military: the size and calibre of the military forces this society can call upon, whether a handful of spear-hunters, a nuclear-capable air force, a fleet of city-ships armed with nova bombs, or a single warrior armed with reality-warping technology.
Economy: vastly simplified, how does this society conduct trade? What sort of resources is it most interested in, and how does wealth and labour get distributed, logistically? Is trade carried out with bartered goods, standardized currency, or a thumbprint scanner?
Food: how do members of this society feed themselves? This explores both where the food comes from (whether it is grown, processed, modified, or completely synthesized) and how it may be treated (whether as a staple, a delicacy, or a status symbol --is there a difference between what the nobles and the commoners eat?). Is everything local-grown, or has it been flash-frozen and shipped halfway around the planet?
Travel: this is a measure of how an average citizen may get around, in terms of ease, range, and technology. Will they spend their entire lives in a single hamlet, will they need to book interplanetary voyages months in advance, or will interstellar journeys via wormhole be considered a daily commute?
Spaceflight: if encountered in space, what sort of technology and experience would a member of this society have? Are interplanetary trips based on carefully-calculated orbital slingshots and precise timetables, or can personal shuttlecraft travel freely, making course adjustments as needed? This factor also considers the presence, quality, and distribution of FTL technology, whether restricted to large military ships or available on small personal transports.
Alien contact: this considers the amount and nature of alien contact likely present in this society, as well as how aliens are considered (either anomalies or so common as to be unremarkable), and how this society might appear from outside (whether undetectable, avoidable, omnipresent, or mythical).
To test this system, I evaluated as many real-world societies as I was familiar with, looking for averages and trying to suss out as near a "universal" system as I could. Given our tragic dearth of experiences with higher-level societies, I also broadened the net, treating fictional societies as anthropological case studies (which I figure neatly approximates dealing with "incomplete" data from a field team), and again looking for common threads.
What I ended up with was 17 tiers, ranging from Type-1 (tool-using animals) up to Type-17 (god-races like the Q Continuum). And yes, this means that we have several "intelligent" alien races right here on Earth, some of whom reach as high as Type-2!
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| Members of the Type-2 Kasakela tribe interact with Jane Goodall, a representative of a Type-7 civilization. (photograph by Michael Nichols, National Geographic) |
For the record, the modern developed world is an early Type-7 (we became such in the 1960/70s, when we set foot on the Moon, started building space stations, and built the first foundations of the internet) --in fact, many of the problems we're dealing with (climate change, gender equality, religious extremism, etc) can be seen as conflict between nationalistic Type-6 social structures and globally-conscious Type-7 mindsets.
I'll go into more detail in later posts, but as a quick breakdown:
Type-1: Social, tool-using animals. (dolphins, octopodes, ants)
Type-2: A paleolithic society capable of crafting tools (deliberately altering a found object to match a mental blueprint). (crows, chimps, elephants)
Type-3: A neolithic society. (Ötzi's people, Ewoks, Fraggles)
Type-4: A (possibly nomadic) city-state, with a centralized ruler exerting direct authority. (Babylon, the Dothraki, Immortan Joe's kingdom)
Type-5: A feudal nation-state, where the central ruler must rely on the support and loyalty of vassals. (Roman Empire, Westeros, Equestria)
Type-6: An industrial nation, with world-wide influence. (British Empire, WWII-era America, the Fire Nation)
Type-7: A superpower with access to planetary orbit. (Modern America, the Light Civilization, the Invid Regis' Hive)
Type-8: A spacefaring civilization with access to solar orbit and permanent orbital stations, and a heavily computer-reliant infrastructure. (Seen in Ghost in the Shell, Batman Beyond, and Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century)
Type-9: An interplanetary civilization, with access to space habitats and sleeper/generation ships. (Seen in most Gundam series, Firefly, and Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy).
Type-10: An FTL-capable interstellar power, dependent upon the Homeworld. (Enterprise-era Earth, 12 Colonies of Kobol, Halo's UNSC)
Type-11: A stellar nation, made up of multiple politically/economically independent worlds/species. (Coalition of Planets, Rebel Alliance, League of Nonaligned Worlds)
Type-12: A stellar superpower that can dominate an entire quadrant. (24th Century Federation, Borg Collective, Stargate's Asurans)
Type-13: A galaxy-spanning civilization. (Vorlons, Wraith, Rakatan Infinite Empire)
Type-14: A civilization that spans several galaxies. (Systems Commonwealth, Stargate's Ancients, Tyranids)
Type-15: A civilization that spans a significant portion of the universe. (Green Lantern Corps, Time Lords, Precursors [allegedly])
Type-16: A civilization whose members can time-travel and access multiple universes within the same multiverse. (Marvel's Asgard, DC's Monitors, Transtech)
Type-17: A civilization that spans multiple non-contiguous multiverses. (Q Continuum, Alternity, Unicron)
I've noticed a few patterns emerging as I did this:
-Type-5 societies seem to be inherently unstable; they represent the point where a centralized (Type-4-and-under) monarchy reaches its breaking point. The ruler (who, until now, has been able to hold Power directly) must now rely on vassals and local governors --who will have ample opportunity to plot against the ruler. The Type-5 ruler will either be overthrown (at which point the kingdom will dissolve into civil war, possibly collapsing back to multiple Type-4s), or invent a completely new form of government that shares power, allowing the nation to advance to Type-6 (as the Magna Carta represents).
-Post-apocalyptic civilizations tend to stabilize around Type-4 --this is the simplest state that can maintain a recognizable "modern-style" government.
-Transitions between these tiers are usually marked by increased stress between progressive, regressive, and conservative forces, usually centred around a watershed event (a revolution, either social or military).
-Whether deliberately or not, most of the anomalies I've found (societies far above or below where they "should" be) have an in-universe explanation; technology recovered from precursors, specific "wild card" breakthroughs in particular fields, societal collapse and loss of infrastructure, etc.
-Species who talk of themselves as "evolved" (i.e., god-like races) tend to be from a point well after they would have mastered bioengineering --the "evolution" they're talking about is guided evolution, not the natural kind.
-At a certain level, societies either seem to develop interdimensional travel or space travel, but never both. Interdimensional voyages usually remain restricted to one particular planet (i.e., Earth), and any threat to that planet is treated as a threat to the entire Universe (an interesting reflection of traditional Geocentrism).
-There is a difference between "Degeneration" and "Regression." Degeneration occurs when the central authority of a civilization collapses, but leaves the civilization's infrastructure intact --this results in a society that is made up of multiple smaller societies which can only be interpreted in relation to the whole (and which don't fit cleanly on my scale). A historical example is how once-united Heian Japan (a Type-5) gradually spiraled into civil war and ended up as a collection of warring states (a collection of Type-4s, yet all sharing mostly the same culture and language, and with relatively easy travel between them).
(Another example can be found in Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda: after the intergalactic Systems Commonwealth collapsed, the prevalence of slipstream travel meant that the Commonwealth's successor governments [the Than Hegemony, the Drago-Kazov Empire, the Kalderan Commune, etc] continued to operate on an intergalactic scale despite their lower population, limited resources, and lower tech level --essentially, they are either multiple unusually advanced Type-10s, or a single unusually primitive and factionalized Type-14).
Regression, by contrast, is when a society loses or otherwise abandons its technological infrastructure and scales back to a lower level. One example is Andromeda's Vedrans, who deliberately went from a Type-14 civilization to a Type-9 society with only a single solar system to their name.
(Another example is how the Roman Empire [which started out from Romulus' Type-4 kingdom and grew into a Type-5 society] split into two smaller Type-5 societies which gradually disintegrated into patchworks of self-ruling Type-4 fiefdoms).
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| The Type-5 Roman Empire grew too unwieldy for a single Emperor, and eventually fractured and disintegrated as local rulers refused to acknowledge Rome's authority, or were conquered by neighbouring powers. (gif from the Image Arcade) |
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