Does Kardashev Type III Exist? | Unveiled

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Does Kardashev Type III Exist?</h4>

As Nikolai Kardashev originally imagined it, a type three civilization was the absolute pinnacle. As literal masters of the galaxy, a type three wields supreme power and unbridled potential. But, is any of it actually possible? Or is the Kardashev Scale solely a piece of speculative future thinking?

This is Unveiled, and today we’re answering the extraordinary question; does Kardashev type three exist?

Cast your mind out into space and visualize what might be happening. In the distant realms of the Milky Way, a thriving type three civilization dances with the energy of a thousand suns. The inhabitants of this colossal society spread across many, perhaps even millions of planets. They harness the power of all the stars under their gaze. Dyson spheres envelop entire suns like cosmic orbs, capturing energy on an unimaginable scale and siphoning it all away to exactly where it needs to be. Enormous structures - impossible to our eyes - bridge the void between worlds. Hyper-advanced links form an interconnected web of dazzling highways.

The type three beings that live here wield technologies indistinguishable from magic. Mind reading, teleportation, telekinesis, the creation of matter from nothing; they can do it all. Artificial intelligence orchestrates the harmony of their lives; maintaining whole planetary ecosystems, guiding infinite fleets of self-replicating spacecraft; and honing the individual body of every person there into an indestructible, immortal, super-powered vessel for the mind. Virtual realities, as intricate as the fabric of the universe itself, offer immersive experiences that transcend the boundaries of the waking world. And perhaps even the multiverse is known and explored, as even time itself falls under their spell.

But, from our point of view, as lowly human beings, the main question is an easy one; is any of it even possible? 

A type three civilization is born out of the Kardashev Scale, an influential framework first proposed by the Soviet astrophysicist Nikolai Kardashev in 1964. It ranks civilizations based on their ability to harness and manipulate energy. At Type one, it’s all the available energy on its home planet. Mastery over weather, seismic activity, and sustainable energy sources are key, and it’s the first major level that we, human beings, are busily inching towards at the moment. At type two, it’s all about stellar domination. Advancing beyond planetary bounds, a type two civilization extracts energy directly from its closest star. Most likely they build a Dyson sphere, a megastructure that surrounds that star to ensure that every single unit of energy it emits is held and used. For this video, we’re most interested in the specifics of type three, which we’ll get to imminently. But for context, and although type three was the original zenith as Kardashev himself viewed it, there have since been higher levels suggested. Including type four, which extends its influence across the entire universe, manipulating the fabric of spacetime; and type five, which would move even higher and into the multiverse.

Of course, all of this is theoretical, but type three still sets itself apart as something of a pinnacle within the model, as it arguably does still retain a good degree of plausibility. You don’t necessarily need to imagine what would essentially be a God of all things for it to be possible, as per type four. You don’t need to subscribe to the various multiverse theories to allow for it, as per type five. And yet its scope far, far surpasses even type two. In galactic terms, type threes have got it made.

A true type three civilization sweeps through an entire galaxy. If it were local to us, that would mean full dominion over the Milky Way, an average-sized spiral galaxy but still one that’s up to 200,000 lightyears across and potentially contains more than 400 billion separate stars. Type three is an unfathomable juggernaut but probably built around certain key technologies. For one, Dyson Spheres and Swarms. Again, these would capture all the radiant energy of all the stars under type three control. They would work something like a blanket of cosmic engineering, most likely linking one star to the next, to the next, all to run everything else that a type three does. Most notably, intergalactic travel. Traversing vast cosmic distances with ease, via wormholes, warp drives, or other exotic propulsion systems. Only once intergalactic travel is invented could a group ever hope to gain full control over their own galactic realm; the distances at play would simply be too vast, otherwise.

With massive energy capture and intensely high speed travel in place, we can begin to picture what life would be like on the ground. Planet-wide cities (known as Ecumenopolises) built to host all manner of life forms, all under their shared type three identity. All would boast the mastery of quantum computing (at least) enabling them to gather information at a staggering pace. Some foresee a hive mind or collective consciousness at this stage - perhaps powered by the principles of quantum entanglement - meaning that every type three being would (or should) know everything about everything, as standard. From some perspectives, this should mean a paradise, with planets and moons individually transformed into precisely whatever it is that will allow them to thrive. 

Large-scale ecological engineering; all-encompassing knowledge and contentedness; a limitless energy structure… and yet, there would still be questions to answer and problems to solve. How does a type three group truly ensure freedom and fairness for all? What ethical considerations guide the decisions of a society with such immeasurably vast power? How can a type three know that whatever it does is for the best? Or, does that no longer even matter?

For some, these conundrums alone are why a type three actually might not be possible. Sure, all (or most) of the envisioned tech itself could be doable, given enough time and advancement… but would anything ever be able to manage all that it would bring? For example, with the energy at its heart. Ensuring equal distribution would be paramount, but would it really happen? In reality, might a type three fall at the first hurdle, when it allows some to have more than others. The potential issue of galactic diplomacy is another that many - speculators and sci-fi writers alike - believe could prove a bridge too far. Consider just the international politics of Earth, and the many tensions that it triggers; now multiply those issues by a few billion, and add the potential meeting with another type three force from another galaxy… and it’s a sure bet that there will be arguments, fights, and wars. And with the prospect of war meaning type three weapons aimed from planet to planet, that more than likely means that any disagreement would have extinction-level consequences.

In this way, the question of whether or not type threes really exist can be viewed as a debate on the so-called Great Filter; the idea that there’s something that all (or most of) life simply cannot get past, and so it dies out before it. It could be that the Great Filter is specifically tied into technological advancement, suggesting that no matter how smart any one group gets… they will eventually obliterate themselves. It’s already feared that lowly humanity may have already flown close to this point, so what are the chances that a type three could ever navigate hundreds of thousands (perhaps even millions) of years' worth of more tech evolution? Perhaps those chances are as good as zero. It is impossible to get that far.

Back in the here and now, and despite the allure of the Kardashev Scale it remains difficult to argue that the higher levels of it will ever be reached. By humankind or by anything else. Today, we have initiatives such as SETI (the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) and Breakthrough Listen, constantly scanning the skies for signs of life. But so far, nothing. We know that our universe is 13.8 billion years old and we strongly suspect that there must be alien life out there, that remains true. But if something as large and influential as a type three alien existed, then for many it’s something that we should have detected by now.

Of course, that said, only part of the universe is ever observable to us. And thanks to universal expansion that part is getting smaller and smaller by the second. And, even in just the observable universe, no matter how extensively we think we’ve looked it over, there is still massively more that we don’t know about it than do. We imagine Dyson Spheres and wormholes etc. for a type three civilization based on the science and knowledge that we do have… but that’s not to say that they would operate in exactly that way. Or even in any way close. 

For now, we're yet to capture a signal that unequivocally points to a type three group. We’re also yet to discover inarguable proof that aliens, in general, do exist. But, what do you think? Was Nikolai Kardashev onto something when he first laid out his Scale in the mid-1960s? Or, in reality, would a super-advanced group work totally differently to the star-conquering cosmic dominators that Kardashev imagines?