You can hop through the multiverse and bend time to your will.

You'd be part of a super-advanced version of humanity, a Type VII civilization.

Uh, yes please.

But how do we get here?

Today, we're taking you on a journey to the future to show you how humanity could progress from a Type 0 civilization all the way to a Type VII.

Now, before we visit these super-advanced civilizations, let's take a second to talk about the scale we measure them on, the Kardashev scale.

For starters, you're probably wondering why it's called the Kardashev scale.

Well, this scale is the brainchild of Russian astronomer Nikolai Kardashev, who proposed a system for classifying how advanced a civilization is.

It's kind of a tricky problem because civilizations change over time.

Take weapons, for instance.

In the Stone Age, having a really sharp stone made all the difference.

But it's hard to measure advancement based on how many sharp stones a society had because now our weapons are all bombs.

Kardashev realized he needed to hit on a metric that's a fundamental characteristic of civilizations.

He decided that had to be energy.

He classified civilizations by how much energy they're able to harness and use.

Now, Kardashev only defined type one, two, and three, but others have since expanded on his definition to add types four through seven.

Okay, now that you know what the scale represents, let's take you on an epic tour to explore each of these civilizations.

Our first stop, naturally, a type one.

But before we set off for a type one, let's take the pulse on where we are today on our Blue Marble.

Well, type zero.

Yeah, despite all the progress we've made as a species, we're living in a civilization that still hasn't reached the first rung of the ladder.

Heck, we're still burning dead plants for energy, using just one millionth of the energy that the sun splashes on our planet, and we have zero control over natural disasters.

If a super volcano erupted tomorrow, we'd all be dead.

Now, you're probably wondering, are we really a zero?

Has all the progress we've made over the last hundreds of thousands of years meant nothing at all?

Well, things aren't that bad.

Scientists have crunched the numbers, and what they've found is that we're actually at a 0.72.

So close.

We're at a type three quarters.

They estimate that in 100 to 200 years, we'll get to a level one.

But instead of waiting that long, let's take a trip forward in time and see what that feels like.

Type one civilization.

Welcome, you've arrived on a type one Earth.

You know, if Earth is ever going to reach the technological heights of a type one civilization, well, energy and clean power will be key pieces to making this dream a reality.

Energy is crucial because it underpins technological advancement, economic growth, and environmental sustainability, all the things we need in order for us to become an advanced society.

Now, in order to make progress towards these aspirations for the future, we need to focus on finding solutions today, like creating cleaner and more efficient electrical systems.

One of the innovators leading this effort is a publicly listed company called Hillcrest Energy.

They're focused on advanced electrical systems that help power up electric vehicles and convert and store renewable energy, both essential pieces to a type one civilization.

They do this with a power inverter, a device that converts electricity.

Let me explain.

Things like solar panels produce direct current, or DC electricity, and things like buildings, our homes, and power grids, well, they need alternating current, or AC electricity.

So in order to make the electricity produced from the solar panels usable, we need an inverter to convert that electricity into its usable form.

That's where Hillcrest comes in.

They have this inverter called the Zero Voltage Switching Inverter.

Now, other inverters typically lose a lot of energy when converting power, but the Zero Voltage Switching Inverter is way different.

It's the most efficient inverter available.

It can help your electric car go further on a single charge, or produce and store more energy from renewable resources.

Now, what's even more impressive?

Well, Hillcrest was able to build this tech in just three years, and now they're in talks with suppliers to take it worldwide.

This is great news, because the need for electrical inverters is bigger than ever.

After all, earth is racing to decarbonize our current technology, and because of this, the global inverter market is expected to reach $117 billion by 2029, and Hillcrest will likely be one of the companies leading this charge.

No pun intended.

Leading the charge, get it?

Current technology, do you see what I'm doing here?

Good thing Hillcrest is leading the charge, because we're gonna need all the power we can get, both for today and for tomorrow.

Speaking of which, what else will a Type I civilization need?

Humanity will also need things like quantum computing and artificial intelligence to produce unprecedented technological advances.

The medical breakthroughs we uncover have us living in a world free of cancer.

You could have bionic limbs, and your overall lifespan is much longer.

Interplanetary travel is also a regular part of life in a Type I.

You might want a vacation on the moon or Mars, and those crazy floods, Category 6 hurricanes, and tsunamis of the 21st century, they're a thing of the past.

With this new supercharged energy, we'll have the power to reduce a Category 6 hurricane to a Category 2, or make it go away completely.

That asteroid that's hurtling toward Earth?

Well, no worries.

You just press a button and nuke it.

Congratulations, you're no longer in danger of being wiped out by natural disasters.

It's safe to say that living in a Type I civilization would be life-changing.

And that's not all.

The way we communicate would be incredibly different.

English has now become the unifying means of communication around the world.

The internet has connected everybody on Earth, and we now have a single global currency for international commerce.

And you're part of a more tolerant society, guided by science and reason, more unified as a single planet.

Life on Earth is great, but the colonies on Mars and the moon have whet your appetite.

You're itching to explore the rest of the solar system.

Well, what's stopping you?

You just need a little more energy.

Type II civilization.

A Type II civilization is defined as one that's able to harness all the energy from its star.

For you, that's the sun.

How long will it take humanity to reach this point?

Well, if you're around long enough to see this happen, it'll be a few thousand years.

You're now harvesting all the possible energy from the sun.

To do this, you've built a Dyson sphere around the sun, or maybe you've built a Dyson swarm, a megasystem of smaller structures that orbit the sun, gathering its energy.

Now, whether it's a sphere or a swarm, this megastructure collecting sunlight and radiating out this energy creates a distinctive signature in space, the signature of a Type II civilization.

Now, this could be detected by other advanced civilizations looking for signs of life.

Who knows, you might finally get a call from those elusive aliens.

You're now part of a true multi-planetary society.

Using the enormous amount of energy harvested from the sun, you make other planets and moons in our solar system habitable.

Over a period of thousands of years, there are now fully functioning Type II colonies on Mars and our moon, also on Venus, Europa, and Titan.

Using advanced genetic engineering, we've modified our bodies to quickly adapt to different conditions on different planets, and to modify extreme conditions on other planets using weather engineering techniques.

That poisonous gas on Venus, well, you get rid of it, and you'll mine other planets and asteroids in our solar system for their natural resources.

I hear Jupiter is a great source of hydrogen.

Now that you're free from the danger of being wiped out by catastrophic natural disasters on Earth, you're feeling invincible.

Is there anything to worry about?

Unfortunately, yes.

You can still be wiped out by a cosmic-scale disaster.

For instance, a supernova explosion.

It's the last stage of a dying star.

If a supernova's blast wave strikes a dense cloud of gas around it, enormous amounts of X-rays could be produced, and these could damage the atmospheres of planets up to 160 light-years away.

An event like this could wipe out colonies on Earth and nearby planets.

But come on, after so much progress, humanity isn't gonna let some pesky space bombs wipe us out.

To make sure that life sticks around, we're gonna have to level up and inhabit more than one star system.

So now you've got a new quest.

You need to harness more energy, enough to avert disasters on a cosmic scale.

It's time to become a Type III civilization.

If you can level up to a III, you'll ensure that human beings become immortal.

But you've run up against a problem.

Stars in our galaxy are as far as 100,000 light-years away, and you can't travel faster than the speed of light.

Type III civilization.

Okay, it's another 100,000 to one million years later.

Welcome to humanity as a Type III civilization.

You're now harnessing the energy of all the stars in our galaxy.

But wait a minute, how did you get to stars so far away?

And how did you choose which stars to go to?

Well, first, humanity figured out how to achieve velocities close to light speed.

Sci-fi tech like ramjet fusion and photonic engines are all in your toolbox.

Next, you manufactured trillions of von Neumann probes.

These are robots that can land on distant star systems, duplicate themselves, and repeat the process.

Like ripples spreading out from the center of the pond, they expand out in our galaxy, landing on and analyzing all the stars.

They'll figure out which ones are ripe for harvesting energy.

Now, once the viable stars are identified, you send out a seamless Dyson swarm to surround them.

Humanity is now the master of the Milky Way galaxy.

You'll live on any number of countless planets engineered to your liking.

You'll command the energy of billions of stars to do your bidding.

Also, between the transition from Type II to Type III, your body will have evolved even further.

You'll be a cyberborg, a super intelligent being with the capabilities of AI fused with your biology.

Genetic engineering techniques will replace clunky implants and lab-grown organs.

You'll be able to regenerate worn-out limbs and other body parts.

And as your bones wear out, your genome will be programmed to repair the skeletal wear and tear.

You're not a vampire, but you'll effectively live forever.

With life thriving in multiple far-flung galaxies, neither cosmic nor natural disasters can wipe out human civilization.

You can avoid being hit by a supernova explosion by altering its path.

Even if our solar system gets hit by one of these, human life will continue in other planetary systems in the galaxy.

Congratulations, you're now part of an immortal civilization.

But the Milky Way isn't enough for you.

You're ready to explore the other galaxies in our universe.

Type IV civilization.

Welcome to a Type IV civilization.

As part of a Type IV, you're able to harness the power and resources of all the galaxies in our universe.

Now, we should also mention that going past the initial three types of civilizations is beyond the Kardashev scale that was developed.

And a lot of the theories about these extra civilizations lean more towards science fiction than actual backed-up research.

Nonetheless, there's still a lot of fun to speculate about.

So let's get into these advanced and at times ridiculous civilizations.

The technological capabilities of human beings at this stage are so advanced that it can be hard to even wrap your brain around them.

In a Type IV civilization, humanity has mapped out the entire universe, including all the galaxies and clusters inside it.

You now have a deep understanding of every planet, galaxy, and star in the universe, the ones that are worth exploring and the others that are just massive rocks floating about.

And with this level of knowledge, you'll come across other civilizations.

Some of these are still in their embryonic stages while others will be a little further along.

Some might even be on a path toward annihilation, either because of their internal struggles or natural phenomena.

Maybe like any alien species that may be in existence today, you'll need to make decisions about whether or not to contact these earlier stage civilizations.

You develop a set of intervention principles.

Observing these civilizations becomes a fascinating exercise.

You compare their progress with the history of Earth.

But there's one pressing thing that keeps you up at night.

Eventually, your universe, the only one you've ever known, will die.

And with that, humanity will die out.

To solve this, you aim your sights toward becoming a Type V civilization.

You're ready to discover something even greater.

Type V civilization.

Welcome to the Type V civilization.

You know, many doubted that humans could ever go beyond the edges of our known universe, but you've arrived at an even greater level of sophistication.

You now control and harvest the energy from stars across multiple galaxies in multiple universes.

How did you achieve this?

A group of humans in the Level IV civilization refused to let the human race die out with our original universe.

Using technologies that I can't even explain here because they're so far beyond our 21st century comprehension, they helped humanity make the leap from single universes to the multiverse.

But as humanity will soon find out, this is just the start.

Type VI civilization.

Welcome to a Type VI civilization.

As a civilization, you can now pretty much control everything.

You've uncovered the full set of universes that exist, and you understand their structure.

In other words, you understand the omniverse.

With these far-reaching abilities, you now see multiple timelines play out simultaneously.

You think back to Earth's timeline and you can't wrap your head around a time when humanity's level of knowledge was so minuscule.

You thought chat GPT and VR headsets were as far as humanity would go.

Well, look at you now.