Alien Species

If we're going to keep this, isn't there any way we could rename this category to something less... ah.. I must say: something less childish? : / -- BlueFrackle (talk) 18:18, June 10, 2013 (UTC)

the Kardashev Scale provides six levels of civilization (Types 0-5) and is a . . . fairly accurate and understandable scale. ralok (talk) 18:30, June 10, 2013 (UTC)

Kardashev is hard to apply to fiction, though. How do you know if this or that race has control over the entire energy of its sun? Besides, Type IIIs in fiction are often galactic governments of hundreds of species rather than a single race. I'd rather we tried something more simple, like, for example: Planetary Civilizations for those which haven't left their homeworld; Insterstellar for those which travel between stars; Intergalactic for those which travel between galaxies; and perhaps add in Interdimensional and/or Time-Traveling Civilizations. -- BlueFrackle (talk) 18:49, June 10, 2013 (UTC)
Wow, having just read the Wikipedia article you linked, I must say I loved the reverse scale proposed by John D. Barrow. Seems like such a more practical and accurate way of measuring the "advancement level" of a civilization, at least applied to fiction as is the case in this wiki :) -- BlueFrackle (talk) 19:02, June 10, 2013 (UTC)
The more I think about this, the more I think Kardashev's scale (beautiful as it is) is not appropriate to measure how advanced a civilization is in practice because it doesn't take politics in account. If a species is non-hostile and prefers diplomacy and trade over territorial disputes, it will never advance to Type III (or II if there are more than one intelligent race in a single star system) no matter how sophisticated or efficient their technology is. I know Im overthinking it, though. Sorry for that. -- BlueFrackle (talk) 19:07, June 10, 2013 (UTC)