Species Classification

As planets have different classifications to describe their characteristics, species' throughout the galaxy have been categorized as well. 
== Biological Types ==
Typically, species are categorized according to similarities to earth life. In the rare case that they are not analogous to any earth life, they are given their own biotype. 
Type 	Examples
Mammalian 	Human, Yemun, Neyanta, Authiik, Une
Reptilian 	None known
Avian 	One menioned, never shown
Arthropods	Brak
Piscine 	Aleri
Plantoid 	None known
Gelatinous	Hian
Hybrid 	Bomure, Exai (Hybrid Mammal/Reptile)
Yemun (Hybrid Mammal/Piscine)
== Technological Age ==
Named for their own of technological ages, both historical and theoretical, the technological development of the species can be described in broad terms. Please note that these ages apply best to a species that communicates and moves through "traditional" means. 
=== Primitive Group ===
Age 	Description
Presapient	The species utilizes only its body and its immediate environment to survive, and makes no attempts to improve their quality of life beyond surviving to see another day. They may be more or less on the same level of intelligence as the other animals on their world, or use existing objects such as sticks and stones as simple tools.
Stone Age 	The species has mastered fire, the construction of complex stone tools and has one or many simple spoken languages. The beginnings of civilizations have begun to arise in the form of simple villages and traveling nomads.
=== Classical Group ===
Name 	Description
Bronze Age 	The species has begun working with soft metals to create weapons and tools. Larger communities have begun to arise, as have written languages to accompany their spoken ones.
Iron Age 	The species has become dominant on their homeworld, now having settlements on all or most of the planet's landmasses. Metallurgy has improved to allow use of harder metals, improving the quality of tools, weapons, and armor.
Medieval Age 	The species has gained a mastery of metalworking. The spread of information and overall education has increased as printing is invented.
Renaissance Age	The species is in the midst of a scientific revolution. Art, literature, and civilization is at an all-time high. Printed media has made it easier than ever to become educated. Black Powder has likely been invented, and has changed the face of warfare permanently.
=== Modern Group ===
Name 	Description
Steam Age 	The species has invented the steam engine, revolutionizing industry and production and paving the way for an industrial revolution.
Industrial Age 	The species has harnessed electricity and the internal combustion engine has resulted from the usage of fossil fuels. Their civilizations have begun to urbanize at a rapid pace.
Machine Age 	The species has begun mass production of goods. Personal vehicles and air travel have become commonplace.
Atomic Age 	The species has harnessed the power of the atom. Whether for weaponry or power generation, they have achieved fission of heavy metals. If Earth is taken as an example, two or more dominant civilizations on the homeworld may have large numbers of these bombs, bringing the threat of self extinction into the public consciousness. It is likely that these superpowers will fight indirectly, whether through proxy wars or technological races. If the weapons are indeed used in a direct conflict, it is unlikely that they will progress forwards from here.
Space Age 	Whether through legitimate curiosity or the aforementioned technological races, the species has reached the space above their atmosphere. Manned space travel has become possible. Satelites begin to appear in orbit for various purposes, and information sharing becomes exponentially easier.
Information Age	The species has begun spreading information through networks, making the world feel smaller than ever. Computing machines are commonplace and growing ever smaller, simple robots and artificial intelligence has begun to replace menial jobs and manual labor, and utilization of space as a resource is increasing.
Automation Age 	Artificial intelligence has become advanced enough that it is able to carry out its tasks without need for much intervention from its creators. This leaves the species who has entered the age with an unparalleled amount of freedom to pursue other activities they might not have considered. A form of universal base income is instituted to account for the lack of potential jobs, and robotics or cybernetics become increasingly advanced. This age, if taken to its extreme, leads to the custodian age.
 	
=== Theoretical Ages ===
While the above describes every civilization humanity has contacted or has been contacted by, there are a few possible scenarios that have been described, but not proven. 
Age 	Follows 	Description
Custodian Age	Automation Age 	The species does not leave their homeworld, instead transforming their world into a paradise overseen by artificially intelligent caretakers.
Virtual Age 	Information Age or Later	The species creates a virtual paradise, abandoning physical life for digital immortality. Variants of this age include planetside supercomputers, or Matrioshka brains surrounding dwarf stars.
== Kardashev Scale ==
Proposed by astronomer Nikolai Kardashev in 1964 CE, the Kardashev scale ranks the potential of a civilization based on its energy consumption. 
=== Original Scale ===
Name 	Description
Type I 	A type I civilization is capable of harnessing and utilizing energy on the scale of entire planets, hundreds of petawatts or even exawatts of electrical energy. Methods of achieving this include coating planets in solar energy collectors or creating swarms of solar satellites, or harnessing fusion or matter-antimatter annihilation reactors.
Type II 	Type II civilizations are capable of harnessing energy output equivalent to that of stars. Methods of reaching this level include applying Type I methods to all of the planets in a star system, constructing a stellar engine, harvesting the rotational energy of black holes or the photons released by their accretion disks, lifting matter off of the surface of stars for use in fusion reactors, expanding the scale of antimatter reactor use, or simply partially harvesting more than one star.
Type III	Type III civilizations are able to harness the energy output of entire galaxies. A civilization could employ the previous methods to the majority of the stars in a galaxy, or they could harvest the energy from supermassive black holes, gamma ray bursts, and quasars.
=== Extended Scale ===
Name 	Description
Type 0 	A type 0 civilization does not rank on the scale, and still harvests its energy from nuclear fission at the most advanced, and draft animals at their least.
Type IV	Type IV civilizations are capable of harnessing energy on universal scales. They may have dominion over the majority of the galaxies in the universe, extragalactic energy like dark energy, or their harvesting methods may even be indistinguishable from natural processes, as there would be no standard of comparison.
Type V 	A type V civilization would have control over multiple universes. This would require reversible inter-universe travel, which has been utilized by humans in the form of the subspace drive, but no known universe other than the primary is tolerable for organic life. This may not be a factor for such a civilization.
=== Stellar State Group/Zubrin Scale ===
Aerospace engineer Robert Zubrin's take on the Kardashev scale covers physical reach rather than energy usage. 
Name	Description
Isolated
(Type 0)	An isolated species exists on its homeworld, but has not established any sort of global community, instead living in isolated groups that may only be vaguely aware of other societies sharing their planet. This also applies to species living on multiple planets in isolated locations, such as the early Apsic colonists.
Planetary 
(Type 1)	A planetary species has established a global community of some sort, with many civilizations native to different regions of the planet being aware of one another's existence, colonizing uninhabited or unaffiliated land, and engaging in trade or warfare with one another.
Stellar
(Type 2)	The species has begun spreading throughout their home solar system. Colonies exist on their homeworld's moon or moons, should they exist, or habitats in high orbits. In the later stages of this age, colonies could exist on or around other bodies in their solar system. The invention of an FTL drive often causes a breakthrough into the next age, but in the case of species such as the Authiik, this was not the case.
Interstellar 
(Type 3)	The Interstellar age is characterized by a number of colonies spread throughout many star systems. The species may have a single monolithic political structure, such as the territory of the neyanta under their empress, or a few, such as humanity, or dozens, such as bomure space.
Intergalactic
(Type 4)	An intergalactic species has established colonies and infrastructure spanning more than one galaxy. The authiik were the closest species to achieving this, having established the colony of Roxash in the Large Magellanic Cloud over ten millennia ago. If the colony had managed to thrive and establish contact with the authiik remaining in The Milky Way, they would have achieved Type 4.
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Category:Categorization