Most Powerful Sci-Fi Civilization

[Kemaiku]

TARDISes are bioships that are grown from a species of coral presumably indigenous to Gallifrey, as shown in "The Impossible Planet," (2006) and it can take years to complete one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tardis

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ I thought TARDISes were sentient lifeforms unto themselves?

Spoiler: DW

Or does this just apply to special ones, like Compassion? And apparently the Doctor's TARDIS?

This still draws a blank with me - in what episode is it explicitly referenced as Tardis coral or indeed any of the rest is mentioned?

IIRC there was one episode where the Doctor mentions changing the "desktop theme" to "coral". I guess this refers to the constantly changing control room appearance, which appears to be configurable at the user's whim.

 

[RAMA]

^^ Rhodan's universe has so called Spore ships, 1126km in diameter which isn't much smaller than our moon.
http://www.pr-materiequelle.de/riss/risszei/r1271.htm

Also there's a fleet called The Endless Armada which consist out of 513 million ships..

And us humans have Old Man a 200Km half sphere battleship carrier, underneath the sphere are 12 box shaped sections each 50x50x10 Km each holding 840 2.5Km ships, in total 15,080 of them.
http://www.pr-materiequelle.de/riss/risszei/r300.jpg

As for quality, well even after more than 50 years they STILL haven't made any continuity errors so...

Yeah, sounds like Lensman magnified.

 

[Peacemaker]

When they're on form, the Time Lords.

For starters they created the TARDIS, a virtually invulnerable ship that can travel through space and time, is bigger on the inside and is capable of hauling planets about (as much as I'd like to forget that ending).

And that's just the outdated "junk" the Doctor travels in.

They can teleport planets around time and space, trap them in eternal force fields or stick whole solar systems into a time loop at a flick of a switch.

According to the Doctor, there is at least one civilization that would undo either Time Lords or Daleks if even one of them went rogue: the Osirans. The Doctor trapped Sutekh, but had he lived nothing would have overcome him.

 

[Edit_XYZ]

The Q are little brats and quite powerless when it comes to the beings in the Perry Rhodan series.

To quote wiki:

To all life, an evolutionary theory called the "onion-shell-model" is employed. It states, that there is a continuous evolution from lower life-forms (bacteria) to higher life-forms like intelligent life and finally bodyless entities. Upon invention, the onion-shell-model was used by the authors as if there are definite and discrete stages in cosmological evolution. However, later in the series further life-forms, representing stages between the known shells, were introduced.

The main shells are:

life-less matter
bacteria
higher animals
intelligent species
intelligent species, that have contacted other species
superintelligences (SI)
matter-fountains/matter-sinks
cosmocrats/chaotarchs (high powers)

The Q would be merely a superinteligence species, cosmocrats and chaotarchsare a few whole levels more powerful, they rule EVERY universe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_Rhodan

As for technology, Rhodan's humanity itself has ships of immense power, a single one of those that can totally wipe out the Borg without breaking a sweat, or being in danger for one second.

I don't know, the Q probably in the Rhodan high powers category..their power ranged from the beginning of the universe to some realistic speculation on the future. Still, I have problems with intelligences/powers than range through multiverses...the physics involved are likely a limitation on such species.

When speculating on the future, I try not to go as far as including such all-powerful entities, though I don't mind speculating on hyper-advanced species within the technological realm.

Like the Culture, most stories written with species of such powers have to be done so with them on the periphery, otherwise its hard to write any drama in them..same with species even on the Borg level, at some point you have to de-power them in some way or reduce the threat, or you can never use them.

RAMA

I've read most of Perry Rhodan up to the 2035's (took years o_O) and there's no comparing the Q with a Cosmocrat, they're so vastly beyond everything humans can even imagine that they can't usually directly communicate a life form at human level, they'd have to create a sort of avatar for that which is by all means still more powerful than anything else in the universe(s).

Santaman, the fact that the Cosmocrats can't communicate directly with humans is a limitation, NOT a strength.
I'm sure it was introduced for the Perry Rhodan Cosmocrats in order to make them cool and mysterious; but this came at a price, depowering them.

The Q, on the other hand, have no problem directly communicating with humans, despite themselves being beyond human understanding.

The Q would be a super intelligence level species at most, but they're, from what we've seen in Star Trek, too limited in what they can do, the SI that keeps an eye on us humans has an influence sphere that spans the local group in this and other universes and controls several dimensions attached to these universes.

TV trek didn't go too deeply into describing the Q.
The trek lit line made it pretty clear that the Q are part of the ruling class of the multiverse, not limited to its iterations that include the federation's known history(ies).

Its powers aren't displayed in the ways the Q, they're much more subtle, but on occasion they do things like absorbing an entire species to save them from extinction, also they're not beyond creating pocket universes and planets as they see fit.

And now, the Cosmocrats rarely use their power.
Any practical definition of power has to include not only the capability to do something, but the will to do something, as well. Apparently, more often than not, the Cosmocrats lack the latter.


All things considered, when comparing the Q and the Cosmocrats, the Cosmocrats are the ones found lacking.

 

[Kemaiku]

^ I thought TARDISes were sentient lifeforms unto themselves?

Spoiler: DW

Or does this just apply to special ones, like Compassion? And apparently the Doctor's TARDIS?

I'm not sure, but it would seem...

Spoiler: Tardii

That all of them have a limited intelligence of their own when they develop fully enough to have a "brain" like organ or 'matrix'. But Time Lord's might somehow partially labotomise them by controlling their mental development over the centuries. The TARDIS we know is different, even among her own kind, it's possible she's very smart or aware, or was spared any control mechanism the Lords put in place and represents what they're meant to be. But they are lifeforms in their own right, not like the Farscape Levaithons.

 

[DWF]

IRC there was one episode where the Doctor mentions changing the "desktop theme" to "coral". I guess this refers to the constantly changing control room appearance, which appears to be configurable at the user's whim.

That was from Time Crash the Comedy Relief short and the fifth Doctor was refereing it being like a wallpaper theme. Since as we later learn the TARDIS has all of the console room in storage past, present and future.

 

[RAMA]

In reference to cosmocrats and the Q..as I said, I find it bit pointless to comment on which super race is MORE omnipotent! However, in the Culture series, I think the Q are more advanced than the still technological Culture, though possibly on par with some of the species that have sublimed.

 

[Australis]

^ We might get a bit of a look at this in the latest Culture novel, The Hydrogen Sonata, which I haven't had a chance to read yet, but involves a civilisation in the last few weeks before it Sublimes.

 

[Voth commando1]

The celestials from Star Wars, created hyperspace barriers, moved planets and created star systems. Are implied to have transcended the physical plane and guide the "Will of the Force."

The Kwa and the Gree in Star Wars are capable of creating infinity gates as well.

The whole of Galactic civilization in Star Wars Legends as well. Very fast ships, powerful weaponry and a lot of resources at its disposal. Holographic communication across Galactic distances, powerful ships and weaponry.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

30th century humans in Trek are pretty obscenely powerful. Six year olds can send messages back in time with the equipment in their school desk.

 

[Vorpal_Blade]

The Necron from the Warhammer 40K universe.

 

[publiusr]

I'd put the Q among the first--then the Ancients. On TNG, there was a group of aliens that could cause the Ent-D crew to choke--despite shields.

They were the only species I saw on the verge of ascending--so who knows what tech they had.

The mecha we saw at the end of A.I. seemed quite advanced--

Kryptoni too-as from the recent films The tech level there was pronounced.

Yorktown station--actually two stations--looks pretty advanced.