Type 16 Societies

A Type-16 civilization spans multiple different universal timestreams, but remains limited to a specific multiverse (a set of related universes).

The Aesir of Asgard use an interdimensional transporter, the Bifrost, to travel to any point in the nine universes known to them. (Thor: The Dark World, 2013)

Given their disconnection from any one universe, these societies generally adopt a "hands-off" policy regarding younger races, and are concerned only with matters of multiversal integrity, or with their own internal conflicts.

The Kyubey entity is concerned with slowing the rate of entropy in the universe, and is capable of empowering agents to serve (and be sacrificed) toward this end, as well as using its own abilities to alter reality in order to grant wishes. (Puella Magi Madoka Magica, 2011)

Footprint: Multiple universes (within the same multiversal stream).

Sustainable Population: Quintillions.

Government: Centralized around a god-monarch, who serves as a figurehead, directing the (otherwise entirely independent) population. Total democracy. Synodic hive-mind.

Bureaucracy: Hidebound and pervasive at all levels; the bureaucrats may be the true rulers of this society (with the bureaucracy itself essentially serving as an impersonal god-king).

Yuki Nagato is one of many artificial beings created to act on behalf of the Data Integration Thought Entity, though she requires permission to make use of their powers. (The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, 2006)

Language: Universal translation.

Literacy: Universal.

Network: Universally-accessible via higher-dimensional spaces; no relays necessary.

Religion: Bureaucratized; may be unified with the government in an attempt to maintain social order, with the monarch considered (or even being) an incarnate deity.

Science: Interdimensional travel and scanning are available from specialized facilities. Time travel is available, but controlled. All citizens are heavily augmented to the point of unrecognizability (species designations will become useless), and actual superpowers may be standard. Mecha will likely have built-in reality-warping powers, and may actually be distinct self-actualized individuals. Tesseract and mass-shifting technology are ubiquitous.

A unlimited-license first-class goddess like Belldandy can connect to the Yggdrasil supercomputer by praying, allowing her to manipulate the data that underlies the physical world, thereby performing miracles. (Ah! My Goddess the Movie, 2000)

Medicine: Disease and debilitating injuries are all but unheard of, and require the intervention of similar-tier technology (both to inflict and to repair).

Education: Universal, using implanted databases. As these societies may be entirely nonreproductive, childhood education ceases to be an issue.

Energy: Infinite and universally available.

Industry: Personal replication as needed, using carriable or "summonable" nanites. No mass-production facilities. Craftsmen and artisans may be a distinct class (as with Asgard's Dwarves).

Military: None. Individual soldiers operate independently with minimal oversight, and may qualify as literal living weapons. Weapons capable of rewriting or destroying universes and warping reality are likely. To limit destructive potential, this society might "deputize" lower-tier individuals, using them as local agents within particular universes or galaxies.

Economy: None. Among their servants, this society might default to an information economy, offering knowledge in exchange for service (or harvesting rare data in exchange for reality-warping energy).

The Ascended Ori do not intervene directly in the affairs of their former home universe, but have empowered their servants, the Priors, to act in their stead. (Stargate SG-1, 1997)

Food: For pleasure only; no physical sustenance required for survival.

Travel: Point-to-point teleportation is readily available, and some individuals may carry built-in teleporters. Some individuals may not even need transportation, but can simply occupy multiple locations simultaneously. Specialized facilities can provide intergalactic or even interuniversal travel. Time machines are a controlled technology.

Spaceflight: No organized space program; most citizens have immediate access to intergalactic craft, if they should need it.

Alien contact: Misleading. These societies will generally be undetectable to other lower-tier civilizations, showing up only as rare individuals with "supernatural" powers.

Trance Gemini (centre) prefers to play the role of a childlike innocent, while using her achronal nature to "nudge" the universe toward what she terms the "perfect possible future" --shaping the universe like the branches of a bonsai tree. (Andromeda, 2000)

Examples (reality):
Examples (fiction): Prophets, Ori, Galactus, Monitors(*), New Gods, Transtech, Vok, Farscape Ancients, Anti-Spirals, Ancient Spirits of Evil, Tribe of Gold, Kyubey's people, Data Integration Thought Entity, Noein, Lucifers, Heaven, Asgard.

(* Given that their entire species consists of 52 individuals, created at the dawn of time, and restrained by the Source Wall, it is possible that the Monitors themselves are artificial constructs, created by the Overmonitor and not aware of the exterior omniverse. In this case, the Source Wall may be the edge of a cosmic "petri dish," while the Overmonitor observes a single multiversal stream in isolation.)