Tuesday, August 13, 2024

My Power/Speed Standards

 I wanted to make a quick blog giving my values for what power/speed categories. My values don't really match any wiki, though for the most part until you get to the high tiers it's really just describing numbers in a different way. If you focus on the numbers the "level" you call it is irrelevant. That said I view the numbers calced as usually much more of an approximate then most people do it seems. A lot of people in the powerscaling community treat a 2x gap in calcs as a substantial difference when to me for most calcs that seems a margin of error difference as most calcs involving estimating on a number of unknowns. 

My values are mostly focused on making these levels as regular as possible. I feel the powerscaling community has adopted a lot of levels of unnecessarily like "small city level" when that could just be a lower bound for city level or a moon/small planet level distinction when most moons separated from their planet would be a small planet. I wanted my levels to be as intuitive as real life allows, focusing on having each subsection be equidistant from each other so it creates an intuitive sense on the gap between tiers. 


Power Tiers:


None: Literally 0 energy like a character with a non-physical form that can't affect the physical world at all.

(A large number of tiers below human level are here, though these are used so rarely and are so common I don't feel the need to go into them all)


Human Level: 100 Joules to 1,000 Joules, The Strength of Real World Humans, if needed this tier can be subdivided into three subtiers, to make them equidistant you just take the cube root of 10, the gap between the lower bound and upper bound. which is about 2.15.

Low Human Tier: 100-215 Joules: Average Human Level

Mid Human Tier: 215-464 Joules: Athlete Level

High Human Tier: 464-1,000 Joules/1 Kilojoule: Elite Athlete Tier


Peak Human/Superhuman: 1 Kilojoules to 4.184 Kilojoules (1 Millionth a Ton of Tnt). This is the most nebulous category as what the strength/durability humans can get to is unclear particularly in a high pressure situation. Kicks tend to have more energy then punches and people can survive more energy dispersed over a larger part of their body then a smaller part. I chose the somewhat arbitrary 4.184 Kilojoules as a stopping part as kicks don't seem to reach this level even from elites and it makes the levels above very neat.


Wall Level: 4.184 Kilojoules (0.000001 Tons of TNT) to 4.184 Megajoules (0.001 Tons of TNT), I think vs wiki increased the energy to destroy a wall based on the energy of bullets which don't tend to destroy walls. I don't agree with this at all as the reason bullets are so destructive is based of how focused they are on a single point and not due to raw energy along. But to each their own. This is where tiers get large enough that where in the tier they are becomes relevant to me. Characters in the same subtier to me seem to be in the same area of power (one might be a few times stronger but both should be able to survive attacks from the other and have the capacity to kill each other hitting a vulnerable area) while ones that are a subtier apart seem to me to have a substantial gap (around an order of magnitude) and two an immense gap (multiple orders of magnitude.)

Low Wall Level: 4.184 Kilojoules to 41.84 Kilojoules

Mid Wall Level: 41.84 Kilojoules to 418.4 Kilojoules

High Wall Level: 418.4 Kilojoules to 4.184 Megajoules (One Thousandth of a Ton of TNT)


Small Building Level: 4.184 Megajoules (0.001 Tons of TNT) to 4.184 Gigajoules (1 Ton)

Low Small Building Level: 4.184 Megajoules (0.001 Tons) to 41.84 Megajoules (0.01 Tons)

Mid Small Building Level: 41.84 Megajoules (0.01 Tons) to 418.4 Megajoules (0.1 Tons)

High Small Building Level: 418.4 Megajoules (0.1 Tons) to 4.184 Gigajoules (1 Ton of TNT)


Large Building Level: 1 Ton of TNT to 1 Kiloton of TNT. I don't understand the purpose of having building level, large building level, city block level, and multi-city block level, especially when the destruction of very large buildings like skyscrapers or immense castles tend to reach into the city block ro multi-city block ranges anyway. So to me City Block and Multi-City Block can just be alternate names for Mid or High Large Building Level.

Low Large Building Level: 1 Ton-10 Tons

Mid Large Building Level/City Block Level: 10 Tons-100 Tons

High Large Building Level/Multi-City Block Level: 100 Tons-1 Kiloton


From here a very familiar structure will arise


Town Level: 1 Kiloton to 1 Megaton.

Low Town Level: 1 Kiloton to 10 Kilotons

Mid Town Level: 10 Kilotons to 100 Kilotons

  • The Earliest Nuclear Bombs were 15-21 Kilotons

High Town Level: 100 Kilotons to 1 Megaton


City Level: 1 Megaton to 1 Gigaton

Low City Level: 1 Megaton to 10 Megatons

Mid City Level: 10 Megatons to 100 Megatons

  • The Tsar Bomba is 50 Megatons

High City/Mountain Level: 100 Megatons to 1 Gigaton

  • Energy to destroy Largest Cities is within the Hundreds of Megatons


Island Level: 1 Gigaton to 1 Teraton

Low Island Level: 1 Gigaton to 10 Gigatons

Mid Island Level: 10 Gigatons to 100 Gigatons

High Island Level: 100 Gigatons to 1 Teraton


Country Level: 1 Teraton to 1 Petaton

Low Country Level: 1 Teraton to 10 Teratons

Mid Country Level: 10 Teratons to 100 Teratons

High Country Level: 100 Teratons to 1 Petaton


Continent Level: 1 Petaton to 1 Exaton

Low Continent Level: 1 Petaton to 10 Petatons

Mid Continent Level: 10 Petatons to 100 Petatons

High Continent Level: 100 Petatons to 1 Exaton


Small Planet/Planetoid Level: 1 Exaton to 1 Zettaton

Low Small Planet Level: 1 Exaton to 10 Exatons

  • Gravitational Binding Energy of Pluto: 1.4 Exatonsw

Mid Small Planet Level: 10 Exatons to 100 Exatons

  • Gravitational Binding Energy of the Moon: 29.6 Exatons

High Small Planet Level: 100 Exatons to 1 Zettaton

  • Gravitational Binding Energy of Mercury: 433 Exatons


Planet Level: 1 Zettaton to 1 Yottaton

Low Planet Level: 1 Zettaton to 10 Zettatons

  • Gravitational Binding Energy of Mars: 1.144 Zettatons

Mid Planet Level: 10 Zettatons to 100 Zettatons

  • Gravitational Binding Energy of the Earth: 57.3 Zettatons

High Planet Level: 100 Zettatons to 1 Yottaton


Large Planet Level: 1 Yottaton to 1 Ninaton 

Low Large Planet Level: 1 Yottaton to 10 Yottatons

  • Gravitational Binding Energy of Uranus: 2.7 Yottatons

Mid Large Planet Level: 10 Yottatons to 100 Yottatons

High Large Planet Level: 100 Yottatons to 1 Ninaton

  • Gravitational Binding Energy of Jupiter: 482 Yottatons

After this is the stellar ranges and that's when things get less neat unfortunately. The energy needed to destroy a main sequence star like the Sun is a relatively small range, there's a shift from tons to Foe as a unit eventually, and the energy needed to destroy a Star System is contested with lower bound values being a few Foe to upper bounds of dozens of Foe. but this is how I think of it:

Dwarf Star Level: 1 Ninaton to 1 Tenaton (Roughly the range to affect Brown Dwarfs)

Low Dwarf Star Level: 1 Ninaton to 10 Ninatons

Mid Dwarf Star Level: 10 Ninatons to 100 Ninatons

High Dwarf Star Level: 100 Ninatons to 1 Tenaton


Star Level: 1 Tenaton to 1 Tenakiloton

Low Star Level: 1 Tenaton to 10 Tenatons

  • Gravitational Binding Energy of VB 10, the Smallest Known Star: 3 Tenatons
Mid Star Level: 10 Tenatons to 100 Tenatons

High Star Level: 100 Tenatons to 1 Tenakiloton

  • Gravitational Binding Energy of the Sun: 165 Tenatons
I will say as a result of this characters that can destroy "stars" without context are treated as significantly weaker than ones that can destroy the Sun which isn't the case with "planetbusters" vs characters that can destroy "The Earth." This is a consequence of putting stars of multiple types in the same tier, though otherwise they would be very small tiers relatively speaking.


Large Star Level: 1 Tenakiloton to 10 Foe (About 240 Tenakilotons), so as a result of being a non-neat number this tier's values are not as neat as prior ones, but that's the result of using two different energy values like Tons and Foe. 

Low Large Star Level: 1 Tenakiloton to 4.88 Tenakilotons

Mid Large Star Level: 4.88 Tenakilotons to 23.9 Tenakilotons/1 Foe 

High Large Star Level: 1 Foe to 10 Foe

  • Supernova: 1 Foe 

Star System Level: 10 Foe to 10 KiloFoe 

Low Star System Level: 10 Foe to 100 Foe

Mid Star System Level: 100 Foe to 1 KiloFoe

  • Hypernova: 100 Foe 

High Star Level: 1 KiloFoe to 10 KiloFoe 

  • Gravitational Binding Energy of Neutron Stars: 7.612 KiloFoe

Small Galaxy Level: This tier goes from the binding energy of the smallest galaxies of 10 KiloFoe to the binding energy of the Milky Way Galaxy at 10 GigaFoe. In reality most galaxy busts in fiction are a lot more energy wiping out the stars rather then just causing the galaxy to scatter but I would compare this to the difference between overcoming the gravitional binding energy of a planet, and what happens more often in fiction of vaporizing it. Because this tier contains a gap of 1,000,000x as opposed to 1,000x, each subtier is larger containing a gap of 100x as opposed to 10x.

Low Small Galaxy Level: 10 KiloFoe to 1 MegaFoe

Mid Small Galaxy Level: 1 MegaFoe to 100 MegaFoe

High Small Galaxy Level: 100 MegaFoe to 10 GigaFoe 


Galaxy Level: 10 GigaFoe to 10 Terafoe. The energy needed to destroy the Milky Way and Andromeda the nearest other large galaxy has been estimated at upper end hundreds of times the energy to destroy just one which to me suggests that the Galaxy Level Range is about 1,000x.

Low Galaxy Level: 10 GigaFoe to 100 GigaFoe

Mid Galaxy Level: 100 GigaFoe to 1 TeraFoe

High Galaxy Level: 1 TeraFoe to 10 TeraFoe


Multi-Galaxy Level: Multi-Galaxy Level ends at Universal, which is a level I'm skeptical of quantification methods as the size of the universe is unknown and could be infinite, encompassing any other physical quantification. That for a lower bound, the mass-energy of the observable universe is what I use as the end of Multi-Galaxy Level. This is 4e69 joules, which is 4 trillion times greater than than 10 TeraFoe making this level enormous and each subtier able to engulf prior tiers. There aren't many characters in this tier though so dividing into more tiers seems excessive, with each subtier having a gap over 10,000x. 

Low Multi-Galaxy Level: 10 TeraFoe to 158.75 PetaFoe

Mid Multi-Galaxy Level: 158.75 PetaFoe to 2.52 ZettaFoe

High Multi-Galaxy Level: 2.52 ZettaFoe to 40 YottaFoe


From here levels are more descriptive then quantitative.


Universe Level: 

Low Universe Level/Observable Universe Level: This is the level of characters that can destroy anywhere from a space equivalent to the observable universe of 93.7 billion lightyears across to the lower bound estimate for the size of the total universe at tens of trillions of lightyears, hundreds of times larger.

Mid Universe Level: This is the level for characters who can destroy a universe, rather then just the observable one varying in estimates of size from tens of trillions of lightyears as a lower bound to a size between 10^23 to 10^26 times the size of the observable universe, which is an estimated size for the total universe using inflationary theories. Because we are to assume fictional universes are like ours except when denoted, I presume all fiction universes in their entirety are the size of ours which means that unless a universe is noted as being above the above values, I don't consider it particularly large, hence my distaste to the latest trend of "universe scaling"

High Universe Level/Macrocosmic: The higher estimates for the size of the universe go from the above values up to the infinite and include such values as 10^10^10^120 lightyears, a comically sized universe I've never seen a fictional series surpass in finite size. This subtier is what I use to mean for structures that are clearly meant to be beyond even normal universes including some theological constructs that are meant to dwarf the universe such as the size of Amitabha which does indeed get larger than 10^26 times the size of the observable universe. Sometimes universes or parts of them are called "infinite" even when they are still by the necessity of mathematical definitions finite. In such case I presume they are here as the largest models of the universe suggest it is infinite. 


Physically Infinite: This is the tier for characters with infinite power, in that they can create or endure infinite energy. Infinity Joules, Infinite Tons, Infinite Foe, they are all equal. Some infinities are larger or smaller than other infinities however it is mathematically impossible for an infinity to be finitely greater or smaller, and if a fiction depicts characters with "infinite power" being finitely stronger or weaker then each other or a space being finitely larger or smaller then each other, then it must be understood they are using infinity in a not-strictly mathematical way. This is the highest energy, a physical quantity, can be quantified, though it's possible to have metaphysical infinities that are superior, infinities that are more "fundamental" or "real" then others. In real life differently sized infinities are abstract mathematical concepts, but fiction will often refer to characters with power that can affect metaphysical things directly.


Metaphysically Infinite: Above the Physically Infinite are Characters whose power can affect a metaphysically more real infinity, one that is treated as a higher plane of reality. Characters here can hypothetically be finitely stronger or weaker then each other, it's just unquantifiable as metaphysical stuff is by its nature not physically quantifiable. If a series says that the infinity of the heart is bigger than the infinity of space, that's a perfectly coherent statement, but it can't really be quantified, and trying to quantify it causes the paradoxes of doing arithmetic with infinite quantities to emerge. 


Conceptually Infinite: Battleboarding style powerscaling has a strange idea I found contrary to what I find as logical and what happens in fiction: namely that for the strongest of characters only power matters. To me power is a concept like space or time and can be transcended in the same sense. Characters in this tier have power equivalent to the concept of power or the concept of infinity, such that a greater degree of power is not conceptually imaginable. For example if a character is the very concept of infinity, their power would presumably be not just infinity but any conceptual form of infinity.


Metaconceptually Infinite: This is for character whose power is depicted as transcending or being "above" all concepts including the ideas of power or infinity, but paradoxically not at one with absolute reality. For instance if a series has a realm containing all concepts and then a metafictional realm transcending that where characters are metafictionally realer then the conceptual, and have their own meta concepts that are to concepts what concepts are normally to physical things, then affecting that realm is Metaconceptually Infinite.


Absolute Power: This highest tier of power is when the character's power participates in the Absolute, Reality beyond any concepts or metaconcepts, the ultimate and most fundamental reality. 


Speed Tiers, starting at Human Level:

The speed a human can reach is actually somewhat unclear as it depends on the duration. Google suggests the Average Man can run at roughly 8 mph or ~3.57 meters per second and the Average Woman at roughly 6.5 mph or ~2.9 meters per second. Usain Bolt reached the world record speed of 12.42 meters per second, with his average speed in the same race of 10.438 meters per second. Of note is that punches and kicks which are relevant to how fast someone fights tend to reach higher values with the fastest punch being 20 meters per second and the fastest kick being at an incredible 61 meters per second. Peak Human reactions seem to also be roughly 3x faster then normal human reaction time (300 Milliseconds for someone on the lower end of reaction time to 100 Milliseconds for upper end). 

I tried to find a best line of match and this is roughly how I understand with each being equidistant from the last until subsonic:

Human Speeds: 3.4-7.3 Meters Per Second (1x to 2.15x Human Speeds and Reactions)

Upper Human/Peak Human-ish Speed: 7.3-15.78 Meters Per Second (2.15-4.64x Human Speeds and Reactions), this represents I think the general range that fiction uses to represent peak human type characters.

  • Speeds of many fast land animals like cats, dogs, and horses

Superhuman: 15.78-34 Meters Per Second (~Mach 0.1), 4.64x-10x Human Speeds and Reactions


Subsonic: Mach 0.1-Mach 1, this describes your stereotypical faster than the eye character. Cheetahs the fastest land animals can just barely reach into this tier. 

Low Subsonic: Mach 0.1-Mach 0.215

  • Middle Age Arrows were typically launched at this speed
  • Cheetahs top speeds have reached Mach 0.104, though this is unusually fast even for them

Mid Subsonic: Mach 0.215-Mach 0.464

  • Fastest Arrow Speed and Early Bullet Speed
  • The Fastest Birds have reached this speed

High Subsonic: Mach 0.464-Mach 1

  • Slowest Modern Bullet Speeds


Hypersonic: Mach 1-Mach 100, this speed tier contains 100x gap, so each subtier contains a gap of the cube root of 100 which is 4.64.

Supersonic/Low Hypersonic: Mach 1-Mach 4.64

  • Most Modern Bullets

Mid Hypersonic: Mach 4.64-Mach 21.5

  • The Fastest Bullets reach Mach 4.96

High Hypersonic: Mach 21.5-Mach 100

  • Escape Velocity of Earth: Mach 32.55


Massively Hypersonic: Mach 100 to Mach 8,720 (1% c). It's a little bit unneat due to the Speed of Light being an unneat Mach number.

Low Massively Hypersonic: Mach 100 to Mach 443

  • The Speed of Lightning Bolts in the real world are at least this fast

Mid Massively Hypersonic: Mach 443 to Mach 1,966

High Massively Hypersonic: Mach 1,966-Mach 8,720


Relativistic: From 1% of c to c, the speed of light in a vacuum

Low Relativistic: 1% of c-4.64% of c 

Mid Relativistic: 4.64% of c-21.5% of c

High Relativistic: 21.5% of c to c


After this you get into FTL and there isn't really categories since nothing in the real world moves faster than c, or at least in most senses of the word.


As such from here it gets just into blocks of a thousand.


FTL: 1-1,000c

Low FTL: 1-10c

Mid FTL: 10-100c

High FTL: 100-1,000c


MFTL: 1,000-1,000,000c

Low MFTL: 1,000c-10,000c

Mid MFTL: 10,000c-100,000c

High MFTL: 100,000c-1,000,000c


MFTL+: 1,000,000c-1 Billion c

Low MFTL+: 1 Million c to 10 Million c

Mid MFTL+: 10 Million c to 100 Million c

High MFTL+: 100 Million c to 1 Billion c


MFTL++: 1 Billion c to 1 Trillion c

Low MFTL++: 1 Billion c to 10 Billion c

Mid MFTL++: 10 Billion c to 100 Billion c

High MFTL++: 100 Billion c to 1 Trillion c


etc. 


It's quite rare to see anything beyond MFTL+++++ (Quintillions of times the speed of light) because even traveling the radius or diameter of the entire observable universe is low quintillions of times the speed of light, it requires a very weird kinda feat to get higher. MFTL and MFTL+ are also both just sort of shorthand for much faster than light. 


Above these are infinite speeds.


Infinite Speed: Character can move an infinite distance in a finite time. As per Infinite Power, characters can't be finitely faster or slower then physically infinite speed due to the nature of infinity.


Metaphysically Infinite Speed: Can cross a space that is some more real and fundamental infinity in finite time.


Conceptually Infinite Speed: Character's speed scales to the concepts of infinity or speed themselves.


Metaconceptually Infinite Speed: Character's speed transcends normal concepts


Absolute Speed: Character's speed participates in the Absolute Reality transcending all concepts. 

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