~canis_aureus

This is a useful system for classification of threat and power levels. The threat levels can be used for evaluating real world threats from assault rifles or terrorism to nuclear weapons or climate change, and also for fiction, where it is especially useful in genres like superheroes, supernatural threats/horrors, high fantasy, and science fiction, as well as potentially apocalyptic or post-apocalyptic stories about weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and the mid-late 20th century Cold War. The power levels can be used as a common method to describe the power of characters, vehicles, or organizations in a manner that is independent of author, genre, and setting. [last update 4/20/2020]

A quick and compendious overview of the 16 threat/power levels:
The 10 planetary levels: individual, bus, building, block, town, city, country, continent, hemisphere, planet/intrasystem.
The 6 cosmic levels: intersystem, intragalactic, intergalactic, universal, multiversal/conceptual, existential/philosophical

What it can be used for:
You might be thinking, "that looks long, why should I bother reading it, what use is it?"
Here's a list (please let me know if you think of other uses):
-- 1) For the creator of an OC (original character), discussing their OC with others.
-- 2) For an author, having a clear understanding of the implications of a storyline.
-- 3) For a RPG Game Master (GM)/Storyteller, keeping the genre of a campaign consistent.
-- 4) For a person (or character) who is tactically/strategically competent, understanding and being able to succinctly summarize the nature of potential threats.
-- 5) For a person, character or organization using consequentialist ethics (and some other normative ethical theories), it is important to have some sort of system to help determine when dire consequences justify what would otherwise seem to be unethical behavior.
-- 6) For real world ethical and political discussions about issues that involve threats, from gun control to nuclear proliferation to climate change, in a manner that attempts to be rational.

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Threat levels:

For determining a 'threat level' decide how many people could reasonably be killed, or how many lives will be significantly affected if the issue does not involve direct injury or death, and then count how many digits are in that number (in a base 10 math system, if that even needed to be said). For those who enjoy math terminology, this is just a logarithmic rating of the threat. For threats that involve property damage or economic disruption instead of death, an approximate method to convert money to a threat level is to express it as millions of $(USD) and counting the digits in the number.

Examples: So for example, a 98 year old great-grandmother in a nursing home probably can't kill one person and is a threat level 0, a 78 year old grandmother with a car could probably kill 1-9 people by running them over and is a threat level 1, a nut with an assault rifle or a rented moving truck could probably kill 10-99 people (its hard to find an example where the death toll is above 99) and is a threat level 2, bringing down a commercial aircraft could kill 100-550 people for a threat level of 3, and a nut with control of a jumbo aircraft could ram a densely populated location and kill 100-999 people or perhaps even a bit over 1000 (on 9/11/2001 2,763 people died after the two planes hit the two World Trade center buildings, but that took 2 aircraft and 4 terrorists so that's 'only' 690 deaths per terrorist), so most lone terrorists are a threat level 2-3 but a small group of them could be up to a threat level 4 and even more they get their hands on a WMD (Weapon of Mass-Destruction). Alternatively, threatening to destroy a parked jumbo jet worth about $250 million would be level 3, as would satellites which tend to have construction and launch costs in the hundreds of millions of USD, whereas destroying an aircraft carrier that costs tens of billions would be level 5. Above this threat/power level we are generally either talking about nations, WMD's, or natural disasters. For instance if a terrorist has a nuclear fission bomb and puts it in a city the casualties might be in the tens of thousands for a threat level of 5, while if a terrorist or nation detonated a single nuclear fusion bomb in a major city the casualties may be in the hundreds of thousands for a threat level of 6 (North Korea has probably reached this level or will soon). By contrast, if the leader(s) of a major nuclear nation launched an all out nuclear attack, the result would be hundreds of millions of casualties for a threat level of 9 or possibly even the end of all sentient life on Earth due to a 'nuclear winter' for a threat level of 10 (currently about 7,700,000,000 people & projected to peak at 8-11 billion between 2040 and 2100AD). Threat levels above 10 indicate some sort of 'cosmic threat' that generally only exists in sci-fi or superhero stories. First contact with a more powerful alien civilization is generally going to be a potential level 10 threat.

Realism: In the real world, individuals don't really have a factor of 10 difference; almost anyone can be a low level 2 threat by buying an assault rifle or renting a moving van/truck and even the best of military special forces soldiers fully equipped isn't much more than a high level 2 threat (try to find an example of an individual soldier killing over 99 enemies). In the real world, the ways that an individual can get to higher threat levels are related to equipment like military aircraft and WMD's or being a leader of a nation or some other position of authority.

Fiction: For fiction, including the superhero, fantasy, and supernatural horror genres, the threat level of a character (or vehicle, or organization) can usually be determined by looking at their raw personal power and their normal equipment with a secondary consideration for the potential damage they could do by careful manipulation of others (for example a supervillain or supernatural with a 'mind control' power could easily start World War 3 if world leaders aren't somehow protected or immune). A low-powered combat oriented superhero/villain could probably easily kill 10-99 people if they went crazy in a crowded night club or concert but would probably have trouble killing more than 100 before they got taken down by a response team, so they're probably just a threat level 2. For characters of higher threat levels, the potential for excessive collateral damage during conflicts can become extreme. Many of the 'superfurries' seem to be operating on a threat level 2-4, though the high end ones that are the analogies of characters like Superman, Flash, Hulk, or Doctor Strange might be a threat level 5+. If a character doesn't seem like a 'threat' because of their ethics, just consider what could happen if they were to become the unwilling victim of manipulation or mind control, or the unintended collateral damage that their powers could accidentally cause.

Details: While threat levels are mostly about offensive capability, a proper assessment of the threat level of a character (or vehicle, or organization) will also include an assessment of the effects of their defensive capability (e.g. armor, force fields, regeneration, invisibility, illusion, 'phasing'/intangibility/desolidification, super speed, luck, precognition), movement or transportation ability (e.g. flight, super speed, teleportation, dimensional travel), and any useful miscellaneous abilities (e.g. shapeshifting), money, and political/social influence since those can also affect a character's overall threat level. For instance a supernatural character who is virtually immune to being killed and/or caught may not have any offensive ability beyond a normal human (level 1-2) but their immunity to death or capture may make them capable of dealing out much more damage over time than any normal human could. While in theory a super-villain or supernatural that was completely immune to death and capture (a ghost for instance) that could only kill one person every six seconds could eventually rack up a huge body count over months or years, in practice it should be assumed that someone or something will eventually show up that can stop their rampage. In general, awesome defenses will increase threat level by 1 and awesome movement and/or miscellaneous abilities may also increase threat level by 1. Money can be converted to a threat level by expressing it as millions of $(USD) counting the digits in the number, so a multi-millionaire with $500 million would be level 3 and a billionaire worth 5 billion dollars ($5,000 million) would be level 4.

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In my experience, authors and role-playing game masters (GM's) tend to be too casual about high threat levels, and haven't fully considered the consequences of telling stories on this level.

For example, a 'realistic' superhero team should have a set of alert level codes that indicate the potential consequences of a mission that go on logarithmic levels from 'jaywalking' to 'destruction of the universe' and when you reach levels like "a major city could be destroyed" or "this could be the end of all sentient life on Earth" they should immediately call the Air Force and have them put some armed jets in the air (if appropriate) and gear up the heroes with serious lethal military hardware that they are at least qualified on (in addition to their normal non-lethal pepper spray, tazers, and 'rubber bullets') and go into the mission unafraid to call in an air strike on their own location if that's what is necessary to neutralize the high level threat. The main reason for the heroes to go in at all is for recon/forward observers for the air strike and to hopefully deal with the situation with less collateral damage if that's possible, but if you're talking about the consequences being the extinction of life on Earth then losing half your team plus 100 innocent casualties may be 'acceptable', I'll get into the ethics of logarithmic threat levels and acceptable casualties and/or related semi-unethical behaviors (like mind-control) if anyone is interested, but the key factor is that at some point you need to switch from civilian law-enforcement thinking to military strategy/tactics thinking and the two are different mindsets. When the consequences are that catastrophic you don't mess around with pepper spray and tazers. Yes, there are ways for an author to tell stories or a GM to run scenarios about high level threats but they need to be very carefully considered if any sense of 'realism' is to be preserved.

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Threat Level System

The potential law violated or results of inaction can be divided into different ‘levels’ as follows:

a) Trivial: Jaywalking; speeding without lights & siren; taking a pen for personal use; misdemeanor
b) Minor: Manufacturing probable cause to get a search warrant; minor/non-violent felony
c) Major: Manufacturing evidence; illegal searches; police brutality; major/violent felony
1. Deaths (1-9): Typical lone psycho, serial killer, or terrorist
2. Deaths (10-99): Unusually deadly or well equipped lone psycho, serial killer, or terrorist
3. Deaths (100-999): Paramilitary terrorists, aircraft bombings, serious transport/industrial accidents/sabotage
4. Deaths (1,000-9,999): This is WMD level of death and destruction. See Note 4
5. Deaths (10,000-99,999): Kiloton/tac-nuke level destruction. Nagasaki 21-kiloton bomb (in mountainous terrain). See Note 5
6. Deaths (100,000-999,999): Sub-megaton level destruction. Hiroshima 15-kiloton bomb (in flat terrain). See Note 6
7. Deaths (1-9 million): A megaton level weapon in a megacity, or a limited nuclear exchange. See Note 7
8. Deaths (10-99 million): Nuclear war, or the total casualties of WWII. See note 8
9. Deaths (100-999 million): Full nuclear war, end of civilization as we know it
10. Deaths (1-9 billion): Apocalypse. Hostile alien invasion. The end of the world/humankind
11. Worlds (e.g. Starfaring Civilizations, ‘planet busting’ bombs, weapons that make stars go nova)
12. Systems (e.g. vast Interstellar Empires; the Borg in Star Trek)
13. Galaxies (even in sci-fi it is difficult to realistically discuss these threats; the Q continuum)
14. Universe (for the extreme storyteller trying to take a story to the ultimate level, see Note 14)
15. Multiple Universes (ok this is just getting silly, see Note 15)
16. Omniscient, Omnipotent, Omnipresent Deity (idea credited to Abraham, 7th century B.C.E., see Note 14 & 16)

Note 4: When the potential consequences start to exceed 1000 deaths, it is more difficult for a character to be a clear cut ‘hero’ because characters will tend to be forced to take actions that are somewhat unethical in order to protect ‘the greater good’, such as illegal searches or simply shooting a suspected terrorist in the head with a sniper rifle rather than trying to arrest them and bring them to trial to prove their guilt. Because of this, authors and GM’s need to be very careful with telling stories with this sort of a threat level and have a very good understanding of the different normative ethical systems that are possible and which system they and each of their players/characters/readers are using. By this point the story has probably left the realm of civilian law-enforcement and entered the realm of espionage, counter-intelligence, and military operations. Characters can generally only remain purely heroic at this level and above if they have a fanatical devotion to their ethics, or if there is no chance of failure, in other words they need to feel assured that the storyteller is on their side and there is no chance that they will actually lose and have to suffer the consequences (which is a genre convention of the superhero genre, by the way – when was the last time a super-villain actually succeeded in their nefarious plans, which means that the superheroes are not really operating on this threat level). For instance what happens if that heroic character refuses to try to pragmatically shoot a suspected terrorist in the head with a sniper rifle and then that terrorist later actually succeeds in detonating a nuclear weapon in a city killing over 10,000 people, how ‘heroic’ does that character seem? While it is great for authors to show heroes who refuse to be pragmatic at these threat levels and fanatically stick by their ethics no matter what, that starts to look pretty bad if the consequences actually happen.
Note 5: This level could be considered a 'demigod'. An individual at this level is literally a "one man army". In J.R.R. Tolkien's high fantasy classics "The Hobbit" and "Lord of the Rings", Smaug the Dragon, the Balrog of Moria, and the Witch King of Angmar are probably all at this level, which implies that Saruman and Gandalf are also on this level.
Note 6: This is also the level of most kaiju including the most classic of movie macro-monsters, "Oh, no, there goes Tokyo! Go go, Godzilla." -Blue Oyster Cult song
Note 7: This level is beyond the concept of a 'one man army' fight in the sense that opponents cannot be dealt with as individuals but rather are destroyed in groups; this is a mathematical necessity due to the time it would take to deal with opponents individually (at the rate of 1 per second it would take an entire year of 8 hour days to kill 10 million individuals one at a time, 60sec/min x 60min/hr x 8hr/day x 365day = 10,512,000). Most science fiction starships, even non-military ones, will have at least this level of destructive capability if used against a low-tech or undefended planet, since they can throw rocks at it or ram it at orbital velocities (see the Torino scale below).
Note 8: Note that levels 8-10 in this system have some similarity to the Torino scale that is used for things such as such as asteroids and comets. Also by the time a character's (hero or villain) potential effect on the planet needs to be rated on the Torino scale there can be serious ethical discussions about the responsibility required to wield such powers.
Note 11: Regarding levels 11-16, while the threat level system could move to counting planets/worlds/stars above level 10, with 11 being 1-9 worlds and 12 being 10-99 worlds and continuing until the number of stars in the universe is reached (which would be at about level 32), there is no reason to maintain the strict logarithmic progression at cosmic levels. Not only are such differentiations fairly moot to real life concerns (once you reach the level of 'can destroy the whole world' anything more is fairly moot) they're not particularly helpful to storytelling (except perhaps in a sci-fi setting) and we start needing to deal with the idea of actions at this level being astronomically observable. By the upper end of level 11 an author needs to deal with the idea that if something that could destroy stars really existed elsewhere in the galaxy and was used frequently then it could be observed by astronomers. This problem cannot easily be solved by the standard ‘coverup’ sorts of explanations, since a cosmic level coverup would require a level 11-14 power just to do the coverup and has epistemological philosophical implications, since if there exists something capable of deceiving others on a galactic or universal scale then what can possibly be known (see Descart’s demon theory).
Note 14: Even attempting to tell stories on this level is inherently a spiritual, religious, and philosophical endeavor. At this threat level we’ve left the realm of military actions (and any sort of ‘realism’) and entered the realm of philosophy and religion. By this threat level the pragmatism of Note 4 becomes unjustified and ethics are now more important than pragmatism. One of the rational reasons for this is that at this level it becomes nearly impossible to ‘prove’ that the consequences will actually happen – how does someone prove that the universe will be destroyed or for that matter that you aren’t simply being somehow deceived? IMHO, If presented with an apparent threat at this level, a character should decide what their ethics are and stand by them no matter what, even if the universe is destroyed as a result. For instance, if the story presents the character with the option to either kill an innocent being or else the universe will end, the character should simply respond something like this, “I’m not a murderer, it was a nice universe, there will be another” –Ken Seeking-Truth, Stargazer theurge.
Note 15: Are you sure this story doesn’t involve fire breathing lizards, spherical objects, and the last letter of the English alphabet? This level also includes an ‘Infinite number of Universes’ and even the different levels of ‘infinity’ (go research that in mathematical theory) and other silly permutations thereof. Entities of this level can typically re-write reality; they typically only appear in longstanding storylines or shared universes when continuity needs to be repaired or the story is getting a reboot. This is the level of the author of a story or the gamemaster in an RPG.
Note 16: Even at this level, philosophers generally assume that things are bound by the rules of logic.

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Power levels:

While threat levels are mostly about offensive capability, with only a secondary consideration of their defensive capability, movement or transportation ability, and any useful miscellaneous abilities insomuch as such things affect offensive potential, a proper assessment of a fictional character's (or vehicle's, or organization's) overall 'power level' will include all of those things.

Because there could be a high variation between the maximum amount of carnage/death a character could cause and their actual personal defenses and vulnerabilities, it can be important to separate between the concept of 'threat level' and 'power level' in order to clarify what 'power level' they are capable of functioning on when they are in an environment of 'realistic' conflict (e.g. a realistic story, or a video game, or a role-playing game). For instance a character might be a scientist specializing in infectious diseases that has the ability to create a superplague that can destroy all of humanity (threat level 10) but who is only a normal person with regards to physical combat (threat level 1-2) and has no special immunity to bullets, acid, poison, magic, mind control, etc. (power level 1), so they are only actually capable of functioning on power level 1-2. Power level for individuals is mostly relevant to fictional characters with paranormal abilities or super high-tech, since there is not much variation among real world humans. The highest overall 'power level' for a real human is about 3, for the pilot of a combat aircraft or the crew of a main battle tank.

Genre notes: It is easily possible for a character to be functioning at different levels for offense, defense, movement, and miscellaneous useful powers. The mix tends vary by fictional genre. A character could have a threat level 2 offense, a level 3 defense, and level 4 movement and miscellaneous powers (that might actually be typical for a higher powered supernatural type). In some genres it would be uncommon for the personal offense and defense of a main character or primary antagonist to be massively different, for instance having an offensive power that can destroy the world (level 10) but the defenses of a normal person (level 1-2), while in other genres that might be typical, such as an action thriller or the eldrich horror genre (e.g. crazed human cultist attempting to summon an eldrich alien abomination god that will probably destroy the Earth if they succeeded). In the higher powered superhero genre it is fairly common for offense to exceed defense and for characters to have a fairly limited number of quite powerful abilities rather than a very large number of moderately powered and minor abilities, though the latter situation is more common in fantasy, particularly for magic-users. In the supernatural genre it is common for defense and miscellaneous powers to exceed offense. Villains that are designed for actual conflict, for instance to fight an entire group in a visual media or roleplaying environment, often have formidable defenses but their offense is not much better than the characters they are designed to fight, to ensure they cannot be defeated too easily but will be unable to easily overcome the heroes, leading to a lengthy (and entertaining/exciting/interesting) combat. However in a literary environment the villain and hero can be mismatched in power since a lengthy blow-by-blow combat would just be boring to read and author provided luck can be a great equalizer. Typically in fiction, a character with a massive difference between their threat level and their personal defenses and/or other abilities is either a villain, the pawn of a villain (or otherwise a plot device for a villain to use), an arch-mage that fits the 'squishy wizard' and 'glass cannon' tropes, or is a superhero who is protected by genre conventions and author provided luck, leaving people wondering how they manage to stay alive (e.g. Cyclops of the X-men).

Visual mediums: One way to identify the upper power levels in a visual medium (art, comics, anime, movies, etc.) is by whether they switch to a wide angle or overhead view to show the effect. For instance if a frame of a sequential comic or 'shot' in a movie switches from closeups on the characters to an angle or overhead view of the building or block it is probably level 3-5, or if the view changes to an aerial view of the town/city or if it involves a 'mushroom cloud' it is probably level 5-7, whereas if the view switches to an orbital view of the whole planet (or moon) the power is probably 7-9 and could be rated using the 'Torino Scale' (e.g. the firing of the 'Angel Arm' in Trigun, or the finale of the first season of One Punch Man), unless the entire planet is being instantly destroyed, in which case it is level 10. Power levels 11 and up cannot easily be shown in visual medium. How do you visually show multiple solar systems or multiple galaxies being simultaneously destroyed in a way that modern humans can relate to? The 'Eye of Terror' in the Warhammer 40k setting is an example of trying to illustrate a level 11-12 power, it is a dimensional rift in space that is so large it is visible in the night sky.

Realistic conflict: In many fictional settings, 'realism' takes a distant second place compared to entertaining the audience or players, and the most general rule about which character wins in a conflict is 'the one the author wants to win'. However, in a fictional world that is attempting some degree of realism, when dealing with characters beyond power level 2-3 the outcome of a 'realistic' conflict will tend to be determined by a character's weaknesses/vulnerabilities rather than their strengths, for instance a smart opponent doesn't challenge the best swordsman in the kingdom to a sword duel but rather deals with them in a way that they are not as well equipped to handle, such as a social challenge, a sneak attack, missile weapons, throwing acid on them, poisoning them, infecting them with a disease, etc. For example, in classic Greek myth the demigod Hercules was ultimately killed by poison due to the trickery of the centaur Nessus. Because of this, entities beyond about power level 5 tend to have defenses that become silly fairly quickly when they are in an environment of actual challenges, they end up not needing to breath, drink, eat, sleep, and they're immune to temperature extremes, vacuum, radiation, acid, poison, disease, magic, mental powers, etc. etc. etc. In fiction, heroes of these upper levels tend to have more vulnerabilities than villains to keep their stories more interesting but it is almost a requirement that villains at these levels will either hide themselves to compensate for their lack of defenses or will have at least one vulnerability that the heroes can discover and use to defeat them.

Totally different 'leagues': For the superhero, sci-fi, high fantasy, supernatural horror and mythology genres, or any other genre where there can be a vast disparity in power levels (and for looking at OP OC's) it is helpful to determine what power level characters are in, since that shows what sort of a 'league' they belong in. In some fiction genres like superheroes or high fantasy or even just classic Greek mythology, there can easily be a 10 to 1, or 100 to 1, or even more power level difference between individuals, which results in some interesting consequences if you think about it from a 'realistic' viewpoint. For a more complete set of expectations and examples of the different 'power levels' see this journal.

Know your limits: One of the most important things about being a 'superhero' or a fantasy wizard or supernatural being that exists in a world of logarithmic power levels, is knowing your place in the greater cosmic scheme of things. You might be a bad@$$ threat level 3 fighter who can take down over 100 opponents or an awesome threat level 4 arch-mage but when you encounter a power level 5 demigod or level 6 god (or level 7 Hulk or level 8+ Superman) you need to realize that you're dealing with something that may be totally out of your league (not to mention those crazy level 15 threats to all of existence). This is particularly relevant for characters who are in the superhuman level 3-5 range since they can get overconfident because of their ability to easily beat most normal opponents and thus are actually highly vulnerable when they encounter someone who is on their own level. A big part of this is understanding your own defenses and vulnerabilities in order to know what power level you're capable of playing on.


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