Tech levels can be defined in several ways. Most have a signature technology – e.g., stone, bronze, or iron – alongside other characteristic technologies. These capabilities allow new forms of political and economic organization. Crucial to adventurers, each TL also has a distinctive approach to weapons and warfare, as well as controlling what equipment may be available.
The Stone Age was longer than all of human history. Treating it as one TL is in a way misleading; it encompasses several eras whose technologies differed at least as much as those of ancient Rome and the Middle Ages. In terms important to adventurers, though, it’s all fairly similar: small-scale societies that don’t support professional warriors or soldiers, armed with stone or wooden hunting weapons. The overall signature technology is worked stone tools and weapons.
Signature Technology: Chipped stone.
Other Technologies: Wood, bone, and leather; domesticated dogs; rafts, canoes, and sleds; string; fire; herbs and crude surgery.
Social Organization: Nomadic bands and tribes; rules for marriage, inheritance, and kinship; oral traditions; shamanism.
War: Tribal war bands with hunting weapons; shields.
Signature Technology: Multiple small stone chips mounted on a frame or handle.
Other Technologies: Fishing; food storage; basketry; houses.
Social Organization: Chiefdoms and gift exchange systems; settled communities.
War: Slings; bows and arrows.
Signature Technology: Ground stone.
Other Technologies: Gardening; food-animal domestication; ceramics; weaving; nets.
Social Organization: Barter; local shrines, priests, and cults.
War: Ditches and other improvised defenses.
At the very end of the Stone Age, native copper comes into use. Some archaeologists call this the Chalcolithic Age. Its technology is essentially that of the Neolithic, with one exception:
Signature Technology: Native copper tools.
Signature Technology: Bronze.
Other Technologies: Large-scale agriculture, often with irrigation and plowing; herding; draft animals; wheeled vehicles; large-scale architecture; shipbuilding; written records; practical mathematics; calendars.
Social Organization: City-states and monoethnic empires; written law; armies; long-distance trade and diplomacy; gold and silver currency by weight; marketplaces.
War: Horse-drawn chariots; helmets and body armor; walled cities and siege warfare.
Signature Technology: Iron.
Other Technologies: Riding horses and mounted herdsmen; concrete; large glass objects; arches, vaults, and domes; early water mills; theoretical mathematics; humoral medicine.
Social Organization: Multiethnic empires; founding of universal religions; philosophy; historical scholarship; coinage.
War: Cavalry; war elephants; phalanx warfare; mechanical artillery; specialized war galleys.
Signature Technology: Steel.
Other Technologies: Three-field rotation; moldboard plow; heavy horses; flying buttress; windmills and widely used water mills; distillation; compasses; numerals with zero.
Social Organization: Universal religions; monasticism.
War: Mounted knights; castles; counterweight mechanical artillery; early black-powder weapons.
Signature Technology: Full-rigged ships.
Other Technologies: Cast iron; the printing press; telescopes; celestial navigation; early synthetic medications.
Social Organization: Nation-states and absolute monarchy; overseas empires; widespread literacy.
War: Cannon; musket and pike; early bayonets; formal military drill; sailing warships armed with cannon; star forts replace castles.
The Industrial Revolution (on historical Earth, roughly 1730 to 1880) coincides with the first successful steam engine. It becomes self-perpetuating by embracing curiosity-driven innovation and capitalist economics simultaneously, rewarding risk-taking and invention with wealth. Key developments include:
Agriculture: Four-course crop rotation, seed drill.
Arms and Armor: Barbed wire, breech-loading artillery, breech-loading rifle, ironclad warship, mechanical machine gun, nitroglycerine, revolver, rocket.
Information Technology: Newspaper advertising, photography, public library, scientific journals, telegraph.
Machinery: Cotton gin, interchangeable parts, powered loom, reaping machine.
Material Science: Crucible steel, friction match, rubber.
Medicine and Health: Anesthetic, antiseptic, canned foods, evaporated milk, hypodermic syringe, pasteurization, vaccination.
Power: Battery, coal, steam engine.
Transportation: Bicycle, hot-air balloon, macadam road, railroad, screw propeller, steamship, submarine.
The Mechanized Age (historically, about 1880 to 1940) is the consequence of industrialization sinking its teeth into technologies that are more capital-intensive than laborintensive and reaping great benefits from the resulting economies of scale. Goods of all types drop in price relative to wages as “modern” transportation and manufacturing techniques hit their stride. Important advances include:
Agriculture: Herbicides, mechanized harvester, pesticides.
Arms and Armor: Aircraft carrier, automatic weapons, battleship, high explosives, military aircraft, poison gas, tank.
Information Technology: Color photography, fingerprint records, motion pictures, radio, sound recording, telephone.
Machinery: Electric light, radar, sonar, vacuum tube.
Material Science: Aluminum, Bakelite, Bessemer steel, synthetic fibers.
Medicine and Health: Blood transfusion, electrocardiograph, inoculation, insulin, penicillin, refrigeration, sterilization, sulfa drugs.
Power: Electric motor, hydroelectric power, internal combustion engine, secondary battery, steam turbine.
Transportation: Airplane, automobile, high-speed road system, primitive helicopter, zeppelin.
The Nuclear Age dawns with the successful harnessing of nuclear power (in the 1940s, on historical Earth). This occurs alongside such inventions as television, jet engines, and the transistor. The crowning achievement of TL7 technology is in many ways to make good on the promises of TL6. Significant innovations include:
Agriculture: Chemical fertilizer, hybrid crops.
Arms and Armor: Assault rifle, ballistic body armor, guided missile, military helicopter, military jet, nuclear weapons.
Information Technology: Computer, high-speed press, television.
Machinery: Integrated circuits, laser, transistor.
Material Science: Composite materials, plastic, superconductors, titanium.
Medicine and Health: Artificial heart, organ transplants.
Power: Gas turbine, nuclear power, photovoltaic cell.
Transportation: High-speed train, jet aircraft, spacecraft.
The Digital Age begins with the commercial success of personal computing – in around 1980, here on Earth. Definitive technologies include:
Agriculture: Genetically engineered crops and pesticides.
Arms and Armor: Bioengineered disease, personal defense weapon, stun gun, unmanned drone.
Information Technology: Desktop publishing, personal computer, Internet.
Machinery: Rapid prototyping.
Material Science: Carbon fiber, fullerenes, microfibers.
Medicine and Health: Artificial fertilization, genetic screening, laser surgery.
Power: Advanced battery, computer-integrated power plant, wind farm.
Transportation: Hybrid car, reusable spacecraft.
Major advances occur in the material science, especially in the fabrication of nano-scale materials, the development of composite materials, and in polymer-based electronics. This leads to the widespread use of devices such as printed computers, flexible batteries, and bio-compatible implants, as well as products such as video wallpaper and chameleon suits.
Micro-mechanical electromagnetic systems – tiny sensors and actuators – drastically shrink many electronic and mechanical devices. The results are dramatic, ranging from vehicle surfaces that can change their aerodynamic properties to labs-on-a-chip and artificial gills. Fuel cells and gas turbines are miniaturized and used as power cells for electronics and other portable devices. On a larger scale, nuclear fusion and solar power free society from dependency on fossil fuels, although they may remain economically important.
Computers, sensors, and communicators are faster, smarter, and smaller, and can be built into almost anything. Wearable computers are inexpensive. Quantum computers can solve problems and break encryption by computing every possible solution at once, but quantum communication systems trump that with unbreakable encryption. Neural interfaces link mind and machine, and cybernetic implants do not merely replace injured body parts, but actually enhance them.
Mobile robots are commonplace, used in everything from nursing to vehicle operation to combat. However, they lack self-initiative, and many are teleoperated. Androids that can look human (even if they don’t act human) are expensive but available.
Improvements in material technology lead to affordable space transport systems, such as single-stage-to-orbit shuttles or space elevators. Cheaper access to orbit may boost other space technology, such as nuclear engines for interplanetary journeys, beamed power from solar satellites, and life support technology. Industry and even colonists may go into space, taking advantage of the gravity-free environment to mine asteroids or develop better industrial processes.
Small arms technology still relies on conventional guns (with improved ammunition and smart electronics) but specialized non-lethal energy weapons such as electrolasers and sonic nauseators appear. So do the first bulky laser sniper rifles, heavy electromagnetic railguns, and laser cannon.
Antimatter is now routinely manufactured. It’s used in medicine (as a radiation source) but is too expensive to be used as a fuel or explosive. It is still useful in space propulsion and weaponry, as a catalyst for triggering “clean” nuclear explosions. Mini-nukes increase the risk of nuclear war by blurring the boundaries between conventional and nuclear arms.
Body armor advances even more rapidly than weapons. Comfortable climate-controlled suits can protect the entire body, and space suits become lightweight vacc suits. Advances in micro-turbines and robotics make powered suits feasible, both exoskeletons (for civilian and military applications) and battlesuits.
Perhaps the most significant developments are in bioscience. Functional organs can be grown with tissue engineering and transplanted into the body. Wonder drugs and other treatments can be delivered in smart capsules. Not all diseases are cured, but lifespans may increase substantially.
Superscience: Monomolecular wire and plasma weaponry are developed. It’s common for faster-than-light drives, parachronic travel, reactionless drives, or other superscience transport systems to appear. TL9 cultures can spread out rapidly to other worlds.
Artificial intelligence becomes smarter and cheaper, and the first volitional AIs – machines that can think like people – appear. Inexpensive sapient machines are commonplace. Swarms of tiny microbots can be built, and biomechanical nanomachines can perform prodigious feats of medicine and genetic engineering.
People who can afford to take full advantage of TL10 medicine may live for centuries or more. As science gains a greater understanding of the human mind, more complex neuro-tech and cybernetics become available… it’s possible to cybernetically possess bodies, control minds, and record sensory information.
Molecular nanotechnology is routinely used in manufacturing. Many products can be self-assembled “from the bottom up” using methods analogous to the way biological organisms grow. The tools used are biomechanical in nature, combining proteins and engineered viruses with metals and other inorganic materials. Bio-nanomachines construct most biotech products and are used in medicine and genetic engineering, but molecular manufacturing is still limited to making specialized components and products that can be assembled in “wet” environments. Macro-scale products using metals, semiconductors, diamond-hard materials, and ceramics still rely on “top down” manufacturing techniques.
One example of the new bio-nanotech products is pseudoalive polymers that are capable of self-repair. These “living bio-plastics” make a range of tough, lightweight, and self-maintaining equipment possible. Material and power generation technology continues to improve. Super-strong composite materials are relatively inexpensive. Weapons technology takes a quantum leap with the development of power cells that can power effective man-portable electromagnetic guns and high energy lasers, although conventional weapons may remain in use with smarter ammunition. Nuclear fusion reactors are small enough to power battle tanks and fighter-sized spacecraft.
Superscience: Gravity control technology leads to artificial gravity and contragravity being used in personal vehicles, houses, and weapons, as well as reactionless space drives. Nuclear dampers can neutralize the threat of nuclear weapons. New superscience weaponry becomes available, notably plasma guns and exotic sonic beams.
Technology achieves precise control over the atomic structure of objects. A mature molecular nanotechnology is available, capable of inexpensively fabricating most products with atomic-level precision. Nanofactories (pp. 91-93) make products out of diamond-hard material (“diamondoid”).
Not everything can be built in nanofactories, however. The most advanced TL11 products tinker with the subatomic structure of matter to create exotic materials. This may involve replacing electrons with super-massive particles (such as muons) to create hyperdense matter. Depending on its stability, this may be used as a catalyst for fusion reactions (resulting in more compact power plants), or as a component in computer hardware, armor, and other equipment.
Antimatter is another exotic material that comes of age at TL11. As its price of manufacture drops, it begins to see use as a means of compact energy storage. Antimatter rocket engines are also available. A vast array of powerful beam weapons are now available, including portable particle beams (blasters) and X-ray lasers. In response, armor becomes stronger and smarter, and is usually made of diamondoid composites and exotic alloys. Most armor is powered, from skintight smartsuits to nuclear-powered dreadnought battlesuits.
Nanotechnology dominates medicine. The standard way to heal someone is to take him apart (using the chrysalis machine) and put him back together again in perfect condition. Minds can be copied without destroying the original body.
Superscience: Contragravity is miniaturized, resulting in personal flying belts and small, hyper-agile robot missiles. Force screen generators protect vehicles and installations, but are not yet suitable for personal use. Ranged gravity projectors are available, leading to tractor and pressor beams and gravitic weapons. Hypergravity technology can produce stabilized hyperdense armor and compact nuclear reactors. Matter transmission can teleport people from place to place, as long as there is hardware to send and receive. Superscience sensors can “scan” for just about anything, and even see through walls. Ranged neurotech devices such as dream nets and neural disruptors are introduced. Recorded minds can be played back into living bodies.
TL12 societies use their understanding of the universe to produce devices and effects that are incomprehensible to less advanced cultures. The TL11 advances in nanotechnology and exotic matter are fully integrated into civilization, along with new devices such as living metal, gamma-ray lasers, and self-replicating nanomachine swarms.
Simple pills can regenerate the body in a matter of hours, or grow new cybernetic implants a matter of days. Pocket antimatter reactors power vehicles, and spaceships and cities run on total conversion of mass to energy. Entire planets can be moved, or disassembled to build a shell around a star. Devastating personal weapons are developed, while nanomachines can directly imprint consciousness into human brains.
Most aspects of a TL12 civilization can be run by intelligent machines, and most people might be machines, whether wholly or in part. Sentient robots could reproduce themselves rapidly, spreading like a plague to terraform (or eat!) a planet in a matter of months, or build any industry that is required. Raw materials are easy to come by. While asteroid belts may be already used up, TL12 cultures can dismantle Jupiter-sized gas giants for parts. Of course, if several TL12 nations existed in the same area and no one wanted to leave, they would soon run out of gas giants. Then things might get nasty…
Superscience: Matter transmitters can “beam up” or “beam down” without a receiving booth at the other end. Regeneration rays may supersede nanotechnology for rapid treatment of injuries. Force fields can alter the flow of time. Disintegrators and reality disruptor weapons can destroy almost any target that is not protected by superscience defenses. Fortunately, personal force fields and stasis fields can stop them.
Incredibly advanced technologies are difficult to conceptualize, never mind use in play. Even so, it’s hard to resist the question of “What’s next?”
One option is to assume an age of technological stagnation sets in. TL12 science may answer all the fundamental questions of the universe, and technological progress may not be possible. There is no TL13; science catalogs what exists rather than explaining it. Engineering is no longer about invention, but merely application.
Another possibility is to continue a straight-line progression. TL13 devices are like TL12 but weigh or cost half or two-thirds as much, and so on. Or superscience developments can have their TL bumped up to TL13+. They may represent bold new inventions, or artifacts from civilizations that ruled the galaxy eons ago.