[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

Tales of the Solar Patrol gives the TL of its setting as 6+3, but I have been finding this inadequate for certain reasons.

In the setting, budget problems blocked the invention of the electronic computer and the transistor. However, the setting has an "ether," and discoveries relating to this have led to almost limitless power with "Tesla coils," electron drives that can accelerate in an hour to 0.1c and more, nega-barriers (force fields), atomic guns, and gravitic vectors (anti-gravity). All of these technologies are obviously TL^. The setting has electro-mechanical computers called infomats, and has not progressed beyond TL6 except for developments in nuclear fission, putting it in TL7 for power generation.

Yet the setting has manned interplanetary space flight, heavy laser weapons (both TL9), and perhaps some other TL9 stuff I'm forgetting.

So is TL6+3 the best descriptor of this setting? GURPS page B513 lists retro-tech mimicking 1940s SF (which is this setting) as a split tech level, not a divergent one. I was thinking TSP could be described as "TL6 (Tesla Power and Weapons TL6^, Nuclear Power TL7).

Any thoughts?

You're right that infomats are inferior technology to our computers. However, the Solar Patrol universe also has functional humanoid robots capable of understanding simple verbal instructions. They aren't very good, essentially low-end TL 9 cybernetics, and the Solar Patrol doesn't use them for an anything, but they are substantially superior to our cybernetics. Similarly while they are still using fission reactors, their fission reactors are in fact substantially superior to ours, safer, more compact, cheaper. I'd be willing to be that somewhere in the solar system, there's a megaframe computer capable computation that is impressive even by our standards, and if there isn't yet, it's just because they haven't finished building it yet.

A fictional universe of the kind described on page 513 would be more like the hard science fiction stories of the 1940s or stuff like Venus Equilateral, a universe that required people to manually adjust power beams to keep them from drifting off target and didn't have any robots.

I don't know that this is always the case. Yes, household appliances and other conveniences can be considered TL6+3^, but what about, say, medical technology? The doctor is going to wear a stethoscope and use a tongue-depressor (though they probably have miracle pills).

So far as I know, they still do that, although by TL 9 they might switch over to stethophones. In any case in terms of rolling for injury recovery I'd probably go with a TL 9 equivalent.

Materials science? Ships are made of steel, not ultra-tech alloys.

<shrug> DR's about the same.

Navigation? Astrogators perform their calculations with paper, pencil, and slide rule.

Well yeah but that's because if they didn't, they'd be wimps. They do have computers capable of doing it