Tech Level Question

[maximara]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

No. It's based on Ultra-Tech.

What nonsuperscience tech of TOS (the power of their antimatter is superscience) does the Federation have that is above TL9?

FTL, phasers, counter gravity, FTL Radios, Tricorder (Ultrascanner), Shields (Force Fields), Tractor beams (Graviton Beams), Phasers (Disintegrators in one configuration), and so on are all superscience and be discoverable at any TL above 6 with the transtator.

We have "standard" TL9 stuff as well:
Hibernation Chamber, deloped in their 1990s
Pneumohypo
Diagnostic Bed

Spock notes that restoring a brai is beyond the knowledge of anyone (they know of) in the galaxy but Kirk (correctly) points out that the process of removing it exists where they are and therefore the knowledge for restoring it also exists. Such brain transfers for cyborgs exists at TL9 and wee don't really see any nonsuperscience medical tech beyond 9 in TOS.

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Based on their economy, which is really the only solid measure they sit at 12.

Star Trek gives conflicting information regarding its economy. The crew of starships can buy goods and things cost "something" and yet later on they claim that they don't use money which is total nonsense. Money is simply a good that is felt to have value that eliminates the need for barter.

Then you have the replicators which are superscience matter transmitters similar to the transporter. As Kirk pointed out to Korab they could manufacture a ton of diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and sapphires.

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Or Kirk was just kidding. Because really did he seem even a little bit worried?

Spock chimed in and as he would say elsewhere "Vulcans don't joke" Never mind I also cited Worlds of the Federation where they got to Kirk's level of tech and just stopped.

[Stormcrow]

It should be a law that one is not allowed to cite Star Trek when trying to prove or demonstrate anything about GURPS tech levels that has nothing to do with Star Trek.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by maximara

What nonsuperscience tech of TOS (the power of their antimatter is superscience) does the Federation have that is above TL9?

Synthesizers, which are best represented as TL 11-12 nanofactories. And saying their antimatter is superscience is like saying superscience is being used in all the action movies that get guns wrong. Which is to say, all of them.

Spock chimed in and as he would say elsewhere "Vulcans don't joke"

They do however lie. Every time they claim they don't lie or joke for example. He said that they don't joke for example right after proposing that they throw tribbles at the Klingons in More Tribbles, More Troubles.

Never mind I also cited Worlds of the Federation where they got to Kirk's level of tech and just stopped.

I really don't give it any mind. Not only is it not canon, it isn't even a TOS source.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

It should be a law that one is not allowed to cite Star Trek when trying to prove or demonstrate anything about GURPS tech levels that has nothing to do with Star Trek.

GURPS Prime Directive makes Star Trek tech fair game and the editor of the 4e dropped the ball and used the 3e Tech so we know the 4e edition of that work is talking nonsense.

For the TL;DR crowd GURPS Prime Directive makes Star Trek tech within GURPS fair game.

[Stormcrow]

Originally Posted by maximara

GURPS Prime Directive makes Star Trek tech fair game and the editor of the 4e dropped the ball and used the 3e Tech so we know the 4e edition of that work is talking nonsense.

You've just undermined yourself in the same sentence you're trying to make your point in. If the editor of the book dropped the ball then it's not following the fourth edition tech rules and cannot be used to make pronouncements about how fourth edition tech rules work.

It's also a Powered By GURPS game, not GURPS itself, so it's only guaranteed to be generally compatible with GURPS, allowing authors latitude to make changes and simplifications. The GURPS Prime Directive page says it was based on GURPS Lite, and brought in some other stuff.

And finally, from what I've seen of it, the authors were very much NOT interested in applying rigorous rules of verisimilitude. They just want rules for phasers and warp drives. We already know from the show what they do, so managing their TLs is largely unnecessary.

So no, you really don't have a strong argument in an appeal to the authority of GURPS Prime Directive.

As for Star Trek itself, I stand by my point that Star Trek is a lousy model to hold up to examine how GURPS tech levels work. The writers of the original show were not interested enough in world-building to carefully monitor how their technology works. Transporters were famously added to avoid the cost of building and using a shuttle set and model, not because someone carefully worked out that they'd be a logical consequence of the technological level they were writing for. The transtator is mentioned, not because its functions were understood and needed to explain any technology, but because it led to a funny situation as Kirk, Spock, and McCoy realize that the Iotians are going to be able to find one and learn about all their technology from it — the tech version of a MacGuffin. The ship has tractor beams because, well, nearly every science-fiction story of the previous couple of decades had energy beams that could do all sorts of things, so why not?

Unless you're actually going to play GURPS Star Trek, studying the TLs of Star Trek only leads to argument and confusion, because the writers weren't trying to be scientifically rigorous.

[Varyon]

It seems to me that these discussions often devolve into arguments about Steampunk and its TL designation (specifically its treatment of canonically TL6 tech) and/or Star Trek’s “Piece of the Action” episode (specifically that singular episode) that ultimately go nowhere. Perhaps we should table those arguments and see if there’s anything novel to discuss.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Varyon

It seems to me that these discussions often devolve into arguments about Steampunk and its TL designation (specifically its treatment of canonically TL6 tech) and/or Star Trek’s “Piece of the Action” episode (specifically that singular episode) that ultimately go nowhere. Perhaps we should table those arguments and see if there’s anything novel to discuss.

If we take the whole TLz+4 (ie 4 levels beyond our current tech) position is effectively not understandable does keeping the old TL scale with huge parts of it consigned to superscience leaving these huge voids make any degree of sense?

The GURPS TL scale doesn't end at 12, it is just the TL beyond what we could actually get a handle on when Basic Set was written was 11 (TL8+3).

"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." - Ultra Tech 7

Heck, a huge part of Ultra-Tech is superscience and if you removed that you would wind up with a much thinner book.

[AlexanderHowl]

Just because it is superscience now does not mean that it will be superscience in 200 years. If you went back 200 years and tried to explain our technology to our ancestors and they would probably think that it was superscience (or magic, take your pick) because it would violate their understanding of science at the time.

[Stormcrow]

Originally Posted by maximara

If we take the whole TLz+4 (ie 4 levels beyond our current tech) position is effectively not understandable

Even if we accept the idea that a four-level divergence makes the technology not understandable, that doesn't mean we can't still use it. GURPS divergent TLs are whatever you declare them to be based on the needs of the campaign. There have been reasonable descriptions of Flintstones technology as being TL(0+7) (and let's not litigate again whether that's accurate). You don't really have to understand how it works to be able to calculate the effects of TL(0+7); you just have to know what it means for your campaign.

I can declare a Steampunk Wars campaign, which is just like Star Wars except all the technology is steam-operated, say, TL(6+6) (and no, I'm not interested in arguing that point either). I don't have to understand how it works to be able to let players have a steam-powered X-wing fighter or a crystal-focused light saber. I just have to declare them to be so.

GURPS TLs don't predict anything about technology; they're just broad labels for applying modifiers and guiding GM choices.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Just because it is superscience now does not mean that it will be superscience in 200 years.

No, but it's a pretty solid indicator. We notice the cases of 'science says X is impossible and was wrong' and ignore the far more common 'science says X is impossible and seems to be correct'.

Development of new science mostly occurs in the gaps in our understanding -- it's not that previous observations were wrong, it's just that they were less universal than we thought they were -- and while there still are gaps in our understanding in a variety of areas, they're generally in regimes that are inordinately difficult to reach, and in any case whatever fills that gap is vanishingly unlikely to match our random imaginings.