The Skills that define a TL

[Fred Brackin]

Our hypothetical situation is that a TL8 Earthperson has been time warped into the far future of TL12. The benevolent dwellers in that far future time wish to aid the poor shub but their standard method of teaching is InstaSkill nano (UT p.59) and they have a vast library of types of that for all skills of all TLs.

However, they have nothing specifically addressing how to help him buy off the Low TL Disad. They start at TL12 and work there way backwards to help them understand peoples of earlier TLs.

They decide that they will give him the instaSkill for the 5 crucial skills of TL9. After the first dose he will probably be trying to use those skils at -5 but after the second dose he'll have 2 pts in each of those skills and can trade 1 pt in to buy off that TL penalty. This is inspired by Social Engineering:Back to School and some learning procedures there.

Of course, this procedure would be repeated 3 more times. They might even ahve needed to start at TL8. :)

The first skill to pick is easy. It's Mathematics (Applied) TL9 and in addition to its' own intrinisic worth it's a prereq for Physics TL9. That leads you to Biology TL9.

After 3 skills it's getting harder. Chemstry TL9 certainly sounds important but on the hand there probably aren't going to be any new elements and you'll run out of novel molecular structures eventally.

Astronomy TL is another candidate. Specifically for the cosmology and it's easier to imagine it extending into the future.

After that there are a lot of things that would be useful but are they the archetypal skills that form a significant part of that TL's udnerstanding of all things Tl-ish? Generally the possible skills apppear to get more and more narrow.