TL Minus

[RyanW]

TL5+1 might be described as "matching TL6 achievements using ahistorical extrapolations of core TL5 technologies." So what about the other way around? TL6-1: having the core technologies of TL6, but failing to transform the setting into anything but a variant TL5.

Just a weird random thought, but it seems like it might be a way to describe something like The Jetsons (TL10-3?), as a somewhat extreme example.

[hal]

Originally Posted by RyanW

TL5+1 might be described as "matching TL6 achievements using ahistorical extrapolations of core TL5 technologies." So what about the other way around? TL6-1: having the core technologies of TL6, but failing to transform the setting into anything but a variant TL5.

Just a weird random thought, but it seems like it might be a way to describe something like The Jetsons (TL10-3?), as a somewhat extreme example.

Or it can be used to describe a culture that is on the cusp of becoming a given TL but has not as yet invested in everything required to meet the definition.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by RyanW

TL5+1 might be described as "matching TL6 achievements using ahistorical extrapolations of core TL5 technologies." So what about the other way around? TL6-1: having the core technologies of TL6, but failing to transform the setting into anything but a variant TL5.

Just a weird random thought, but it seems like it might be a way to describe something like The Jetsons (TL10-3?), as a somewhat extreme example.

TLx-y has the defacto meaning of "Borderline technology" ie societies in transition from one tech level to another.

Examples: Europe in the mid 15th century (TL3-4), the Old West era of the United States (TL5-6), and the United States or Europe in the 1950s (TL6-7)

As Classic Steampunk and Steamtech tried to explain TL(5+1) is TL6 just a different TL6 from what we know historically.

In fact, many "TL(5+1)" items in those books are TL6 items that really existed.

*early 19th century; Bactericide (chemical); Classic: Steampunk 92
*1850s; Electropathic Belt; Classic: Steamtech 31
*1851; Tempest Prognosticator Classic: Steamtech 51
*1889/cheap production c 1910; Wireless Field Telephone; Classic: Steamtech 32
*1892; Dewar Flask (Thermos); Classic: Steamtech 42
*1898 (gas)/1951 (as Anesthesia); Xenon; Classic: Steamtech 109
*1899; Acetylsalicylic Acid (Aspirin); Classic: Steampunk 92
*1906 (Lunched); H.M.S Dreadnaught; Classic: Steampunk 79
*1907; Bakelite Classic: Steamtech 115
*1913; Fluidized Coal/Coal Liquefaction' Classic: Steamtech pg 46
*1914; Howitzer (Big Bertha design) Classic: Steamtech 98
*1918; Long Range Cannon; Classic: Steamtech 98

So a TL(5+1) world can have recognizable TL6 stuff and even use TL6 methods we would recognize but still be TL(5+1).

The Jetsons would fall under what GURPS ultra-tech calls Retrotech — "Most of society would have a base TL5-7 but still have access to a limited selection of TL8-12 devices (stardrives, blasters, giant robots, flying cities, etc.). "

Dune has retrotech elements (no digital computers) as does Lensman's description (which has historical issues as it depends on the Great man theory when in reality the event being neutralized is a great moment).

[johndallman]

Infinite Worlds: Britannica-6 describes a world that might be called TL 7 minus 2. Quite a lot of advanced technology exists, but not much of it is widely used. Soldiers march and fight much like those of Napoleon, but are likely to have reconnaissance support from airships, for example.

[Astromancer]

I suggested something like this to describe retrograde societies. Picture Italy after the reign of Justinian. People understood older more advanced technologies but for a variety of reasons couldn't implement them well.

A post-apocalyptic society might understand older technologies just fine, but lack the materials. The USA has most industrial minerals within its borders or could get them from Canada or Mexico. However, Chromium and Antimony are harder to come by. Technologies requiring them would be at a reduced tech level.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by RyanW

TL5+1 might be described as "matching TL6 achievements using ahistorical extrapolations of core TL5 technologies." So what about the other way around? TL6-1: having the core technologies of TL6, but failing to transform the setting into anything but a variant TL5.

Just a weird random thought, but it seems like it might be a way to describe something like The Jetsons (TL10-3?), as a somewhat extreme example.

A TL - setting would be a setting that had the hardware of the base TL, but not the increased base income and life expectancy. Basically, the same thing as a Poor culture.,

[Anaraxes]

This course is broadening the definition of "technology" to include social and economic changes. Campaigns sticks pretty much to the "science applied via engineering to gadgets" sense that's the core of the meaning of "tech". The suggested changes (or unchanged aspects) to me seem to call for additional scales, rather than overloading the TL scale with multiple meanings. Glancing at the "Game Worlds" chapter of Campaigns, the section titles provide a starting point for other ratings:

• Cultures and Languages
• Laws and Customs
• Society and Government Type
• Tech Level
• Economics

(Naturally, you'll want to write each of those as a single digit, using hexadecimal digits and then just heedlessly running all the way through the alphabet for any values that happen to need to go beyond F. String the ratings all together and call it the Universal Society Profile (USP). My thought is totes original.)

It's a bit appealing to pack some of those into TL, since TL enables some changes. But everything's interrelated, yet we probably don't want to pack all the combinations into a single value. And not all scales should have TL's notion of direction and progress. So, I think modelling something like the Jetsons would be better suited to multiple scales: TL 10, but with Society and Economics like the era the forum sometimes refers to as "TL 7" rather than "1940 through the 70s" (jobs, bosses, commutes, cash, nuclear families, etc).

[Inky]

Yeah, by Maximara's description, the technology available in a lot of steampunk supposedly "TL5+1" worlds, for instance, doesn't even seem to be very different from TL6 - the difference seems to be more in which technologies caught on.

Airships versus aeroplanes is an obvious example - airships were real and existed, but they were out-competed by aeroplanes in real-life history; steampunk fiction is full of worlds where airships continued to be a major form of air transport, for whatever reason (different laws of physics, some kind of superscience invention that made the airships more efficient) or for no apparent reason.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by maximara

The Jetsons would fall under what GURPS ultra-tech calls Retrotech — "Most of society would have a base TL5-7 but still have access to a limited selection of TL8-12 devices (stardrives, blasters, giant robots, flying cities, etc.). "

All the tools were distinctly technologically advanced, In fact to an unrealistic degree. They just acted like they were in the 20th century domestic sitcom that they were in fact part of

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Inky

Yeah, by Maximara's description, the technology available in a lot of steamp

Airships versus aeroplanes is an obvious example - airships were real and existed, but they were out-competed by aeroplanes in real-life history; steampunk fiction is full of worlds where airships continued to be a major form of air transport, for whatever reason (different laws of physics, n.

Go with subtly different laws of physics.

A lack of chaotic phenomena means that he butterfly's wing effect doesn't complicate weather forecasting and nobody gets caught in a storm in a Zeppelin.

Then a lack of quantum uncertainty cancels most of our 20th century's new physics but Einstein might have his unified theory.