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Old 06-11-2019, 06:50 AM   #1
FeiLin
 
Join Date: Aug 2018
Default Approaching TL9?

So, TL9, the "Microtech Age" with goodies such as "Artificial Intelligence" and "Real-Time Virtuality" starts at "2025+?". At this age humanity will be toying around with "robot cars, space elevators, manned interplanetary space flight, electrolasers, heavy laser weapons, battlesuits, combat robots, designerlls, deuterium-hydrogen fusion, high-temperature superconductors, human genetic engineering, tissue engineering, artificial wombs, and cybernetic implants". (B511-512)

That was 15 years ago.

How close are the advanced societies of Earth to entering TL9; still another 6 years, or do we need to revise that forecast? What's your take, as a GURPS GM or player, on a TL9 world as compared with the TL8 that we've lived in now for almost 40 years. (Choose your approach/evaluation criteria/degree of seriousness freely.)
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Old 06-11-2019, 07:19 AM   #2
AlexanderHowl
 
Join Date: Feb 2016
Default Re: Approaching TL9?

Not that close actually. While our computers are probably at early TL9, we lack the fission and fusion power capabilities of TL9 (and our solar panels are not nearly as efficient as TL9 solar panels). In addition, our biotechnology has lagged due to relying on for-profit corporations who would rather buy up generic drug manufacturers and jack up the prices 1,000% than produce new drugs. When it comes to space technology, we are solidly TL7, as we have not really invested in new technology development since the 1970s (Elon Musk's technologies would probably be considered late TL7 designs). In essence, I would say that we were mid-TL8 (early-TL9 Computers, late-TL7 Space).
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Old 06-11-2019, 07:23 AM   #3
Ulzgoroth
 
Join Date: Jul 2008
Default Re: Approaching TL9?

Quote:
Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl View Post
Not that close actually. While our computers are probably at early TL9, we lack the fission and fusion power capabilities of TL9 (and our solar panels are not nearly as efficient as TL9 solar panels). In addition, our biotechnology has lagged due to relying on for-profit corporations who would rather buy up generic drug manufacturers and jack up the prices 1,000% than produce new drugs. When it comes to space technology, we are solidly TL7, as we have not really invested in new technology development since the 1970s (Elon Musk's technologies would probably be considered late TL7 designs). In essence, I would say that we were mid-TL8 (early-TL9 Computers, late-TL7 Space).
Space technology is more than just booster technology. There's lots of TL8 things that have been put into space.
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Old 06-11-2019, 08:05 AM   #4
AlexanderHowl
 
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Default Re: Approaching TL9?

I am also talking about materials, life support, radiation shielding, etc. When it comes to space, we really have not done the investment.
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Old 06-11-2019, 08:12 AM   #5
NineDaysDead
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Default Re: Approaching TL9?

Ultra-Tech page 8 gives variable start dates for TL9:

Accelerated: 2020*
Fast: 2025
Medium: 2030
Slow: 2040
Retarded: 2050

Depending on the progression rate.

*Ultra Tech was published in 2006, TL9 at 2020 probably seemed less unreasonable then.

Last edited by NineDaysDead; 06-11-2019 at 08:22 AM.
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Old 06-11-2019, 09:23 AM   #6
Fred Brackin
 
Join Date: Aug 2007
Default Re: Approaching TL9?

There are some fast-moving technologies that are approaching TL9 numbers.

Body armor for example. Kenneth Peters wrote a Pyramid artilcle in issue 3/57 called "Modern Warfughters" that updated HT and there were some virtually TL 9 pieces of gear there. It's been 5 or 6 years and even that may have started to become dated.

The UT conventional guns haven't held up that well except for being caseless and I will note that UT actually says "caseless or plastic cased" and I have seen ads in soem gun magazines in the last couple of months for rifle cartridges that had "composite" cases.

Other than that though the UT 10mm pistol does not compare very well to the .40 S&W or possibly even the 10mm Auto. With the Gurps psitol's origins in G:Cyberpunk it's older than both. That P- 7.5 mm pistol does not look very likely either. There's not much reason to make handguns smaller than .380 now.

Though if you go back to G:Blue Planet Bill Stoddard appears to have invented the S&W .500 Magnum in the form of his stats for the "GEO Peacemaker". Even the old Ve2 gun desiign sequence could have useful predictive utility.
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Old 06-11-2019, 10:08 AM   #7
Andreas
 
Join Date: Mar 2014
Default Re: Approaching TL9?

B511: "The equipment listed for a TL does not appear all at once as soon as a society enters that TL. Instead, items appear gradually after that date"

Based on that, it certainly seems to be close to TL 9. Even the earliest date in UT of 2020 might not be unreasonable.
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Old 06-11-2019, 10:35 AM   #8
David Johnston2
 
Join Date: Dec 2007
Default Re: Approaching TL9?

Quote:
Originally Posted by FeiLin View Post
So, TL9, the "Microtech Age" with goodies such as "Artificial Intelligence" and "Real-Time Virtuality" starts at "2025+?". At this age humanity will be toying around with "robot cars, space elevators, manned interplanetary space flight, electrolasers, heavy laser weapons, battlesuits, combat robots, designerlls, deuterium-hydrogen fusion, high-temperature superconductors, human genetic engineering, tissue engineering, artificial wombs, and cybernetic implants". (B511-512)

That was 15 years ago.

How close are the advanced societies of Earth to entering TL9; still another 6 years, or do we need to revise that forecast? What's your take, as a GURPS GM or player, on a TL9 world as compared with the TL8 that we've lived in now for almost 40 years. (Choose your approach/evaluation criteria/degree of seriousness freely.)
Five years ago a United States naval vessel was outfitted with a prototype laser weapon which seems to be good enough to shoot down drones or intercept and detonate cruise missiles. Experiments with self-driving cars are ongoing. In 2014, cybernetic medical implants that could monitor brain activity or provide hearing to the deaf were being introduced.

And of course fusion power is 20 years away, same as it was 20 years ago.
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Old 06-11-2019, 11:06 AM   #9
Anthony
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
Default Re: Approaching TL9?

First of all, not everything appears at day 1 of a new TL. Second, well, no-one gets the future right. Tech has certainly changed substantially since 2006 and will change more in the next few years, but it's never in quite the ways people thought it would change.
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Old 06-11-2019, 11:21 AM   #10
Phantasm
 
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Default Re: Approaching TL9?

I'd say we're on target for the 2030 date in Ultra-Tech (Medium progression), with our computer tech reaching TL9 first at the Fast (2025) or Accelerated (2020) date.

Our space travel/colonization tech may be on the Slow (2040) or even Retarded (2050) progressions, but I think we're still in TL8 there. Just because we don't have a moon base doesn't mean the advancements developed for the later shuttles (Atlantis and Endeavor) or our newer and faster probes (New Horizons) are "still TL7".
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