Different TLs in different fields

[Tom Mazanec]

How far can TLs vary in a world in different fields? For example, I can see Caliph's TL in medical sciences and technologies being three TLs behind everything else, given their taboo of mucking with Allah's creation of the human body. But could you have the reverse...TL 11 biotech where everything else if TL 8? Could we have Moon flights where the computers are abaci? What fields depend on others for advancement?

[Anthony]

Realistically, we have only a single example of tech development, so there's lots we might have missed, but there's a lot of tools that are pretty necessary and, once you have them, likely lead to a bunch of other tech, so it's very hard to be significant advanced in a narrow area. It's easier to be significantly retarded in a narrow area, though 3 TLs is still pretty dubious.

[KarlKost]

Originally Posted by Tom Mazanec

How far can TLs vary in a world in different fields? For example, I can see Caliph's TL in medical sciences and technologies being three TLs behind everything else, given their taboo of mucking with Allah's creation of the human body. But could you have the reverse...TL 11 biotech where everything else if TL 8? Could we have Moon flights where the computers are abaci? What fields depend on others for advancement?

You can have TL 12 in biotech and 0 in everything else. That's how much it can vary.

Such is the case of the Zerg Swarm from the game Starcraft for example. They have TL 12 superscience biotech and only that. A hivemind race that uses only biotech and no other type of tech.

That would need to be seem on a case by case and taking into consideration the existance or not of superscience, magic, psi and other supernatural tech

[KarlKost]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Realistically, we have only a single example of tech development, so there's lots we might have missed, but there's a lot of tools that are pretty necessary and, once you have them, likely lead to a bunch of other tech, so it's very hard to be significant advanced in a narrow area. It's easier to be significantly retarded in a narrow area, though 3 TLs is still pretty dubious.

3 TL in a single area could only occur due to intentional supression

[Pursuivant]

It's not implausible. There are plenty of SF settings where space travel seems to be at about TL11-12, but all other technology seems to be at about TL9-10.

As a guess, I'd say that for an industrialized or space-faring culture, advanced/retarded TL shouldn't vary than 2-3 levels from the baseline TL, while a pre-industrial culture shouldn't have more than a +1/-1 or -2 variation.

Before about TL4, the population, per capita wealth, agricultural surpluses, and level of specialization just don't allow much variation.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Tom Mazanec

How far can TLs vary in a world in different fields? For example, I can see Caliph's TL in medical sciences and technologies being three TLs behind everything else, given their taboo of mucking with Allah's creation of the human body. But could you have the reverse...TL 11 biotech where everything else if TL 8? Could we have Moon flights where the computers are abaci? What fields depend on others for advancement?

Well first of all, the TL assignments for any future technologies are going to be arbitrary anyway. It's not likely but it could be that all the biological stuff GURPS offers at TL 11 will prove to be unexpectedly easy and will come along courtesy of a biotech explosion in the next TL.

So here's a more down to earth question. Would it be possible to have a society which is TL 8 in every way...except they never invented the airplane wing and are only beginning to experiment with rocketry? I can't see why not.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Would it be possible to have a society which is TL 8 in every way...except they never invented the airplane wing and are only beginning to experiment with rocketry?

I'm a bit skeptical, depending on the meaning of "invented". Understanding fluid flow affects a lot more than airfoils. Sails and propellers, for instance, are both airfoils -- or "waterfoils". Carburetors, spray nozzles for manufacturing, gas burners, aerators, all depend on the Venturi effect. Streamlining boats or cars; pipelines for water, gas, oil, hydrogen. Even architects have to calculate forces from flowing air on their skyscrapers, and city planners the funneling of air through concrete jungles, and civil engineers have to build water and sewage systems, manage coastal and riverine boundaries. An airplane wing is just one special application of fluid flow.

So, you might invent any number of reasons a society never pursed airplanes. Maybe cultural, religious, weird species traits like racial acro/agoraphobia; maybe historical accident placing them into other solutions to the problems, with that path being sticky enough not disincentive aircraft. Maybe they're just not in a hurry and see no reason to spend energy fighting drag from higher speeds and from generating lift when cars hold themselves up just fine. But it's unlikely that the all-TL8 society that has high-performance jetboats and nuclear submarines and all those previously mentioned gadgets wouldn't understand airplane wings, and even somewhat improbable that no one ever built at least a toy prototype, even if that never went anywhere in their history. They'd have the knowledge of the tech, though they might not have applied any engineering to those applications.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

So here's a more down to earth question. Would it be possible to have a society which is TL 8 in every way...except they never invented the airplane wing and are only beginning to experiment with rocketry? I can't see why not.

It would take a pretty severe blind spot to be able to build modern turbines and ventilation systems and fail to be able to build a wing, and rocketry is an obvious consequence of basic mechanics. Not having a lot of use for them is more feasible, you can probably come up with alien environments that make them not very practical.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Anthony

It would take a pretty severe blind spot to be able to build modern turbines and ventilation systems and fail to be able to build a wing, and rocketry is an obvious consequence of basic mechanics. Not having a lot of use for them is more feasible, you can probably come up with alien environments that make them not very practical.

Birds aren't real! Assume a world that simply never evolved fliers larger than insects. As a result the dream of manned flight takes a heck of a lot longer to take root. Hot air balloons could have been built at TL 2. Europe waited until TL 5.

[DangerousThing]

About airplanes, would they work well under a gravity of 1.5g? Or even higher... Or if the atmosphere was thinner?