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Old 10-03-2020, 07:54 PM   #11
Daigoro
 
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Default Re: The Skills that define a TL

To properly "uptech" someone, one efficient way might be History (Science & Technology), much as high school students learn about the history of atomic theory starting with the Greeks, going through the "plum-pudding model" and eventually arriving at quantum theory. But it's done in a broad-strokes way, so that someone would have a grasp of the concepts but wouldn't know much about all the equations and numerical values of atomic properties that putting a full point in the skill would entail.

And from a game mechanics perspective, using lots of Dabbler perks would give a broader grounding than points in skills.

And I disagree that the way to get someone from TL8 to TL12 is to teach them the same tech skill over and over at TLs 9-11, anymore than you'd teach someone how to develop photographic plates before showing them which button to push on their digital camera. (That's for tech skills, maths and science skills entail more of what's gone before.)
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Old 10-03-2020, 08:02 PM   #12
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Default Re: The Skills that define a TL

I'm going to say that you want Research at every TL, at least if Research is a technological skill.
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Old 10-03-2020, 08:37 PM   #13
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Default Re: The Skills that define a TL

I would rule that GURPS represents this stuff as a collection of defaults that are rolled up in "TL", not as characteristic skills.
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Old 10-03-2020, 09:22 PM   #14
Fred Brackin
 
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Default Re: The Skills that define a TL

Quote:
Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
I'm going to say that you want Research at every TL, at least if Research is a technological skill.
The changes that have occurred in my lifetime would argue that Research shifted from TL7 to TL8. However, I can't so easily map shifts from TL5 to TL6 as just one example.

Research is a very important skill but I wouldn't rate it as a skill where advancement underlies a radical shift in paradigm. It's much easier to see that in Physics and Biology. Changes in our understanding of those fields spirals outward and initiates other changes.

Engineer (Computers) might be a TL changing skill. In the information handling area I could have once made a case for Memetics/TL but that isn't a Skill any more.
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Old 10-03-2020, 09:55 PM   #15
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Default Re: The Skills that define a TL

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Originally Posted by Fred Brackin View Post
Thanks for trying guys but no one appears to have understood what I meant and I can't think of a better way to explain it right now.
If I understand your question,

you are looking for the list of 5 skills that are "most needed" to understand the signature technologies of each TL ?

For TL5, you would for example want everything related to steam technology, ...

And then, give him 2 cp in those 5 skill using 5*2 UT Instaskill Nano, so that he can translate 5 of those cp into buying of one level of Low-TL.

Rince and repeat.

It is a technique that would work within the rules, I guess, and a rather clever way to short-circuit the "lengthy period of re-education" suggested by the rules.

But it depend on various facts:
*That the Instaskill Nano limitation of 2 cp per skill max make a distinction between TL variant.

*That the Instaskill Nano works on the subject, which may or may not be the case, depending on how strictly you interpret the Low-tl disadvantage. "fundamental differences in thinking prevent you from learning IQ-based technological skills above your personal TL"

*And you are assuming that the TL 12 guys would keep a library of lower /TL Instaskill Nano ... which I think unlikely.

If it work (and why not, it is TL12 tech), I would rather give him 20 Instaskill Nano in 10 /TL12 sciences, and have him use those cp instead to buy off low-TL in one big lump.
Unless you expect him to time travel against, why "waste" Instaskill Nano in understanding /TL 9,10,11 version of skills ?

Still, to try to anwer the question, perhaps :
Mathematics(applied)/TL
Physics/TL
Bioengineering/TL
Engineer/TL chosen from: Electronics, Microtechnology, Nanotechnology, ? as they become available
And a second Engineer/TL

Last edited by Celjabba; 10-03-2020 at 09:59 PM.
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Old 10-03-2020, 11:13 PM   #16
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Default Re: The Skills that define a TL

If we take as a premise that injecting general math and science skills is really the way to help somebody achieve cultural integration, they really should be skipping straight to the TL12 versions rather than mucking around with ridiculously obsolete stuff.

Sure, they'll be wildly beyond the subject's prior TL8 understanding. But TL12 children aren't born with superior grasp of advanced sciences (well, unless they use InstaSkill prenatal treatment, but that's not the point). It'll be way easier all around to just provide TL12 toddler STEM curricula than try to drag the poor primitive through four TL worth of history of science.
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Old 10-04-2020, 07:27 AM   #17
JulianLW
 
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Default Re: The Skills that define a TL

Quote:
Originally Posted by Fred Brackin View Post
The changes that have occurred in my lifetime would argue that Research shifted from TL7 to TL8. However, I can't so easily map shifts from TL5 to TL6 as just one example.

Research is a very important skill but I wouldn't rate it as a skill where advancement underlies a radical shift in paradigm. It's much easier to see that in Physics and Biology. Changes in our understanding of those fields spirals outward and initiates other changes.

Engineer (Computers) might be a TL changing skill. In the information handling area I could have once made a case for Memetics/TL but that isn't a Skill any more.
TL 6 begins around 1880. The Dewey Decimal System was published in 1876. Right on time. A major transformation of how libraries, research, and information worked. Changes in the storage, distribution, and accessibility of information underly transformations in all the other academic disciplines.
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Old 10-04-2020, 08:24 AM   #18
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Default Re: The Skills that define a TL

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TL 6 begins around 1880. The Dewey Decimal System was published in 1876. Right on time. A major transformation of how libraries, research, and information worked. Changes in the storage, distribution, and accessibility of information underly transformations in all the other academic disciplines.
The Library of Congress system was developed in 1897. So it seems to be part of the same transition.
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Old 10-04-2020, 08:37 AM   #19
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Default Re: The Skills that define a TL

Maybe I'm not understanding the premise here. You can't learn higher TL IQ skills because you don't have the technological grounding necessary to make sense of them. It's not a set of specific skills you need to raise your personal TL; it's long-term exposure to the basic concepts of the higher TL. Chapter 9 of the Basic Set suggests one year of exposure to raise personal TL one level. Until your personal TL is raised, you can't even learn higher-TL, IQ-based skills, even by ultra-tech means.
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Old 10-04-2020, 08:52 AM   #20
JulianLW
 
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Default Re: The Skills that define a TL

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Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
The Library of Congress system was developed in 1897. So it seems to be part of the same transition.
Yep. A paradigm shift. The Carnegie Libraries in the U.S. were built starting in the early 1880s and transformed the intellectual possibilities of small-town America (and Canada, and Australia, the UK, France, the Caribbean, and many other places). Those libraries wouldn't have been built if not for the Dewey Decimal System and the subsequent transformation of our public awareness of the nature of information. Libraries go from mysterious, odd collections presided over by sages or private or mostly semi-private interests to repositories of public knowledge available to anyone, regardless of class or creed. The autodidact is born. A total paradigm shift.

It could be argued that a shift in the basic premises of the Research skill is a prerequisite for a shift in Tech Level.
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