Using 3e's Tech Levels, or adding more Tech Levels beyond 12.

[LoneWolf23k]

So, planning a sci-fi campaign, basically a Star Trek thing, and I was thinking about the Tech Level. While I do appreciate the simplification of 4e's Tech Level reworking, I feel that ending the rankings at TL12 kinda limits things. Especially when GURPS Ultra-Tech ranks Star Trek as a "Safe-Tech TL12", which implies the Federation is at the limits of its tech evolution, when the setting is full of precursors with "god-like" tech.

[Varyon]

I don't think 4e ever meant to imply TL 12 was the endpoint, the highest TL one could reach... it was just the furthest out the authors opted to speculate to. If you want something that is one or more TL's more advanced than a TL 12 society, feel free to make up TL 13, 14, 15, 76589, etc.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Varyon

I don't think 4e ever meant to imply TL 12 was the endpoint, the highest TL one could reach... it was just the furthest out the authors opted to speculate to. If you want something that is one or more TL's more advanced than a TL 12 society, feel free to make up TL 13, 14, 15, 76589, etc.

When I was writing GURPS Future History, I proposed having passages that mentioned the possibility of post-TL12 technologies such as star lifting. Kromm advised me not to introduce high TLs. So it appears that TL13 and up are not canonical, though of course as a GM you can make things up.

[Stormcrow]

Originally Posted by Varyon

I don't think 4e ever meant to imply TL 12 was the endpoint, the highest TL one could reach... it was just the furthest out the authors opted to speculate to. If you want something that is one or more TL's more advanced than a TL 12 society, feel free to make up TL 13, 14, 15, 76589, etc.

Indeed, this is exactly what GURPS Ultra-Tech advises you to do. TL12 is only the limit for authors, not for GMs.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Varyon

I don't think 4e ever meant to imply TL 12 was the endpoint, the highest TL one could reach... it was just the furthest out the authors opted to speculate to. If you want something that is one or more TL's more advanced than a TL 12 society, feel free to make up TL 13, 14, 15, 76589, etc.

The TL12 limit is kind of "baked in" as TL more than 3 levels above the baseline are not reproducible and when that guide was written we were at TL8. Sure you can go for higher TLs but just what would be in them?

Personally I think people are too inclined to give their favorite Sci-Fi future setting (be it Star Trek, Star Wars, Dune, etc) too high a TL when a lower one would fit the bill in most cases.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by maximara

The TL12 limit is kind of "baked in" as TL more than 3 levels above the baseline are not reproducible and when that guide was written we were at TL8. Sure you can go for higher TLs but just what would be in them?

Any super science you don't want as part of your TL 12 culture but still want available as magic items/plot devices.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by maximara

The TL12 limit is kind of "baked in" as TL more than 3 levels above the baseline are not reproducible and when that guide was written we were at TL8. Sure you can go for higher TLs but just what would be in them?

Yeah. I kind of look at it similarly to how I look at the Mayan calendar - I don't think the Mayans thought (what on our calendar was) December 12, 2012 was some sort of the end of the world, it's just that they had to end the calendar they were making at some time, and that was quite a bit into the future and had some interesting astrological events occurring, so might as well end it there.

Originally Posted by maximara

Personally I think people are too inclined to give their favorite Sci-Fi future setting (be it Star Trek, Star Wars, Dune, etc) too high a TL when a lower one would fit the bill in most cases.

One of the issues there is that UT opted to assign numerical TL's to a variety of pure-superscience technologies, despite the fact that such technologies generally have no real physical basis and thus in a world where they are possible could show up at nearly any TL. Star Wars has Force Screens (deflector shields), which are TL 11^ IIRC, so Star Wars must be TL 11^ (there's also the issue that Star Wars uses personal weapons called "blasters," and UT calls Particle Accelerators "blasters," which are TL 11 for handheld versions, despite the fact SW blasters and UT blasters have almost nothing in common aside from the name and dealing tight-beam burning damage... and the SW variants certainly shouldn't have the rad sur modifiers!). Star Trek features teleporters and disintegration beams (phasers), both of which are TL 12^ IIRC, so clearly Star Trek must be TL 12^. If UT had opted to just give pure-superscience weapons TL ^, rather than assigning a number, some of this could have been avoided (although Star Wars may still have gotten stuck with TL 11^, because "blasters").

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Varyon

One of the issues there is that UT opted to assign numerical TL's to a variety of pure-superscience technologies, despite the fact that such technologies generally have no real physical basis and thus in a world where they are possible could show up at nearly any TL.

I fully agree. Interestingly Bio-Tech used "^" with no numbers for nearly every piece of tech with Gestalt Brain Matrix being the exception but they gave it TL9^ — likely using Vatbrain Computers

Originally Posted by Varyon

Star Wars has Force Screens (deflector shields), which are TL 11^ IIRC, so Star Wars must be TL 11^ (there's also the issue that Star Wars uses personal weapons called "blasters," and UT calls Particle Accelerators "blasters," which are TL 11 for handheld versions, despite the fact SW blasters and UT blasters have almost nothing in common aside from the name and dealing tight-beam burning damage... and the SW variants certainly shouldn't have the rad sur modifiers!). Star Trek features teleporters and disintegration beams (phasers), both of which are TL 12^ IIRC, so clearly Star Trek must be TL 12^. If UT had opted to just give pure-superscience weapons TL ^, rather than assigning a number, some of this could have been avoided (although Star Wars may still have gotten stuck with TL 11^, because "blasters").

Well Star Wars is pretty far up the TL scale even if you ignore the superscience:

Non superscience tech that is identifiable in GURPS Ultra-Tech and GURPS Bio-Tech:

*Charged Particle Beams ("Blasters"): TL10-11
*Semi-Portable Fusion Reactors: TL10; cold fusion aspect is superscience
*Clones: TL9 (assumes artificial wombs); Forced-Growth Tank aspect is superscience.
*Techbot: TL9-10
*Combat Walkers: TL9
*Commando Battlesuit: TL10
*Heavy Battlesuit (Darth Vader's Armor): TL10

Star Wars baseline is likely TL10^ (Cloning TL9^; Blasters TL10-11^; Techbot 9-10; Combat Walkers TL9; Commando and Heavy Battlesuits TL10) if you want to get technical.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by maximara

I fully agree. Interestingly Bio-Tech used "^" with no numbers for nearly every piece of tech with Gestalt Brain Matrix being the exception but they gave it TL9^ — likely using Vatbrain Computers

Biotech doesn't have any gun and armour tables.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by maximara

*Charged Particle Beams ("Blasters"): TL10-11

Weaponized particle accelerators and Star Wars blasters are distant relatives at best. The former accelerate particles to a high fraction of c, and strip them of charge so they can stay more-or-less together during the short travel distance involved. The latter use a superscience material (Tibanna gas or similar) to produce something called "coherent light," which is then accelerated to a velocity roughly akin to the firearm of a modern bullet. The two also have rather distinct terminal effects - the former dumps energy into the target, producing an electric surge and ionizing radiation (indeed, the particles are themselves a form of ionizing radiation) as well as cooking the target; the latter basically explodes, producing concussive force as well as dumping thermal energy, partially exploding and cooking the target. Note lightsabers basically use the same "coherent light" technology as blasters, but somehow "freeze" it in place... or at least that's how blasters and lightsabers worked last time I read up on them (the Mouse may have changed things).

Note these weapons are also sometimes referred to as "lasers" (like the turbolaser batteries on Star Destroyers; we can dismiss youngling Anakin calling Qui-Gon's weapon a "laser sword" as being due to ignorance, however), and their operation resembles those even less closely. IIRC some later material explained this as such weapons using advanced lasers to excite the Tibanna gas, rather than... whatever normal blasters use.

Originally Posted by maximara

*Semi-Portable Fusion Reactors: TL10; cold fusion aspect is superscience

Do these actually exist? Last time I looked up information on power generation in Star Wars, it tended to either be some form of weird solar collector (described as being like having a small sun inside of the ship, which would indeed be fusion, but also as being reliant on gathering energy from external sunlight; I opted to just think of it as "superscience solar collector"), or it was a total conversion plant that was reliant on using exotic hypermatter as fuel (which is also the fuel for hyperdrives); reliance on a superscience material basically sets it as TL ^.

Originally Posted by maximara

*Clones: TL9 (assumes artificial wombs); Forced-Growth Tank aspect is superscience.

I'll grant this.

Originally Posted by maximara

*Techbot: TL9-10

As a young child, Anakin was able to make an advanced protocol droid out of old scrap. I would suggest SW droids are largely superscience as well, as they likely run off of some sort of technological basis that doesn't exist (or hasn't been discovered) in our world, much like the transtator from Star Trek.

Originally Posted by maximara

*Combat Walkers: TL9
*Commando Battlesuit: TL10
*Heavy Battlesuit (Darth Vader's Armor): TL10

I know powered armor showed up in some tabletop RPG's and video games for the setting, but were they ever in the mainline bits of it? And I don't think Vader's suit is really powered armor - it's just armor with built-in life support - the only "powered" bits are Vader's cybernetic limbs. But I'll grant this (I'll note that whatever allows them to easily make droids may also be part of what lets them easily make this sort of tech - IIRC Darth Maul managed to create his first set of cybernetic legs from scrap, just like Anakin build C3PO from similar).

Originally Posted by maximara

Star Wars baseline is likely TL10^ (Cloning TL9^; Blasters TL10-11^; Techbot 9-10; Combat Walkers TL9; Commando and Heavy Battlesuits TL10) if you want to get technical.

Honestly, a final determination of TL 10^ sounds about right - that's where I've tentatively placed my Harpyias setting, which is largely inspired by Star Wars technology. It's arguably something more like TL6+4^ or TL7+3^, but just calling that 10^ is generally fine. An argument could be made for 9^ (or, rather, 6+3^ or 7+2^), but it's probably more something like "TL 9^ for Outer Rim worlds, TL 10^ for Core Worlds."