Here’s a small sample of material for the Human Destiny setting and game book that’s slowly taking shape. In the Cepheus Engine and related tabletop games, there’s often a system of “technology levels” that helps characterize what kind of gear and weapons one might expect to find on a given world. The concept has its problems, but it’s a quick shorthand that’s useful for game purposes. Since Human Destiny is eventually going to be published as a Cepheus Engine game, it seems useful to put together a set of “tech level” tables for the setting.

Here’s a first very rough draft for that section of the Human Destiny sourcebook.

---

Technology Levels in the Human Destiny Setting

The Khedai Hegemony maintains a sophisticated scheme for classifying the technological and social progress of emerging civilizations. The following system of “tech levels” is a (vastly simplified) shorthand for the Hegemony’s scheme.

General Technology

As is the standard in any Cepheus Engine game, Technology Level or Tech Level is a measure of the social, scientific, and industrial progress of a given world or society. In Hegemony documents, each TL has an evocative descriptor, and can be associated with an approximate era in human history.

TL	Descriptor	Approximate Date or Typical World
0	Era of Stone Tools	Paleolithic, Mesolithic, or Neolithic society
1	Era of Metal Tools	3000 BCE
2	Era of Exploration	1500 CE
3	Era of Mechanization	1750 CE
4	Era of Electricity	1900 CE
5	Era of Radio	1930 CE
6	Era of Atomic Power	1950 CE
7	Era of Space Exploration	1970 CE
8	Era of Information	1990 CE
9	Era of Crisis	2020 CE
10 (A)	Low Interstellar Society	Minor human colony world or outpost
11 (B)	Low Interstellar Society	Major human colony world or outpost
12 (C)	Average Interstellar Society	Maximum level for the Human Protectorate
13 (D)	Average Interstellar Society	Maximum level for a second-tier client society
14 (E)	High Interstellar Society	Maximum level for a first-tier client society
15 (F)	High Interstellar Society	Maximum level for the Khedai Hegemony as a whole

It may not be immediately obvious, but the Hegemony’s scheme for classifying technological progress includes two singularities, each of which creates a discontinuity in the above table.

The normal pattern for any newly evolving technological civilization is to progress from TL 0, passing through the higher levels in order, finally reaching some maximum level of social and technological progress. At this point the civilization invariably suffers an existential crisis that, at a minimum, forces all its component societies back to some lower TL. This may happen multiple times before the sapient species in question is finally driven into extinction. The highest point of independent development is almost never higher than TL 9. In fact, civilizations that reach TL 9 on their own almost always suffer particularly deadly collapses, likely to cause immediate species extinction – hence the term “Era of Crisis.”

The transition from TL 9 to TL A represents the first discontinuity or singularity in the scheme. Very few civilizations manage to pass the Era of Crisis on their own. Almost all societies that survive the transition and attain interstellar status do so only because an older civilization intervenes, as the Khedai Hegemony did with humanity.

Under the Praxis observed by the Khedai Hegemony, newly discovered sapient societies at TL 0-3 are observed from a distance under a strict non-interference policy. Societies at TL 4-9 are subject to close observation, and possibly annexation if (as in almost all cases) they appear unlikely to survive on their own.

The interstellar levels that follow (TL A through TL F) do not represent a hierarchy of new technologies that appear one after the other in a progressive fashion. Instead, they represent an array of mature technologies, all millions of years old, which are all available throughout the Hegemony. The TL of a world which falls in this range represents the kind of technology that is widely available on that world, because it is locally manufactured and can be supported by existing infrastructure. Items from a higher TL will also be available, but possibly at a higher cost in social credit, or with specific limitations under the Praxis.

Humans know nothing about any technologies above TL F. Humans may speculate, and the khedai doubtless know what technologies might be possible, but under the Praxis such possibilities are cloaked in silence. A few humans suspect that this silence conceals a second discontinuity or singularity, beyond which even the Hegemony dares not go.

Energy Technologies

The Hegemony’s scheme for classifying technologies is most strongly determined by a society’s ability to harness and direct energy to carry out the work of civilization.

TL	Typical Developments
0	Muscle power Domesticated animals Slave labor
1	Hydromechanical power Water wheels
2	Wind power Windmills
3	Steam power Exploitation of fossil fuels (coal) Crude electrical transmission and storage
4	Widespread use of electrical power Exploitation of fossil fuels (oil, natural gas) Oil refining to produce high-quality fuels Hydroelectric power
5	Rural electrification Urban power grids
6	Nuclear fission reactors Regional power grids
7	Increasing use of solar power Continental power grids
8	Mass application of renewable energy
9	Crude “smart grids” Possible abandonment of fossil fuels
10 (A)	Advanced “smart grids” Advanced fission power Superconducting power transmission Hyper-efficient power cells Solar power satellites Complete abandonment of fossil fuels
11 (B)	Nuclear fusion reactors
12 (C)	Advanced fusion power
13 (D)	Antimatter generation and transport
14 (E)	Advanced antimatter power Portable fusion power Catalyzed fusion
15 (F)	Miniaturized fusion power

Communications and Information

This category covers technologies for generating, transmitting, storing, and applying information. It also includes various forms of artificial intelligence and artificial sapience.

TL	Typical Developments
0	Oral communication
1	Written communication Printing press (block printing) Crude cryptography
2	Printing press (movable type) Advanced cryptography (manual)
3	Telegraph Early telephones
4	Teletype Widespread telephone networks Advanced cryptography (electromechanical)
5	Radio broadcasting Massive special-purpose computing devices
6	Television broadcasting Massive general-purpose computing devices Information theory
7	Early packet-switched networks Personal computers Industrial automation Advanced cryptography (digital) Public-key cryptography
8	Global Internet Advanced personal computers Advanced ICS/SCADA systems Large-scale public-key infrastructures
9	Miniaturized personal computers Early natural-language interfaces Early automatic translation Sophisticated robots and drones “Cloud” computing Crude quantum computation
10 (A)	Advanced natural-language interfaces Advanced automatic translation Cybershells Ubiquitous computing Large-scale quantum computation
11 (B)	Sophisticated personal assistants Advanced expert systems Advanced cybershells Sophisticated personality emulation
12 (C)	Early Virtual Sapience systems Fully Turing-capable systems Undirected machine learning “City minds”
13 (D)	Advanced Virtual Sapience systems
14 (E)	Early Artificial Sapience systems Proof-of-consciousness systems “World minds”
15 (F)	Advanced Artificial Sapience systems Transapience threshold

Environmental

This category covers technologies that can alter or maintain planetary environments. It also covers common developments in environmental awareness – the process by which a civilization learns how its own activities can impact the environment upon which it relies for support.

TL	Typical Developments
0	Agriculture and pastoralism Early trade networks Forest clearing Overhunting Megafaunal extinction
1	Early cities Basic aqueducts and sanitation Advanced trade networks Continental empires
2	Global trade networks Transcontinental empires and colonization
3	Indoor plumbing Advanced sanitation Large-scale use of fossil fuels Large-scale habitat destruction begins
4	Super-cities (>1 million) Large-scale water treatment Sophontogenic climate change begins
5	Super-cities (>10 million)
6	Megalopolitan regions (>50 million) “Green Revolution” in agriculture Awareness of global harms from pollution
7	Megalopolitan regions (>100 million) Sophontogenic mass extinction begins Awareness of sophontogenic climate change
8	Gene-modified crop species Awareness of sophontogenic mass extinction
9	Crude geoengineering Civilizational collapse
10 (A)	Organic urban reserves Advanced geoengineering Climate and ecological remediation De-extinction
11 (B)	Domed cities Artificial species to fill ecological niches Type I (Mars) terraforming
12 (C)	Advanced climate and ecological remediation “Biome minds” monitor wild ecosystems
13 (D)	Type II (Venus, Mercury, Luna) terraforming
14 (E)	“World minds” monitor global ecosystems
15 (F)	Type III (extremal) terraforming

Medical

This category covers medical and biological technologies.

TL	Typical Developments
0	Herbal remedies Crude surgery and prosthetics
1	Diagnostic process Basic understanding of anatomy
2	Advanced understanding of anatomy Crude immunization techniques
3	Germ theory and bacteriology Epidemiology Antiseptic surgery Advanced anesthesia Crude psychiatry
4	Antibiotics X-rays and other internal imaging Public health measures Mass vaccination
5	Blood transfusions Discovery of transplant rejection
6	Eradication of some infectious diseases Discovery of the structure of DNA
7	Theories of molecular evolution Crude genetic engineering Advanced prosthetics
8	Crude gene therapies Simple genetically modified organisms Crude sense-replacement implants
9	Advanced sense-replacement implants Crude artificial organs
10 (A)	Advanced therapeutic gene modification Extensively engineered organisms Full-function artificial organs Advanced geriatrics Effective psychiatry
11 (B)	Artificial plant and animal species Simple pantropic engineering
12 (C)	Nanotech therapies Brain transplants Personality recording (cyber ghosts) Advanced pantropic engineering (germ-line)
13 (D)	Full-body prosthetics (“bioroid” bodies)
14 (E)	Biological immortality Full personality uploading (cyber immortality)
15 (F)	Cyber transcendence

Surface Transport

This category covers technologies for transport on or near a planetary surface.

TL	Typical Developments
0	Long-distance travel by foot Domestic animals (riding, beasts of burden)
1	Crude wheeled vehicles Rowed watercraft Early sailed watercraft
2	Advanced wheeled vehicles Blue-water sailing ships
3	Steam engines Railroads Steamships
4	Internal combustion engines Early automobiles Early aircraft
5	Widespread automobiles Local highway systems Jet aircraft Containerized shipping
6	Large nuclear-powered vehicles Continental highway systems Supersonic aircraft Global standards in containerization
7	Early maglev systems
8	High-speed maglev systems
9	Early “self-driving” vehicles
10 (A)	Early gravitic transport Advanced “self-driving” vehicles Regional and continental hyperloop
11 (B)	Advanced gravitic transport Transcontinental hyperloop
12 (C)	Beanstalk interface
13 (D)
14 (E)
15 (F)

Space Transport

This category covers technologies for transport and artificial stations in interplanetary or interstellar space.

TL	Typical Developments
0
1
2
3
4
5	Sounding rockets
6	Orbital rockets Early interplanetary probes
7	Manned spacecraft Advanced interplanetary probes
8	Reusable shuttles Large-scale interface transport Space telescopes Small orbital stations (constant resupply)
9	Crude interstellar probes Manned interplanetary outposts Moderate orbital stations (constant resupply)
10 (A)	Early gravitic (reactionless) drives Artificial gravity Interplanetary colonization Large and self-sufficient orbital stations Planetoid habitats
11 (B)	Advanced gravitic drives “Space cities”
12 (C)	Slow FTL (Alcubierre) drives Interstellar colonization
13 (D)	Medium FTL drives Planetary “ring cities”
14 (E)	Fast FTL drives
15 (F)	Starbridge (wormhole) construction

Heavy Weaponry

This category covers weapon technologies for large-scale military use, as well as military applications of some other technological categories.

TL	Typical Developments
0
1	Battering ram Torsion-powered war engines War chariot War galley
2	Bombards Bronze and iron cannon Crude rocket artillery Blue-water warships
3	Artillery Rocket artillery Heavy machine guns Steam-powered warships Reconnaissance balloons
4	Crude chemical and biological weapons Crude military aircraft
5	Atomic weapons Long-range ballistic missiles Advanced chemical and biological weapons Advanced military aircraft
6	Thermonuclear weapons Transcontinental-range ballistic missiles Nuclear-powered warships
7
8	Early applications of cyberwarfare
9	Full integration of cyber into kinetic warfare Extensive use of drones and unmanned vehicles Heavy mass-driver weapons and railguns
10 (A)	Advanced cyberwarfare Nanotech weapons (“devourer clouds”) Advanced mass-driver weapons and railguns Heavy laser cannon
11 (B)	Gravitic artillery Plasma cannon Neural suppression field (“stunner”) weapons
12 (C)	Fine-scale remote stunners Nuclear fission suppression systems
13 (D)	Fusion-temperature plasma cannon X-ray laser cannon
14 (E)
15 (F)	Gamma-ray laser cannon

Personal Weaponry

This category covers weapon technologies for individual use.

TL	Typical Developments
0	Clubs and cudgels Stone-tipped spears Bow and arrow Hide and leather armor
1	Bronze and iron swords Metal spearheads and arrowheads Longbow, composite bow, and crossbow Bronze and iron armor Ring and scale mail
2	Matchlock and wheellock firearms
3	Flintlock firearms Rifled firearms Repeating firearms
4	Cartridge ammunition Light machine guns
5	Advanced rifled firearms
6	Submachine guns
7	Grenade launchers Advanced body armor (ballistic fabrics)
8	Crude “smart weapons”
9	Crude mass-driver or “gauss” weapons
10 (A)	Advanced gauss weapons
11 (B)	Gravitic weapons Personal laser weapons
12 (C)	Personal plasma weapons Personal stunner weapons
13 (D)
14 (E)	Personal fusion weapons Personal X-ray laser weapons
15 (F)