Human Destiny: Technology Levels

Human Destiny: Technology Levels

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.

TLDescriptorApproximate Date or Typical World
0Era of Stone ToolsPaleolithic, Mesolithic, or Neolithic society
1Era of Metal Tools3000 BCE
2Era of Exploration1500 CE
3Era of Mechanization1750 CE
4Era of Electricity1900 CE
5Era of Radio1930 CE
6Era of Atomic Power1950 CE
7Era of Space Exploration1970 CE
8Era of Information1990 CE
9Era of Crisis2020 CE
10 (A)Low Interstellar SocietyMinor human colony world or outpost
11 (B)Low Interstellar SocietyMajor human colony world or outpost
12 (C)Average Interstellar SocietyMaximum level for the Human Protectorate
13 (D)Average Interstellar SocietyMaximum level for a second-tier client society
14 (E)High Interstellar SocietyMaximum level for a first-tier client society
15 (F)High Interstellar SocietyMaximum 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.

TLTypical Developments
0Muscle power
Domesticated animals
Slave labor
1Hydromechanical power
Water wheels
2Wind power
Windmills
3Steam power
Exploitation of fossil fuels (coal)
Crude electrical transmission and storage
4Widespread use of electrical power
Exploitation of fossil fuels (oil, natural gas)
Oil refining to produce high-quality fuels
Hydroelectric power
5Rural electrification
Urban power grids
6Nuclear fission reactors
Regional power grids
7Increasing use of solar power
Continental power grids
8Mass application of renewable energy
9Crude “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.

TLTypical Developments
0Oral communication
1Written communication
Printing press (block printing)
Crude cryptography
2Printing press (movable type)
Advanced cryptography (manual)
3Telegraph
Early telephones
4Teletype
Widespread telephone networks
Advanced cryptography (electromechanical)
5Radio broadcasting
Massive special-purpose computing devices
6Television broadcasting
Massive general-purpose computing devices
Information theory
7Early packet-switched networks
Personal computers
Industrial automation
Advanced cryptography (digital)
Public-key cryptography
8Global Internet
Advanced personal computers
Advanced ICS/SCADA systems
Large-scale public-key infrastructures
9Miniaturized 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.

TLTypical Developments
0Agriculture and pastoralism
Early trade networks
Forest clearing
Overhunting
Megafaunal extinction
1Early cities
Basic aqueducts and sanitation
Advanced trade networks
Continental empires
2Global trade networks
Transcontinental empires and colonization
3Indoor plumbing
Advanced sanitation
Large-scale use of fossil fuels
Large-scale habitat destruction begins
4Super-cities (>1 million)
Large-scale water treatment
Sophontogenic climate change begins
5Super-cities (>10 million)
6Megalopolitan regions (>50 million)
“Green Revolution” in agriculture
Awareness of global harms from pollution
7Megalopolitan regions (>100 million)
Sophontogenic mass extinction begins
Awareness of sophontogenic climate change
8Gene-modified crop species
Awareness of sophontogenic mass extinction
9Crude 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.

TLTypical Developments
0Herbal remedies
Crude surgery and prosthetics
1Diagnostic process
Basic understanding of anatomy
2Advanced understanding of anatomy
Crude immunization techniques
3Germ theory and bacteriology
Epidemiology
Antiseptic surgery
Advanced anesthesia
Crude psychiatry
4Antibiotics
X-rays and other internal imaging
Public health measures
Mass vaccination
5Blood transfusions
Discovery of transplant rejection
6Eradication of some infectious diseases
Discovery of the structure of DNA
7Theories of molecular evolution
Crude genetic engineering
Advanced prosthetics
8Crude gene therapies
Simple genetically modified organisms
Crude sense-replacement implants
9Advanced 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.

TLTypical Developments
0Long-distance travel by foot
Domestic animals (riding, beasts of burden)
1Crude wheeled vehicles
Rowed watercraft
Early sailed watercraft
2Advanced wheeled vehicles
Blue-water sailing ships
3Steam engines
Railroads
Steamships
4Internal combustion engines
Early automobiles
Early aircraft
5Widespread automobiles
Local highway systems
Jet aircraft
Containerized shipping
6Large nuclear-powered vehicles
Continental highway systems
Supersonic aircraft
Global standards in containerization
7Early maglev systems
8High-speed maglev systems
9Early “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.

TLTypical Developments
0 
1 
2 
3 
4 
5Sounding rockets
6Orbital rockets
Early interplanetary probes
7Manned spacecraft
Advanced interplanetary probes
8Reusable shuttles
Large-scale interface transport
Space telescopes
Small orbital stations (constant resupply)
9Crude 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.

TLTypical Developments
0 
1Battering ram
Torsion-powered war engines
War chariot
War galley
2Bombards
Bronze and iron cannon
Crude rocket artillery
Blue-water warships
3Artillery
Rocket artillery
Heavy machine guns
Steam-powered warships
Reconnaissance balloons
4Crude chemical and biological weapons
Crude military aircraft
5Atomic weapons
Long-range ballistic missiles
Advanced chemical and biological weapons
Advanced military aircraft
6Thermonuclear weapons
Transcontinental-range ballistic missiles
Nuclear-powered warships
7 
8Early applications of cyberwarfare
9Full 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.

TLTypical Developments
0Clubs and cudgels
Stone-tipped spears
Bow and arrow
Hide and leather armor
1Bronze and iron swords
Metal spearheads and arrowheads
Longbow, composite bow, and crossbow
Bronze and iron armor
Ring and scale mail
2Matchlock and wheellock firearms
3Flintlock firearms
Rifled firearms
Repeating firearms
4Cartridge ammunition
Light machine guns
5Advanced rifled firearms
6Submachine guns
7Grenade launchers
Advanced body armor (ballistic fabrics)
8Crude “smart weapons”
9Crude 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) 

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