TL:10-12

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TL:10-12 or the “High Technology Epoch,” is part of the interstellar age, culminating in the present day TL-15 technologies. What were prototype technologies have become commonplace: FTL travel, cryogenics, arcologies, and the first practical gravcraft.

  • TL:10-12 tech is commonly known as Early Stell-Tech or Hi-Tech (High Technology).
  • TL:10-12 sophonts are commonly known as meso-sophonts.

Library Data Referral Tree

Please refer to the following AAB Library Data for more information:

Description (Specifications)

Two of the key indicator discoveries of this period include practical mastery of FTL starship jump drives and the first gravcraft.

Communications

EDUCATION: No information yet available.

ENTERTAINMENT: No information yet available.

NEWS: Among early communication developments are increasingly efficient laser communicators, and very often the development of a Express Boat system and/or interplanetary mail services. Scientists during this epoch often explore a variety of electromagnetic spectrum emissions for use as new communications devices. Tachyons and mesons are often explored but not truly mastered.

Energy

LARGE SCALE POWER: Fusion Plus, or (Cold Fusion, Fusion+, or F+), produces an efficient energy output, producing very little waste heat, through the catalyzed fusion of hydrogen. Cold fusion is distinguished from conventional fusion by its small size:

  • Fusion is suitable for large multi-kiloton installations. Some call this conventional or hot fusion.
  • Fusion Plus is a small, relatively portable installation suitable for vehicles and homes. Cold fusion disconnects ordinary activity from the cost of energy. The energy transmission networks of previous times can largely be phased out saving tremendous infrastructure costs. Many of the earlier energy corporations go out of business with this paradigm change.

Those who do not discover Fusion Plus are handicapped by high-energy costs in virtually every life endeavor. The advent of miniaturized, efficient cold fusion is a major game changer for interstellar societies.

SMALL-SCALE POWER: The first portable reactors using Fusion Plus begin to debut. They quickly dominate the market and revolutionize society.

TRANSMISSION NETWORKS: Wireless infrastructure is revolutionized by Fusion Plus, allowing for the replacement of trillions of miles of telephone and power transmission poles and towers. The cost of a beamed power system becomes affordable for many societies allowing for solar satellites and beamed microwave power systems.

Transportation

LAND: The first grav vehicles have been introduced and are starting to come to market. They are pricey, but unmatched in performance and accessibility. Gravcraft can go where no land vehicles can go, combining the attributes of both land and aircraft. Fusion Plus engines are greatly expanding the performance of all vehicles. Walkers particularly benefit from the power to weight rations available to a Fusion Plus-driven vehicle.

SEA: Grav-ship hybrids come into vogue combining gravcraft benefits with traditional ship engineering. All matter of exotic seagoing hulls are experimented with from trimarans to hydrofoils. Amphibious submersibles are also experimented with. The new hulls also make possible large floating city-states.

AIR: Aircraft are starting to merge with gravcraft. Hypersonic flight becomes possible within an atmosphere. Adding gravitic plates to a traditional aircraft makes for some very exotic performance envelopes. Experimentation with control surfaces is yielding new kinds of ornithopters, stealth craft, and some very exotic hybrid craft combining many kinds of atmospheric flight envelopes. Helicopters, tiltrotors, and many other kinds of VTOL's are nearly entirely superseded by gravcraft before the end of this epoch.

SPACE: The line between aircraft and spacecraft is beginning to blur culminating in the spaceplane. Dedicated aircraft still exist, but an increasing number of higher end flying craft include both atmospheric and spacebourne flight envelopes. Many aircraft now regularly operate within SSTO performance envelopes, discarding auxiliary booster rockets and other trappings of earlier spaceflight technologies.

FTL: Jump technology enables a ship to transition into Jump Space at FTL speeds and emerge some great distance away within a reasonable time (…effectively multiples of 170 times the speed of light). Jump drive, and its many variations, makes interstellar flight practical. Those who do not discover jump drive are condemned to slow, inefficient NAFAL movement between the stars. The more advanced societies can build jump drives that meet the Imperial standards for Model-E, Model-F, Model-G, Model-H, Model-I, Model-J, Model-K, Model-L, Model-M, and Model-N type FTL engines

EXOTIC: Some societies develop effective solar sails in this period, a slower NAFAL space travel method that has a number of great advantages over other methods of space travel. It still has strong limitations, and most societies choose conventional NAFAL thrusters over solar sails.

Manufacturing

MANUFACTURING: Early Makertech allows for very low efficiency conversion of matter. Makertech is certainly not the fabled replicator from science fiction, but it can be an exponential leap ahead of earlier manufacturing techniques. Practical nanotech manufacturing is becoming more viable and it’s all guided by increasingly intelligent processors. Robotic manufacturing has become so commonplace that it is rarely referred to as robotic anymore. Makertech is a combination of many manufacturing techniques including 3D printing, earlier nanotech, early matter conversion, and other methods.

MATERIALS: Artificial densification of materials on mass scale.

MACHINES: Networked manufacturing, autonomous design by computer. Zero G manufacturing / anti-grav manufacturing, basic terraforming.

Processors

COMPUTERS: Synaptic processors and positronic brains are vastly more capable than earlier generations of processor technology. Some advanced robots can fool inexpert humans. Expert roboticists call these low autonomous robots. Still, a well-trained expert sophont can often outthink and outperform advanced thinking machines from this epoch. Fluidic and magnetic energy transmission increase processing speed. Semi-organic facility and early ship brains become common. Many societies can build processors that meet the Imperial standards for Model/4, Model/5, and Model/6 processors.

Computers are able to model synaptic networks.

DATA STORAGE: No information yet available.

ROBOTICS: No information yet available.

Sociology

GOVERNMENT: Information age governments are soon superseded by polystellar governments as governments must now cope with populations spread over multiple star systems. Early colonies frequently revolt as mother systems no longer represent them. Few succeed, but even the failures reveal the need for more effective methods of government to be developed. New kinds of learning create new educational and cultural systems. Pocket Empires, generally considered to be interstellar governments that control at least two to twenty-four systems, are experimented with across Charted Space.

POLITICAL ECONOMY: No information yet available.

CLIODYNAMICS: No information yet available.

Trade

TRADE: No information yet available.

FINANCE: No information yet available.

SCIENCE: No information yet available.

Environment

STRUCTURES: The Arcology reaches its stride and allows denser and denser concentrations of population to be achieved, freeing up more of a planet’s surface for agriculture and the preservation of pristine native environments. Metropolises or Metroplexes often include sophisticated processor nets, called City Minds, capable of coordinating traffic, production, and resources to greater and greater efficiencies. Underwater domes and floating cities become economical, opening up colonization of worlds previously thought undesirable. The first large scale orbital habitats become viable and more and more of the population expands throughout the star system.

ENVIRONMENTS: Weather control revolutionises terraforming and agriculture. Nuclear Dampers allow the clean up of previously irradiated sites.

MEGASTRUCTURES: Mature arcologies change the nature of metropolises.

Life Sciences

BIOLOGY: No information yet available.

MEDICINE: Anti-viral vaccines cure much disease and the vaunted cure for cancer is finally developed. Growth quickening technologies find many applications. Nerve re-fusion and artificial eyes are more advanced than ever. Cybernetic limb and organ replacements, sometimes called augments, are becoming quite advanced, even if cultural taboos inhibit their use across much of the Third Imperium. Broad spectrum anti-toxins, enhanced prosthetics, and anti-geriatrics increase health further.

AGRICULTURE: No information yet available.

Martial

TACTICAL COMBAT: With space no longer a barely probed frontier, practical interstellar warships become commonplace. The first system defense boats (SDB’s) protect richer systems and power projection is now measured across interstellar distances. High-energy weapons become available as the physics and engineering challenges of earlier generations are solved. Energy dissipation problems are mitigated in new and novel ways. Advanced processors make for smarter guided munitions and defenses known as Bright Munitions. Infantry also gain from the advances and practical power armor or battledress becomes an expensive yet highly capable option. The first Nuclear Dampers decrease the destructive potential of atomic weapons and allow the slow clean-up of irradiated environments and the diminishment of fall out damage.

SMALL ARMS: No information yet available.

PERSONAL ARMOR: No information yet available.

STRATEGIC COMBAT: No information yet available.

HEAVY ARMS: No information yet available.

HEAVY ARMOR: No information yet available.

History & Background (Dossier)

The development of practical gravity manipulation and its associated transportation systems revolutionize travel and the movement of goods. Interstellar economies dwarf their planet-bound predecessors. Material transportation costs are lower than ever before. And the very option of interstellar trade becomes a reality as societies and civilizations expand to cover multiple star systems.

Alternate Nomenclature for this Technological Epoch

Terran historians have many names for this TL bracket including:

Hallmark Technology-1: Microfusion Energy Revolution

Advanced portable fusion technologies democratizes energy in a way never before realized. Homesteading makes a return and interstellar pioneers spread out to the stars in K-class colony ships, terraforming select planets, belt mining the asteroids, and powering a whole new kind of society with Fusion Plus.

Hallmark Technology-2: Gravity Manipulation

Gravity manipulation revolutionizes both planet-side and interstellar transportation. Gravcraft can go practically anywhere. The grav drive removes the massive fuel requirements (...reaction mass) of earlier chemical drives without the slower speeds of ion drives. Grav thruster plates allow for more efficient space travel than ever before. Civilizations begin experimenting with mass transit technologies using contragravity technologies.

Hallmark Technology-3: Polystellar Governments

Humaniti struggles to govern itself peacefully and with expanded representation. Learning how to govern across interstellar distances is a challenge, but the effort creates the first pocket empires. Prior to this experience, multistellar organizations frequently balkanized or collapsed under societal pressures. Better methods of governance, representation, and further development of the three prime technologies, especially communications technologies begin to make a difference.

Representative Sophont Species

Societies at the TL:10-12 represent the average technological level of mastery for of Charted Space. It is known as High Technology, but this this level of technical mastery is a common market level and many colonies can sustainably establish themselves at this level within just a few generations of planetfall. More hostile environments require higher technology levels to maintain life support and regress to lower technical mastery levels, making such societies dependent upon interstellar trade.

  • The following sophont species are known to possess technical mastery within these technological limits:
129 Sophonts in the TL:10-12 epoch

More...


References & Contributors (Sources)

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