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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 9550882" data-attributes="member: 4937">I think it's easy to compare this to earlier editions and see how much more useful the earlier editions were from a story telling purpose.  You could take any science fiction setting and get a pretty good feel for which TL that setting was at using the older tables.  Something like Outlander was TL 8, Blade Runner was TL 9, Babylon 5 was TL 10 with Elder Client tech like the Mimbari being like TL 12 and the elders themselves being like TL 14, Star Trek was like TL 12 with the Q and others being TL 16, and Star Wars like TL 13.  The table made sense and let you extrapolate a bit "what else can they do that we don't see" and also gauge how the setting differed from presumed TL conventions - maybe some portion of the tech wasn't as advanced in the particular setting as another (the Federation for example bans genetic engineering).In the 4e setting you jump straight from TL7 modern up 3 tech levels to TL10 in the space of 150 years, and yet have only marginal changes in society.  That's the equivalent jump of roaming bands of hunter gatherer hominids to Rome or Rome to Victorian England with no real bright lines of distinction or major changes in the social order until what, late TL10?  And then TL11 is "exotic matter", something often associated with being like 5 levels of development past what was TL10 on this table.  And then TL12 is the same as TL16 - "sufficiently advanced technology". Is it more realistic?  Maybe.  But it's a whole lot less useful from a "convert this science fiction setting to GURPS" perspective.</blockquote>

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