Editing Stars Without Number: Back in Black (section)

=== Tech Levels and Psychic Powers in this Campaign ===

I am setting the game "earlier" in the process of galactic re-conquest than the Stars Without Number default.  Pretech items are very rarely available for sale.  At the current time, there are NO planets able to manufacture much in the way of Pretech equipment.  In some cases this is because the necessary infrastructure and knowledge-base has not been rebuilt, in other cases it is because the manufacture of Pretech requires certain specialized Psychic disciplines.  The following is a brief introduction to what you should expect.  Please note that some worlds may have either specialties or deficiencies, and so some worlds may have specific areas where they are better or worse than the baseline of their tech level.  Nyx's anti-aging services, for example, are substantially more advanced than would be available in a standard TL4 world, and approach TL5 technology.

*Tech Level 0 is approximately neolithic.  This is pretty rare for human civilizations, because almost any colony that manages not to go extinct will at least retain the knowledge to work metal.  
*Tech Level 1 is medieval-ish.  This is substantially more common than neolithic worlds, and there are worlds in the State that are still essentially at the level of Imperial China.  Worlds like this can usually scrum up enough wealth to import T4 goods for the very wealthiest, and of course they can send their psychics to The Black House.  This means that they may very well have an Immortal Emperor (anti-aging drugs) with a cadre of sorcerous viziers (trained psychics.)  It is also not entirely unusual for them to still have access to recorded knowledge far above their tech level, or to have access to bio-engineered crops that make farming much easier.
*Tech Level 2 worlds almost always have full knowledge and awareness that they came from the stars, even if the Scream originally knocked them down to TL0 or 1 and they had to claw their way back up.  TL2 worlds have technology ranging from the very best of the ancient world or Renaissance to an upper limit comparable to the US in the 1950s, although of course culturally they could run the full range of human history, and beyond.
*Tech Level 3 worlds are pretty similar to the modern day, give or take a few decades.  TL3+ indicates there are a few areas where they have substantial knowledge and understanding in at least a few fields, enough that they can provide goods and services at that level.  Also, they typically do manage to import a fair amount of TL4 goods, at great expense, of course.
*Tech Level 4 worlds are signified by having access to fusion power and spike drives, which are the signature achievements of this level of tech.  Also, most of the technology you can find in a Cyberpunk 2020 or Shadowrun book is at least theoretically possible here (although since this isn't actually a cyberpunk milieu, some of it is inappropriate and it isn't really intended as a focus, anyway.)  The only system in the State that is a true, full-blown Tech 4 society is the Nyx Cluster.  
*Tech Level 5 is pre-scream technology.  TL5 Technology requires incredibly sophisticated techniques and often materials that have properties not available in normal matter.  This paramatter or exotic matter must be crafted by psychics using disciplines lost to the Scream.  There are a VERY few items of pretech than be manufactured in limited quantities in the Nyx cluster, but actually finding it for sale is difficult.  More likely, TL5 items must be recovered and restored to working order.  Even that requires jury-rigged tools, as the equipment to work on TL5 equipment has also usually been lost.  The upper edge of TL5 equipment are the lost and destroyed Jump Gates that made the vast size of the Terran Mandate possible.
*Tech Level 6 is crazy bullshit.  The Orbital ring that The Black House is built on is TL6.  Human civilization even before the scream only ever made a few TL6 items, and never in mass quantities.