Editing FederalSpace:Technology (section)

=== Physical Tech ===
We have nano-materials and manufacturing processes now, of course, but this setting does not have "grey cloud" nanotechnology, monomolecular materials, living metal, and similar wonders. Turns out that the only effective nanobots are extremely limited in capability and only work under tightly controlled circumstances; it's just not worth the effort. There ''is'' advanced materials technology, to permit the superconductors and superabsorbers needed for energy weapons and such, and allow for some nifty-looking spaceships and skyscrapers. And to let us handwave away the heat dispersion problem—call this a minor miracle. So we can also have smart materials (like color-changing, self-cleaning fabrics), memory metals and plastics, transparent metals, and similar toys.

Also, I think nanobots and microswarms and such break the feel. Cadres of baseball-sized drones I can live with, but microbugs everywhere spoil the "physical" feel.

There is some advanced biotechnology. Most of the "alien" humanoid races are actually gengineered humans, and the setting also has uplifted animals, genetically-targeted therapies, and various other bio-tricks. And the real aliens have equivalent technology. Oddly, there's been a retreat ''away'' from some of this technology, from the days of the Terran Empire. There's no point in bioengineering a perfect slave race when it's illegal or impractical to own slaves, for example, and experience has shown that there's only so far you can push genomes before unacceptable drawbacks appear. And the interstellar ecology has gotten complex enough that biomaterials and biogadgets are vulnerable to infection from unanticipated sources—you grow yourself a beautiful living skyscraper, and then it gets sick and dies from some random bug brought by an interstellar tourist. Hardtech is more reliable for functional equipment. But biotech is known and embraced, and I'm sure there are many busy terraforming projects going on out there.

An unresolved question: Just how far have lifespans been improved? How old is old for a modern human?