It all began with the Bomb. TL7, also called The Nuclear Age began, on a standard Earth, around 1945, with the power of the atom changing the course of mankind forever. The fallout (literal and figurative) from this invention lead, genre-wise, to Supers and Kaiju, two vastly different interpretations of what radiation could do. Just as TL6 had the pulp era in fiction, TL7 contains much of the mafia genre--and the space race certainly increased interest in newer pulp sci-fi.
TL7 transitions to TL8 around the 1980s with the arrival of the Digital Age.
Developments[]
- Agriculture: Chemical fertilizer, hybrid crops.
- Arms and Armor: Assault rifle, ballistic body armor, guided missile, military helicopter, military jet, nuclear weapons.
- Information Technology: Computer, high-speed press, television.
- Machinery: Integrated circuits, laser, transistor[note 1].
- Material Science: Composite materials, plastic[note 2], superconductors, titanium.
- Medicine and Health: Artificial heart, organ transplants.
- Power: Gas turbine, nuclear power, photovoltaic cell.
- Transportation: High-speed train, jet aircraft, spacecraft.
New Tropes in This Genre[]
- While telephones are TL6 (circa WWI), TL7 is where telephones become properly common. Call your buddies. Call your neighbors. Ask for operators. It's your nickel.
- Paper file-keeping gives way to computing and computers. Miles of whirring magnetic tape and blinking lights.
Magical Settings at this TL[]
- GURPS Supers: This setting has huge amounts with magic with about every magic system a viable option.
- Classic: Technomancer: A divergent reality where reliable magic has existed since 1945
- Classic: Voodoo: This is a secret magic setting "the most common magic items are the charms of the ritual magic system, though fetishes and foci can also play a part."[1]
- Classic: Warehouse 23: The Warehouse is chock full of magic items that have little in common; sometimes they come from mutually incompatible cosmologies.
Classic/4e Note[]
- TL7-8 is where GURPS Classic and 4e TLs start diverging. According to David L. Pulver, late TL7 in GURPS Classic is TL8 in GURPS 4e. See Technology Levels (Classic) for more information.
Related Material[]
- GURPS Bio-Tech
- TL7 Equipment
- TL7 Weapons
- Tech Level
- GURPS WWII
- GURPS WWII: Weird War II
- Classic: Atomic Horror
Notes[]
- โ Julius Edgar Lilienfeld patented a field-effect transistor in 1926 and 1928; Oskar Heil patented something similar in 1934. Improvements to this design led to the better known point-contact transistor developed in 1947-8
- โ This likely refers to oil based plastic as plant based plastic first appeared in 1856
References[]
- โ GURPS Magic Items 3, p.11