http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TechnologyLevels

Chairman Shen-Ji Yang, "Looking God in the Eye" "Technological advance is an inherently iterative process. One does not simply take sand from the beach and produce a Dataprobe. We use crude tools to fashion better tools, and then our better tools to fashion more precise tools, and so on. Each minor refinement is a step in the process, and all of the steps must be taken."

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In Hollywood, people seem to believe that technology starts at fire and ends in people turning into energy; the interim would follow the exact same steps on every possible world. Often, this takes the form of people not from Earth creating exact replicas of Earth technology right down to the last detail — such as interface panels ripped right out of the Apollo missions on an alien space station. These copies are often similar enough that people who are from Earth often have no trouble at all using the device, or even interfacing their own hardware with it.

Similarly, seemingly distinct and diverse technologies will always develop at the same rate. An alien world with "Renaissance-era" technology in firearms will also possess lenses, ships, mathematical principles and sometimes even fashion identical to those of Earth (never mind the odds that an alien world would develop in a manner identical to a historical period that was a specifically European cultural phenomenon involving the rebirth and innovation of classical Greco-Roman civilization).

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It's only rarely that a civilization will break off the path, and usually as a result of external forces providing them with something outside their capabilities (intentionally, accidentally or incidentally), such as a 1920s planet with fusion power, or a 1700s planet with radios. However, mastering this technology does not actually give them an understanding of related concepts, or even concepts which would be required to use this technology in the first place (thus averting Possession Implies Mastery).

Remember, don't think path, think tree, just as with the evolution of biological lifeforms. Except, in this case the distant descendants of unrelated branches can inspire and influence the future of others. For inspiring viewing, see the James Burke documentary series Connections, which shows the sometimes ludicrously unlikely places where inspiration and discovery come from, and the web-like connections between seemingly-unrelated inventions.

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I, for one, can only look forward to the day that crystal-based technology paves the way for our conversion into energy.

See also: Enforced Technology Levels, Evolutionary Levels, In Spite of a Nail, and Tier System. Contrast Schizo Tech, Aliens Never Invented the Wheel, Sufficiently Advanced Bamboo Technology, Alternate Techline, Anachronism Stew and/or Fantasy Gun Control.

This has some actual reference in the real world Kardashev Scale (how much total energy one gets to play with, no matter how). The Other Wiki used to have a list. See Abusing the Kardashev Scale for Fun and Profit for some fun speculation.

Examples:

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Comic Books

An interesting take on this trope happens in one of Disney Ducks comics, where it is played as a natural result of reaching consequent Evolutionary Levels. While robbing Gyro's laboratory, one of the Beagle Boys gets accidentally hit in the head by Gyro's experimental "evolutionary ray". Over the next couple of days, he uses his newly heightened intelligence to develop a flawless bank robbery plan. This prompts the other Boys to give him the next dose. The hyper-intelligent Boy then turns to cyber-crime and ATM machine cracking. Amazed with the results, the other Boys ignore his warnings and break into Gyro's lab for the third time... only to discover the next day that he had reached the Crystal Spires and Togas level of intellectual development, gave all their money to charity, and went on to the UN to give a lecture on the elimination of crime and poverty. (They manage to reverse the effect, but the switch gets stuck.)

Films — Live-Action

The movie version of Harrison Bergeron created an elaborate setting where, while technology's capability was late-21st century, everything appeared to be set in the mid-'50s of the US, as people seemed to be "happiest" then, according to the Space Clothes wearing people who managed the conspiracy of the average.

Mentioned poetically in Godzilla (2014) for dramatic effect by Joseph Brody when he screams that the EMP coming from Janjira NPP's ruins will "send us back to the Stone Age". And we would be here all day if we tried to list every example of a catastrophic movie event sending us "back to the stone age."



Literature

Live-Action TV

Star Trek: The Prime Directive prevents them from interfering with cultures "below the warp drive level." The Ferengi, who have super-sensitive hearing and live on a planet of frequent rainstorms, invented soundproofing before they invented the steam engine. The Ferengi also have a similar idea of cultural development, but it is based on the complexity of economic systems rather than technology. And then there are the Vulcans, who had very little metal and as a result skipped right to making a spacecraft to get some from off-world.

Stargate SG-1 is pretty much built around this premise. Although the plot explains that aliens posing as gods are purposely shaping development across the galaxy, this usually constitutes keeping people from becoming advanced enough to be a threat, and cultures which have broken-off from alien control continue to advance "as expected".

On Babylon 5 the step before "become energy" is "Organic Technology".

Averted by Fringe. Much of the first two seasons is dominated by how advanced the technology of the Alternate Universe is, but when we finally see that dimension we also see that a lot of things we consider modern (like airplanes and vaccines) would be considered sci-fi there.

The Orville: The series appears to play this straight, with an alien species we see in "Mad Idolatry" following the same ascent of technological and social progress we see the Earth underwent before, while surpassing them in the end.

Tabletop Games

More or less justified in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, where human civilizations in different parts of the galaxy pretty much had their technological progress railroaded by the use of Standard Template Construct systems. In the past ten thousand years or so, humans haven't really developed their technology at all, so they avert this trope by side-stepping it.

Traveller's first edition originated (or at least popularized) the idea in RPGs.

The d20 Future supplement of the d20Modern RPG gives technology based on "Progress Levels." Modern humans, depending on geography and infrastructure, go from about PL 4 to (late) PL 5. These, along with most of the supplement's flavor, were transposed directly from Alternity, which was previously published by the same publisher.

The GURPS RPG has a similar system of tech levels. It's very helpful when calculating whether a certain piece of equipment is available for purchase (and what it costs). Crafty game masters are advised to assign different tech levels to various sections of society. Tech Level 5, for example, is the Industrial Revolution, while modern developed countries would be at TL8 (although when the game was created in the early 1990s, "modern" tech was TL7). The system also introduces the concept of divergent tech levels, with the notation "TL('x'+'y')" note where x+y is the effective technology level, x is the technology shared with that of our history, and y is how far along the technological development is along some alternate path . TL (5+1) is (usually) steampunk tech, for example, while the Bamboo Technology of a certain modern Stone Age family would be TL(0+7).

The 3E Ravenloft products use "Culture Levels", which combine technological progress with social changes in a sequence that's closely parallel to that of IRL European history. Unlike many fantasy settings, the Land of Mists is intended to capture the authentic flavor of Gothic fiction's classics, thus needs to at least somewhat emulate the real-world historical past.

Tech levels are an integral part of the tabletop war game Starfire. Your tech level determines what systems you're allowed to install on a starship. At Tech Level I, you get ion drive engines, nuclear missiles, lasers, and basic deflector shields. By Tech Level X, you're sporting 3rd-generation shields and armor, heterodyne lasers, charged particle beams (and overload dampeners that can absorb the impact of such beams), tractor beams (and tractor-nullifying shear planes), narrowly-focused force beams that ignore shields and armor, and space fighters.

Tomorrow's War has three tech levels, however they're meant to be relative to one another, depending on the scenario a given TL can mean anything from AK-147s to plasma rifles.

Torg had levels not just for a universes allowed technology level but also for magic, social development and the influence deities could wield on the material world.

In BattleTech a faction's tech level is based largely on how much Lost Technology they possess. The Successor States barely remember how to make Mechs and rely on antique Jumpships and ComStar's similarly ancient network. As for ComStar and their militant faction the Word of Blake they religiously grab and hoard most examples of LosTek in the Inner Sphere. While the Clans are descendants of the Star League's military who took a lot of their technology with them and ensured that their factories and scientist caste would be safe from the constant warfare, so they have the most advanced technology in the known galaxy.

Stars Without Number has seven tech levels. At 0, your most advanced technology is a sharp rock. At 2, you've invented gunpowder. At 4, you have hyperdrive, and a lot of the stuff that made the Mandate workable and has been lost in the Scream (jump gates, psitech) was TL 5. TL 6 is reserved for the really rare and impressive stuff.

Video Games

Web Original

Orion's Arm carefully lays out post-Singularity tech levels based around the relative intelligence levels of ever more complex transhuman and AI minds. Pre-Singularity humans can at best make basic nanotech and antimatter drives. At S1 Brain Uploading and matter-to-energy conversion drives become possible. S3 minds can create Wormholes, and S4 or higher can produce Reactionless Drives.

Western Animation

At first glance, the Avatar franchise seems to play this straight. The nations use their bending powers to help create technology- for example, Fire Benders use their head to power the steam industry. There is a clear progression in technology; in the original series, we see a nation having their industrial revolution while the majority of people used more old fashioned methods, while by The Legend of Korra they've got things such as cars and motorcycles readily available. In the end, its subverted. Although there's a progression in technology, it seems rather chaotic. Lampshaded by the abridged series as follows. Sokka : Let Me Get This Straight... . You can invent tanks, jet skies, and a GIGANTIC freaking drill, but the concept of a hot air balloon eeellluuudddesss you?

Played with in Ben 10. On one hand, most planets do follow a near-fixed path of technological discovery. On the other hand, said path is very unlike Earth's — universal translators are usually invented about at the same time as combustion engines, and radio transmissions rarely predate nuclear fusion. Some technologies on earth are far in advance of what we should be able to produce.

Real Life