Like any other science-fiction setting, Terracide takes certain liberties with science and technology for the sake of story-telling. However, where possible, the technology which appears in the Terracide setting is based on explainable scientific principles, rather than invented from whole cloth and labelled with meaningless techno-babble. While Terracide is in many respects a Space Opera setting, in many cases I've taken more of a Hard Sci-Fi approach to designing its technology. With one major exce pointion: FTL travel.
In reality, travelling faster-than-light is impossible. In Terracide, it isn't. However, a great many other science fiction stories have survived breaking this one rule, while otherwise obeying all the other laws of physics, for the sake of getting to where the action is, and telling a good story. From this point on, I'll try to do the same.
Tech Levels
Most science fiction RPGs use an arbitrary 'tech level' system to classify various levels of technical achievment. For Terracide I've chosen one from the real world: the Kardashev scale, as modified by Carl Sagan. The original Kardashev scale only had three tech levels. For Terracide, a fourth one has been added. (K0)
K0: Civilization with no technical capabilities.
K1: Civilization capable of utilizing the energy resources of an entire planet.
K2: Civilization capable of harnessing the power of an entire star.
K3: Civilazation capable of using the output of a whole galaxy.
Carl Sagan noted that these 'tech levels' were too far apart to be really useful, but there were about ten levels of magnitude between each one. So he added another digit to the original Kardashev numbers, with ten tech levels between each one, about an order of magnitude apart. The modified Kardashev-Sagan scale goes from 0 to 30, each tech level using ten times as much power as the one below it. At the turn of the millennium, humanity is approximately at TL7 on this scale, although many parts of the world are much less advanced, while some are nearly at TL8.
The baseline for Terran technology is TL10. Lower TL equipment exists, and is quite cheap and readily available, in some cases. High tech equipment costs a fortune; TL11 equipment is generally only available to certain characters, in any case. (10 point perk required.) Alien tech varies from from TL10 to TL14, with 11 and 12 being most common. In some cases, however, Terran tech is superior to theirs in certain areas. Information technology is particularly popular, as is biological data and material. Trade in the latter is highly illegal. Characters may start with advanced alien technology only with the permission of the GM, and with the appropriate perk. (10 points per TL over 10.) In Terracide, no confirmed examples of technology above TL14 are currently known, except maybe the Keepers, but they aren't telling.
Humanity's survival in the Terracide galaxy depends on trade with alien species, dangerous as this may be. Many of the technologies in use throughout human space in 2289 were acquired from aliens, or 'reverse engineered' from recovered alien technology. In most cases, the basic principles are well understood, and the aliens had simply found a better way to use the technology, or had solved technical problems which prevented Terran engineers from putting the technology to use themselves. As a result, the Terracide setting features a mixture of familiar technology found in almost any science-fiction story, and some exotic technologies which give it a unique style.
Game Mechanics
When using skills and/or equipment involving higher or lower tech levels, or with unknown or alien technology, use the modifiers on the table from p144 of Star Hero. Furthermore, when resolving weapon damage against higher or lower tech armor, weapons get 2 piercing points per TL of advantage, or if their target has higher TL armor, it gets 2 points of resistant Def added per TL of advantage.
Nanotechnology: the Deal-Killer
Humanity's expansion into the in the late-21st century was greatly assisted by early nanotechnology. And when the first wave of UN colonies were founded, nanotechnology made them possible. However, during the second wave of colonization sponsored by Terran Galactic Operations in the 23rd century, nanotechnology began to get out of control. New colonies were too reliant on advanced nano-tech, and while the machines weren't getting "too smart" they were evolving in unpredictable ways, which made them extremely dangerous. At least two frontier worlds found out the hard way that Venoms (hostile Von Neumann Machines) were attracted to advanced nano-technology, for reasons unknown at that time, and were subsequently sterilized.
Follow-up investigations found that the Venoms could use nano-tech for their own purposes, and that a rich source of nano-machines (such as a human colony) was considered a 'mother-lode' of ready resources. A Venom scout who found such a colony would signal the rest of its swarm, which would follow a few years later, assimilate any useful technology in the system, and disassemble everything else, including the colonists. The worst part is, at least one of the several strains of Venoms in Terran Space is rumored to have started out as human-built nano-tech which got out of control!
After these findings became general knowledge, use of nano-technology was curtailed throughout Terran Space. It is only used under tightly controlled conditions, and never in open space where a Venom might find it. (Venoms get more clever as time goes on, however.) As a result of the strict controls on nano-technology, the much-hoped-for "nano-tech revolution" has yet to materialize. While it makes possible the manufacture of many advanced materials and products which otherwise would not exist, nano-technology has not become ubiquitous to the point of creating a "post-scarcity" economy, as many predicted it would.
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