History Main / TechnologyLevels

* Literature/{{Discworld}} has been thumbing its nose at this trope ever since ''[[Literature/{{Discworld}} Moving Pictures]]''. Notably, while the invention of film in that novel was a result of alchemists' being [[TouchedByVorlons infected by the spirit of Holy Wood]], it's also straight-up subverted when the resulting industry invents color movies before sound.

* Steam power is a good example of a real-life instance of this trope: [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heron_of_Alexandria Heron of Alexandria]] was messing around with steam expansion and pistons by 80AD but never quite put the two together outside of a few novelty toys. In fact, the Romans appear to have invented steam power at least three separate times, and were extremely advanced ''theoretically'' in many aspects of engineering. They understood that an "engine" which could replace slaves you have to feed, house, and keep happy enough that they don't kill you in your sleep might be possible and useful in the same way we understand that a fusion reactor might be possible and useful. So why didn't they have an industrial revolution in 200BC? Beyond the economic hurdle of competing with slave labor and animal power, they lacked calculus and certain physics formulas needed to engineer large-scale engines, the metallurgy to contain the pressure, accessible fuel deposits, and a ''need'' for more mechanical power than simpler industrial-level power sources like waterwheels or windmills could provide. Lacking these things, the steam engine remained a curiosity fondly used by tinkerers to power devices like singing mechanical birds for centuries before the world hit the "critical mass" of related technologies and economic incentive required to turn theory into fact.

[[quoteright:319:[[RiseOfNations http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rontechtree_960.png]]]]

* Steam power is a good example of a real-life [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heron_of_Alexandria Heron of Alexandria]] was messing around with steam expansion and pistons, but never quite put the two together. In fact, the Romans appear to have invented steam power at least three separate times. Beyond economic inefficiency relative to slave labor, they lacked the math needed to properly engineer them, the metallurgy to contain the pressure, coal to power the engines and the deep bore mines that could not be pumped out by human or animal power... to name a few other problems.

** ''All'' extant alphabetic scripts descend from the Phoenician writing system, which itself is a descendant of Egyptian hieroglyphics.

* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heron_of_Alexandria Heron of Alexandria]] was messing around with steam expansion and pistons, but never quite put the two together. In fact, the Romans appear to have invented steam power at least three separate times. Beyond economic inefficiency relative to slave labor, they lacked the math needed to properly engineer them, the metallurgy to contain the pressure, coal to power the engines and the deep bore mines that could not be pumped out by human or animal power... to name a few other problems. Some of this can be put down to the fact that while they had scientists, they never invented the ''scientific community'' to share and review ideas.
** That said, we can't over-stress the irrelevance of the 'scientific community'. This is an engineering question with practical applications and benefits, i.e. nothing to do with 'science' - how does discovering Neptune improve crop yields or keep people from dying in childbirth, for instance? The critical thing was the utter lack of economic incentive to develop these machines. Metal and coal were very expensive, and these machines were pathetically weak. Even if a Roman tinkerer had invented a semi-efficient prototype, what market would there have been for something so incredibly expensive ''and'' less cost-effective than muscle-power in every conceivable use it could be put to?[[note]] The 'right' conditions seem to have been free labour and high labour-costs + wages, vast amounts of coal being produced for market and thus not too expensive, and iron being relatively widespread and thus not too expensive either. In these conditions it was almost inevitable that some people tinkered with improving the cost-effectiveness of their mining operations by making use of all the low-quality coal that wasn't good enough to be sold at market. They did this by using it to heat the mines in winter, but also by tinkering with replacing the business-end of their pumps (used to keep the mines dry) with machines that would also use up this cast-off coal. They were a bit rubbish, but still marginally cheaper (or not, [[RuleOfCool 'cos having a machine like that was kind of cool whilst also not being ridiculously expensive]]) than using human- or draft-animal labour the whole time.[[/note]]

** That said, we can't over-stress the irrelevance of the 'scientific community'. This is an engineering question with practical applications and benefits, i.e. nothing to do with 'science' - how does discovering Neptune improve crop yields or keep people from dying in childbirth, for instance? The critical thing was the utter lack of economic incentive to develop these machines. Metal and coal were very expensive, and these machines were pathetically weak. Even if a Roman tinkerer had invented a semi-efficient prototype, what market would there have been for something so incredibly expensive ''and'' less cost-effective than muscle-power in every conceivable use it could be put to?

Similarly, seemingly distinct, diverse technologies will always develop at the same rate. An alien world with 'renaissance' era technology (ignoring for the moment that the renaissance spanned four centuries and giant changes in technology) in, say, firearms, will also posses lenses, ships, building materials and mathematical principles identical to those that Earth (read: Western Europe) possessed along with said firearms.

** The novel ''Where Sea Meets Sky'' in the Captain's Table series has the Federation debating whether a species that has simply domesticated [[OrganicTechnology living star ships]] counts, since they have warp travel, but not based on technology. The ''StarTrekTitan''[=/=]''[[StarTrekTyphonPact Typhon Pact]]'' novel ''Seize the Fire'' has a similar debate about a species that has developed power plants based on the same principles as the warp drive, but has no interest in space travel.

* Writing in general is an aversion of this trope. Most societies (e.g. the Inca, above) with more than one city and a centralized government of any kind end up inventing a system for representing numbers and identifying objects, so that tax reports can be filed and the empire maintained; only very, ''very'' few times has anyone independently had the idea to take this to the next level and try to represent sentence structures, so that narrative structure could also be recorded. We know it happened at least twice, in Mesoamerica (Olmec pictograms) and Mesopotamia (Sumerian cuneiform). All other known writing systems ''could have'' gotten the idea from one of these two; the most likely candidate to have been a third independent invention is Chinese oracle bone script, but it's possible that the ''idea'', if not the format, was carried to China by traders.
** ''All'' alphabetic scripts descend from the Phoenician writing system.

* Almost averted by the Roman Egyptian philosopher [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heron_of_Alexandria Heron of Alexandria]], who was messing around with steam expansion and pistons, but never quite put the two together. In fact, the Romans appear to have invented steam power at least three separate times. The problem is that steam couldn't hold a candle to slave labor economically, so they didn't do much with it.
** They also lacked the math needed to properly engineer them, the metallurgy to contain the pressure, coal to power the engines and the deep bore mines that could not be pumped out by human or animal power...to name a few other problems. A lot of this can be put down to the fact that while they had scientists, they never invented the ''scientific community'' to share and review ideas.

** The main problem was that they lacked an animal strong enough to actually pull wheeled carts effectively.

Remember, don't think path, think ''[[TechTree 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.

* In ''{{Halo}}'', the [[{{Precursors}} Forerunners]] and the [[ScaryDogmaticAliens Covenant]] use a seven-tiered scale to categorize civilizations based on their technology levels, ranging from basic tool-construction to world-creation.

** Humans have been all over the place on this; [[spoiler:while prehistoric humanity was one of only four known species to make it to at least Tier 1]], humanity circa 2552 (the original trilogy) were Tier 3, but by 2557 (''[[{{VideoGame/Halo4}} Halo 4]]''), [[TheFederation the UNSC]] seems to have reached Tier 2, making it the strongest single military power in galaxy now that the Covenant have dissolved.

* ''{{Halo}}'' has a scale of technological levels based on the abilities of the culture, ranging from basic tool-construction to world-creation.
** Oddly, for a science-fiction series involving extraterrestrial life, humans are at the ''top'' of this list. By the events of ''[[{{VideoGame/Halo4}} Halo 4]]'', [[TheFederation the UNSC]] was the strongest military power in galaxy.
** An amusing species on the scale are the Brutes, who have successfully climbed to the tier involving space-flight only to drop back down to tool-making again twice; hyper-aggression and nukes don't combine well.

* 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 novel ''Where Sea Meets Sky'' in the Captain's Table series has the Federation debating whether a species that has simply domesticated [[OrganicTechnology living star ships]] counts, since they have warp travel, but not based on technology.

See also: EnforcedTechnologyLevels, EvolutionaryLevels, InSpiteOfANail. Contrast SchizoTech, AliensNeverInventedTheWheel, SufficientlyAdvancedBambooTechnology, AnachronismStew and/or FantasyGunControl.

* In ''Literature/DragonsEgg'', while the Cheela's technological evolution is loosely patterned after mankind's, some of it is necessarily influenced by their environment -- mostly the ''huge'' gravity and magnetic field of the Cheela home world. So they [[AliensNeverInventedTheWheel invent the sleigh instead of the wheel]] because gravity makes axles impractical and in their "metal casting"[[hottip:*:using crystalline materials found on their star rather than actual metals]] the molds need to be oriented along the magnetic field.

* OrionsArms carefully lays out post-{{Singularity}} techlevels based around the relative intelligence levels of ever more complex transhuman and AI minds.

* ''MassEffect'' plays with this. [[spoiler: The Reapers deliberately expose and spread mass effect technology, along with the mass relays and the Citadel, to deliberately guide organic technological evolution along the paths they prefer. They then cut this off when they invade and wipe out all advanced life while their tech is still at a limited, controlled state.]] It is implied that [[spoiler: the geth, being a purely synthetic species, are developing along a different path than that set by the Reapers.]]

* Subverted in ''Dykstra's War'' by Jeffrey D. Kooistra. The Phinons have had space travel for eons, but [[spoiler: they are a species with barely animal-level intelligence. They naturally live in the comet clouds between solar systems, and they evolved spacecraft-building as an instinctive behavior, like bees building a hive or beavers building a dam. Their ships' "design" is incredibly weird-looking and their "technology" extremely counter-intuitive, because it's not the product of engineering in the human sense.]]

* In the Icerigger trilogy of AlanDeanFoster, the residents of Tran-Ky-Ky are an Iron Age culture that never invented the wheel. That's because Tran-Ky-Ky is an [[SingleBiomePlanet Ice World]], and the natives mount anything heavy that needs to be transported on ice skates.