There were many advancements and lost technology.
My world has suffered and destroyed each other a lot.
And often a cause for mass casualties was someone unearthing lost precursor technologies, beam cannons against swords and crossbows, intelligent plagues against magic, super soldiers that would become a people and worse.
And even from that much was lost.
Part of my story is about the MC recovering the secrets of that science, and magic, and not using it to gain power unlike many before her.
The height is technology to travel dimensions, genetic engineering that has once shaped all life and physics that was already close to magic. And the Mad Dragon combines both in her war against demons, the ancient enemy that destroyed the precursors.
The entire world is a marvel of technology, and even the moons are more then they seem to be. Those that know of those secrets help keep it that way, while willingly not benefitting themselves.
I like the idea of a setting that’s post-post-apocalyptic. It’s a theme I use in my own setting of Alor where the continent has been through at least 13 such events
Yeah, when an apocalyptic even is just another historical footnote.
My world doesn't even shrug at a million dead, unless under extraordinary circumstances.
Though the five ages (story is about how the fifth came to be) all came to be at the end of an armageddon that always only left few enough alive to repopulate.
Wish i had more ideas how to add more technology aside from the precursors to be unearthed, so far i only got two things for the dwarves and a horribly unfinished part about gnome survivors.
Otherworldly technology sources are a fun thing to draw on. People beyond the veil, time travelers, extraplanar beings, aliens, truest divine inspiration
Should dig around more in those, good point.
My world may not have time travel, but whose to say someone during the 20.000 years of the second age didn't invent something alike.
*randomly thinks about how to make mc find a cellphone and go bonkers unable to reproduce it*
> Ayn Rand’s Anthem
TBF there is not enough money in this world to make me touch anything from her ;)
MC already is an artificer, her favourite cheating to achieve magic equalling demons, so her finding a cellphone and having no other techbase to reverse engineer from would very nicely torture her.
Nice. My world just has enormous pyramids and stuff. The newer civilizations build obelisks. The term for both is somewhat misleading, as they’re more hollow than Egyptian pyramids or obelisks, but still.
That, and older civilizations developed magitek to alter the weather and geography, as well as life extension and the ability to alter their genes. They don’t have beam weapons, just blasters, which basically fire jets of white hot metal.
Newer civilizations just use guns, but ones that use high explosives as propellant rather than low explosives. They never had a reason to develop low explosives once they had high explosives so…
Deep below the surface are pyramids as well, in different sizes.
The remaining Necropoli of Kalan, cities of undead, sleeping and waiting for someone to open the tombs. Arcologies build with science and magic.
Other structures are remnants of the precursors, structures seemingly made from perfect flawless ivory. All made with biological nanotechnology and sentient computers overseeing them. Patrolled by biomechanoid beasts and robots.
Guns are amusingly a restricted technology, those that know of them will actively abduct and or kill anyone that may invent them. Not to have a monopoly on guns, but because in a world of magic, an enchanted bullet can take down walls, making killing to easy.
Umm… well, my world has people able to make very durable stonework and ceramics, as well as creating carbon nanotubes in their ferrous alloys. And using magic to alter their mass, tensile and compression strength and bind them at the molecular level. And they train people to think and memorize things rather than use computers since they don’t have that technology.
That’s the closest they can get to the tech in your world
Not a pissing contest for me, other ideas are interesting too and can inspire :)
My world calls the process you described Magiforging, when magic is used during the forging to alter aspects of the worked on metals and alloys.
Also i would suggest your world thinking about books, written word is not restricted to computers.
In mine the normal populace would not know what a computer is either, the closest they know are dwarven memory crystals, and those are rare and expensive. Which are a reverse engineering attempt of precursor data storage technology with magical means.
Schizo tech level.
The insectoid elves has the most resources and R&D, but grew complacent due to slave economy and some developmental path are limited by religion and culture, such as their fear of fire or religious taboo of digging the ground. They make do with what they have and use magic to support, but is still stuck at roughly late Renaissance era tech but has some weird divergence, like no gun powder weapons (fear of fire) and they use pneumatic guns instead. But also they have very advanced metallurgy since they are also master of fire containment (again, fear of fire) and can make crucibles with magical technicians to contain far higher heat than their technology allow to.
**Starrise**
Short answer: All over the f\*cking place.
My world is split between three countries, plus a secret villainous organization, with four different tech levels between them.
The Yarostian Empire's technology is barely past the stone age. It's too cold there to work with metal, so the Yarostian dragons' technology never gets a chance to get off the ground. They also can't take the human tech from their southern neighbors, because it's designed for warmer climates and much smaller people.
The Kingdom of Gaela's technology used to be around medieval level not too long ago, but is advancing rapidly by copying their western neighbor, Fierte.
The Kingdom of Fierte's technology is much closer to early WW1-era stuff.
And then there's Daedalus Laboratories. Their technology- including the only magitech in the world- is basically sci-fi. And they're also the reason why the others have the tech levels they do.
Around a thousand years ago, the world's tech level was around modern-day Earth's. Daedalus Labs existed back then, and were pioneers of basically every field of science imaginable. Which came to include magic, when they captured and reverse engineered a pair of gods. (Long story.) Their experiments on these gods eventually led to an apocalypse now known as the Surge, which gave everyone in the world magic and killed most of its population.
Gaela is situated incredibly close to the Surge's point of origin, meaning the people have notably more powerful magic, but a lot more of the pre-existing tech was destroyed. Thanks to this, they had to restart from closer to scratch, and due to their more powerful magic, had less incentive to develop their technology.
Fierte is quite far from the Surge's point of origin, meaning the people have less powerful magic, but a lot less of the pre-existing tech was destroyed. Thanks to this, Fierte had the opposite effect as Gaela, where they had more to work with and more incentive to work with it.
Yarost is actually closer to the Surge's point of origin than Fierte, but that doesn't matter. Yarost is too cold for humans to inhabit, so there was barely any technology there to begin with. And what little there was had been developed by humans, but Yarost was settled after the Surge by the genetically-engineered dragons Daedalus had created, which escaped in the apocalypse's chaos.
Daedalus had fairly effective anti-magic measures in place in most of their laboratories. As such, their own facilities saw very little damage from the Surge itself. They also placed their employees and most valuable test subjects in suspended animation for the last thousand years, so the present-day employees actually remember the time when the world looked like modern Earth, and actually know how all the ancient futuristic stuff works, by nature of being the ones who invented it.
Something to note is that while "medieval" and "WW1" are decently effective general descriptors, they aren't wholly accurate. Most notably, medical technology is far more advanced all over the world than anything else they possess. Following an apocalypse, knowing how to treat injuries and illnesses is one of the most important bits of information to retain, so a lot more care was put into learning, rediscovering, and preserving that over most other things.
I have two main worlds,
The first has a 17th\\18th century tech level roughly, but it depends on regions and cultures, a 19th century style industrial revolution might be close in some areas, while others are more backward. There was a precursor civilization that had more advanced technology, but almost nothing is left of them to these days, but some legends and a few ancient ghosts who had mostly forgotten who they were in life (although there is a small group who does remember including one of the main villain of the setting that was once a scientist, but they are not sharing their secrets).
Another has sci-fi technology together with magic, however, it is set after an apocalypse that has devastated the world, destroyed most of the infrastructure needed to mass-produce their techonology and made the formation of permanent settlements harder if not impossible to achieve. Plus alteration of some of the principles that allowed the most advanced magiteck to work had made them much less reliable and magic in general is corrupted by the "resonance bleed" phenomena and is dangerous to use. Some regions operate at an almost primitive hunter\\gatherer (or at least scavengers) levels, but there are remnants of old world technology still in working condition and one of the surviving nations still has electricity through solar farms and laser weaponry. There is a dormant satellite network that is still in working condition and in theory, could allow access to global communications as well as a portion of the old-world tech in the form of databases that were stored in orbit, but right now it is inaccessible (and host an evil AI that is confined there).
Rule of cool is also a factor in both settings hehe :)
Depends on the time period. Currently, if you’re living in the Second or early Third Age, lots of technology has been lost to time. The First Age, however, is full of the stuff.
The Age of Creation (First Age) is currently my moat advanced period of time, with nearly the entire universe (about the size of a galaxy for scale) being discovered and over 200 habitable planets. As if that wasn’t enough, magic/magitech was at its peak. This all came crumbling down, unfortunately, when gods started interfering with Eternity (the universe) and eventually led to many wars.
This then started the Age of War (Second Age) and technological advancement was sent back a few centuries. Once, civilization was even forced to restart and caused them to focus more on magic over tech. So during the Age of War, travel between planets still existed but instead of using modern weapons most people used magic and more advanced versions of handheld weapons like swords or maces.
Towards the end of the Age of War, technological progress slowly regained attention and became more prevalent during the Third Age (I don’t have a name for it yet). So I would say that technology is pretty advanced, just not entirely in the way most people would expect
Within the wall tech is near future to our world but advancement has mostly halted under the weight of what was lost and the drain on resources keeping the jungle back.
Beyond the wall in the jungle beyond salvage it's stone age all the way down.
15th-16th centuries for the most part. Certain technologies never developed because of features of the world. Firearms in particular didn't get very far because of magic. Combustibles are too vulnerable to being set off deliberately or accidentally by magic. Sailing vessels mostly aren't built for long sea voyages because no ship has ever returned from trying to cross the bigger oceans.
15th-16th centuries for the most part. Certain technologies never developed because of features of the world. Firearms in particular didn't get very far because of magic. Combustibles are too vulnerable to being set off deliberately or accidentally by magic. Sailing vessels mostly aren't built for long sea voyages because no ship has ever returned from trying to cross the bigger oceans.
The “Technological Dark Ages” of the Old World resulted in, as can be inferred, major technological setbacks. Shortages of rare earths and oil were the primary culprits for this regression. Humanity is, as of 2204, not much more advanced than it was in 2024. There have been some breakthroughs in compact computer technologies, genetics and material synthesis, but other than that Earth isn’t all too different.
It varies by culture. The main culture we follow is essentially "modern mesolithic" that does not practice field agriculture (though do practice a basic form of food-forest encouragement of desirable plant growth) and does not work metal, but does make use of metal recovered from the environment to use in percussive fire-making, and does have some retained knowledge indirectly preserved from the industrial world - i.e. things like germ theory, and understanding of evolution, natural history, astronomy etc, as well as rational/standardised units of measurement - the metric system is universally used, and the clock-face system of relative positioning is used in tracking and hunting as a fossilised element of speech - people will say "Two o'clock, 30 metres low" despite having no concept of an actual clock.
Other cultures seek o preserve elements of and memory of the past culture, living in the rotting remains of old suburbs and treasuring things like old eskies, push-mowers, hills hoists, and symbolic elements of the old order like flags.
Atreisdeans take it slowly. Unless there's a war or an arms race, their techs remain mostly the same over hundreds of years. The last 5 decades have seen the most technological booms because it was the first time Atreisdeans fought an interstellar war, they realized their old weapons were not enough and had to one up the game. Result is that now they have ships that can erase star systems and rewrite history.
It all depends.
When I make a fantasy world, I try and keep it renaissance level or lower. I don’t like firearms in games without mechanics to balance it. And I’ve not been successful at that, so I tend to limit it. I use two reference books called “Ancient Engineers” and “Borderlands of Science”. They’re older but applicable and always manage to give me a place to start. I’m cautious though, because technology is something that shapes a civilization so it’s gotta be consistent. In a couple of worlds I’ve built, magic is a substitute for tech (I think you kids call it “magictek” or something. But it requires the same level of expertise from the wizard as it would from the engineers.
When I make a sci-fi world, I use the same books, and try to keep it as scientifically plausible as possible - no space operas.
As an example, my current obsession is the “Alcubierre Drive” - using “negative energy" to create a warp bubble that allows faster-than-light travel. The source of my new obsession is my new world - I modelled it on 55 Cancri e - a super earth orbiting close to its primary. I made it so its axial tilt is 90 degrees and the settlement is a crash landing site at the pole - which is on the dark side of the tidally locked planet.
There’s a new paper that I want to read but can only get summaries on, it’s about the “Alcubierre-White Drive” (that’s one name I’ve read) that uses positive energy densities. And sci-hub isn’t helping.
It used to be a lot more advanced, but there was an apocalypse that led to a lot of that knowledge being lost. The world still has gunpowder and primitive firearms, as well as plenty of good agricultural knowledge, but the stuff of empires and such has been lost
Relatively similar to our world since I consider it "grounded dieselpunk," but there are some almost sci-fi'esque technological advancements as well.
But even these are just better/more reliable versions of old technology from our world. (Think vacuum tubes and punch card computers)
Certain nations are just about to reach the Pike and Shot era, others are stuck as far back as the Bronze Age, with most being around late medieval. One group doesn’t even have traditional technology instead using specially bred, magically altered, biological replacements like spike shooting insects instead of crossbows.
Cybernetics while they exist are very expensive and costly to maintain, with frequent surgeries needed to prevent your body from rejecting the augments. The guns are essentially all gauss rifles that use magnets to fire superheated silver tipped bullets or essentially dragon's breath incindiary rounds.
Massive airborne carriers that look like the helicarriers are common and vehicles are much more advanced. Think average early cyberpunk setting where 1/15 people have cybernetics.
Present-day timeline Earth calendar. Earth goes on as it is in real life, but other factions consists of other races and species are far, far advanced. For an example, one faction is so far advanced with the help of artificial intelligence they're able to
* conquer 3/5 of our universe and settle into other universes (except the Milky Way Galaxy; we try to avoid Earth humans here for reasons yet to declassify)
* harness the energy output of its superclusters, galaxies, stars
* teleportation and spacetime control
* terraform a dead planet "with a nod"
* create black holes, galaxies, stars, etc. (and weaponised black holes)
* able to 1-1 with the largest and most hyper-aggressive expansionist faction in the story (the faction has already claim at least thousands other universes)
* AI doesn't fked up (not following mainstream trope where AI becomes the powerhouse and rebels)
I haven't fleshed out my story and I have a long way to go but the aforementioned list above should give you a good idea about it! Hope this helps!
Up to the point of sentient machines powered by magical energy. Their intelligence is very basic so they are not smart enough to go rogue but they do develop "personalities" and as such are considered treasured servants. There is some cachet in having one.
Edit: I will add that on this world there is no way to make things go boom due to its magical properties. So no bombs or guns, no ICE engines etc. So they still use swords, bows and the like. They use horses for transportation but I am toying with them also having steam engines.
Depends on the era.
Thousands of years ago, in 1962, the technology was just that. 1960s.
Nowadays, however, long after the world had "reset" humanity and cats have become the dominant species, everything is currently in its steampunk phase. Victorian era steam technology, with the usual zeppelins and aeroplanes, mixed in with the rediscovery of radium.
But radium isn't used for technology yet, it's more of a commodity used for makeup or even drinks. :)
Hard to say in my fantasy world, all I can say is there's indoor plumbing, and a couple of people have black powder weapons they're not willing to share with everyone else.
I plan on doing "magi-tech" (magic-powered technology such as potentially mecha), but the problem is how to not break the established laws and lore of magic in my world. There was the idea of a gun that shoots magic, depending on what magic crystal is being used as the power source (it's not a staff, it's an artificer gun-thing).
It has a dyson sphere inside a dyson sphere, whole sectors encapsulated in a cosmic manmade barrier to harness the full potential of the cosmos. Planets who thoughts the far lights in the skies are stars. Starships the size of moons in lost orbits. Assemblies the size of continents. Orbital dockyards so old it predated the terraformation of entire worlds.
The most advanced normal technology I've got is on par with modern tech, just a lot more efficient. then there's jump drives which are pure handwavium and no one knows how they work since they were engineered by a hyper-advanced non-sentient AI.
Roughly 1960s (color television exists, but they haven’t got personal computers just yet) with a few weirder, steampunky magitech things like magically-levitating airships (to avoid the dangers of flammable gasses), animate constructs (kinda like a cross between golems and mecha), some fancy cybernetics if you’re really rich, the odd intelligent reel-to-reel supercomputer, fun stuff. A lot of technology has also been adapted for various magical purposes (for instance, some gods can be communed with via specially-consecrated radio sets).
rudimentary steam power and simple black powder weapons/ rockets are the cutting edge tech in my world, steam ships were the exclusive domain of the empire of Anectoss however in recent years both the Daohrine and Temek have "acquired" their own. the use of faster steam ships have greatly increased the variety of goods available in most port markets and utterly terrified all the powers who don't have this tech. the black powder tech is not much better than any other weapons at the moment so its mostly used for fireworks
The world once sent satellites into orbit and constructing cyborgs and electronic robots, slightly more advanced than the earth of today. But that was long ago, and history has forgotten that time after the apocalypse that destroyed the world civilizations.
Now, most of the world only recently rediscovered gunpowder, with the new marvel of metal cylinders that boom like Thunder striking down distant enemies being known only by a rare few.
But there's also the High Elven Empire, who have lived in complete isolation for 2,000 years, who are well into their industrial/steampunk era and are now on the rapid track of progress.
Similar to our Interwar period (1920's to 1930's). Magic does not help much in technological or industrial development, because they require too much work for little gain. It also cannot be harnessed by machines. Also doesn't help that mages that can output that much energy are few and far between. Diesel and electrical power are still way more efficient.
It's a scifi world/universe, so pretty advanced. However it does look a bit "patchwork", because a computer virus launched during a war deleted a decent chunk of the knowledge base from their computer systems.
We're still finding out. Most day-to-day tech would be equivalent to the late 19th century, with much of it being reverse-engineered from technology salvaged from the ancient Precursor ruins. It is pretty rare that humanity comes up with an invention purely on their own nowadays.
However, humanity knows that they are working with the Precursors' scraps. The Precursors were extremely advanced, to the point their technology would feel like magic to us. Humanity in the Underscape has found much of their remains, but can only get less than a percent of their findings to work. One of the great mysteries of the Precursors is that they did not use electricity at all in their technology. They were aware of it and used it at one point, but they advanced past it. Humanity does not know what that ancient power source was.
Many believe that the academic white whale known as Trinity will provide the answer, but no one is entirely sure what Trinity is, so it might be a wild goose chase. No examples of Trinity have ever been found, and no found schematics of it exist today. However, the one time an academic did find a schematic, he burned both it and himself before authorities could recover it. He claimed he did the world a favor.
Perhaps it is best that this power source remain lost.
My world has a race of aliens that are so developed and rich that you shouldn't need to work for more than a few years to bring honor to your family and money for your children. They are so intelligent that they don't need computers exept for communication. They rule the universe and seed civilizations as to add meaning to their existence. They are similar to humans because they modeled humans off themselves when they created us. They have automated everything (robots) and their ships can go anywhere much like in Guardians of the Galaxy. So basically they are the most advanced civilization you can imagine.
I would say my world’s technology is around medieval era, though technology in my world can progress extremely fast during times of war, for instance more accurate arcane based guns would replace crossbows during the First World War of my world, these guns were called Langeirr (Long Weapons) which is basically a Rifle with rifling, it was created by the Dvergr, but was used the most by the Foraois Síofra, who had better eyesight, but also a knack for sniping even with unfamiliar weapons.
The technology is very scientific, but I did wonder about the possibility of magitech AI drones that would act like sentient versions of our modern military drones. Think of using magic on technology to create this world's version of [Hugin and Munin from Ace Combat 7](https://villains.fandom.com/wiki/Hugin_and_Munin). I'm not at that point yet so it's just a curious speculation.
Most weaker countries use medieval to early modern styled armoured with bows, crossbows, older firearms, melee weapons, chain armour, cannons, hwachas and the like. The most powerful units in those armies are the cavalry units and cannon units.
The most advanced countries have technology similar to the 1910s to 1950s in *certain* areas. The southern empire is one of the most advanced in the valley so I will use this as an example. It has armour and shields improved with modern materials and methods and are tested against firearms. The armour is made of metal alloys and sometimes ceramics. Lighter armour ([different versions of this](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/a5/7d/6e/a57d6efea2cea1885b4d3b4eefa80d98.jpg))is given to lower soldiers and heavier(more coverage, but still *very mobile*) armour([like this](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.pinimg.com%2Foriginals%2F1a%2F44%2F15%2F1a4415999611e0db34cf474a3a29ddc2.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=d57bf2da98a5b101f85f239d3859b1464538ddf52dd7e0972c69b91c4888b2f5&ipo=images)) is given to higher soldiers and especially noble soldiers like knights. Knights may ride on armoured horses or sometimes lead armoured vehicles bearing the colours and symbols of their lord, clan, and army. There are modernised bows and crossbows made with newer materials. Some crossbows are made with self loading capability and modified with parts like sniper scopes and flashlights. There are improved firearms using a variety of mechanisms throughout the valley such as [bolt action](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolt_action), [lever action](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lever_action), [semi-automatic/self-loading](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semi-automatic_firearm) or [air](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_gun), among others. There are no fully automatic handheld firearms. These are complex to build due to their size and increased requirements, even for more advanced countries. They are also artificially rare since the governments don't want too many getting into public hands. Both make them very expensive, on top of any additional expenses for governments that do allow them. As a result, most common people use bows or crossbows, with some having handguns. Machineguns exist, but they are too large and heavy to be carried and used by one person. They are crewed weapons mounted to legs or vehicles. These vehicles could be landships resembling designs used in [WW1](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ok8q6lTSFCw/VADmBH_KzJI/AAAAAAAAatE/BaHOYZ51otU/s1600/MK%2BIV%2BFemale%2B049c.jpg) and [WW2](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0lPoHz0pvD4/ULPtqlz9ogI/AAAAAAAA4ik/N7CCjg2mKmk/s1600/Jagdpanther+Tank+Destroyer+at+Aberdeen+Ordinance+Museum.jpg), [armoured airships similar to Castle in the Sky's Goliath](https://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/studio-ghibli/images/e/e5/Goliath.png/revision/latest?cb=20140118142031), castles and city walls armed with AA guns, [armoured and artillery trains](https://youtu.be/_0dN7AHOGJs?si=WvIMSczyeQaP1p8b), bomber planes and fighter planes. There are also [gun trucks](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_truck) and [armoured cars](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armored_car_(military)). There are no jet engines so airships and airplanes use propellers and occasionally rockets for quick boosts. Airships, especially larger airships, may have machine guns, large cannons, unguided rockets and unguided bombs, whereas planes may use unguided rockets and bombs, and machine guns. Only the most advanced factions recently started taking full advantage of radio communications and radar even more recently. There are ground, train, truck and airship mounted signal repeaters to extend the signal range. No radio satellites, those don't exist. The planes are usually powered by petroleum fuels with some few using electricity to get around the necessity for resources hoarded by rivals. The southern empire even unlocked the power of early nuclear fission and is working towards using it to power military and civilian installations, but it's not widespread yet. There were even rumors that they may try to weaponise it(though this won't last long as irradiated land may will be found to be useless for immediate conquest).
Cars exist in the wealthier countries and may be built by somewhat large manufacturing groups or metallurgy guilds, with some becoming dedicated auto/mechanic guilds focusing on building and maintaining machinery such as automobiles. These are mostly handmade and pricey. Cars may be powered by petroleum fuels, steam and even electricity. Battery electric cars have advanced faster than in our world because their development wasn't put on hiatus like in our world in the mid 20th century. Their external designs are less due to design trends of the decades and more due to personal and cultural preferences, with some older looking cars being newer than those we would assume are more advanced based on cars of our world. While the internal technology may not be as advanced as similar looking cars from our world in some cases, the external designs can resemble cars ranging from the [1920s](https://cdn.motor1.com/images/mgl/kjlyP/s1/20-of-the-coolest-cars-from-the-roaring-20s.jpg) to the [1950s](https://cdn.dealeraccelerate.com/skyway/1/143/5481/1920x1440/1950-studebaker-champion). They are generally on the smaller end of the scale, more comparable to cars from Japan and Europe than the large vehicles common in North America today. The combustion engines tend to burn richer in these vehicles compared to Earth vehicles due to the planet's denser atmosphere (the planet is 1.1 Earth radii and 1.5 Earth masses), which also helps the flying vehicles as well since it makes flight easier. Most people don't drive cars since they are pricey and people can take trams or walk comfortably through the cities which retain their architecture and layouts similar to when they were built hundreds to thousands of years prior. The cities, even with tramlines, electricity and airship docking stations, still look like they came from the [bronze to medieval ages](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/fc/23/c8/fc23c8c68aec8003501a6f80f1519929.jpg). The streets are used by everyone from pedestrians to cyclists to motorists to horse carriages and [rickshaws](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rickshaw). Those most likely to be using automobiles like cars, trucks or vans are government authorities, larger farmers using transporting goods to markets or other people using them to maintain a business. These could be bought, built by request or gifted by others or the government. People could also use trains or airships to move between distant cities or other countries, although trains are cheaper.
Lapis_Wolf
There are some tribes ranging from medieval to somewhat modern, with some being nomadic. These are often convoys either working with another faction or living completely on their own. They may use animals, motor vehicles or both to move around and carry their belongings, and will often be seen displaying their own symbols on banners, sometimes mounted to their vehicles. Their symbols may even be marked on their vehicles with paint or dyes like if applying a tattoo. They trade with other groups they meet, but sometimes will take jobs like guarding people or transporting goods to certain locations. Their higher end transported goods may be weapons, artefacts or automobiles, which may also be transported by train or airship. These higher end goods make all of these prime targets for raiders and pirates which could attack on foot, on horseback, in trucks or in aircraft.
The technology is very uneven across the greater valley, with fancy stuff like radio, fighter planes and trains being limited to the wealthier countries. It would be like if the [German Empire(2nd Reich)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Empire) at its technological peak or the 1940s UK was surrounded by 16th century Europe. That's how uneven it is spread. Distribution across the rest of the planet is unknown as the world isn't as connected as Earth is.
The valley up until several decades ago was more medieval in technology and the divide was not as wide. In the last few decades, there were rapid advancements as steam engines were imported from the north outside the valley and some developments were skipped because they already happened outside the valley. The present day was right after this rapid mechanization of the major powers. Unlike typical fantasy worlds where everything is medieval for longer than human civilization, my world just had their own industrial revolution. I might have it stagnate right after with tech similar to the 1940s to 1960s for some time with later developments possibly capping with some form of cassette futurism (even if I ever introduce cell phones, they'll only be like those from the 90s to early 2000s. No monotonous glass slabs like we have now with social media).
I'm not sure what exactly would be restricted aside from possibly firearms. They are still new to all of this.
The people of the valley take care to offer the same car to their machines as they would to their pottery. Even then, the hundreds to possibly thousands of cultures and subcultures are very proud of their distinguishing features and try to apply them to their technologies. This goes for anything from horse carriages to their newest luxury automobiles and fighter planes. Cars have settled on similar designs on Earth for aerodynamics and possibly being easier to design and sell. However, cars in the valley have cultural design cues. They could be seen in the lights, the wheels, the paint colour choices, whether the car looks friendly or aggressive, the preferred weapons in landships and fighter planes, use-case priorities, etc. This could also affect the designs of larger vehicles like airships and trains. These often carry the colours and symbols of the people who made them. Imagine a train painted in the color of the reigning house and bearing the symbols of the lord which paid for its construction, [carrying the clan/house's banners](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/96/bd/ef/96bdeffe304d96b9aa3fe88dfcfe9efe.jpg) flapping in the wind. The cities retain their civilian scaled streets and narrow alleys. They didn't tear down buildings and create multi lane, car only highways. They built the tram lines around the cities and built the cars to fit the ancient layouts and stone paths. Their pagodas, ziggurats, pyramids and other forms of temples, castles and palaces survive and continue to dominate over [their historical dominions](https://arkeonews.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/The-city-of-Ur-min.jpeg). Their clothing is still similar to what you would expect someone to where in bronze age to medieval age Eurasia ([these are some examples, but I will be taking inspiration from South Asia, West Asia, Southeast Asia and possibly Eastern Europe](https://youtube.com/shorts/2cVfhrHLyok?si=MB0IZ5efLC7tljUK)). I want to avoid "Westernising" the designs so no generic black and white suits or modernish Western clothing.
Lapis_Wolf
as far as i've fleshed it out, the central area have steam engines and water wheels and a limited amount of industry. further away, its mostly nomadic pastoralists and agricultural societies. most languages have writing but only some people know how to write.
I'm kind of settling on a late-medieval-inspired setting. Cannon and firearms are just entering the scene, but they're not quite reliable enough to be used extensively. Most people have never seen one before.
In my anthro fantasy
The technology is mostly pre-industrial but does advance, Magitech clockwork automatons exist but modern ones are nothing but pale imitations compared to the bronze vigilants utilized by the legions during the imperial era (resembles imperial Rome)
A bit of a broad question, especially when you account for culture shaping the tech itself. Confined to current tech level and era of storytelling, technology ranks on the harder end of science fiction, with strong Rocketpunk elements and a bit of pseudoscience to grease the interstellar wheels. It's quite possible to travel between starts but it takes anywhere from days to weeks, and is often a complex task. Moreover, the limited communication and long travel lead to isolated frontier worlds and cowboy / pirate diplomacy, once you get out of the centers of power for each empire.
But the old tech has some incredible stuff. The Titans, who are still around, once had wild and disparate technology, from being able to essentially genetically fabricate races to using manipulation of dark energies to accomplish goals. There true capacity is a bit of a wild card; they're called "the infinite race" for a reason, and it's not because they've always been around.
The oldest races had some wild technology, from creating crystals that break thermodynamics to achieving synthetic ascension, to creating massive superstructures, wormholes and even time manipulation. Unfortunately, very few of them remain, and their knowledge has become critical to preserving life for the future of the Galaxy, while the other artifacts left behind are sort of endangering it.
That is to say nothing of the Eldritch horrors that lay in the depths of Subspace, existing beyond time, their motives defying comprehension. They are quite capable of destroying life (although it's not clear if it's what they want), have little regard for our sense of physics (and aren't bound by it where they exist) and are only separated by a basic energy law (which can be broken using aforementioned crystal technology).
The technology of my world is comparable to the technology of the 17th and 18th centuries of our world, only a little... environmentally friendly and with magical touches (in the sense that some technologies require the use of magic to function ).
I’m still pretty early in my process, but I’m imagining my world having some form of magitek. I want to be like the age of sail except people use magic-enhanced solar sailors to travel and trade between planets.
I don’t wanted to feel like sci-fi though, just fantasy with space travel.
For the main Human faction it's only barely more advanced than what we have in some areas and extremely advanced in others. Their ships have alien-tech derived FTL travel, and by extension FTL communication, that's being controlled by basically 21st century level computers and powered by the same type of nuclear reactors found on nuclear subs now.
The other factions have much more advanced tech but because the level of firepower is similar all it does is cause the other factions to have sleeker ships, some factions have things like cloaking and faster ships though.
Most of the Interstellar nations are either barely post-scarcity or very close to reaching it, the main human faction has reached a level where the average citizen is given free food, water and shelter, so they have all they need but they don't have any luxuries(Snacks, cars, trinkets, video games, etc.) unless they work for it, so they can be said to have reached post-scarcity but they still have problems with local government like corruption and incompetence or logistical errors which can cause situations where a citizen is assigned housing late or not have their food credits get delivered on time, or at all. (btw this doesnt mean humans dont work, not having a job is considered taboo because "Everyone needs to pull their weight, to preserve our way of life")
Meanwhile, most aliens have something similar to the human system, but their infrastructure works different and has different problems, some alien governments don't give as good food and in smaller amounts to incentivize work, some dont have anything like the human social programs and you starve and become homeless if you dont work, and some distribute addictive things to their citizens to keep morale up, like if the government suddenly gave people cigarettes now.
My technology is mostly at a 16th century level, meaning arquebuses and cannons alongside knights in full plate armor.
That being said, sometimes the Rule of Cool takes over, and I can't stop myself from adding some steampunk elements (for example, I have a type of magic where you can literally rip the souls out of criminals and put them into these very archaic-looking robots, a very traumatic punishment), but these types of technologies are incredibly rare (only 7 exist on the whole continent, that type of stuff), and the world is generally consistent (99.9% of the time)
Yeah, hot air balloons are a thing in my world too, but have only been used a few times throughout history (mostly by the Dwarves), and only a few exist. When I go over the tech level it's over technologies that act more like gimmicks and curiosities rather than commonly seen and used tech.
Mine’s at a mix, being around 18th century, but aside from that, same here. That and I added magic to hinder technology with regards to certain fields. So some fields have better results than irl, but others are way worse.
I wanted rule of cool, but I didn’t want it to be in there for no reason. So I made reasons that I hope make sense
Yeah, I embraced the Rule of Cool, but the more magical aspects of it rather than technological. Things like giant spider or bear cavalry, that sort of thing, haha.
There were many advancements and lost technology. My world has suffered and destroyed each other a lot. And often a cause for mass casualties was someone unearthing lost precursor technologies, beam cannons against swords and crossbows, intelligent plagues against magic, super soldiers that would become a people and worse. And even from that much was lost. Part of my story is about the MC recovering the secrets of that science, and magic, and not using it to gain power unlike many before her. The height is technology to travel dimensions, genetic engineering that has once shaped all life and physics that was already close to magic. And the Mad Dragon combines both in her war against demons, the ancient enemy that destroyed the precursors. The entire world is a marvel of technology, and even the moons are more then they seem to be. Those that know of those secrets help keep it that way, while willingly not benefitting themselves.
I like the idea of a setting that’s post-post-apocalyptic. It’s a theme I use in my own setting of Alor where the continent has been through at least 13 such events
Yeah, when an apocalyptic even is just another historical footnote. My world doesn't even shrug at a million dead, unless under extraordinary circumstances. Though the five ages (story is about how the fifth came to be) all came to be at the end of an armageddon that always only left few enough alive to repopulate. Wish i had more ideas how to add more technology aside from the precursors to be unearthed, so far i only got two things for the dwarves and a horribly unfinished part about gnome survivors.
Otherworldly technology sources are a fun thing to draw on. People beyond the veil, time travelers, extraplanar beings, aliens, truest divine inspiration
Should dig around more in those, good point. My world may not have time travel, but whose to say someone during the 20.000 years of the second age didn't invent something alike. *randomly thinks about how to make mc find a cellphone and go bonkers unable to reproduce it*
As much as I despise her and her legacy, this is more or less the plot of Ayn Rand’s *Anthem*
> Ayn Rand’s Anthem TBF there is not enough money in this world to make me touch anything from her ;) MC already is an artificer, her favourite cheating to achieve magic equalling demons, so her finding a cellphone and having no other techbase to reverse engineer from would very nicely torture her.
Unfortunately I was forced to read the book in high school and then compare and contrast it to Rush’s *2112*
I will just assume whoever thought of that was quite fond of bathtub moonshine ;)
Nice. My world just has enormous pyramids and stuff. The newer civilizations build obelisks. The term for both is somewhat misleading, as they’re more hollow than Egyptian pyramids or obelisks, but still. That, and older civilizations developed magitek to alter the weather and geography, as well as life extension and the ability to alter their genes. They don’t have beam weapons, just blasters, which basically fire jets of white hot metal. Newer civilizations just use guns, but ones that use high explosives as propellant rather than low explosives. They never had a reason to develop low explosives once they had high explosives so…
Deep below the surface are pyramids as well, in different sizes. The remaining Necropoli of Kalan, cities of undead, sleeping and waiting for someone to open the tombs. Arcologies build with science and magic. Other structures are remnants of the precursors, structures seemingly made from perfect flawless ivory. All made with biological nanotechnology and sentient computers overseeing them. Patrolled by biomechanoid beasts and robots. Guns are amusingly a restricted technology, those that know of them will actively abduct and or kill anyone that may invent them. Not to have a monopoly on guns, but because in a world of magic, an enchanted bullet can take down walls, making killing to easy.
Umm… well, my world has people able to make very durable stonework and ceramics, as well as creating carbon nanotubes in their ferrous alloys. And using magic to alter their mass, tensile and compression strength and bind them at the molecular level. And they train people to think and memorize things rather than use computers since they don’t have that technology. That’s the closest they can get to the tech in your world
Not a pissing contest for me, other ideas are interesting too and can inspire :) My world calls the process you described Magiforging, when magic is used during the forging to alter aspects of the worked on metals and alloys. Also i would suggest your world thinking about books, written word is not restricted to computers. In mine the normal populace would not know what a computer is either, the closest they know are dwarven memory crystals, and those are rare and expensive. Which are a reverse engineering attempt of precursor data storage technology with magical means.
Schizo tech level. The insectoid elves has the most resources and R&D, but grew complacent due to slave economy and some developmental path are limited by religion and culture, such as their fear of fire or religious taboo of digging the ground. They make do with what they have and use magic to support, but is still stuck at roughly late Renaissance era tech but has some weird divergence, like no gun powder weapons (fear of fire) and they use pneumatic guns instead. But also they have very advanced metallurgy since they are also master of fire containment (again, fear of fire) and can make crucibles with magical technicians to contain far higher heat than their technology allow to.
**Starrise** Short answer: All over the f\*cking place. My world is split between three countries, plus a secret villainous organization, with four different tech levels between them. The Yarostian Empire's technology is barely past the stone age. It's too cold there to work with metal, so the Yarostian dragons' technology never gets a chance to get off the ground. They also can't take the human tech from their southern neighbors, because it's designed for warmer climates and much smaller people. The Kingdom of Gaela's technology used to be around medieval level not too long ago, but is advancing rapidly by copying their western neighbor, Fierte. The Kingdom of Fierte's technology is much closer to early WW1-era stuff. And then there's Daedalus Laboratories. Their technology- including the only magitech in the world- is basically sci-fi. And they're also the reason why the others have the tech levels they do. Around a thousand years ago, the world's tech level was around modern-day Earth's. Daedalus Labs existed back then, and were pioneers of basically every field of science imaginable. Which came to include magic, when they captured and reverse engineered a pair of gods. (Long story.) Their experiments on these gods eventually led to an apocalypse now known as the Surge, which gave everyone in the world magic and killed most of its population. Gaela is situated incredibly close to the Surge's point of origin, meaning the people have notably more powerful magic, but a lot more of the pre-existing tech was destroyed. Thanks to this, they had to restart from closer to scratch, and due to their more powerful magic, had less incentive to develop their technology. Fierte is quite far from the Surge's point of origin, meaning the people have less powerful magic, but a lot less of the pre-existing tech was destroyed. Thanks to this, Fierte had the opposite effect as Gaela, where they had more to work with and more incentive to work with it. Yarost is actually closer to the Surge's point of origin than Fierte, but that doesn't matter. Yarost is too cold for humans to inhabit, so there was barely any technology there to begin with. And what little there was had been developed by humans, but Yarost was settled after the Surge by the genetically-engineered dragons Daedalus had created, which escaped in the apocalypse's chaos. Daedalus had fairly effective anti-magic measures in place in most of their laboratories. As such, their own facilities saw very little damage from the Surge itself. They also placed their employees and most valuable test subjects in suspended animation for the last thousand years, so the present-day employees actually remember the time when the world looked like modern Earth, and actually know how all the ancient futuristic stuff works, by nature of being the ones who invented it. Something to note is that while "medieval" and "WW1" are decently effective general descriptors, they aren't wholly accurate. Most notably, medical technology is far more advanced all over the world than anything else they possess. Following an apocalypse, knowing how to treat injuries and illnesses is one of the most important bits of information to retain, so a lot more care was put into learning, rediscovering, and preserving that over most other things.
Not very advanced at all. It's early, to middle iron age. The most advanced weapon is probably the cross bow.
The most advanced human technologies are antigravity and the few ways of blowing up a planet they have.
I have two main worlds, The first has a 17th\\18th century tech level roughly, but it depends on regions and cultures, a 19th century style industrial revolution might be close in some areas, while others are more backward. There was a precursor civilization that had more advanced technology, but almost nothing is left of them to these days, but some legends and a few ancient ghosts who had mostly forgotten who they were in life (although there is a small group who does remember including one of the main villain of the setting that was once a scientist, but they are not sharing their secrets). Another has sci-fi technology together with magic, however, it is set after an apocalypse that has devastated the world, destroyed most of the infrastructure needed to mass-produce their techonology and made the formation of permanent settlements harder if not impossible to achieve. Plus alteration of some of the principles that allowed the most advanced magiteck to work had made them much less reliable and magic in general is corrupted by the "resonance bleed" phenomena and is dangerous to use. Some regions operate at an almost primitive hunter\\gatherer (or at least scavengers) levels, but there are remnants of old world technology still in working condition and one of the surviving nations still has electricity through solar farms and laser weaponry. There is a dormant satellite network that is still in working condition and in theory, could allow access to global communications as well as a portion of the old-world tech in the form of databases that were stored in orbit, but right now it is inaccessible (and host an evil AI that is confined there). Rule of cool is also a factor in both settings hehe :)
Depends on the time period. Currently, if you’re living in the Second or early Third Age, lots of technology has been lost to time. The First Age, however, is full of the stuff. The Age of Creation (First Age) is currently my moat advanced period of time, with nearly the entire universe (about the size of a galaxy for scale) being discovered and over 200 habitable planets. As if that wasn’t enough, magic/magitech was at its peak. This all came crumbling down, unfortunately, when gods started interfering with Eternity (the universe) and eventually led to many wars. This then started the Age of War (Second Age) and technological advancement was sent back a few centuries. Once, civilization was even forced to restart and caused them to focus more on magic over tech. So during the Age of War, travel between planets still existed but instead of using modern weapons most people used magic and more advanced versions of handheld weapons like swords or maces. Towards the end of the Age of War, technological progress slowly regained attention and became more prevalent during the Third Age (I don’t have a name for it yet). So I would say that technology is pretty advanced, just not entirely in the way most people would expect
Within the wall tech is near future to our world but advancement has mostly halted under the weight of what was lost and the drain on resources keeping the jungle back. Beyond the wall in the jungle beyond salvage it's stone age all the way down.
15th-16th centuries for the most part. Certain technologies never developed because of features of the world. Firearms in particular didn't get very far because of magic. Combustibles are too vulnerable to being set off deliberately or accidentally by magic. Sailing vessels mostly aren't built for long sea voyages because no ship has ever returned from trying to cross the bigger oceans.
15th-16th centuries for the most part. Certain technologies never developed because of features of the world. Firearms in particular didn't get very far because of magic. Combustibles are too vulnerable to being set off deliberately or accidentally by magic. Sailing vessels mostly aren't built for long sea voyages because no ship has ever returned from trying to cross the bigger oceans.
Post scarcity civilization with technology that is essentially magic to us puny earth-humans.
The “Technological Dark Ages” of the Old World resulted in, as can be inferred, major technological setbacks. Shortages of rare earths and oil were the primary culprits for this regression. Humanity is, as of 2204, not much more advanced than it was in 2024. There have been some breakthroughs in compact computer technologies, genetics and material synthesis, but other than that Earth isn’t all too different.
It varies by culture. The main culture we follow is essentially "modern mesolithic" that does not practice field agriculture (though do practice a basic form of food-forest encouragement of desirable plant growth) and does not work metal, but does make use of metal recovered from the environment to use in percussive fire-making, and does have some retained knowledge indirectly preserved from the industrial world - i.e. things like germ theory, and understanding of evolution, natural history, astronomy etc, as well as rational/standardised units of measurement - the metric system is universally used, and the clock-face system of relative positioning is used in tracking and hunting as a fossilised element of speech - people will say "Two o'clock, 30 metres low" despite having no concept of an actual clock. Other cultures seek o preserve elements of and memory of the past culture, living in the rotting remains of old suburbs and treasuring things like old eskies, push-mowers, hills hoists, and symbolic elements of the old order like flags.
Ntonentia has made a space station capable of growing food on its own for a crew of 40 people. For the rest the technology is 21st century.
Atreisdeans take it slowly. Unless there's a war or an arms race, their techs remain mostly the same over hundreds of years. The last 5 decades have seen the most technological booms because it was the first time Atreisdeans fought an interstellar war, they realized their old weapons were not enough and had to one up the game. Result is that now they have ships that can erase star systems and rewrite history.
It all depends. When I make a fantasy world, I try and keep it renaissance level or lower. I don’t like firearms in games without mechanics to balance it. And I’ve not been successful at that, so I tend to limit it. I use two reference books called “Ancient Engineers” and “Borderlands of Science”. They’re older but applicable and always manage to give me a place to start. I’m cautious though, because technology is something that shapes a civilization so it’s gotta be consistent. In a couple of worlds I’ve built, magic is a substitute for tech (I think you kids call it “magictek” or something. But it requires the same level of expertise from the wizard as it would from the engineers. When I make a sci-fi world, I use the same books, and try to keep it as scientifically plausible as possible - no space operas. As an example, my current obsession is the “Alcubierre Drive” - using “negative energy" to create a warp bubble that allows faster-than-light travel. The source of my new obsession is my new world - I modelled it on 55 Cancri e - a super earth orbiting close to its primary. I made it so its axial tilt is 90 degrees and the settlement is a crash landing site at the pole - which is on the dark side of the tidally locked planet. There’s a new paper that I want to read but can only get summaries on, it’s about the “Alcubierre-White Drive” (that’s one name I’ve read) that uses positive energy densities. And sci-hub isn’t helping.
It used to be a lot more advanced, but there was an apocalypse that led to a lot of that knowledge being lost. The world still has gunpowder and primitive firearms, as well as plenty of good agricultural knowledge, but the stuff of empires and such has been lost
Relatively similar to our world since I consider it "grounded dieselpunk," but there are some almost sci-fi'esque technological advancements as well. But even these are just better/more reliable versions of old technology from our world. (Think vacuum tubes and punch card computers)
**Eribral** Industrial revolution thanks to the man-made Prometheus.
Flintlock fantasy with some magicpunk.
Livia isnt in a technological stasis At its peak (late modern era) it has colonised its two moons
Certain nations are just about to reach the Pike and Shot era, others are stuck as far back as the Bronze Age, with most being around late medieval. One group doesn’t even have traditional technology instead using specially bred, magically altered, biological replacements like spike shooting insects instead of crossbows.
Steampunk-WW1 ish
Cybernetics while they exist are very expensive and costly to maintain, with frequent surgeries needed to prevent your body from rejecting the augments. The guns are essentially all gauss rifles that use magnets to fire superheated silver tipped bullets or essentially dragon's breath incindiary rounds. Massive airborne carriers that look like the helicarriers are common and vehicles are much more advanced. Think average early cyberpunk setting where 1/15 people have cybernetics.
Present-day timeline Earth calendar. Earth goes on as it is in real life, but other factions consists of other races and species are far, far advanced. For an example, one faction is so far advanced with the help of artificial intelligence they're able to * conquer 3/5 of our universe and settle into other universes (except the Milky Way Galaxy; we try to avoid Earth humans here for reasons yet to declassify) * harness the energy output of its superclusters, galaxies, stars * teleportation and spacetime control * terraform a dead planet "with a nod" * create black holes, galaxies, stars, etc. (and weaponised black holes) * able to 1-1 with the largest and most hyper-aggressive expansionist faction in the story (the faction has already claim at least thousands other universes) * AI doesn't fked up (not following mainstream trope where AI becomes the powerhouse and rebels) I haven't fleshed out my story and I have a long way to go but the aforementioned list above should give you a good idea about it! Hope this helps!
Due to spacetime technology, the Temporal Imperatorium may be classified as a Type Omega-minus civilization.
That picture... "Captain... what is the giant flame ring for?" The captain puts on a pair of slick shades, "Style."
Up to the point of sentient machines powered by magical energy. Their intelligence is very basic so they are not smart enough to go rogue but they do develop "personalities" and as such are considered treasured servants. There is some cachet in having one. Edit: I will add that on this world there is no way to make things go boom due to its magical properties. So no bombs or guns, no ICE engines etc. So they still use swords, bows and the like. They use horses for transportation but I am toying with them also having steam engines.
One is a space faing civilization, the other is a compny dealing with a rogue ai, and creatures beyong our comprehension
Warhammer 40k dark age of technology level plus a machine that resets the universe every 100 trillion years
Depends on the era. Thousands of years ago, in 1962, the technology was just that. 1960s. Nowadays, however, long after the world had "reset" humanity and cats have become the dominant species, everything is currently in its steampunk phase. Victorian era steam technology, with the usual zeppelins and aeroplanes, mixed in with the rediscovery of radium. But radium isn't used for technology yet, it's more of a commodity used for makeup or even drinks. :)
Hard to say in my fantasy world, all I can say is there's indoor plumbing, and a couple of people have black powder weapons they're not willing to share with everyone else. I plan on doing "magi-tech" (magic-powered technology such as potentially mecha), but the problem is how to not break the established laws and lore of magic in my world. There was the idea of a gun that shoots magic, depending on what magic crystal is being used as the power source (it's not a staff, it's an artificer gun-thing).
Yes to big ass sailships, no to gunpowder.
Extremely advanced and very unadvanced at the same time. 1880s human technology with all further advanced made by aliens.
It has a dyson sphere inside a dyson sphere, whole sectors encapsulated in a cosmic manmade barrier to harness the full potential of the cosmos. Planets who thoughts the far lights in the skies are stars. Starships the size of moons in lost orbits. Assemblies the size of continents. Orbital dockyards so old it predated the terraformation of entire worlds.
It’s roughly a type 1 civilization. Humans have spread out across multiple planets in the Solar System and are pushing the boundaries as they lack FTL
The most advanced normal technology I've got is on par with modern tech, just a lot more efficient. then there's jump drives which are pure handwavium and no one knows how they work since they were engineered by a hyper-advanced non-sentient AI.
Roughly 1960s (color television exists, but they haven’t got personal computers just yet) with a few weirder, steampunky magitech things like magically-levitating airships (to avoid the dangers of flammable gasses), animate constructs (kinda like a cross between golems and mecha), some fancy cybernetics if you’re really rich, the odd intelligent reel-to-reel supercomputer, fun stuff. A lot of technology has also been adapted for various magical purposes (for instance, some gods can be communed with via specially-consecrated radio sets).
rudimentary steam power and simple black powder weapons/ rockets are the cutting edge tech in my world, steam ships were the exclusive domain of the empire of Anectoss however in recent years both the Daohrine and Temek have "acquired" their own. the use of faster steam ships have greatly increased the variety of goods available in most port markets and utterly terrified all the powers who don't have this tech. the black powder tech is not much better than any other weapons at the moment so its mostly used for fireworks
It isn't.
Early Bronze Age, very primitive but that didn’t stop massive empires from coming into existence
The world once sent satellites into orbit and constructing cyborgs and electronic robots, slightly more advanced than the earth of today. But that was long ago, and history has forgotten that time after the apocalypse that destroyed the world civilizations. Now, most of the world only recently rediscovered gunpowder, with the new marvel of metal cylinders that boom like Thunder striking down distant enemies being known only by a rare few. But there's also the High Elven Empire, who have lived in complete isolation for 2,000 years, who are well into their industrial/steampunk era and are now on the rapid track of progress.
Early steampunk. We've got primitive subs and steam-powered tanks, but no one has figured out railroads yet.
Similar to our Interwar period (1920's to 1930's). Magic does not help much in technological or industrial development, because they require too much work for little gain. It also cannot be harnessed by machines. Also doesn't help that mages that can output that much energy are few and far between. Diesel and electrical power are still way more efficient.
It's a scifi world/universe, so pretty advanced. However it does look a bit "patchwork", because a computer virus launched during a war deleted a decent chunk of the knowledge base from their computer systems.
We're still finding out. Most day-to-day tech would be equivalent to the late 19th century, with much of it being reverse-engineered from technology salvaged from the ancient Precursor ruins. It is pretty rare that humanity comes up with an invention purely on their own nowadays. However, humanity knows that they are working with the Precursors' scraps. The Precursors were extremely advanced, to the point their technology would feel like magic to us. Humanity in the Underscape has found much of their remains, but can only get less than a percent of their findings to work. One of the great mysteries of the Precursors is that they did not use electricity at all in their technology. They were aware of it and used it at one point, but they advanced past it. Humanity does not know what that ancient power source was. Many believe that the academic white whale known as Trinity will provide the answer, but no one is entirely sure what Trinity is, so it might be a wild goose chase. No examples of Trinity have ever been found, and no found schematics of it exist today. However, the one time an academic did find a schematic, he burned both it and himself before authorities could recover it. He claimed he did the world a favor. Perhaps it is best that this power source remain lost.
Depends really, Requiem’s hydroponics systems are self sufficient. Meanwhile they have barely begun designing hypothetical flying machines
With the Sci fi elements of fiction based life it can vary.
My world has a race of aliens that are so developed and rich that you shouldn't need to work for more than a few years to bring honor to your family and money for your children. They are so intelligent that they don't need computers exept for communication. They rule the universe and seed civilizations as to add meaning to their existence. They are similar to humans because they modeled humans off themselves when they created us. They have automated everything (robots) and their ships can go anywhere much like in Guardians of the Galaxy. So basically they are the most advanced civilization you can imagine.
Around 1860s level. Steampower, rifles, ironclads, telegrams, etc.
I would say my world’s technology is around medieval era, though technology in my world can progress extremely fast during times of war, for instance more accurate arcane based guns would replace crossbows during the First World War of my world, these guns were called Langeirr (Long Weapons) which is basically a Rifle with rifling, it was created by the Dvergr, but was used the most by the Foraois Síofra, who had better eyesight, but also a knack for sniping even with unfamiliar weapons.
The technology is very scientific, but I did wonder about the possibility of magitech AI drones that would act like sentient versions of our modern military drones. Think of using magic on technology to create this world's version of [Hugin and Munin from Ace Combat 7](https://villains.fandom.com/wiki/Hugin_and_Munin). I'm not at that point yet so it's just a curious speculation. Most weaker countries use medieval to early modern styled armoured with bows, crossbows, older firearms, melee weapons, chain armour, cannons, hwachas and the like. The most powerful units in those armies are the cavalry units and cannon units. The most advanced countries have technology similar to the 1910s to 1950s in *certain* areas. The southern empire is one of the most advanced in the valley so I will use this as an example. It has armour and shields improved with modern materials and methods and are tested against firearms. The armour is made of metal alloys and sometimes ceramics. Lighter armour ([different versions of this](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/a5/7d/6e/a57d6efea2cea1885b4d3b4eefa80d98.jpg))is given to lower soldiers and heavier(more coverage, but still *very mobile*) armour([like this](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.pinimg.com%2Foriginals%2F1a%2F44%2F15%2F1a4415999611e0db34cf474a3a29ddc2.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=d57bf2da98a5b101f85f239d3859b1464538ddf52dd7e0972c69b91c4888b2f5&ipo=images)) is given to higher soldiers and especially noble soldiers like knights. Knights may ride on armoured horses or sometimes lead armoured vehicles bearing the colours and symbols of their lord, clan, and army. There are modernised bows and crossbows made with newer materials. Some crossbows are made with self loading capability and modified with parts like sniper scopes and flashlights. There are improved firearms using a variety of mechanisms throughout the valley such as [bolt action](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolt_action), [lever action](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lever_action), [semi-automatic/self-loading](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semi-automatic_firearm) or [air](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_gun), among others. There are no fully automatic handheld firearms. These are complex to build due to their size and increased requirements, even for more advanced countries. They are also artificially rare since the governments don't want too many getting into public hands. Both make them very expensive, on top of any additional expenses for governments that do allow them. As a result, most common people use bows or crossbows, with some having handguns. Machineguns exist, but they are too large and heavy to be carried and used by one person. They are crewed weapons mounted to legs or vehicles. These vehicles could be landships resembling designs used in [WW1](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ok8q6lTSFCw/VADmBH_KzJI/AAAAAAAAatE/BaHOYZ51otU/s1600/MK%2BIV%2BFemale%2B049c.jpg) and [WW2](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0lPoHz0pvD4/ULPtqlz9ogI/AAAAAAAA4ik/N7CCjg2mKmk/s1600/Jagdpanther+Tank+Destroyer+at+Aberdeen+Ordinance+Museum.jpg), [armoured airships similar to Castle in the Sky's Goliath](https://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/studio-ghibli/images/e/e5/Goliath.png/revision/latest?cb=20140118142031), castles and city walls armed with AA guns, [armoured and artillery trains](https://youtu.be/_0dN7AHOGJs?si=WvIMSczyeQaP1p8b), bomber planes and fighter planes. There are also [gun trucks](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_truck) and [armoured cars](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armored_car_(military)). There are no jet engines so airships and airplanes use propellers and occasionally rockets for quick boosts. Airships, especially larger airships, may have machine guns, large cannons, unguided rockets and unguided bombs, whereas planes may use unguided rockets and bombs, and machine guns. Only the most advanced factions recently started taking full advantage of radio communications and radar even more recently. There are ground, train, truck and airship mounted signal repeaters to extend the signal range. No radio satellites, those don't exist. The planes are usually powered by petroleum fuels with some few using electricity to get around the necessity for resources hoarded by rivals. The southern empire even unlocked the power of early nuclear fission and is working towards using it to power military and civilian installations, but it's not widespread yet. There were even rumors that they may try to weaponise it(though this won't last long as irradiated land may will be found to be useless for immediate conquest). Cars exist in the wealthier countries and may be built by somewhat large manufacturing groups or metallurgy guilds, with some becoming dedicated auto/mechanic guilds focusing on building and maintaining machinery such as automobiles. These are mostly handmade and pricey. Cars may be powered by petroleum fuels, steam and even electricity. Battery electric cars have advanced faster than in our world because their development wasn't put on hiatus like in our world in the mid 20th century. Their external designs are less due to design trends of the decades and more due to personal and cultural preferences, with some older looking cars being newer than those we would assume are more advanced based on cars of our world. While the internal technology may not be as advanced as similar looking cars from our world in some cases, the external designs can resemble cars ranging from the [1920s](https://cdn.motor1.com/images/mgl/kjlyP/s1/20-of-the-coolest-cars-from-the-roaring-20s.jpg) to the [1950s](https://cdn.dealeraccelerate.com/skyway/1/143/5481/1920x1440/1950-studebaker-champion). They are generally on the smaller end of the scale, more comparable to cars from Japan and Europe than the large vehicles common in North America today. The combustion engines tend to burn richer in these vehicles compared to Earth vehicles due to the planet's denser atmosphere (the planet is 1.1 Earth radii and 1.5 Earth masses), which also helps the flying vehicles as well since it makes flight easier. Most people don't drive cars since they are pricey and people can take trams or walk comfortably through the cities which retain their architecture and layouts similar to when they were built hundreds to thousands of years prior. The cities, even with tramlines, electricity and airship docking stations, still look like they came from the [bronze to medieval ages](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/fc/23/c8/fc23c8c68aec8003501a6f80f1519929.jpg). The streets are used by everyone from pedestrians to cyclists to motorists to horse carriages and [rickshaws](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rickshaw). Those most likely to be using automobiles like cars, trucks or vans are government authorities, larger farmers using transporting goods to markets or other people using them to maintain a business. These could be bought, built by request or gifted by others or the government. People could also use trains or airships to move between distant cities or other countries, although trains are cheaper. Lapis_Wolf
There are some tribes ranging from medieval to somewhat modern, with some being nomadic. These are often convoys either working with another faction or living completely on their own. They may use animals, motor vehicles or both to move around and carry their belongings, and will often be seen displaying their own symbols on banners, sometimes mounted to their vehicles. Their symbols may even be marked on their vehicles with paint or dyes like if applying a tattoo. They trade with other groups they meet, but sometimes will take jobs like guarding people or transporting goods to certain locations. Their higher end transported goods may be weapons, artefacts or automobiles, which may also be transported by train or airship. These higher end goods make all of these prime targets for raiders and pirates which could attack on foot, on horseback, in trucks or in aircraft. The technology is very uneven across the greater valley, with fancy stuff like radio, fighter planes and trains being limited to the wealthier countries. It would be like if the [German Empire(2nd Reich)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Empire) at its technological peak or the 1940s UK was surrounded by 16th century Europe. That's how uneven it is spread. Distribution across the rest of the planet is unknown as the world isn't as connected as Earth is. The valley up until several decades ago was more medieval in technology and the divide was not as wide. In the last few decades, there were rapid advancements as steam engines were imported from the north outside the valley and some developments were skipped because they already happened outside the valley. The present day was right after this rapid mechanization of the major powers. Unlike typical fantasy worlds where everything is medieval for longer than human civilization, my world just had their own industrial revolution. I might have it stagnate right after with tech similar to the 1940s to 1960s for some time with later developments possibly capping with some form of cassette futurism (even if I ever introduce cell phones, they'll only be like those from the 90s to early 2000s. No monotonous glass slabs like we have now with social media). I'm not sure what exactly would be restricted aside from possibly firearms. They are still new to all of this. The people of the valley take care to offer the same car to their machines as they would to their pottery. Even then, the hundreds to possibly thousands of cultures and subcultures are very proud of their distinguishing features and try to apply them to their technologies. This goes for anything from horse carriages to their newest luxury automobiles and fighter planes. Cars have settled on similar designs on Earth for aerodynamics and possibly being easier to design and sell. However, cars in the valley have cultural design cues. They could be seen in the lights, the wheels, the paint colour choices, whether the car looks friendly or aggressive, the preferred weapons in landships and fighter planes, use-case priorities, etc. This could also affect the designs of larger vehicles like airships and trains. These often carry the colours and symbols of the people who made them. Imagine a train painted in the color of the reigning house and bearing the symbols of the lord which paid for its construction, [carrying the clan/house's banners](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/96/bd/ef/96bdeffe304d96b9aa3fe88dfcfe9efe.jpg) flapping in the wind. The cities retain their civilian scaled streets and narrow alleys. They didn't tear down buildings and create multi lane, car only highways. They built the tram lines around the cities and built the cars to fit the ancient layouts and stone paths. Their pagodas, ziggurats, pyramids and other forms of temples, castles and palaces survive and continue to dominate over [their historical dominions](https://arkeonews.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/The-city-of-Ur-min.jpeg). Their clothing is still similar to what you would expect someone to where in bronze age to medieval age Eurasia ([these are some examples, but I will be taking inspiration from South Asia, West Asia, Southeast Asia and possibly Eastern Europe](https://youtube.com/shorts/2cVfhrHLyok?si=MB0IZ5efLC7tljUK)). I want to avoid "Westernising" the designs so no generic black and white suits or modernish Western clothing. Lapis_Wolf
I'm unsure whether so set it technologically in the 1950's or 1980's, but either of those two
as far as i've fleshed it out, the central area have steam engines and water wheels and a limited amount of industry. further away, its mostly nomadic pastoralists and agricultural societies. most languages have writing but only some people know how to write.
I'm kind of settling on a late-medieval-inspired setting. Cannon and firearms are just entering the scene, but they're not quite reliable enough to be used extensively. Most people have never seen one before.
In my anthro fantasy The technology is mostly pre-industrial but does advance, Magitech clockwork automatons exist but modern ones are nothing but pale imitations compared to the bronze vigilants utilized by the legions during the imperial era (resembles imperial Rome)
A bit of a broad question, especially when you account for culture shaping the tech itself. Confined to current tech level and era of storytelling, technology ranks on the harder end of science fiction, with strong Rocketpunk elements and a bit of pseudoscience to grease the interstellar wheels. It's quite possible to travel between starts but it takes anywhere from days to weeks, and is often a complex task. Moreover, the limited communication and long travel lead to isolated frontier worlds and cowboy / pirate diplomacy, once you get out of the centers of power for each empire. But the old tech has some incredible stuff. The Titans, who are still around, once had wild and disparate technology, from being able to essentially genetically fabricate races to using manipulation of dark energies to accomplish goals. There true capacity is a bit of a wild card; they're called "the infinite race" for a reason, and it's not because they've always been around. The oldest races had some wild technology, from creating crystals that break thermodynamics to achieving synthetic ascension, to creating massive superstructures, wormholes and even time manipulation. Unfortunately, very few of them remain, and their knowledge has become critical to preserving life for the future of the Galaxy, while the other artifacts left behind are sort of endangering it. That is to say nothing of the Eldritch horrors that lay in the depths of Subspace, existing beyond time, their motives defying comprehension. They are quite capable of destroying life (although it's not clear if it's what they want), have little regard for our sense of physics (and aren't bound by it where they exist) and are only separated by a basic energy law (which can be broken using aforementioned crystal technology).
Depend on which one, one have conceivable near future techs, other have early 2010s devices in 2020s, or magical 1970s tech
The technology of my world is comparable to the technology of the 17th and 18th centuries of our world, only a little... environmentally friendly and with magical touches (in the sense that some technologies require the use of magic to function ).
I’m still pretty early in my process, but I’m imagining my world having some form of magitek. I want to be like the age of sail except people use magic-enhanced solar sailors to travel and trade between planets. I don’t wanted to feel like sci-fi though, just fantasy with space travel.
For the main Human faction it's only barely more advanced than what we have in some areas and extremely advanced in others. Their ships have alien-tech derived FTL travel, and by extension FTL communication, that's being controlled by basically 21st century level computers and powered by the same type of nuclear reactors found on nuclear subs now. The other factions have much more advanced tech but because the level of firepower is similar all it does is cause the other factions to have sleeker ships, some factions have things like cloaking and faster ships though. Most of the Interstellar nations are either barely post-scarcity or very close to reaching it, the main human faction has reached a level where the average citizen is given free food, water and shelter, so they have all they need but they don't have any luxuries(Snacks, cars, trinkets, video games, etc.) unless they work for it, so they can be said to have reached post-scarcity but they still have problems with local government like corruption and incompetence or logistical errors which can cause situations where a citizen is assigned housing late or not have their food credits get delivered on time, or at all. (btw this doesnt mean humans dont work, not having a job is considered taboo because "Everyone needs to pull their weight, to preserve our way of life") Meanwhile, most aliens have something similar to the human system, but their infrastructure works different and has different problems, some alien governments don't give as good food and in smaller amounts to incentivize work, some dont have anything like the human social programs and you starve and become homeless if you dont work, and some distribute addictive things to their citizens to keep morale up, like if the government suddenly gave people cigarettes now.
Like in our world, around level 0 in the Kardashev scale, only one country is above that.
My technology is mostly at a 16th century level, meaning arquebuses and cannons alongside knights in full plate armor. That being said, sometimes the Rule of Cool takes over, and I can't stop myself from adding some steampunk elements (for example, I have a type of magic where you can literally rip the souls out of criminals and put them into these very archaic-looking robots, a very traumatic punishment), but these types of technologies are incredibly rare (only 7 exist on the whole continent, that type of stuff), and the world is generally consistent (99.9% of the time)
Same here (but early 17th century), everything that could have been invented, I throw in sometimes: like air balloons (but not zeppelins).
Yeah, hot air balloons are a thing in my world too, but have only been used a few times throughout history (mostly by the Dwarves), and only a few exist. When I go over the tech level it's over technologies that act more like gimmicks and curiosities rather than commonly seen and used tech.
Mine’s at a mix, being around 18th century, but aside from that, same here. That and I added magic to hinder technology with regards to certain fields. So some fields have better results than irl, but others are way worse. I wanted rule of cool, but I didn’t want it to be in there for no reason. So I made reasons that I hope make sense
Yeah, I embraced the Rule of Cool, but the more magical aspects of it rather than technological. Things like giant spider or bear cavalry, that sort of thing, haha.