GURPS Lensman

GURPS Lensman (1993) was the GURPS version of Edward Elmer "Doc" Smith's epic Lensman series mainly pulling from Triplanetary (1934/1948) to Children of the Lens (1948/1954).
==Lensman Technology==
GURPS Lensman was written before the alternate TLs of Steampunk were created and as a result uses its own Tech level system (called Tech Stages)
"An extremely rough correlation can be forced between Tech Stages and Level. Tech Stage 0 is equivalent to Tech Level 6, and TS 1 is approximately TL7. Stages 2 and 3 could be compared to TL8, though the GURPS Tech Level does not account for allotropic iron as a power source. Then Stage 4 is slightly analogous to TL 9 and 5 to 10. but then all of Tech Stages 6 though 8 must be lumped into TL 11. Finally stages 9-10 could be called TL12."GURPS Lensemen p. 65
However, GURPS Lensman treated TS as if it was TL with regards to penalties. For example, TS 2 and 3 are effectively the same TL (6+2) but are -5 going from TS 2 to 3 and -1 going from TS 3 to 2.
This combined with the heavy amount of superscience in the setting, Steampunk's Divergent Technology system was still in the future, and that these TS are very loose makes trying to relate GURPS 4e TL with Lensman TS problematic at best.
For example, in medicine they jumped from unable to cure infantile paralysis (TL6) to full regeneration (TL12) in one step.
It is warned, "GMs who allow equipment into a Lensman campaign solely on the basis of technological rating will encounter difficulties." 
It certainly doesn't help that information on Biotechnology/Medicine is borderline nonexistent in the GURPS book.
==Lensman Tech Stages==
This is a conversion of Tech Stages into 4e Tech Levels based on the information given in the book. Biotechnology/Medicine, for example, only has one formal entry (TS 0/TL6): Antibiotics; blood typing and safe transfusions; heredity; biochemistry.
TS	TL 	Era; Related works 	Transportation& Communication 	Weaponsand Armor 	Power
0 	6 	The Tellurian World War (1901-1963); Triplanetary 	Automobile; aircraft; ocean liner; supmarine 	Smokeless powder; automatic weapons; tanks; combat aircraft.Cyclonite 	Steam turbines; internal combustion; alternating current; hydroelectricity.
1 	(6+1)^	The Recovery; Triplanetary 	Suborbital rocket shuttles 	Screens; Heptadetonite; Lewistons; Ferral Paste; Space Axe; Vee-Two Gas; VNZ Gas	Atomic Power
2 	(6+2)^	Jovian War; Triplanetary 	Interplanitary flight, ultra-wave communicator, spy-beam, display link
Etheric and sub-etheric jammers 	Needlers, Standish 	Atomic Power, Accumulator
3 	(6+2)^	Triplanetario-Nevian War; Triplanetary 	Inertialess (Bergelmhom) drive (with Driving Jets); thought-broadcasterSensor SuiteTractor Beams/Pressor Beams	Nevian Ferroscopic Ray
Nevian Paralysis Projector 	allotropic iron
4 	(6+3)^	Galactic Union and Patrol formedRigel IV and Palain Vii join;First LensmenNew Lensmen	The Lens 	Macro Beams 	Atomic Moters and Generators
5 	(6+4)^	Anti-piracy actionsAccademy founded 	(Line is blank) 	DeLameters
Duodecaplylatomate 	Atomic Moters and Generators
6 	(6+4)^	Anti-piracy actions continueVelantia joins the Galactic Union;Galactic Patrol 	Thought-screens; detector-nullifiers 	DeLameters; Duodecaplylatomate 	Cosmic Ray absorption screens
7 	(6+4)^	Boskonian WarMedon joins the UnionPhilps regeneration;Grey Lensman 	Nullifier-scrambler 	Primary Beams, Free planets, Negaspheres, Dureum 	Super atomic Motors and Generators
8 	(6+4)^	V-B Day;Second Stage Lensmen 	hyoer-spacial tube 	Tractor Zones, death ray, Sunbeams 	
9 	(6+4)^	Reconstruction 	 	Super atom bombs 	
10	(6+5)^	Electronic computers;Masters of the Vortex 	 	Deliberate atomic vorties 	
11	(6+5)^	Cleanup of the Spawn of Boskone;Children of the Lens 	 	Nth space free planets 	
==The Transistor==
The effort to explain the non-existance of the transistor in the book falls flat on its face now we know more about the history of the transistor. 
In our timeline, the field-effect transistor was patented by Julius Edgar Lilienfeld in Canada in 1925, in the United States in 1926 and 1928, and by German inventor Oskar Heil in 1934. A functional point-contact transistor was developed by John Bardeen and Walter Brattain of Bell Labs in 1947 and independently by Herbert Mataré and Heinrich Welker of Compagnie des Freins et Signaux in 1948How Europe Missed The Transistor. In fact, two of the four patents related to 1947 transistor were rejected by the Patent Office because of the Lilienfeld patents.Shurkin, Joel N. (2008) Broken Genius pg 116 and the legal paperwork showed the operational versions had come from Lilienfeld's patents.Arns, R.G. (October 1998). "The other transistor: early history of the metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor" (PDF). Engineering Science and Education Journal. 7 (5): 233–240. doi:10.1049/esej:19980509. 
The Arisian Teacher only knows of Bardeen, Brattain, and Shockley but nothing of Lilienfeld, Heil, Mataré, and Welker and therefore takes no efforts to derail their development of the transistor. With so many people coming up with the same idea it is clear that the invention of the transistor in a world identical to our own up to 1934 (when the serial version of Triplanetary came out) was a great moment - somebody somewhere would have invented a practical transistor by 1950. Ergo the transistor should still exist.
Never mind the saving of Ruth Sommer in 1932 so she can meet Shockley in 1944 and marry him causing him to forget his fascinating idea was DOA. 
#The idea was already out in the wild so to speak if only in the form of Lilienfeld's patent.
#At least in the case of Bell Labs the idea can come from an existing patent that was on the verge of expiring
#Shockley had married a woman named Jean Bailey in August 1933 with the couple having a daughter by March 1934 (only seven months later) and had two more children before divorcing in 1955.
==Additional Material==
* Holy Klono! (3/10/2000): Religion in GURPS Lensman
* GURPS Update
* GURPS Lensman Out-Takes
* Designer's Notes Pyramid #5
* Triplanetary review (Youtube)
*Literature / Lensman (TV Tropes)
==References==
Category:1993
Category:Fictional Settings
1994
Category:Unknown Mana