Advancement Classifications: Invariant-Tech, Stable/Synthesized-Tech, and Metric-Tech
Technology in the Empire (and in the post-Collapse) has developed in three broad categories - invariant technology, stable/synthesized technology, and metric technology, in roughly increasing order of advancement, sophistication, and expense (at least for 'mature' post-Collapse polities, the Empire, and its [former] rivals).
Invariant Technology
Invariant Technology is the most intuitive and familiar form of technology - technology which relies on the invariant physical laws defining the unmodified universe. Although you could in theory use it to describe anything from levers and rocks to space elevators and swarm-type megastructures, even after the Collapse the phrase is generally a reference to the ubiquitous pinnacle of physics-compliant technological advancement that the Empire reached long ago. Invariant technology was by far the most common basis for infrastructure even during the Empire era, for cost-effectiveness reasons. Because invariant technology does not require formatted space and extensive computational/metric-altering support, its cost is essentially trivial for all but the largest projects. Invariant technology includes highly compact and efficient fusion reactors and drives, antimatter warheads and torchdrives, sophont uploads, nanoengineered materials two orders of magnitude stronger than their naturally occurring equivalents, efficient solid-state lasers, coilguns/railguns, and other systems. Most habitable stations and cities are primarily constructed from invariant technology because supporting sophont life and society needs little more.
Stable/Synthesized Technology
S-tech, also known as stable technology or synthesized technology, is technology reliant on exotic forms of matter - monopoles, negative matter, cosmic strings, strangelets, and other oddities that are stable under the invariant laws of physics but for whatever reason are not naturally occurring except in negligible amounts. The original S-tech invention was the warp drive, which was used for early-era interstellar travel. Without Architecture at that time, the negative energy/negative matter needed to build a warp drive had to be painstakingly synthesized by immense particle accelerators. With the Empire and the invention of Architecture, synthesis of these materials became far cheaper, if not completely trivial (in fact, the earliest applications of Architecture were to make pockets of space that might have been inimical to life and the existence of conventional baryonic matter but allowed for the easy synthesis of exotic matter). S-tech can accomplish things which were seen as impossible, such as traveling faster than light or withstanding the fury of the atom unchained.
Metric Technology
As Architecture advanced in sophistication and precision, it was eventually possible to selectively and rapidly alter the properties of a space, which opened up a whole new set of tools for manipulating the universe. Metric technology is technology which only works because of editing local Architecture. Metric technology is technically ubiquitous as well - Architecture and souls are both metric technology, imposing programmability and edit permissions on space. M-tech is generally heavily reliant on having that substrate of programmable reality underneath it, and thus will often drastically differ in function depending on the hostility or lack thereof of the local Architecture. However, military units carry a local-area stable Architecture and a projection system known as a reality engine, which, in concert with information warfare against local Architecture, can permit the use of their weapons and defenses while in hostile Architecture. That said, reliance on reality engines and permission-elevation hacks is extremely straining, and the defender in an engagement will generally hold a severe advantage.
S-tech and M-tech are both critical components of a modern AV or any military hardware. You can sort of fight back against an AV or drone squadron with 'pure' S-tech if you have the knowledge of what you're dealing with and what you need to fight, but you'll generally be at a significant disadvantage (and pure S-tech is often more 'expensive' than hybrids if you have access to decent M-tech as well). If you're dealing with a modern AV with invariant technology, your chances are basically nil.
