Re: Well, I finished reading Conquerors, Killers and Crooks, and...
Is anyone here familiar with the game Torg? In it there was a set of metaphysical and cosmological rules called Axioms that defined the limits of reality in any one section. They defined the maximum devolopment of Magic, Social development, Religion, and Technology.
Each piece of reality (called a Cosm) had additional Laws that colored the behavior of the Axiom rules. An example of this is the Nile Empire, and it's a perfect parallel for this discussion.
The Nile Empire had a Tech level roughly equal to 1933 Earth, but had a Law providing for Weird Science. Weird Science permitted short term leaps way beyond the Tech limit for the world. It was not actual technology, although it had the trappings (e.g Van de Graf generators, bunsen burners, beakers, etc.), and without that Weird Science Law, wouldn't function at all.
This sounds like the Super-Tech you're talking about.