Let's suppose that you had 3@10 in auto mechanics. You know every single car ever to roll off of the assembly line since Henry Ford invented it. You know every car upside down, left, right and sideways. You are the best mechanic ever. Once someone invents a new kind of engine, you don't know anything about it at all. Does your 3@10 drop? How is that handled? This is why I kind of don't like that there is a top end to your skill level. There should be a 4@ level, but it's so high that no one could reasonably get to it.
You have 2@10 with the new kind of car, and also with every other kind of car that is similar to the kind of car you know but isn't quite in your area of expertise. You're probably also 1@10 at fixing quite a variety of other things that are only somewhat related to the cars you know - motorboats, maybe, or hybrid diesel-electric motorcycles.
If you want to get good at the new kind of car, you can start from your automatic 2@10 and improve that area of specialization separately (with a triple tripled program, of course) until it, also, is 3@10.
The idea is that the more skilled you become, the narrower the range of things to which you can apply your skill. This new thing is just something that falls outside of your specialization; within your specialization, there's no point in talking about being better than 3@10. There's nothing stopping you from picking up more than one specialization, though - except for time, and mortality. As a verser, you aren't even limited by those. I'm sure you can see how someone could spend centuries trying to become 3@10 in every variety of auto mechanics . . .
I see what you're saying Scott. I know you don't believe in the same God that I do, but I kind of think that the Multiverse is Heaven. You die and are reborn in a new body, you live forever, and you can do anything and learn anything. That's how I envision Heaven to be. Something I would want to do in Heaven is learn from the masters. Learn martial arts from Bruce Lee, learn driving from Dale Earnhardt, learn to play a guitar from Jimi Hendrix, etc. That sounds a lot like the concept of the Multiverse.
So if you get an automatic 2@10 from being a 3@10, do you get an automatic 1@10 from being 2@10? I mean say you were a 2@10 driving a semi truck, does that give you 1@10 driving a regular car?
Generally, yes, keeping in mind that you started out with 1@1 in driving "manual transmission combustion engine vehicles" (or something similarly broad); when you got to 1@10 and started on a double doubled program, your referee asked you what in particular your were getting better at, and you said "big trucks" (or else he already knew what you were focusing on, for example if your driving skill was improving because you were working as a trucker). You keep your 1@10 in combustion vehicles in general, but you advance your skills with semis from 2@1 on up. When you get to 2@10, you focus your training yet again, advancing into expert levels with a particular kind of truck. Thus you might end up being 1@10 at driving sports cars, pickups and snowmobiles, 2@10 with semis and tractor trailers, and 3@5 with a particular kind, perhaps a specific model of truck or a certain kind of trailer (tankers vs. flatbeds).
If later you landed in Why Spy and got a lot of practice in an Italian muscle car, you might list both 3@5 Ford Flatbeds and 2@6 Sports Car Driving on your sheet, with 2@10 Tractor-Trailers and 1@10 Combustion Ground Vehicles unlisted but assumed.
Kewl