WC Bible

400+ or so. Got close to 600 in the '80s.

But WW2 would probably be a better comparison (but still not very good?), with several thousand ships (if I recall correctly).
 
Hmm...I did a quick check and these are the numbers I came up with for the USN:

Carriers: 12
Cruisers: 27
Destroyers: Roughly 50
Frigates: 32
Ballistic Misisle Submarines: 17
Fast Attack Submarines: 52

When you add support ships, troop ships, well carriers, and smaller combatants such as patrol craft, the number would certainly increase to several hundred.

Here's a pretty good site for information about the USN: http://www.hazegray.org/worldnav/
 
Of course, I'm willing to bet that China - with a significantly higher population - will have far less ships. So 'number of ships' is probably not a valid deciding factor as to how large a population is.
 
Certainly not, Loaf, I just thought I'd answer the question. ;)

Would anyone happen to know any estimates of how much the world's population grew from 1400-to the present? Because a jump of roughly 6-7 billion to trillions of people in 600 years seems awfully high. Although I suppose the massive increase in natural resources would allow for a much higher birth rate.
 
Seizing the moment...

Seeing his popularity decreasing, the Argentinean president tries to show his people some courage and make his country proud once again, so he declares war on China (think Malvinas), sending the following e-mail to the enemy government:

"People of China, surrender or be destroyed! We have 100,000 soldiers, 200 tanks, 5 ships, 49 airplanes and a submarine to strike your country! Prepare to war!"

The Chinese president laughs out loud and replies:

"Ha! We have 5,000,000 soldiers, 20,000 tanks, 400 ships, 10,000 airplanes, 15 nuclear submarines and 200 nukes ready to wipe your sorry ass out".

The argentineans reply:

"Unfortunately we will have to postpone the war, we don´t have enough jails for all those prisoners"
 
I asked how many ships USN has because confed is US in space, and the TCN is the USN in space, and the TCSF is the USAF in space...

Regarding the population increase: world's pop was about a billion and a half since 1000's to 1800's. It increased to a point where the shortage of food killed a lot of people, than repeat. Then people invented science in the 1800's (i'm telling a funny story, please don't nag about details) and we increased violently. We did 5 bi to 6 bi in some 10 years.

The number of humans is only limited bey the size of our planet... IF we spread, and carry along our knowledge on health and such, we can easily make lot's of billions, maybe a trillion.

Do the math for me, please: doubling every 25 yrs or something.

thanks.
 
Per my badly mscalc'd math, doubling the population every generation gives you 100,663,296,000,000,000 people by the year 2600.
 
High,

@Haesslich

I just mixed up wealthier and healthier. The correct sentence is:
If people get wealthier they tend to have less children. :)

I agree with most of your posting, but I still think that the population wouldn't increase to such high numbers. Never before in history, with the exception of the very early stage of mankind, woman were equal to man, in the way they are now. I bet, man will not be able to reduce women again to machines that have to deliver kids. Even in the 3rd world we will see a turnaround. But that's getting OT.
 
If the statement of modern women causing less children to be born was true then the Earth's population wouldn't have nearly doubled in the past century or so. Yes there's strong women's rights but the majority of women and men do still want to have children.

Also when entire new planets are discovered and colonized you can expect huge population explosions since there is new land and resources to exploit, and when cultivating a new land you might even see large farm families of the past making a comeback for short times in order to cultivate untamed worlds. Look at the United States for a real world example as Edfilo already covered.

I don't find it hard to believe than if hummanity was to spread to new worlds that it would quickly populate them in only a few generations.
 
There's something you're missing:
The largest areas of population growth have been in Africa, China, and India. The most 'developed' countries have relatively little population growth. The increase in agricultural products available to those other areas has caused a population boom... which is straining the increased food availability.
 
BarFly said:
High,

@Haesslich

I just mixed up wealthier and healthier. The correct sentence is:
If people get wealthier they tend to have less children. :)

I agree with most of your posting, but I still think that the population wouldn't increase to such high numbers. Never before in history, with the exception of the very early stage of mankind, woman were equal to man, in the way they are now. I bet, man will not be able to reduce women again to machines that have to deliver kids. Even in the 3rd world we will see a turnaround. But that's getting OT.
Click to expand...

That's right - if people are better off in terms of material goods and economic position, they do tend to have fewer children... but only up to a point. Part of it's that you can't actually afford to have more kids after a while - each child is an investment in time and money that is difficult to afford after two or three, which is why many middle class families only have that number. If you're really wealthy, on the other hand, you can afford to have more than two or three... and quite a few of the really wealthy people end up marrying serially and having quite a few children. Or else one partner and four or five kids. However, this needs to be seperated from wealth - it's the lack of wealth which is the constraint in having children, or job pressures. More kids means you need more room for everyone, more food for everyone, more money for clothing and health care, etc.

However, in a new colony, you've got that space - the land is going to cost relatively little since it is undeveloped and there's less competition for it. Health care will be a limiting factor, as will food, but a newly colonized planet which is basically human-habitable will enable larger family groups. In an agricultural colony, even allowing for automation, you're probably going to see somewhat larger families than the average urban family unit - there's an advantage on having more than two kids to handle chores around the farm, and it also means that you don't need quite as much equipment... or that you can do more with the equipment you have. Equipment costs are probably significant enough that you don't want to transport or support more infrastructure than you absolutely have to in the earliest stages of the colony - and kids can be produced on site, unlike advanced automated farm equipment. They're also more versatile, and allow the colony to rapidly establish itself as a self-sustaining population.

Beyond that, you've forgotten two other populations in your generalization that 'women who are equal will not be reduced to machines who have kids' - one is the religious groups who will take advantage of colonization opportunities to construct their own new 'perfect societies'. Some of these religions may well encourage child-rearing, considering it to be an occupation equal to that of growing grain or whatever. Another group you've forgotten in that statement are those who actually do want kids - yes, women and men are equal... but some women and men will want to have larger families than they can legally have in a nation which has strict population limitation measures in effect. As I've already noted, under the WEC the population of Earth had expanded greatly and apparently most of the masses were rather poor and disadvantaged. If given a chance to escape this situation by colonization, many of them would have been off in a shot... and none of them were well-off enough to really be influenced by your 'wealthier people have fewer kids' idea. 'Not enough food' would have been more important in limiting growth in that population.

Besides, one needs to remember the Pandemics in the pre-Terran Confederation period to understand why colonization would have been aggressively pursued - they were apparently overcrowded enough to make super-epidemics a serious problem. This doesn't sound like a small population of well-off citizens; it looks more like the breeding ground for a massive diaspora.


Moonsword said:
There's something you're missing:
The largest areas of population growth have been in Africa, China, and India. The most 'developed' countries have relatively little population growth. The increase in agricultural products available to those other areas has caused a population boom... which is straining the increased food availability.
Click to expand...

I think I said something about this a few posts back, or at least hinted at it:

Haesslich said:
That's right - health care got better with the introduction of antibiotics and medical techniques discovered during the Second World War, and that began the baby boom. As the population became more healthy, that meant fewer people died off due to various natural maladies and lived longer. This also meant fewer children died, which meant that the population also grew. However, it should be noted that the declinining birth rate in most of the first-world nations is not due to better health care, but rather the fact that the higher standard of living (and the work required to maintain it) means that they're less inclined to have children who they have to support until they're through college or whatever. Back when the children could be put to work for you, more kids were an asset - and they still would be on a colony world, since they could help around the house as it were.

In other words, it's not the better health care that's caused a decline in birth rates - it's more that, in an urbanized society, there's no advantage to having more than two or three kids - and with what you end up paying just to raise one kid to adulthood, it's a liability. In a more rural setting, more kids meant you had more workers handy, or else someone to take care of you and support you with their own work once you grew old - the introduction of pensions and social assistance for seniors has reduced this need somewhat, and combined with the above factors has helped lower the births in most first-world nations. Worse yet, the present-day economic realities of work and the requirements to stay competitive have not helped: look at Japan or anywhere that has a really strong work-ethic and you'll notice that the deathrate is starting to outstrip the birthrate, because everyone of age to reproduce is either pursuing a career, or else their significant other is pursuing a career and isn't home long enough to do the deed. This poses a huge problem for those nations as, within the next twenty years, a large population of senior citizens will be added to their social welfare nets while there are fewer workers to help maintain them.
Click to expand...


Spien said:
Also when entire new planets are discovered and colonized you can expect huge population explosions since there is new land and resources to exploit, and when cultivating a new land you might even see large farm families of the past making a comeback for short times in order to cultivate untamed worlds. Look at the United States for a real world example as Edfilo already covered.

I don't find it hard to believe than if hummanity was to spread to new worlds that it would quickly populate them in only a few generations.
Click to expand...

Exactly - when there's new land to colonize, you'll almost always find a few pioneers who are either adventurous enough, idealistic enough, or just desperate enough to make a go at it in a new area. They'll take along what technology they already have, and then go off to these new areas to make a better life for themselves. Even with machines, you could probably expect them to have a few more kids, especially if there's no social net to handle them when they get older - in first world nations where we've got social support systems in place due to strong governments or private business, there's no advantage to having more than two kids. When you don't have that sort of system in place, or at least no reasonable expectations that there's an industralized-enough society present to allow for that, more than two kids equals security for your declining years - they can provide some support, and they can also maintain or expand holdings in an agriculturally-based economy. Even without that, there are advantages to building up a population base as a new colony - it's easier to become self-sustaining once you hit a certain population level, one that can support heavy industry and some technoogical development.
 
Hey, it is a fact: The better it gets, the less children people have. The reason why we boomed is that people stopped dying before they reached adulthood. Women had 12 or more kids 200 yrs ago, and about 2 or 3 of those survived childhood. Then alogn came medicine and medicines and people lived longer. And had less kids.

AFAIK, germany is DECREASING in population, because people there won't breed enough. They need imigrants to keep up with the economy.

BTW, doubling in 25 yrs was probably a stupid guess. But we got another billion people in around 10 to 15 yrs, so it was still fast.

Anyway, I do think that population might get in the trillions and all.
 
Edfilho said:
Hey, it is a fact: The better it gets, the less children people have. The reason why we boomed is that people stopped dying before they reached adulthood. Women had 12 or more kids 200 yrs ago, and about 2 or 3 of those survived childhood. Then alogn came medicine and medicines and people lived longer. And had less kids.

AFAIK, germany is DECREASING in population, because people there won't breed enough. They need imigrants to keep up with the economy.

BTW, doubling in 25 yrs was probably a stupid guess. But we got another billion people in around 10 to 15 yrs, so it was still fast.

Anyway, I do think that population might get in the trillions and all.
Click to expand...

You've forgotten one very important thing - when you say 'the better it gets', you've also got to figure in the fact that a) the cost of living's skyrocketing, and b) that the lifestyle's changed a lot in the process of everything getting 'better' - there is a societal safety net put into place for the elderly and the infirm, and populations become more urbanized... and the increased medical care available helps people stay healthier for longer periods, which means that available land is severely reduced.

Germany and Japan are special cases as far as industrialized countries go - they have very small land-areas relative to their populations (82 million people for 349,000 square kilometers in Germany, 127 million people in Japan with only 377,000 square kilometers to live on - and most of that area is mountanous, severely reducing the amount of living space) and reputations as economic powerhouses where people spend a LOT of time working. This will reduce birthrates as people are too busy having careers to spend much time having kids, which also impact a woman's working life - usually by cutting it off once they have kids, or at least killing their advancement opportunities. Japan still has a postive birthrate (9% births versus 8% deaths, according to the CIA World Factbook), though Germany's in the hole by 2% or so.

However, given a totally new and unexploited area and current technology, it would still be an advantage for a colony to expand as quickly as possible so that their society is self-sustaining and self-sufficient, especially as it means that they'd be able to either be exploited more easily (if you're using the colony to derive profits) or else to participate in an interstellar economic boom. Trillions is possible, especially given modern medical technology and several centuries to achieve such population levels - and sufficient resources to feed all those mouths. That will be the limiting factor on any population.
 
Starkey said:
Seizing the moment...

Seeing his popularity decreasing, the Argentinean president tries to show his people some courage and make his country proud once again, so he declares war on China (think Malvinas), sending the following e-mail to the enemy government:

"People of China, surrender or be destroyed! We have 100,000 soldiers, 200 tanks, 5 ships, 49 airplanes and a submarine to strike your country! Prepare to war!"

The Chinese president laughs out loud and replies:

"Ha! We have 5,000,000 soldiers, 20,000 tanks, 400 ships, 10,000 airplanes, 15 nuclear submarines and 200 nukes ready to wipe your sorry ass out".

The argentineans reply:

"Unfortunately we will have to postpone the war, we don´t have enough jails for all those prisoners"
Click to expand...


I heard a joke similar to that one about a bunch of Irishman who delcare war on Saddam Hussien (before the Iraq war of course) .

one question, where is the WC Bible? Cant find it anywhere.
 
The human population is currently doubling every 25 years or so, and the rate is accelerating, despite levels of development worldwide increasing overall. As for population increase rates decreasing, if underdeveloped countries grow faster, then the underdeveloped portions tend to have a higher percentage of the overall demographics, and so the overall growth rate accelerates (as we've been witnessing in the last few decades), especially as resources decline. Mortality also goes up, of course, so until space colonization becomes practical the human population probably hits a barrier. But after that, the sky's the limit (literally). The 2.1 trillion number of deaths really isn't that unrealistic, especially when you consider the possibility of disruptive technologies like cloning. How do we know that the early colonies aren't settled by mass cloning operations, or that Confed doesn't use clone armies (err...)? How do we know they still don't do it that way now? There's a ruckus about the GED program, but that issue in particular isn't addressed in any of the games. Perhaps I missed some subtle point in the books, but I don't recall it being addressed there, either. And maybe that weird WEC tie-in might have something to say about that.
 
GeeBot said:
The 2.1 trillion number of deaths really isn't that unrealistic, especially when you consider the possibility of disruptive technologies like cloning. How do we know that the early colonies aren't settled by mass cloning operations, or that Confed doesn't use clone armies (err...)? How do we know they still don't do it that way now? There's a ruckus about the GED program, but that issue in particular isn't addressed in any of the games. Perhaps I missed some subtle point in the books, but I don't recall it being addressed there, either. And maybe that weird WEC tie-in might have something to say about that.
Click to expand...

The cloning technology, as far as we can tell, is primitive at best - False Colors mentions that it takes years to grow a clone to be an exact duplicate of the person being cloned, so there's no way to accelerate it as in the science fiction of the movies. They used 'optimal templates' instead of cloning for the GE project, since Tolwyn mentions in the novel that 'they never mastered the technology' when Blair asks if the GEs were clones (p. 249).

I don't recall any cloning technology in the WEC period, and none since then - not even in the movie. Bioweapons aren't a new item, but that's about as far as their genetic technology gets - bioconvergence was the 'new' thing in WC4, and even then its abilities were limited; remember that it had to work over several generations to get the ubermensch perfected, rather than being a one-shot or one-generation thing.
 
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