Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
This seems likely (that 200 planets would have had their populations wiped out).
It's certainly not 2.1 billion - 30 billion people alone died in the very first Kilrathi attack.
WC Bible
- Thread starter maestro876
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This seems likely (that 200 planets would have had their populations wiped out).
It's certainly not 2.1 billion - 30 billion people alone died in the very first Kilrathi attack.
Haesslich
Spaceman
PeteyG said:
Given that the outer worlds were devastated, and millions died each year... how does 2.1 trillion seem so unusual, especially given that the WCP map showed at least several hundred major named systems on just the Confed side alone, ignoring the worlds in Border Worlds green and Kilrathi red? Especially if thirty billion died in the outer worlds alone, and then millions more in the attacks on Sirius Prime, Gilead, Hanover, Warsaw, and other worlds during the fighting after the False Armistice ended? We're talking thirty five years, several hundred major worlds in the Confederation, and the use of biosphere-killing weapons in several instances.
I'll count the worlds later, but a rough guestimate already places the number of listed systems in the 300's, just on the Confed side, not counting another hundred or so Border Worlds and probably another hundred more worlds that the Kilrathi took over.
It's hard to comprehend how big space is. Look at Earth's population now. Now that is one planet in one system. Now look at all the systems in Confederation space (not including the Border Worlds on the frontier). Now if there is just one 'Earth' in each of these systems, that's a lot of people. Now add in the fact some systems have more than one planet, we also have the border worlds (and 600 years from now technology may help worlds hold bigger populations). It all fits together.
Well, there's no doubt that the number of humans killed in those 35 years is going to be absolutely huge... but not 2.1 trillion huge.
At the end of Action Stations, there's a few interesting figures tossed around. 153 systems lost to the Kilrathi, 28 billion people caught behind the lines, 30 percent of industrial capacity lost.
Assuming that industrial capacity and population are spread totally evenly across the Confederation, that would mean 510 Confederation systems, and 93 billion people. It could be that there was just a very large concentration of industrial capacity in some of those 153 systems (which may have been why the Kilrathi grabbed them so quick)... but it is more likely that there are fewer overall systems than that, since the core worlds would almost certainly have a disproportionate percentage of the Confederation's industrial capacity and population.
So population is probably many many billions higher than 93 billion... but not 2 trillion higher (which is the minimum amount required to satisfy the 2.1 trillion dead figure).
Or something like that anyways.
At the end of Action Stations, there's a few interesting figures tossed around. 153 systems lost to the Kilrathi, 28 billion people caught behind the lines, 30 percent of industrial capacity lost.
Assuming that industrial capacity and population are spread totally evenly across the Confederation, that would mean 510 Confederation systems, and 93 billion people. It could be that there was just a very large concentration of industrial capacity in some of those 153 systems (which may have been why the Kilrathi grabbed them so quick)... but it is more likely that there are fewer overall systems than that, since the core worlds would almost certainly have a disproportionate percentage of the Confederation's industrial capacity and population.
So population is probably many many billions higher than 93 billion... but not 2 trillion higher (which is the minimum amount required to satisfy the 2.1 trillion dead figure).
Or something like that anyways.
TC
SubCrid
PeteyG said:
Firstly, the Kilrathi don't have to take a system to destroy industrial capacity. Secondly, to make a decisive strike they would aim directly at the military and industrial centers available to them. They wouldn't necessarily try and capture them, but they'd at least make raids and disable them. You can't link the number of captured systems to the percentage of industrial capacity that was destroyed. They planned to cripple the Confederation in one blow, they would try to cripple the Confederation as much as possible by hitting production facilities, and push in as deep as possible. After stopping the advances, the Confederation would have immediately pushed back, and since the Kilrathi had planned on winning with one stroke and were committed to this plan rather than digging themselves in, they would likely be able to recapture quite a bit of territory before the initial battles were finished. This initial equilibrium left the Confederation 153 systems behind where they started..
Even using what I think is a skewed system, you're not taking into account the fact that the Kilrathi war was over a generation long.
Haesslich
Spaceman
PeteyG said:
Those figures assume three things:
1) There is only one inhabited world per system with the ten billion on it. As Earth and Sirius showed, there can be two or more worlds or colonies in each system - Sirius had two inhabited planets, and Earth had colonies in the asteroid belts, around Saturn and Jupiter, space stations around Venus, etc.
2) That each system's population remains relatively static. In other words, for thirty-five years, that we've only got those ten billion people in each system, and they all survive that long without having kids, or dying in war. If even ten percent of those people on each world live to reproduce, that's 1 billion people added every few years on each world. We'll assume that there are 300-400 systems that are human-controlled that produce people, and each has approximilately 2 billion people - this is quite likely false, but we'll use this assumption if we pretend to average out the population to get a mean population level per system. So that's 800 billion people. Now, if we assume only 10 percent of them reproduce, that's 40 billion more kids, assuming each couple only has one child, and 80 billion more if they choose to have two. This is VERY low as far as figures go, mind you... and is almost completely useless, but I'm hoping it illustrates the point - people have kids, and thirty-five years to have kids, assuming 80 billion people are born a year, means that you've got 2.8 trillion births. In other words, 2.1 trillion deaths is a lot, but you've got to remember that there are people being born each year over thirty-five years, which means that there are always going to be people around to die, and those who die will be replaced by others who in turn will die.
3) There's also the unspoken assumption that there is only one death per system, as it were - basically, that the Kilrathi visit a system just once, kill a certain number of people, and never return, if you're assuming that 93 billion people (in your estimate) were there to be killed. Granted, half the worlds in question are on the other end of Confed... but there are still a lot of worlds left to be taken on the front lines, and a lot of casualties happened there. More still continue to happen there as those worlds are raided, fought over, taken by the Kilrathi, and then retaken by the Confederation. Still more people are well away from the field of battle, but sending their boys and girls out to the front lines to kill or be killed. So we're looking at deaths taking place all the time, and all over - unless, of course, you assume that Confed only has its carriers and a few bases manned by personnel at any given time, and that they're never on the offensive save on the ships we see in the games, and ignore any mention of raids or other things, or the possibility of bases in affected systems fighting off Kilrathi incursions.
High
Talking about human population I'm missing one important subject. Where are the people living on the colonized planets (including Landreich) coming from. The planets they talk about in the books have to be populated with people from Earth.
I doubt that the number of Humans will increase from roughly 10 billions in the year 2000++ to more than 100 billions within just about 700 years, no matter how many colonies are founded.
Besides, higher standard of living decreases the number of born children. And if we are able to colonize lots of other planets we have to have a very high standart of living all over this world.
Think about this numbers
Talking about human population I'm missing one important subject. Where are the people living on the colonized planets (including Landreich) coming from. The planets they talk about in the books have to be populated with people from Earth.
I doubt that the number of Humans will increase from roughly 10 billions in the year 2000++ to more than 100 billions within just about 700 years, no matter how many colonies are founded.
Besides, higher standard of living decreases the number of born children. And if we are able to colonize lots of other planets we have to have a very high standart of living all over this world.
Think about this numbers
Yeah, good call. But I suppose the population to system relationship would still stand.TC said:
Yeah... I guess it's not too tough though. We can take our starting population X. We can put population growth into discrete chunks (35 years... that's like 1.5 generations). Assume that each couple has 4 kids average (two new people per person per generation, pretty generous I think)?
So, we're like looking at the total number of people who lived during the Kilrathi War. That'd be (X + 2X) + .5*2(X + 2X) = 6X. Or so. That's like six times the starting population. This pretty much ingores large-scale death due to the war. I'm no population expert, but that should be a pretty good and generous estimate for total people who have lived... is there anything super wrong with my estimate doodles?
I think that LOAF used that to illustrate just how many people 2.1 trillion would be... but I don't think anyone is assuming that.Haesslich said:
See the doodling above.
I don't think we really have to worry about all this if we just look at total people who have lived during the Kilrathi War. Those figures should be very generous towards having a large population too, since the Kilrathi would have a negative impact on population growth once they started killing off people in the millions and billions. If we can figure out a reasonable number based on the things we know... we'll see how that squares with the 2.1 trillion death figure. Can't have more people die than have been alive, right?
I actually thought about making that argument, but decided not to. There's just so many unknown factors. How fast could Earth pump out colonists to new planets? What tech level did starting colonies have? Did advanced technology allow colony worlds to have a population as huge as the one in the twentieth century... except sustainable? The only reason human popoulation before the twentieth century was so small was because people ate dirt and only lived to 35. Who knows what crazy population growth we could get if we started 500,000 people off on an Earthlike world with room to expand and a high level of technology?BarFly said:
The most likely limiting factor to long term population growth in the Confederation would be, in my opinion, the capacity of spaceships to transport large populations up out of Earth's gravity well and to new colony worlds. 10,000 people to start a colony in the 2400s probably wouldn't reach the billions by the 2600s. But a colony starting off at 500,000 and recieving regular infusions of new heads could do it easy though. I think that the only way that such expansion could be accomplished would be if there were significant economic factors involved.
TC
SubCrid
I'm just heading to bed, so I'll leave some stuff to respond to tommorow. However, the "where did they all come from" question is stupid. The first Pilgrim colony ship was in 2311. Sloships were going out around then too. Humanity had been an interstellar race for 300 years. Colonists initially setting out don't necessarily go and reproduce at a two child per couple rate, they go and do things like have 6 or 10 kids. If humanity is actually going out there colonizing planets, it isn't hard to populate them to a very respectable in a few hundred years. It's not like all these people come directly from Earth. By the 2600s, most of the race would be born off-Earth and many of the newer world would most certainly have been colonized from those already out on the frontier.
High,
first of all I know this is all talk about fiction. But with our given knowledge about the real life, I think we should not talk about this things like the way we talk about a fairy tale. If we talk about the world (sing) 'In the Year 2525' (if man will be still alive)
, we have the given basics of the year 2004.
.
What makes you so sure about this? The history of colonization in the past? You can't compare a hightech colonization with the known way of colonization (the continent of America comes to mind).
I can't believe that in the year 2311, people go out to colonize planets without the technology of their time. And if they do they will have to deal with unknown circumstances on this planets and probably an high rate of dying people.
I can't imagine that in the future they will have such a high rate of dying kids. They don't will need kids for working on a farm like they did in the past. So there is no need to have lots of kids. But who knows maybe mankind changes their minds?
Besides the colonization of America starts with about 80% male colonists. Correct me if I'm wrong.
I do not want to argue if mankind will be 100 billions or even 200 billions. But 2 trillions! I simply can't imagine such an incredible high number.
PeteyG wrote
Mostly I agree with you. We are talking about a lot of planets to get populated.
I think the authors of the novels just took some numbers. They hardly thought this would be the basic of a discussion.))
first of all I know this is all talk about fiction. But with our given knowledge about the real life, I think we should not talk about this things like the way we talk about a fairy tale. If we talk about the world (sing) 'In the Year 2525' (if man will be still alive)
, we have the given basics of the year 2004. Hopefully you had some relaxing sleepTC said:
.TC said:
What makes you so sure about this? The history of colonization in the past? You can't compare a hightech colonization with the known way of colonization (the continent of America comes to mind).
I can't believe that in the year 2311, people go out to colonize planets without the technology of their time. And if they do they will have to deal with unknown circumstances on this planets and probably an high rate of dying people.
I can't imagine that in the future they will have such a high rate of dying kids. They don't will need kids for working on a farm like they did in the past. So there is no need to have lots of kids. But who knows maybe mankind changes their minds?
Besides the colonization of America starts with about 80% male colonists. Correct me if I'm wrong.
I do not want to argue if mankind will be 100 billions or even 200 billions. But 2 trillions! I simply can't imagine such an incredible high number.
PeteyG wrote
TC said:
Mostly I agree with you. We are talking about a lot of planets to get populated.
I think the authors of the novels just took some numbers. They hardly thought this would be the basic of a discussion.
))A thousandfold increase in human population over present levels is quite possible over a six hundred year period, assuming that suffient space and resources (i.e. planets to colonize) and transportation exist.
Let's say that the total population of humans doubles approximately every fifty years (Earth's population has slightly more than doubled since the end of WWII). Ten doublings equals an increase by a factor of 1024. With fifty years for a single doubling, only five hundred years would be needed to reach a thousandfold increase.
Let's say that the total population of humans doubles approximately every fifty years (Earth's population has slightly more than doubled since the end of WWII). Ten doublings equals an increase by a factor of 1024. With fifty years for a single doubling, only five hundred years would be needed to reach a thousandfold increase.
High,
I'm going on to complain, but please don't kill me. This is a point I already hated in the books.
Does anybody think it goes on this way? There are a couple of arguments against it. The last 50 years have been very special in history. Earth had incredible jumps in healthcare, agriculture and sociology. But the population explodes just in the 3rd world. If people get healthier they tend to have less children. One example: My Father, born 1916 in Hungary, was the 11th of 12, my Mother was the 5th of 7, but it is just my Sister and me both born in the 50ies in Germany.
I'm going on to complain
, but please don't kill me. This is a point I already hated in the books. Ijuin said:
Does anybody think it goes on this way? There are a couple of arguments against it. The last 50 years have been very special in history. Earth had incredible jumps in healthcare, agriculture and sociology. But the population explodes just in the 3rd world. If people get healthier they tend to have less children. One example: My Father, born 1916 in Hungary, was the 11th of 12, my Mother was the 5th of 7, but it is just my Sister and me both born in the 50ies in Germany.
Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
Wowzers, the dreadnought debate and the population debate on the same day. It's like the glory days of 1997.
Two points:
* Another thing to keep in mind is that when the guide divides casualties between "human" and "Kilrathi", the number for humans almost certainly includes casualties sustained by half a dozen Confederation/Alliance members.
* (... and to all the people raging against the novels - the 2.1 trillion number comes from the Wing Commander Prophecy Official Guide, *not* one of the Baen/HC novels.)
Two points:
* Another thing to keep in mind is that when the guide divides casualties between "human" and "Kilrathi", the number for humans almost certainly includes casualties sustained by half a dozen Confederation/Alliance members.
* (... and to all the people raging against the novels - the 2.1 trillion number comes from the Wing Commander Prophecy Official Guide, *not* one of the Baen/HC novels.)
Haesslich
Spaceman
BarFly 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.It should also be noted that, under the rule of the WEC, Earth's population spread out to at least the Moon - and I suspect Mars, at least given the terraforming dates in the WC Bible - and has grown well beyond the current ten billion, at least to judge by the descriptions of life in the game. Between the slowship colonizations and then the jump-drive colonization that began in 2418 or so, there's definitely more than enough of a population to start shipping out, and if they were able to build slowships, then we know they've got enough of a infrastructure to build jumpships to start sending people to what will become the Inner Worlds. The next wave of colonization will come from those areas, once they gain enough infrastructure and people to start sending across the stars, which means that, several hundred years later (2700), we've enough of a population spread out across five hundred systems to kill off a few billion and still have billions more to have families and get killed later. It's not like they're abandoning their technology so that most of the kids they have die in infancy, and more kids on a colony world would be useful due to the need for them to do work that doesn't involve sitting at a desk.
There's also the influx of new people as a colony becomes more developed, since not everyone's going to want to be a pioneer - so you'll have people being born on Earth that want to live in a less crowded area, but with amenities - an Inner World colony is just the ticket out for such a person, and they'll be able to bring skills that may not be well-represented in the present population, and will also be of an age to reproduce, which means we can also add more children to the colony or have enough of a surplus population to move onto new worlds where they can be true pioneers again.
Given that even an outer colony which had probably been devastated in the first days of the war had two million people (Hanover system) on it, it doesn't seem too far-out to have had that many casualties - it's staggering in our terms, but it's not a civilization-ending sort of thing, especially spread out over 35 years and several hundred systems.
Edfilho
Cry some more!
When I said it was a crazy number, i didn't mean that it was impossible that there were like 10 trillion people (so that some 2.1tri could die) in the 2600's... That number is fine, the problem is how microscopic Confed forces are compared to the population.
Considering a population bigger than 3 or 4 trillion (for the death toll was surelly heavy, but confed didn't turn into a no-man's land) they had a pretty meager production and education capacity. Capships in the thousands, fighters in small millions, a few factories, couple thousand new pilots a year... The total number of people in the fighting armed forces can't be over a few millions.
Surelly, to make all these figures add up right, WC need to have been created by a Tolkienesque obssessive, anal guy who created it all by himself (with the ocasional opinion of his closest colleagues), who took several decades writing it... If we remember that WC was created by several different teams working almost independently for 7 or 8 years, we can be really proud of what we get.
And if confed had the thousands carriers and hundreds of millions of fighters it should have had to match a several trillion population, it would be freacking boring and lacking the WW2 in space thing.
Considering a population bigger than 3 or 4 trillion (for the death toll was surelly heavy, but confed didn't turn into a no-man's land) they had a pretty meager production and education capacity. Capships in the thousands, fighters in small millions, a few factories, couple thousand new pilots a year... The total number of people in the fighting armed forces can't be over a few millions.
Surelly, to make all these figures add up right, WC need to have been created by a Tolkienesque obssessive, anal guy who created it all by himself (with the ocasional opinion of his closest colleagues), who took several decades writing it... If we remember that WC was created by several different teams working almost independently for 7 or 8 years, we can be really proud of what we get.
And if confed had the thousands carriers and hundreds of millions of fighters it should have had to match a several trillion population, it would be freacking boring and lacking the WW2 in space thing.
Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
They didn't have thousands of carriers, but they certainly did have thousands of destroyers and cruisers and such.