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+--- Thread: Population of Sirius (/showthread.php?tid=14028)
Population of Sirius - AdamantineFist - 11-26-2008
' Wrote:Realize that each individual cargo unit may be very large indeed and the numbers get even larger. Although your comment about it being larger than the population of Sirius is incorrect. The infocard on Manhattan clearly states that it houses 220 million people, thus far exceeding 43 million or so. Oh, and the infocard is clearly incorrect, as it says that the planet is covered in one huge city. Think about that for a moment... just think. 220 million people... on one planet? And they manage to cover it in a giant city? The population of the entire United States is half again as large as tthat, and the US damn well isn't one huge city. My estimate for the population of Sirius would number in the hundreds of billions, if not more. In fact, for an entire planet to be covered in one giant city, you'd need... well... likely tens of billions or more. Possibly much more. Then, take into account the other houses, the Outcasts and Corsairs, the Zoners, with Planet Gran Canaria, and the multitudinous pirates. The figures for that must be enormous.
<strike>EDIT: Alright, I've done some calculations. If we assume that the total land area of Planet Manhattan is the same as that of Earth, and we assume that it has the population density of New York City (which is likely somewhat off, but we may as well sue it as a baseline), then it must contain about 372.35 billion people. That's one planet, people. One planet. Sirius has a population that numbers in the trillions, possibly quadrillions.</strike>
I was actually incorrect in my calculation, there, I think. The source I used for that rated NYC as having a pop. density of 2500. I'm using Wikipedia as my two sources here (on the Earth's land area and NYC's pop. density (I know, it may be inaccurate, but I don't really want to search too much. Anyways, nobody really know the pop. density of Planet Manhattan anyways, so it's moot)), and have calculated a total population of around 1,561,189,080,000. That's about one and a half trillion. TRILLION. That's one planet. I would estimate the population of Sirius as being somewhere in the hundreds of trillions. Now I'm not using the infocards here, as the infocards are quite blatantly wrong (which I pointed out in the quote above).
Yes, this is an enormous number. Then again, we're talking vast amounts of space and time here as well.
Population of Sirius - Drake - 11-26-2008
With the current rate of population expansion on Earth, it's not hard to believe that in 800 years a bunch of colonies with postmodern technology could expand from thousands to billions or possibly trillions. It was only a couple years ago that the living population of Earth exceeded the dead population of Earth.
Population of Sirius - AdamantineFist - 11-26-2008
You definitely make some good points. Also, remember that the exact human capacity of the sleeper ships is not known (or at least not known by me), so we do not know what sort of starting population the colonies had.
Oh, and I's also like to add that Planet Manhattan is a logistical nightmare of horrifying proportions. Unless is has extensive Synth factories, all food must be shipped in, and all waste must be shipped out. The same goes for many other products. To be honest, if Manhattan relies on outside food, it would be incredibly easy to lay siege to, an extremely vulnerable in the event of a war.
Population of Sirius - Drake - 11-26-2008
Most places seem to rely almost entirely on synth food these days, though there are a few agricultural planets out there which supply some food to entire Houses. Waste is probably incinerated, fired off into a scrap field, or nanomolecularly reprocessed into something else (last is the most likely explanation, in my opinion).
The sleeper ships were huge... I think it's reasonable to assume that each one held thousands at minimum, possibly tens of thousands. Even if each ship only had 500 colonists, if the population doubled every 20 years (not hard to believe, especially since the small colonies would be very much pro-babymaking) then they'd have a population of over 500 million in 400 years. Keeping up the same rate of growth, that'd be about 550 trillion people, for one colony, after 800 years.
Population of Sirius - ProwlerPC - 11-26-2008
' Wrote:With the current rate of population expansion on Earth, it's not hard to believe that in 800 years a bunch of colonies with postmodern technology could expand from thousands to billions or possibly trillions. It was only a couple years ago that the living population of Earth exceeded the dead population of Earth.:shok:
Wow that's pretty serious, amazing in fact.
All those years with people dying and than in a single generation we can give birth to more people than there has ever existed in history.
:wacko:
Population of Sirius - Drake - 11-26-2008
Yeah, zombies ain't so scary now, eh? We outnumber them!
Population of Sirius - Elvin - 11-26-2008
I somehow think youve meade some error back there. 1,500,000,000,000 for one planet?
Population of Sirius - AdamantineFist - 11-26-2008
' Wrote:I somehow think youve meade some error back there. 1,500,000,000,000 for one planet?Not an error. Realize that I am assuming a land area equal to that of Earth (148,940,000 km squared), and a population density equal to that of New York City (10,482/km squared). Actually, you're right, I might be wrong. These are just estimates. It's quite likely that they are much, much higher. Again, remember that the entire planet is covered in one huge city.
@Drake: I'd guess that waste organic material is shipped off to the nearest Synth plant for use there. Any inorgaic waste might be jettisoned into one of the many scrap fields in the New York system.
Population of Sirius - Xing - 11-26-2008
I prefer to believe theres a trillion on Manhattan than 6 millions in Liberty. Mere logic.
Population of Sirius - AdamantineFist - 11-26-2008
' Wrote:I prefer to believe theres a trillion on Manhattan than 6 millions in Liberty. Mere logic.:DI know. The infocards give really wonky populations. 220 million on Manhattan? How many people are on Houston, then? Pittsburgh? New Berlin? The designers obviously made some logical errors. Either that, or it turns out that the scale is actually not messed up as much as we thought, and the population of Manhattan Colossi live in an underground labyrinth which fills the planet. :crazy: