' Wrote:Before we can get into that, however, we need to come to a consensus about the scale of the stations; are they scaled with the ships or the planets?
I'm inclined to say that nothing in Freelancer is scaled with anything else, except maybe fighter-to-fighter.
' Wrote:if you want know exact number you need to know 2 things
1. number of ppl in sleepership
2. statistic of natality in europe between last Napoleonic war and first world war
than you just need math:)
you must also count in your formula with war variable. Number of war variable can be -1% per war.
If we'd go by that formula, there would be probably four populated planets in all of Sirius - New London, New Berlin, New Tokyo and Manhattan. If the growth rate had been as low as you say, there would never been the need to colonize new planets - actually, quite the contrary, because, after all, why colonize a planet if there's no gain out of it? If you're just in for the resources - mining colony.
As I already mentioned before, I'd say that the growth rate would have been much more higher, thanks to things like cloning technology. Remember - we are talking about a society which stands pretty close (or has probably even passed) technological singularity and has sweet stuff like universal constructors and all that. Sure, there'll probably be a reason why most people don't have access to such stuff (*insert conspiracy theories here*), but at least theoretically, the technology exists, and things like cloning vats are without any doubt not a big deal for the humans in Sirius.
I'm probably the only one in this whole community, but I continue to insist that population of Sirius should be much lower than your "optimistic" predictions. The trillions you are talking about means that all developed planets should turn into some sort of high-tech Bangladesh or Burundi (no offense). There's no need for so many people in a high-tech society, unless we presume that they use cheap labour force on agricultural and industrial assets. Which is not quite high-tech.
Some time ago I've drafted a graph with a population layout for all Houses and other parties in Sirius. Even including Gallia, which is the most populated of all Houses, my estimate is that the total human population of all Sirius worlds should not exceed 4 billion 300 million. Of which 1400 million belongs to Gallia, next comes Liberty with 750-800 mil, next comes Rheinland etc.
In fact I think that even those numbers are quite high. We are talking about distant future... labour is mechanized as far as possible, service tasks are mechanized. People should be able to live comfortable living in the climatic areas of their planets that suit there preferences. I don't think that Bretonians would densely settle equatorial jungle areas /well, climatic zones on planets might or might not be similar to Earh, but temperature distribution is supposed to be similar/. I don't think that Manhattan is populated as densely as real-world Manhattan. If there's anyone from NY here, can you tell if it's at all possible to live on a planet like that? Would say that if the city covers large part of the planet, it's more likely to be similar to suburban America, with far lower population density than any truly urban area.
I'll begin with the point about suburban America. The suberbs of America: Contain most of the 330 million population Of the United states...with 5 worlds, the 800million of the Liberty house, if we assume they're spread out evenly (they could easily sit on just one world) works out to 160 million on each planet, which is enough for a few cities, and a suburban strip, and a couple of farms. They'd be entirely self sufficent, likely, even if the farmland was sub par, becuase, with the high level of robotics that you claim, they could farm much more land than we do, per person, to get the same output.
With those high robotics and thus the high output/labor ratio, it also makes the governments capable of subsidising a great many unemployed, then you lose a lot of the need for solid employment. Beyond that, if you can support a growing population, why would there be a cultural ideal of small families? People have a biological need to have families, and could easily have 4 children in 40 years of fertility, without ever needing to assume the costs of more than two, if we assume extended fertility ranges along with the extended lifespans. Moreover, back to farming. With 5 planets (since Libety is my example) There is no need at all for synthpaste rather than conventional foodstuffs, and so the existence of Sythfood as a major player in the sirius economy (it owns an entire planet) necessitates a demand for sub par foodsuffs, wich implies the lack of conventional farmspace, which, as we can support the 6 billion on earth from less than the total available farmspace here, implies that the 800 million, with their advanced robotics, wouldn't have any trouble.
I would suggest, not trillions, as I already suggested that the population controls and pressures would catch in way before that, but dozens of billions, per house. This is a number that seems to imply that the multiple planets, if each has a dozen billion, will have trouble feeding itself, hence the desire for Synthfoods, and also the social unrest that has caused the sector to become a rather hostile place. Liberty, not 800 million, a number which is laughably small in the context of demand for Synthfood (and conflict over many other resources, as well) but say, 60 billion, a number which pits a large portion of the popuation on each world, and implies some sort of demand for synth, and land, which is, if I'm not mistaken, the focal point of the horridly expensive war in the Taus.
Moreover I think the larger numbers allow for the smaller factions like the Hackers and the BD and the Rogues, for example, to have populations large enough to account for the occasional battleship, while still being comparitivly tiny.
While theres no need for high populations, theres not much of a reason to stop it, either, and people like children, so I suspect the growth would continue right up until there are some serious pressures, and then to back down, rather than being reasonable and planned for the last 800 years.
Lack of conventional farmspace can be explained, or at least not-quite hand-waved. Out of Liberty's five planets (Manhattan, Pittsburgh, Houston, LA, and Cali Minor), only Manhattan and LA are fertile. Houston is not unlike Arizona in climate terms as I understand, and the other two planets are basically rocks. Cali Minor barely has an atmosphere, and out of all of those planets, only Manhattan didn't have to be terraformed.
The prevalence of Luxury Food suggests to me that perhaps Synth Paste isn't so much a necessity for sustenance, but fills a niche for cheaper food that is far more easily affordable. Thoughts?
Even in the case of only two farmable planets, I'd argue that 800 million people is not at all a huge sum, as it would take much less (can I say a tenth or less of one, if 'all' of earth is currently being used, which its not.)
Also, you forget Denver.
Food, in the current world economy, is cheap, already. Suggesting a population of 800 million, and highly robotic industries, as well as two entire earthlike planets...I don't think a cheaper alternative would make too much sense...In fact, synth would probably only really enter the playing feild, in my oppion, in a situation where food isn't plentiful because people are competing with farmers for living space, and shoving out more and more farmland...and thats billions, on each world, not millions. Thats more population density, or just about, that of earth.
Well, about food, 800 million will provide quite a large market. None of the Sirius planets are as much comfortable for humans and for crops they brought in the sleeper ships as Earth. Areas where they can be grown cannot cover whole planets. Instead, they'd occupy small parts of those planets, less than on Earth. You might argue that there are different crops for different climatic zones, but here we come to tradition again... is 800 years enough for Bretonia to start consuming rice in massive quantities? Why would they start doing this in the first place?
Also, in terms of comfortable living, on each Sirius planet there's much less convenient space for settlements than Earth. In some areas rural settlement would be limited due to harsh conditions (too cold, too hot) or pollution.
"People like children"... yet, in the modern world, western families tend to have few children. And Sirius doesn't have numerous representatives of cultures that tend to have more children on modern-day Earth. Hispania settlers were close to that, but their demographic conditions ended up to be rather... unique.
Also something to ponder, that if you keep the sleeper ships in mind, plus the time it takes to even come CLOSE to 100's of trillions of people, then this theory is broken.
Let us just imagine that each sleeper ship carried approximately one million people. That's five million that arrived in Sirius. Then think about birth rates of Humans; That's one person born (2 for twins, 3 can happen, but rarely) per nine months. Also to keep in mind that someone can't constantly start to develop a baby right after they give birth; nature prevents this through breast feeding. Factor that in and then a couple must wait at least 6 months before they can, er, "make" another baby, which then they must wait another nine months for the "new" baby to develop and be born..
Then, factor in the fact that Humans only had 816 years to do so. The population the Igiss has suggested is reasonable, but that's most likely the MAX probability. It has taken 1000's of years for Earth just to reach the population it has now, and you're telling me there's 100 trillion born in just 816 years? Try and consider other factors and calculate again..
I don't mean to sound harsh, but I'm just using what I learned from environmental science class and applying it to this situation.
EDIT: This is only considering the five original sleeper ships, but even with Gallia, the numbers won't increase enough for trillions..
Stuttgart has been recorded as a nitrogen paradise for plant species, with better than earth standards for plant growth. Both Carsilse and Gaia are uninhabitable because of their high level of organic growth. Cambridge is described as a farm world, and the oceans of New Tokyo are saturated with fishfarms.
In the case of Bretonia, and Cambride, the entire House is supposedly supported by planetspanning farms on Cambridge, which has no mention of agricultural difficulty anywhere in the cannon. In point of fact, there is no mention of less than desirable starting worlds in the cannon for any of the main four houses.
Genetic engineering and such I will pull for reference, since you are tossing around the possibility of advanced technology, and I'll add suggestions for atmospheric changes that could, over time, move the atmosphere and environment of any planet closer and closer to earth standard, which would scale the production possibility of food as the population grew. Inside of 800 years, one can easily assume that with self replicating atmosphere factories, ones that could easily have been shipped aboard the sleeper ships(making them essentially free for the colonist's economy), you could take a world with no atmosphere and turn it into a CO2 intensive, then seed algae, and produce oxygen and a near earth nitrogen/O2/C02 cycle, toss in a solar shade for overheated planets, and you've easy terraforming.
As for the argument that Bretonia (or whomever) wouldn't ever switch to an easier crop to grow, there are two instances where people would do such a thing: at colonization, and when food pressure reaches a critical point, And I think I can suggest that the second, if not the first, has already happened. Synth is not a 'traditional' food, or it was not when it was invented, but now it has a huge market share. And at colonization, if it was easier to grow one crop than another, even if they were traditionally used to eating a different food, one expects they'd settle for what they could grow enough of to quickly feed 50k people as soon as possible. In the marshes of NL, it might well have been rice. But it could have simply been a marshland strain of grains.
Edit: Sand spider, I suggest you read the thread, where we suggested realistic growth rates for people, and then check out how I charted them. It actually is reasonable, in a pure growth scenario. Moreover, I keep saying that they wouldn't reach the trillions. I'm going from what I understand of my biology major. I start with a population of 50k per sleeper ship, and continue with what the community has suggested as reasonable growht rates. They are, in comparison to my family, rather small growth rates. I've 4 siblings, and my family is comfortably upper middle class, just to prove the lie to that particular generalization.
Its taken humanity a couple thousand years, yes. but, 800 years ago, there were roughly 300 million people, that number has increased to 7 billon in the last 800 years, and in the last 100 years (since modern medicine, if we can even consider the 1900s to have modern medicine) it has grown by 5 times. We cannot factor anything under modern times, because of the vast changes in lifespan and child mortality in the last hundred years. The modern peak in growth rate is 2.2% yearly, the current is 1.4% I've used growth rates of 2% for the four houses, 1% for the Sairs, and .5% for the Outcasts..which is, total, somewhere between the worlds highest recorded population growth, and the current growth, but, again, I keep saying that population pressures would set in and limit growth, probably around 600 AS, with liberty population reaching just about 111 billion which is, if I recal correctly, just about the time of the first major Sirius war. IF you toss the max point back a couple of decades, you've only 50 billion, and some time for stresses to boil over for the war.
My population document is here Igiss, if you give me your numbers, I'll provide an estimate of the rate of growth that they suggest, as well as a cuttoff point in the growth according to my numbers. I'm also considering running another couple sets of growth, at much lower(but still comparable to modern growth) rates.
![[Image: File:Suburbia_by_David_Shankbone.jpg]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Suburbia_by_David_Shankbone.jpg)
Contain most of the 330 million population Of the United states...with 5 worlds, the 800million of the Liberty house, if we assume they're spread out evenly (they could easily sit on just one world) works out to 160 million on each planet, which is enough for a few cities, and a suburban strip, and a couple of farms. They'd be entirely self sufficent, likely, even if the farmland was sub par, becuase, with the high level of robotics that you claim, they could farm much more land than we do, per person, to get the same output.
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