(07-11-2018, 10:54 PM)Batavia Wrote: Also, this is a fun tool to play with: Population Calculator
Some fun stuff:
To arrive at vanilla's 220 million inhabitants on planet Manhattan in the year 800 as a baseline, I chose the following settings:
- Total fertility rate: 3.7
- Growth rate (yearly): 1.79 %
- immigration/year: 0
- Starting population: 200
- First birth given (age): 31
- Human age (average): 120
- Timespan (years): 825
- Age pyramid: flat
I arrived at 217 million for the year 800AS. Close enough. Turns out vanilla's numbers aren't that absurd after all, assuming longer life spans, older child rearing ages and lower but not unreasonable fertility rates. However, we're now in the year 825AS, which means that vanilla Manhattan would've grown to 355 million inhabitants by now. That's a 64% population growth in the space of 25 years.
(07-12-2018, 12:18 AM)Batavia Wrote: To arrive at vanilla's 220 million inhabitants on planet Manhattan in the year 800 as a baseline
Important correction: That figure circa 800 is the population count of Manhattan's most populous metropolitan area's urban sections.
Nope. It's the entire planet.
Quote:Founded in the year 1 AS, Manhattan was the first human colony established in the Sirius Sector. Over the last eight centuries it has grown into a teeming world of 220 million people who live and work in a single city that covers the vast majority of the planet.
Ah right that must have been one of those 4.85 "throw the big numbers in" changes then, because the Discovery infocard says:
some previous development team Wrote:Over the last eight centuries it has grown into a teeming world of over 18.1 billion people who live and work in a number of large metropolises that dot the planet's surface, making Manhattan the most densely populated planet in Sirius. Its main metropolis, suburbs not counting, numbers over 220 million people - with the hull of the Liberty sleeper ship as a towering beacon at it's center.
(07-12-2018, 12:26 AM)Kazinsal Wrote: Ah right that must have been one of those 4.85 "throw the big numbers in" changes then, because the Discovery infocard says:
some previous development team Wrote:Over the last eight centuries it has grown into a teeming world of over 18.1 billion people who live and work in a number of large metropolises that dot the planet's surface, making Manhattan the most densely populated planet in Sirius. Its main metropolis, suburbs not counting, numbers over 220 million people - with the hull of the Liberty sleeper ship as a towering beacon at it's center.
Yep. Vanilla's description of Manhattan just doesn't really make any sense, given that the planet is Earth-sized. Unless the Manhattanites have a very different idea of what constitutes a city than we Earthians have, of course.
Well, I can't remember where I got that number, it was a long time ago, but doing some quick digging:
Anecdotally, here's the interior zoom out of the sleeper ship from the intro, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsWPFUzxgRU
look at the scale on them, I don't think 30k is out of line.
Also, the Liberty Sleeper ship is the golden building in the background of planet Manhattan, and you could fit 30k people in that.
and there's here, where I first worked out that table, where apparently Kuriane had convinced me to do 50k people for genetic diversity, not knowing about things like the toba catastrophe at the time, and not wanting to get into how you could do very funky things with what counts as a "breeding pair" to get that number pretty low.
And, yes, the original numbers were very small, and very weird, with suggestions that Manhattan was a world covered in city with only 220 million persons, and so on for many other planets with weird numbers. I had thought the retcons were not supposed to mean that we grew Sirius from 10 billion to 60 billion in the last 25 years, but rather the numbers were always bigger.
(07-12-2018, 12:50 AM)Unseelie Wrote: Well, I can't remember where I got that number, it was a long time ago, but doing some quick digging:
Anecdotally, here's the interior zoom out of the sleeper ship from the intro, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsWPFUzxgRU
look at the scale on them, I don't think 30k is out of line.
Also, the Liberty Sleeper ship is the golden building in the background of planet Manhattan, and you could fit 30k people in that.
and there's here, where I first worked out that table, where apparently Kuriane had convinced me to do 50k people for genetic diversity, not knowing about things like the toba catastrophe at the time, and not wanting to get into how you could do very funky things with what counts as a "breeding pair" to get that number pretty low.
I always assumed that the actual amount of passengers was tiny, taking up just a small part of the ship. Engines and fuel would take up the most space, with databanks full of science and technology easily taking up the rest. Honestly, if you can put humans in cryostasis, you can keep fertilized eggs in cryo for genetic diversity at a later point. Heck, you could probably just fill databanks with genetic codes alongside all the science and tech you'd be taking with you. I don't think you'd need more than a few hundred people, really.
.. Still, a sleeper ship filled with tens of thousands of people in cryo is a very cool image.
Disclaimer: I am not a demographer, I just play one on TV.
It's fun to play around with the numbers, but one must also take into account that pregnancy and birth is very taxing on the body. So most people don't want to bear more children than they have to. By that I mean to overcome mortality rates.
Prior to the Industrial Revolution, average fertility rates were in the region of 6 children per woman -- but, on average, 4 of those 6 died before having children of their own. With the Industrial Revolution living conditions improved, leading to lower child mortality. As the mortality went down, so fertility followed -- albeit with a lag, so that in the 1960s there were 5 children born per woman, out of whom 4 survived.
Today, the average fertility rate is about 2.33 globally, and it keeps falling. (The ideal fertility rate for a stable population is of course 2.0, with zero child mortality, where two parents have two children who survive to replace them.)
Now, the Houses are all descended from high-tech, developed nations, which today have very low fertility rates. On the other hand, after the Exodus they had gone through a long period of war and were trying to establish colonies with a limited starting pop, which should drive fertility up.
Assuming that the Sleeper ships carried 30k people, as @Unseelie and @Kazinsal said, I put in these parameters:
Starting population: 30K
Immigration/year: 0
First birth given (age): 25
Human age (average): 80
Age pyramid: Flat
I chose a Total Fertility Rate of 3, which gave me a Yearly Growth Rate of 1.46%. After 800 years, the total population is 5.94 billion, and in 825 A.S. it's at 8.77 billion.
However, it is reasonable to assume that fertility would decline as the total population increased. It may be high initially, out of necessity, but it can then decline out of convenience.
So let's say that we start with a fertility rate of 4 for the first century. People are shagging like mad to build up a workforce, although they still want to be reasonably comfortable. After 100 years with a yearly growth rate of 2.42%, population has risen to 275'000 people.
For the second century, fertility drops to 3, yearly growth drops to 1.46%, and the population reaches 1 million in 201 A.S.
In the third through seventh centuries (still assuming no immigration), fertility drops to 2.5 and growth drops to 0.81%. In 701 A.S. the pop reaches 64 million.
In the final 125 years, fertility declines further to 2.1. Growth drops to 0.18%. In 800 A.S. the population is 74.35 million, and in 825/826 it'll hit 78 million.
Conclusion:
I think you can fudge the numbers any which way you want, really. You can have people have even more babies initially, and starting at a younger age. But I think it is important that fertility declines and the age of first birth increases over time. I still think the billions-upon-billions-upon-billions populations are a tad exaggerated.