Talk: Population

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These are SO LOW

In my opinion, the population estimates for the entire Appearance and for individual civilizations are both way, way too low. I used Wolfram Alpha for some calculations:

• If we assume 1/1000 stars in the Milky Way has life, and an average of 10 billion people on each of those planets, we get a population of between 2 and 4 quintillion (10^18). Estimates of the total Appearance population as around 1.5 trillion is really low.
• If we assume that the land area of Earth was settled to a density equal to that of New York City, the planet's population would be 1.59 trillion. That's more than currently live in the Appearance according to the figure given. And by using New York City and the land area of Earth, I was making very conservative estimates. City-planets, like Alislore, Drakonia, or others, are usually depicted as having buildings much larger than that of New York City. Also, they have the entire planet covered by cities, not just the land area. Most of Earth's surface is water, if we assume the entire planet is covered to the population density of NYC, we get 5.4 trillion.

A super-easy solution in my opinion would be to multiply most population figures by 1000, to move them up to more reasonable numbers. Please let me know what you think! Naga Krion TalkContribs 21:31, May 30, 2015 21:31, May 30, 2015 (UTC)

Assuming 1 in every 1000 stars in the galaxy has life is a bit of an overestimation, we've searched thousands of planets and found 0 sentient life IRL. The figure 1.5 trillion is calculated based on population figures stored on the wiki (each civilization is given a base population and growth rate; they all grow a little every day), which are mainly about core civilizations. The actual estimations of the total galaxy is shown elsewhere on the article, but they're just speculation since we've not really established anything outside the core. Totally-city planets aren't really a thing, the closest we have to it is Alislore. (Teredona I is a mining planet by the way). Wolf and I did some calculations for Alislore's population: It has a diameter of 10,000km, and therefore a estimated surface area of 314,159,000km^2. Wolf described Alislore as 60% ocean, 25% farm, 10% suburban, 5% actual city (that 5% is the equivalent of about two whole Texases in area, or a single Alaska). We used modern day figures in calculations: Vero Beach (suburban) has a density of 4300 per km^2, NYC has a density of 10500 per km^2, so that gives Alislore about 300 billion population. In the RPG, Alislore's actual population is 1.5× that, I think that's an alright estimate, maybe a bit low but being any higher would make Alislore a little OP. Drakonia is obviously not in the Appearence (galaxy) so that's not included in any estimates. —User:Kris159 (talk | legacy) 21:46, May 30, 2015 (UTC)

To answer the first part, I was assuming that 1/1000th of the stars in the Appearance had been settled with 10 billion population each, not that they started out with sentient life. Also, I fucked up by including Teredona I, i went back and read the article and saw my mistake. Thanks for including the stats on Alislore, I obviously didn't do my homework researching that and assumed it was entirely urban. You and Wolf put a lot more thought into it than I realized. My point regarding planet population is pretty much wrong, planet-wide cities are much less common in this setting. I do stand by my argument regarding total galactic population: even if one star in a million is inhabited with 10 billion people and all others are empty, galactic population still stands at around 3 quadrillion (10^15), which is quite high compared to even the estimates. Naga Krion TalkContribs 21:54, May 30, 2015 21:54, May 30, 2015 (UTC)

From a purely mathematical standpoint (stats provided on this wiki), there are 1.57 trillion people spread across the 239 colonized planets (value from list of planets) established so far, which gives an average of 6.5 billion per planet. The Appearence infobox has stats on stars and planets, and says there are 500 million stars and 11,769 habitable planets. I'm just gonna assume it's supposed to say billion not million, since I used the fact that the Milky Way has an estimated 100–400 billion and the fact that the Appearence is bigger in size. If we use the billion statistic, that means the Appearence has 1 habitable planet per 42,000,000 stars. Anyway, 6.5 billion people × 11769 planets = 77.3 trillion. However, civilizations are still colonizing habitable planets in the core: Derta was colonized by the Bazanian Empire in July 2011, the Klaorus Republic colonized Filment V in November 2011. This implies that not all habitable planets are necessarily inhabited. If we assume the core is composed of about 20% of the total stars in the galaxy (cores are more dense than the outer regions obviously), only 10% of planets have been colonized and are inhabited, and if the rest of the galaxy is in a similar situation, well the estimated population is about 7.73 trillion.

But realistically, you can't just apply the mathematics of the core on to the rest of the galaxy. Nothing has been established as to what is out there, it could be completely empty, it could be teeming with life. But the fact that there are space-capable civs around the core but no neighbors kind of implies the regions around the core are empty, but as I've said there's been no RPGing around this area so it's not really decided. Feel free to debate some of these numbers if you feel we should change them. —User:Kris159 (talk | legacy) 12:10, May 31, 2015 (UTC)

You make a good point about the areas outside the core not being touched, but I'm still not 100% clear. Is the Appearance empty, aside from the core, which is still only partially settled? Also, I would respectfully disagree with "habitable" planets being that low. Just because 11,769 planets have an oxygen atmosphere and the right temperature for humans does not mean that those are the only habitable worlds. For example, AS-A3-D14 03040-08 is deemed "uninhabitable", but has a population of 500 million living in domes. The technology for humans to live on planets without a breathable atmosphere/safe temperatures is arguably available right now, so it is very reasonable that uninhabitable planets can be settled by vast numbers of people. I'm not sure if terraforming has been touched on in the RPG, but that is a tool that could drastically increase the number of populated planets. Naga Krion TalkContribs 19:18, May 31, 2015 19:18, May 31, 2015 (UTC)

It's not been established whether the remainder of the Appearence is empty or not, no one's RPGed in them and I don't think we should decide now incase we ever decide to start RPGing again. Habitable just means without assistance, it's not really a definition up for debate, but I understand that "uninhabitable" planets can still be populated. In the core though, with so many habitable planets yet to be colonized, the cost of colonizing an uninhabitable planet compared to habitable makes it not really worth considering (you have to build infrastructure for supporting breathable air and there's agricultural considerations), and the % of population on uninhabitable planets is pretty negligible. As I've said, the rest of the Appearence has not been RPGed in, so the estimates on the page (not including the one calculated mathetmatically) are pretty baseless, just there for a bit of lore. —User:Kris159 (talk | legacy) 11:38, June 2, 2015 (UTC)