three BILLION people?

[Sci]

It's hard to get an accurate count of the earth's population but there are a lot more than 3 billion people on earth right now. Probably around 7 billion. In 300+ years there will be closer to 10 billion people.

See my above posts on why that's unlikely. Heck, there's serious question about whether or not the Earth can sustain even a six-billion population.

Earth has sustained a population of six billion for several years now without difficulty.

No one starves on Earth anymore due to insufficient food being available. They starve for political reasons.

With Trek era technology (fusion and antimatter reactors, the ability to grow large amounts of food in space or import it from agricultural worlds, the ability to build urban areas underground and in the ocean.........) chances are Earth could support 20 or 30 billion with little difficulty.

Incidentally, IIRC, the FASA Federation sourcebook gives Earths 23rd century ere population at 22 billion.

Not canon of course, but as realistic as the "3 billion" given in this OP.

Dayton3, do you really want me to drag Christopher in here and have him prove you wrong on this issue again like in the "Star Charts" thread back in TrekLit? Heck, as he noted, the sheer heat generated by thirty billion people and the technological infrastructure needed to support that population would screw with the ecosystem too much for it all to be viable.

 

[Dayton3]

See my above posts on why that's unlikely. Heck, there's serious question about whether or not the Earth can sustain even a six-billion population.

Earth has sustained a population of six billion for several years now without difficulty.

No one starves on Earth anymore due to insufficient food being available. They starve for political reasons.

With Trek era technology (fusion and antimatter reactors, the ability to grow large amounts of food in space or import it from agricultural worlds, the ability to build urban areas underground and in the ocean.........) chances are Earth could support 20 or 30 billion with little difficulty.

Incidentally, IIRC, the FASA Federation sourcebook gives Earths 23rd century ere population at 22 billion.

Not canon of course, but as realistic as the "3 billion" given in this OP.

Dayton3, do you really want me to drag Christopher in here and have him prove you wrong on this issue again like in the "Star Charts" thread back in TrekLit? Heck, as he noted, the sheer heat generated by thirty billion people and the technological infrastructure needed to support that population would screw with the ecosystem too much for it all to be viable.

He was wrong then too.

 

[Deks]

They can probably use their technology to use the heat people generate for energy purposes or something entirely else.
If anything it wouldn't be an issue with their technology.
It would be an issue today, but then, not really.

 

[Sci]

They can probably use their technology to use the heat people generate for energy purposes or something entirely else.
If anything it wouldn't be an issue with their technology.
It would be an issue today, but then, not really.

It is a fundamental law of thermodynamics that energy ends up being lost as heat, that a certain percentage of the energy in any system will be unusable. You're describing a fundamental violation of the laws of physics.

 

[cultcross]

If the Borg, who hardly care for comfort, packed only 9 billion drones onto Earth, I don't think humans, who like big open spaces, would go beyond that at a time of technological advancement and (pseudo-)economic prosperity.

 

[Dayton3]

If the Borg, who hardly care for comfort, packed only 9 billion drones onto Earth, I don't think humans, who like big open spaces, would go beyond that at a time of technological advancement and (pseudo-)economic prosperity.

I have little regard for First Contact myself.

Hate the movie.

The Borg detected on Earth would've been there for some 300 plus years when the Enterprise detected them.

Chances are by that point Earth was simply a backwater world for the Borg.