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Population and Federation Habitation

It's not as if even the Earthling skippers would be all that interested in receiving payment in dollars or yens or other such units worthless in the bigger interstellar scheme
In one of Heinlein's novels, colonists agreed to improve land on their new world, they would keep half, and the other half would go to the colonization company, which would then sell the improve land to subsequent colonists.

:)
 
^I don't like the idea of humans going around, mining planets to depletion.
If there's no indigenous intelligent life, hollow it out.

Kirk in "Metamorphosis" was giving as impressive a figure as he possibly could for human exploration and expansion. It's quite possible that humans have indeed been to a thousand planets and ...
Kirk said that Humans were on a thousand worlds, and not Humans have visited. The language Kirk employed would seem to mean that Humans were currently (at the time of Kirk's conversation with Cochrane) physically present on a thousand worlds.

To be fair, that would include situations like Professor Crater's.

:)
 
Several colonies seem to be mining bases with just a handful of people, or worlds where the number of colonists are less than a thousand.
 
If there's no indigenous intelligent life, hollow it out.

The problem or moral quandary with that is of a very different scale from the ones we face today. Hollowing out or burning down a world that only has that dime-in-a-dozen nonsapient (or sapient) life doesn't reduce galactic biodiversity at the time, but it may affect the odds of something important and unique evolving there a few hundred million years hence.

Kirk said that Humans were on a thousand worlds, and not Humans have visited.

For a conquistador like Kirk, "human" might well be that silly red-and-blue banner stuck on a suitably high mountain and left there to rot. :p

Several colonies seem to be mining bases with just a handful of people, or worlds where the number of colonists are less than a thousand.

Indeed, it's very difficult to find references to colonies with a population anywhere near million. Deneva in TOS was the only human or Federation settlement known to have "almost a million" inhabitants, this after centuries of existence. And "For the Uniform" suggested that the total population of all the "Maquis worlds" was measured in mere hundreds of thousands.

Sure, there are references to colonies we never see that might be second Earths in terms of population. And then there are various duplicate Earths that might be colonies of Earth even though we're never told they should be. But explicit references to densely inhabited human colony worlds seem to be limited to Deneva and Deneva only!

Timo Saloniemi
 
There's no good reason to hollow out entire planets full of biodiversity when there's a wealth of sterile asteroids floating throughout the galaxy.
 
I don't think there is any reference the number of people living on Earth in the Federation. What They are stating is how many Borg are on Earth after time has been changed.

I would rationally assume that the number of humans and aliens who live there in the 24th century is actually different then the number of drones that are on a long established Borg Colony world. Could be both dramatically less or more.
 
As for Earth's population it could probably be up to 12 billion and not be over crowded, if since we know Earth has climate control if Area's today were climate makes life inhospitable is now areas that can be easily inhabited.

Population density in Canada, Alaska, huge sections of Northern Asia, would open up vast, vast areas for humans to live. Antartica if livable would upon a full continent. Africa's huge deserts areas could be now livable. And thinks to "Family" we know humans have already raised sub continents which would also expand livable areas. We also would open up vast areas since it appears that livestock and crop growth don't seem to be what supports humans diet, for most.

As for colony worlds, some would be small, very small, some could be huge. Certainly some Federation planets would also have both smaller and much larger populations primarily dependent on the size of one's planet.

And I don't know how the change in Earth, its social changes, and technology/ resources changes would impact the change in birth rate. As it seems people would have no issue with supporting larger sized families, with governments not having to fear over population, without wars and disease to carve out huge numbers in populations. I wouldn't be surprised if the rates were higher then what we normally see int eh industrial world. Where we still have to worry about how to provide for a family. Where you have to actually think about if you can afford another child, and the burden that goes with it.

Of course with more knowledge and technology it would also dramatically reduce the number of unwanted pregnancy.

As for Terra Forming, I think it all depends on the planet, and how much resources the Federation is throwing at it, to change a planet.

For example looking at our own Solar System, I think no one would argue that it would be probably cheaper and take a shorter amount of time to change Mar's Environment, then it would take to change Venus'. Though of course I could be utterly and completely wrong.I mean in Home soil we see one station starting the process, how many doe sit take for tis process, and if the Federation or any world were in dramatic need how fast could they manage it with a huge amount of resources at their disposal.
 
OTOH, one resource the UFP has aplenty is warp transport capacity - and the Trek galaxy appears to be full of habitable, Earth-like worlds already, some of them completely empty and ready to receive human colonists.

This makes sense in a universe with a long history of warp travel. In the aeons preceding the Federation, other civilizations must have done their share of terraforming - and since nearly all species in Trek prefer the Earth environment, all of them would be working towards a common goal whether they wanted or not. Indeed, all that toiling would make the Earth-favoring lifeform the most competitive one, further feeding the process.

It might be quite natural, then, that the UFP doesn't actually terraform much. It doesn't need to - yet. And it also knows that eventually it will, just like all those civilizations before it.

Timo Saloniemi
 
Crikey, has anyone considered that humans might be living sustainably on all these worlds, mining what is needed but not with methods that will harm the eco system? Using clean energy, replanting every felled tree? Leaving their pet bullfrogs back on Earth?

It is supposed to be an optimistic future after all!
 
Crikey, has anyone considered that humans might be living sustainably on all these worlds, mining what is needed but not with methods that will harm the eco system? Using clean energy, replanting every felled tree? Leaving their pet bullfrogs back on Earth?

It is supposed to be an optimistic future after all!

Wait, wait, wait. Are you implying that Star Trek is supposed to be about a better, brighter future for humanity, not about people whose societies are as sick and self-destructive as ours except with laser beams instead of bullets?
 
Crikey, has anyone considered that humans might be living sustainably on all these worlds, mining what is needed but not with methods that will harm the eco system? Using clean energy, replanting every felled tree? Leaving their pet bullfrogs back on Earth?

It is supposed to be an optimistic future after all!

Wait, wait, wait. Are you implying that Star Trek is supposed to be about a better, brighter future for humanity, not about people whose societies are as sick and self-destructive as ours except with laser beams instead of bullets?

Wacky and extreme I know! :guffaw:
 
The future society depicted in Star Trek is one with significant advances in technology and material comforts, but the people inhabiting that society are really just more of us, with all of our virtues and all of our failings.

:)
 
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