• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Population?

XKin

Lieutenant Junior Grade
Red Shirt
What is the deal with population in the Federation?

I mean it basically all episodes I see the crew is like +90% human. So, the humans out breed the other species or what?

I am confused :/
 
That's because 90% of the episodes we see Starfleet (as opposed to the Federation) which (I think) mainly consists of humans. Remember, there are also Vulcan-only ships of Starfleet ("The Immunity Syndrome", "Take Me Out To The Holosuite"). Or take the Klingons; they're part of the Federation, too. I'm sure there are also Andorian-only, Tellarite-only etc. Starfleet vessels out there ...
 
Well if you've ever noticed in Trek episodes, whenever they give out the population of a planet theres usually only about 300,000 people on the planets but when it comes to Earth its like 9 Billion, so it looks to me like theres more Humans than anywhere else, plus it would appear that no other species have the balls to join Starfleet and leaves us humans to fight the wars on their behalf, so its us humans that die for the freedom of othe member worlds, seems to me like Earth got a bad deal.
 
I wonder how it all breaks down. What the total population is, percentages of the species, who's the majority, and whatnot.

But yeah, I always assumed that a lot of races have their own space probe agencies that they belong to.
 
Belar said:
That's because 90% of the episodes we see Starfleet (as opposed to the Federation) which (I think) mainly consists of humans. Remember, there are also Vulcan-only ships of Starfleet ("The Immunity Syndrome", "Take Me Out To The Holosuite"). Or take the Klingons; they're part of the Federation, too. I'm sure there are also Andorian-only, Tellarite-only etc. Starfleet vessels out there ...

Ah I wasn't aware of that.
 
Belar said:
Or take the Klingons; they're part of the Federation, too.

Not until at least the era of the Enterprise-J but we've never had a series set in that time period, so why on earth would we see Klingons on Starfleet ships.
 
Fire said:
Belar said:
Or take the Klingons; they're part of the Federation, too.

Not until at least the era of the Enterprise-J but we've never had a series set in that time period, so why on earth would we see Klingons on Starfleet ships.
Well, I certainly didn't imply otherwise. The Klingons are part of the Federation, are they? Of course this doesn't mean that we have to see them on Starfleet vessels. (Though we at least saw one ... ;) )
 
The Klingons are not part of the Federation, they're allied with the Federation.

The "Klingon Civil War" wasn't an internal Federation conflict.
 
Squiggyfm said:
The Klingons are not part of the Federation, they're allied with the Federation.
So I got this part wrong. Sorry.
blusher.gif
 
Belar said:
That's because 90% of the episodes we see Starfleet (as opposed to the Federation) which (I think) mainly consists of humans.
There's nothing said about the demographics of Star Fleet or the Federation as a whole. The lower decks appear to be human because it costs too much in time and money to put silly latex appliques on people who are going to be glimpsed for four seconds walking past and not interacting at all with the real characters. What's the confusing thing?

Far as I know nothing's said about the general population of Earth or the Federation. By the 24th century, though, if at least some of these planets aren't reaching a hundred billion people they're not really trying, and I wouldn't rule out trillion-person planets. And the Federation has (per the Original Series) a thousand worlds or (per Voyager) a hundred fifty worlds; population should scale appropriately.
 
Although memebers of Starfleet are supposed to be "accepting" of other cultures and races, I would suppose that most ships are comprised largely of the same species for familiarity reasons. No matter how open-minded, I'm sure that a Vulcan officer's performance and quite possibly his psychological well-being might be hindered if he was servince aboard a ship comprised largely of, say, Betazoids. Although I'm sure Starfleet encourages mixed crews, different species probably just naturally pool together in the same way cities have a "little Italy" or a "Chinatown".
 
Nebusj said:
By the 24th century, though, if at least some of these planets aren't reaching a hundred billion people they're not really trying, and I wouldn't rule out trillion-person planets.

I'm not sure the populations could get that high, especially on Earth sized planets considering we have just over 6 and a half billion people on here now and some people consider this world a bit overcrowded :lol:
 
StarMan said:
James Bond said:
The Laughing Vulcan said:
So did Wesley. No biggie.
As did Picard. Starfleet Captain my ass. :rolleyes:

J/K. ;) Seriously though, that was a big continuity error.

I'm curious. What is the continuity error you refer to?

In 'Samaritan Snare' Wesley asked "was that before the Klingons joined the Federation" and Picard said "yes."

In context it was clearly supposed to mean that the Klingons were a part of the Federation, but given the abundance of later evidence that says otherwise you can take it to mean that was before the Klingons became allies of the Federation and "joined them in friendship" or something like that.

Also, in 'Heart of Glory,' the Klingon captain had both the Klingon and Federation emblems aboard his bridge, as if they were part of the same government. But you can retcon that as well, or just ignore it.
 
trash80 said:
Nebusj said:
By the 24th century, though, if at least some of these planets aren't reaching a hundred billion people they're not really trying, and I wouldn't rule out trillion-person planets.
I'm not sure the populations could get that high, especially on Earth sized planets considering we have just over 6 and a half billion people on here now and some people consider this world a bit overcrowded :lol:
Folks may feel that, but planets are really, really big things. A 50 billion-person Earth, without adding any sub-oceanic development (which is obviously credible for the Trek universe) would be about as densely populated as Belgium is today, and most people seem to find that pretty livable. Given that there'd be a considerably reduced need for high-volume, low-value activities like agriculture or technologies like reservoirs and aqueducts or the like, you could see an extremely high-population planet with actually enormous stretches of apparently unused land.

A 100-billion-person Earth doesn't quite reach the population density of the (English) Channel Islands, and a trillion-person Earth gets to around the densities of Singapore or Hong Kong, although those are such small areas it's hard to say what the perceived population density (how many people per square kilometer people see on average, and a much less obvious calculation) would be for the whole world.
 
James Bond said:
The Laughing Vulcan said:
So did Wesley. No biggie.
As did Picard. Starfleet Captain my ass. :rolleyes:

J/K. ;) Seriously though, that was a big continuity error.

I'd like to think of season two as a large continuity error and much like Deck 76 on the E-A, it should just be ignored.

Season 1 too.

So, in short...spandex TNG never happened.
 
Didn't Q make some reference to the Federation having "conquered" the Klingons, or am I misremembering? I guess even if he did, he was just exaggerating and being ridiculous as usual. I really can't see the Klingons EVER joining the Federation, unless either one, the other, or both made significant societal changes. Peaceful exploration probably wouldn't mix so well with warrior culture.
 
Locutus of Bored said:
StarMan said:
James Bond said:
The Laughing Vulcan said:
So did Wesley. No biggie.
As did Picard. Starfleet Captain my ass. :rolleyes:

J/K. ;) Seriously though, that was a big continuity error.

I'm curious. What is the continuity error you refer to?

In 'Samaritan Snare' Wesley asked "was that before the Klingons joined the Federation" and Picard said "yes."

Really? One of the few TNG episodes I've never seen.

Or perhaps they joined, then *unallied* themselves! Have any intrepid Trekkies attempted to reconcile this with the ever-important Canon? I know I haven't.

I must start a thread. This could be more controversial than bumpy foreheads.

And we all know who highlighted *that* discrepancy, don't we - and the place they hold in the annals of Trek history, right?

Damn, it's gratifying to know my epitaph will not be without sunstance.
 
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top