The Buried Age

[LaBarre]

^What Dark Gilligan said.

And isn't that the whole point really; provided the novel makes sense within the general parameters that have developed over the decades and which taken together constitute the ST universe - then it's fine for authors to develop and play with themes and characters and worlds and alliances and to push all of those forward into arcs of their own, etc.

If the resulting novel steps way, way, outside of that accepted context, then you and I get to view it on fan fiction sites, not as a Simon & Schuster publication.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

Anyway you look at it, such a population growth stretches believability. Unless you have the denevans use cloning to increse their numbers or something similar.

Dude, this is Star Trek. Everything about it stretches believability, and yet you have trouble with population growth--the one thing that's not science fiction.

Teleportation stretches believability.

Saying 2+2=5 is just silly.

Population growth like what it's implied on Deneva is very close to the second example.

 

[Christopher]

What are we talking about here, Deneva's population growth from "Operation: Annihilate" to Destiny? Let's run some numbers.

100 years = 3 generations. If every family from TOS's 1 milllion had 6 children, there would be only 27 million by the 24th century.

And all human trek families we saw didn't have more than 1-2 children.

First off, we're talking about a span from 2267 to 2381, so it's 114 years. I disagree that that's only three generations in this context. On a colony world, where growing the population is a priority, generations would tend to be substantially shorter than in a modern post-industrial society where population growth is more restrained. (It makes no sense to assume that all humans would procreate at the same rate; naturally the fecundity on a growing colony world could be expected to be far greater.)

Instead of worrying about generation lengths and number of children per family, let's simplify the math. The fastest population growth ratio in Earth history is 2.2% per annum, reached in 1962-3. According to this, the way to calculate doubling time is to divide 72 by the growth ratio, and 72/2.2 = 32.7 years. So at Earth's maximum rate, the Denevan native population would double every 33 years. That's three and a half doublings in 114 years. Which would give only 11.3 million.

However, the percentage death rate in 1963 was around 1%, meaning the annual birth rate would've been more like 3.2%. If we assume superior medical technology means far fewer deaths, we can set the growth rate at 3% per annum, with a doubling time of 24 years, making it 4.75 generations, and what do you know, that gives us your 27 million. So your assertion that indigenous procreation alone would not be remotely sufficient is correct, as far as it goes.


So that leaves us with the immigration issue. Let's assume that anything over about 1.5 billion would be rounded up to "billions" in the heat of the moment. So we need to increase the population by at least that amount within 114 years. That averages out to 13 million immigrants per annum at minimum.

Now, the current US immigration rate is about 2.25 million per year, including births to immigrant families. So the Denevan immigration rate only needs to average six times the current American immigration rate. And America is only getting immigrants from one planet. Deneva would be getting immigrants from dozens, eventually hundreds of planets. If, for the sake of simplifying the math (and keeping the numbers conservative), we dismiss UFP colony worlds as trivial contributors, and assume that Deneva received immigrants from an average of 100 member worlds a year (growing from whatever it was in 2267 to the 155-ish of 2381), then each world would only need to contribute an average of 130,000 per year, just under 6 percent of what this one planet, Earth, provides in immigrants to America alone. And that's not counting all the Earthlings who emigrate to countries other than America.

But, of course, you must share with the numerous colonies the federation had and founded during that period.

Let's say that on Earth today, about 5 million people emigrate from their homes per year. Let's conservatively call that a typical rate for those average-100 worlds. And each of those worlds would only have to send 130,000 of those 5 million people -- 2.6% of the whole -- to Deneva. So Deneva could be receiving only about 1/40 of the total number of migrants in the Federation and still achieve the necessary population growth, even if the total emigration rate per planet is no greater than it is on Earth today. And given how actively the Federation encourages expansion and colonization, I suspect the emigration rate per planet would be considerably higher. Deneva might be receiving only 1/60 or 1/80 of the total number of migrants.

So the math simply doesn't support your conclusion, ProtoAvatar. Given the sheer abundance of planets in the Federation, each planet would only need to contribute a relatively small amount of immigrants (about the number of people who migrated to Australia in 2005-6) in order to provide Deneva with a population growth of over 1.5 billion in 114 years. And that would not require Deneva's immigration rate to be uniquely or improbably high. Given the assertion that there are roughly 1000 colony worlds in the Federation, a world receiving 1/40 of the total would be fairly high on the list, but not impossibly high. And somebody has to be near the top; why not Deneva, given its age and prominence?

 

[ProtoAvatar]

Christopher
"On a colony world, where growing the population is a priority, generations would tend to be substantially shorter than in a modern post-industrial society where population growth is more restrained."

But Deneva IS a post industrial society.

The greatest population growth on Earth is experienced in poor societies, where children help their parents at work from an early age.
The smallest population growth is seen in developed countries. The population growth is NOT restrained by law (mostly) or lack of resources - it's a result of life and society in these conditions.

You expect people to give birth to children at 15 years of age, as opposed to 30 years, just because they're in a colony, thereby shortening the generations?
Or do you expect a family to have a dozen children as opposed to 2-3 (as most families we have seen in trek had) just because they're in a colony?
HIGHLY UNLIKELY.


"Let's say that on Earth today, about 5 million people emigrate from their homes per year. Let's conservatively call that a typical rate for those average-100 worlds. And each of those worlds would only have to send 130,000 of those 5 million people -- 2.6% of the whole -- to Deneva."

On Earth, people emigrate from POOR countries to RICH countries. How many people emigrate from Australia or USA per year?
Those ~100 planets are rich planets - there's no shortage of resources, no corruption, no war that the emigrants want to escape.

Furthermore, Deneva was repeatedly described as being inhabited mostly by humans.
Well, from those ~100 worlds, only 2-3 are inhabited by humans. They would have to supply the lion's share of emigrants - which should amount to a LOT more than 130000 people.

And those emigrants have other options besides Deneva to emigrate. They want adventure, to build something new? Then they will go to the frontier colonies, not to Deneva. Deneva is just exchanging a rich, worry-free life (on their initial planet) for more of the same (on Deneva).

 

[JarodRussell]

On a colony world, where growing the population is a priority [...]

I already tend to disagree with this assumption. Why is growing a population a priority for a colony?

 

[Dark Gilligan]

Survival, for one. Genetic drift, for another. Both are exceedingly in danger if an isolated population is too small. History has shown us this time and again here on Earth. In alien environments the danger would be even more likely.

 

[Christopher]

Christopher
"On a colony world, where growing the population is a priority, generations would tend to be substantially shorter than in a modern post-industrial society where population growth is more restrained."

But Deneva IS a post industrial society.

You can't make a facile comparison with Earth here, since the situation is obviously different. Here on Earth, which is already heavily populated, there's not much incentive not to allow the population growth to fall once a society becomes post-industrial, and indeed plenty of incentive to decrease the growth rate to zero. But it should be self-evident that on a colony world, there would be a much stronger incentive to grow the population.

Besides, we're both in agreement that indigenous procreation would make a trivial contribution to the overall population growth, so it would be pointless to continue to debate the details of that portion of the analysis.

You expect people to give birth to children at 15 years of age, as opposed to 30 years, just because they're in a colony, thereby shortening the generations?

I never specified an age. I would've said 20-25 myself. And again, why are you continuing to argue about the part where I'm agreeing with you? I used different methodology, but arrived at the same conclusion you did. You should be glad of that, because it reinforces your position (on that point, at least) more than it would if I'd merely copied your methodology.

On Earth, people emigrate from POOR countries to RICH countries. How many people emigrate from Australia or USA per year?

Maybe today that's the case, but it can't be universally the case, or how would the Americas have been colonized so thoroughly? Plenty of people left their homes in fairly prosperous countries such as England, France, and Spain to settle the unknown (to them) frontier of the Americas. We do not live in such a colonial age, but people in the Federation in the 23rd-24th century do. Therefore it should be evident that comparisons to the 20th-21st century are ill-chosen. The cultural and economic dynamics are very different.

Besides, there's more than one kind of richness. Those settlers came to the Americas because they sought its material wealth, its wealth of land, its wealth of elbow room, etc. Deneva certainly seems to be a prosperous world; it's a center of mining and shipping, there are valuable crystals found there (according to DS9: "The Sound of Her Voice"), and Kirk calls it one of the most beautiful worlds in the galaxy, suggesting it's a popular destination for tourists and migrants alike. And what we saw of it in "Operation: Annihilate!" certainly looked advanced and prosperous. I don't see any reason to reject the possibility that its immigration rate was high, particularly since, as the numbers clearly show, the annual migration rate per planet wouldn't need to be particularly large at all.

Furthermore, Deneva was repeatedly described as being inhabited mostly by humans.

Perhaps in O:A, but I don't recall that being specified in the 24th-century fiction.

Well, from those ~100 worlds, only 2-3 are inhabited by humans.

Really? Let's see, you've got at least Earth, Mars, two Alpha Centauri planets, Cestus III, Berengaria VII... and Star Charts lists a bunch more that are probably mostly human, such as Benecia, Janus VI, Galt, Vega IX, etc.

And despite what tends to be shown onscreen, I refuse to accept that the worlds of the Federation are racially segregated, since that goes against everything the Federation is supposed to stand for. I'm sure there are plenty of humans living on Andoria, Tellar, Rigel, Betazed, Bolarus, Tiburon, etc, and plenty of nonhumans living on Earth, Alpha Centauri, and other "human" worlds -- including Deneva.

And those emigrants have other options besides Deneva to emigrate. They want adventure, to build something new? Then they will go to the frontier colonies, not to Deneva. Deneva is just exchanging a rich, worry-free life (on their initial planet) for more of the same (on Deneva).

Okay, now you're contradicting yourself. First you claimed that people only migrate to rich countries. Now you're saying they'd preferentially migrate to poorer worlds. You can't have it both ways.

Besides, why assume all migrants would have the same motivations? There are countless reasons why people migrate. Yes, there would be plenty of people seeking adventure on the frontier. There would be others drawn to major worlds such as Deneva by their wealth of various sorts: the physical beauty of the world, its culture and art, its robust economic opportunities. Plenty of people relocate for the sake of jobs. If Deneva were a prosperous, growing world, it's only logical that it would reach out and attract new employees and new settlers from all over in order to build its economy. (And yes, even without money in the modern sense, the UFP clearly has an economy; every society does, even if it's a post-scarcity economy.)

 

[JarodRussell]

Survival, for one. Genetic drift, for another. Both are exceedingly in danger if an isolated population is too small. History has shown us this time and again here on Earth. In alien environments the danger would be even more likely.

I don't think genetic drift was a problem in the North American colonies. And they didn't make it their priority to grow a huge population. That was a side effect.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

"Okay, now you're contradicting yourself. First you claimed that people only migrate to rich countries. Now you're saying they'd preferentially migrate to poorer worlds. You can't have it both ways."

Hardly.
I said the OVERWHELMING majority of migration is from poor countries to rich countries - today and during history.
There are some thrill/adventure seekers/dreamers, but they are a minority.


About America - the overwhelming majority of the colonists came from "England, France, and Spain to settle the unknown (to them) frontier of the Americas" because they thought that, in America, they'll have a better life than in the countries they left - materially, politically, etc. A fresh start, escaping opression and poverty.

In the federation, such motives are inexistent - poverty, oppresion has been eliminated on the densely populated, core federation planets.
These reasons for emigration have been completely eliminated. As for the other, 'minority' reasons, I ask again: 'How many people emigrate from Australia or USA per year?'


"I refuse to accept that the worlds of the Federation are racially segregated, since that goes against everything the Federation is supposed to stand for. I'm sure there are plenty of humans living on Andoria, Tellar, Rigel, Betazed, Bolarus, Tiburon, etc, and plenty of nonhumans living on Earth, Alpha Centauri, and other "human" worlds -- including Deneva."

There could be a minority of humans living on Andoria, Vulcan, Tellar, etc - this it was never shown nor implied, though. This minority's contribution to denevan population - via emigration - can only be minuscule.
And plenty of non-humans living on human worlds is still a minority of non-humans living on human worlds.

Christopher, there are about ~150 densely populated worlds in the federation (population in the billions). It stands to reason they're all represented in the federation council (much like Deneva was).
And there are ~150 member species composing the federation.
Under these conditions, how many densely populated human planets can there be? No more than 4-5. This is supported by trek canon and lit, too - most of the colonies we saw were relatively small - millions.

Considering all this, adventurers/thrill seekers/dreamers/ emigrating to Deneva could in no scenario reach ~2 billion in ~100 years.
And, as you agreed, indigenous procreationn can only make a trivial contribution to such a number.


Deneva was repeatedly described as being inhabited mostly by humans.
"Perhaps in O:A, but I don't recall that being specified in the 24th-century fiction."

Every fourth time the denevans are mentioned, they're called 'humans'.

 

[TerraUnam]

Are you kidding? Both the US and Canada ran huge retail immigration schemes in the 19th Century with the goal of filling the West. At their height they had advertising, subsidized liner passage, in some cases even assistance that amounted to an instant farm with implements. That was the case with my town in the 1830's.

The goal was clear: More People!

Genetic drift wasn't a problem in North America but has been a problem in isolated South Pacific islands. On a world scale, getting past that danger point is a priority.

Speaking of species mixing, it seems to me that the novels have only recently turned to this in force. Articles of the Federation had a Caitian CMO of Starfleet who grew up on Andoria and got his medical degree there. Or Tuvok's son who moved to Deneva with his Betazoid wife, T'Ryssa Chen (a fun example), or Sonek Pran in A Singular Destiny.

A corollary of this is to imagine just how many Vulcan and Betazoid genes are now kicking around Humanity's gene pool. Think how many telepaths might occur on Earth now that humans have mated with so many telepathic species.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

Are you kidding? Both the US and Canada ran huge retail immigration schemes in the 19th Century with the goal of filling the West. At their height they had advertising, subsidized liner passage, in some cases even assistance that amounted to an instant farm with implements. That was the case with my town in the 1830's.

The goal was clear: More People!

Yes - and what did the advertisments promised?
A better life and the means to make one.

In the federation, what can Deneva promise in the way of a better life that wasn't present on Earth?
Only something esoteric, such as something on Deneva prolonged your life, or gave you a permanent good mood, etc.

The best explanations that can be provided are:
From childhood, humans are indoctrinated in leaving their homes and going somewhere else, starting from scratch, in order to do their duty towards the federation.
Humans are just bored with their perfect lives and yearn to go 'into the wilderness' for a more vital life. But why go to Deneva and not a frontier world?

Even so, the enormous number of immigrants to Deneva (over 1 billion in a century) is rather silly.

 

[Thrawn]

It's not immediately and obviously plausible, no, but it's definitely in the category of things that could be fixed by two paragraphs in a novel at some point, where an author gave a reason why Deneva became a popular planet to immigrate to. The numbers Christopher gives have to be pretty reasonable if you buy the premise that humans colonize a ton of worlds in the first place.

I personally think that, given another several decades without any kind of major apocalyptic war, population growth will just about level off on Earth and this kind of major galactic colonization is implausible in the first place as a result. From that perspective, I agree with ProtoAvatar on a lot of his points.

But Trek has already established that comfortable, post-scarcity societies have the birthrates necessary to expand across the galaxy; all that's needed to justify the growth for Deneva, then, is that it's a more appealing destination than most. And there are tons of reasons I'd believe for that.

I try and only actually worry about problems I can't imagine being explained away that quickly, kind of like the jump in characterization between Q&A and Before Dishonor, which is still extremely annoying despite Christopher's attempts to clean it up in GTTS.

 

[TerraUnam]

Partly it's a relic of Trek's 1960's creation; the Baby Boom was in full swing and memories of the frontier and homesteading were still alive. High birth rates and industrial/technological society weren't seen to be incompatible. That came later.

Then again A Singular Destiny alludes to the fact that colonization was what helped pull Earth out of its nadir after WWIII and First Contact. Gault is cited as being a farming world.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

Partly it's a relic of Trek's 1960's creation; the Baby Boom was in full swing and memories of the frontier and homesteading were still alive. High birth rates and industrial/technological society weren't seen to be incompatible. That came later.

Then again A Singular Destiny alludes to the fact that colonization was what helped pull Earth out of its nadir after WWIII and First Contact. Gault is cited as being a farming world.

Actually, the massive human colonozation wave after WW3 makes sense - tens of millions leaving a devastated world, seeking a better life among the stars...

By the time of TOS, though, this is no longer the case.

 

[Christopher]

Partly it's a relic of Trek's 1960's creation; the Baby Boom was in full swing and memories of the frontier and homesteading were still alive. High birth rates and industrial/technological society weren't seen to be incompatible. That came later.

And I don't think they would necessarily be incompatible in an expanding interstellar civilization. I mean, really, we're talking about a post-industrial society, not an industrial one. Without as much need for people to work for a living, a high birth rate wouldn't necessarily be commensurate with gender inequality and universal education/suffrage. Men and women might both choose to commit more to family life if they didn't need to do the nine-to-five grind to get by.

Then again, if there was a relative regression in gender equality due to high birth rates on the frontier, that could explain a lot about gender attitudes in TOS. I believe the Reeves-Stevenses suggested something like that in Federation.

 

[JarodRussell]

Yes - and what did the advertisments promised?
A better life and the means to make one.

In the federation, what can Deneva promise in the way of a better life that wasn't present on Earth?
Only something esoteric, such as something on Deneva prolonged your life, or gave you a permanent good mood, etc.

The best explanations that can be provided are:
From childhood, humans are indoctrinated in leaving their homes and going somewhere else, starting from scratch, in order to do their duty towards the federation.
Humans are just bored with their perfect lives and yearn to go 'into the wilderness' for a more vital life. But why go to Deneva and not a frontier world?

Even so, the enormous number of immigrants to Deneva (over 1 billion in a century) is rather silly.

Yeah, the concept of colonization as we know it is kinda obsolete when Earth is supposed to be a paradise (and I assume that every core member planet of the Federation is a similar paradise since all the advances in technology are for everyone and not only humans) and the Federation is not an imperialistic empire.
And the colonization of the American West was driven by the gold rush and of course the belief in Manifest Destiny. Yet in Star Trek it has been repeatedly mentioned that mankind has grown out of its infancy.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

And I don't think they would necessarily be incompatible in an expanding interstellar civilization. I mean, really, we're talking about a post-industrial society, not an industrial one. Without as much need for people to work for a living, a high birth rate wouldn't necessarily be commensurate with gender inequality and universal education/suffrage. Men and women might both choose to commit more to family life if they didn't need to do the nine-to-five grind to get by.

That would be a good argument for explaining increased natality within the federation.

The problem is - all trek human families we saw only had 1-3 children. Not enough in order to account for Deneva's increase in numbers - not to mention all the other human colonies encountered in the 24th century.

And the colonization of the American West was driven by the gold rush and of course the belief in Manifest Destiny. Yet in Star Trek it has been repeatedly mentioned that mankind has grown out of its infancy.

O, the federation believed in 'Manifest destiny' - grown up belief? Good question.
Actually, it should be interesting to see how this belief in 'Manifest destiny': 'we will handle everything we encounter' and 'we have only to gain from exploration' is affected by the events from 'Destiny'.

'The buried age' and 'Q, who' could serve as a 'before' picture.

 

[TerraUnam]

By "relic" I meant that anyone writing in the 1960's couldn't know that birth rates in the industrialized world would fall off so dramatically, in fact the converse was seen to be true. Post WWII prosperity plus the Baby Boom set the tone; the drop in birth rates in the 1970's combined with the end of the post-war boom was still in the future.

It seems pretty axiomatic in Trek that after you explore a "Strange New World" if its vacant you colonize it.

Plus 1960's Trek had an optimistic view of government as shown in "Whom Gods Destroy". Trek's moneyless future with abundant colonies, abundant population and an ever-expanding economy is just the post-war Keynesian Consensus taken to an extreme. Remember the 1930's were a time of stagnation, unemployment, ineffective policies and ultimately global war.

Ironically we've just returned to Depression-era economics with the 2008 Credit Crisis. Lucky us.

 

[Dark Gilligan]

I don't think genetic drift was a problem in the North American colonies. And they didn't make it their priority to grow a huge population. That was a side effect.

Genetic drift is a problem when any group remains small, either by geographic isolation, language barriers, or religious choice, even in North America. The Amish communities in Western Pennsylvania have had well-documented problems with genetic drift for generations now.

 

[JarodRussell]

I don't think genetic drift was a problem in the North American colonies. And they didn't make it their priority to grow a huge population. That was a side effect.

Genetic drift is a problem when any group remains small, either by geographic isolation, language barriers, or religious choice, even in North America. The Amish communities in Western Pennsylvania have had well-documented problems with genetic drift for generations now.

But aren't the Amish a too extreme example, more like the exception than the rule?