The Galactic population
- Thread starter StarLore
- Start date
Definitely more than three.
The old FASA Next Gen officers manual had the populations of the Federation and Klingon Empire, but I don't recall the numbers and don't have the book at hand.
The old FASA Next Gen officers manual had the populations of the Federation and Klingon Empire, but I don't recall the numbers and don't have the book at hand.
I think.......10 Billion!
More than a bit by a bunch.
Kirk gettin' his freak on.
In 1959, there were only 3 billion on Earth. In 1999, 6 billion. That's 40 years. At that rate (admittedly, not guaranteed), in 400 years it will have doubled 10 times. That would be 3 TRILLION people. If all of those people were supposed to live on this one planet, we would be absolutely screwed - but with a United Federation of Planets, it's feasible.
I'm sure in Star Trek's future, due to a decrease of unemployment and an increase in standard of living, people are having less kids and they're having them later, especially in 3rd world places with massive population growth. This increase in quality of life would create a much slower worldwide population growth than today. I would assume that once humans started to build colonies on M-class worlds and people started to emigrate, the population dropped slightly from that too. There would be a lot more inter-species marriages that don't result in children as well.
And you can't just count planets. What about those Borg space city-platforms we saw in Scorpion (assuming we count drones as "individuals" heh)?
What about the gas giant creatures in Interface (TNG)? A species that fills an entire atmospheric section of a gas giant could exist in huge numbers on just that one world. And did the Dyson sphere builders of Relics move to a stable star with a new sphere? They could exist in gigantic, Ringworld-like numbers (trillions) in such a structure.
What about the spaceliving creatures (Gomtu's kind) of Tin Man? They're big, but the galaxy is far, far bigger, and they could exist in huge numbers in some unknown region.
Of course there could be and certainly are more, undiscovered species in the Trek universe, including some that live in space in large numbers, but a census should look at only what we know.
What about the gas giant creatures in Interface (TNG)? A species that fills an entire atmospheric section of a gas giant could exist in huge numbers on just that one world. And did the Dyson sphere builders of Relics move to a stable star with a new sphere? They could exist in gigantic, Ringworld-like numbers (trillions) in such a structure.
What about the spaceliving creatures (Gomtu's kind) of Tin Man? They're big, but the galaxy is far, far bigger, and they could exist in huge numbers in some unknown region.
Of course there could be and certainly are more, undiscovered species in the Trek universe, including some that live in space in large numbers, but a census should look at only what we know.
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FWIW, "Statistical Probabilities" tells us that the Dominion War could result in 900,000,000,000 casualties. We get our minimum number of Alpha Axis citizens there, then, supposedly - it doesn't sound as if the Jack Pack were factoring in any Jem'Hadar fallen.
Two to three hundred billion people per major Alpha empire, then, as a minimum estimate. Or then eight hundred billion in the UFP, and much less in the Evil Empires. Or vice versa, for all we know.
The highest number of people per Class M planet? Probably Gideon - but we never hear the figure. Earth after the Borg time travel attack numbered nine billion, but Data made that sound like an unusual number; would Earth "really" have more, or less?
In "Dark Frontier", Janeway thinks the Borg consist of "thousands" of species and "billions" of individuals, but her knowledge probably isn't all that extensive. "Quadrillions" might be an equally valid bet, as the Borg do harvest more or less constantly in the shows, and we never learn of a Drone dying a natural death; the only excuse to fail to live forever comes from the barrel of a Starfleet phaser.
Another figure from "Scorpion" tells that the loss of eight Borg planets and 312 Borg ships together amounts to 4,000,621 Borg lives eliminated. We have seen some pretty quick planetary evacuations, but those were of tiny Maquis colonies that must have been prepared for rapid flight anyway; the suggestion there is that Borg planets on the average contain virtually no Borg. Doesn't mean there wouldn't be special habitation worlds in the Borg realm, tho, worlds that this particular attack did not touch.
That's about it for hard data. When we start speculating on free-space habitats and the like, the picture can be totally changed in either direction (say, perhaps because of the popularity of free-space existence, 99% of the habitable planets in the Milky Way are in fact uninhabited).
Timo Saloniemi
Two to three hundred billion people per major Alpha empire, then, as a minimum estimate. Or then eight hundred billion in the UFP, and much less in the Evil Empires. Or vice versa, for all we know.
The highest number of people per Class M planet? Probably Gideon - but we never hear the figure. Earth after the Borg time travel attack numbered nine billion, but Data made that sound like an unusual number; would Earth "really" have more, or less?
In "Dark Frontier", Janeway thinks the Borg consist of "thousands" of species and "billions" of individuals, but her knowledge probably isn't all that extensive. "Quadrillions" might be an equally valid bet, as the Borg do harvest more or less constantly in the shows, and we never learn of a Drone dying a natural death; the only excuse to fail to live forever comes from the barrel of a Starfleet phaser.
Another figure from "Scorpion" tells that the loss of eight Borg planets and 312 Borg ships together amounts to 4,000,621 Borg lives eliminated. We have seen some pretty quick planetary evacuations, but those were of tiny Maquis colonies that must have been prepared for rapid flight anyway; the suggestion there is that Borg planets on the average contain virtually no Borg. Doesn't mean there wouldn't be special habitation worlds in the Borg realm, tho, worlds that this particular attack did not touch.
That's about it for hard data. When we start speculating on free-space habitats and the like, the picture can be totally changed in either direction (say, perhaps because of the popularity of free-space existence, 99% of the habitable planets in the Milky Way are in fact uninhabited).
Timo Saloniemi
Problem with The Borg having those types of numbers is that their species designations only go up to about 10,000. I guess might have known about 8472 for a long time, but it's implied they haven't. I do agree that Drones could have a much longer lifespan, though.
There are millions of species on Earth alone. 8472 may refer to the 8,472th species they catalogued from that dimension.
Quadrillions may not be far off, but man I wish they'd do a better job of showing the vast emptiness of space regardless. Also, the vastly different forms of life. There could be individual beings the size of planets out there. Networks of intelligent cosmic strings or something. Lifespans in the billions of years or basically immortal from one Big Bang to the next. I don't care about the next humanoid-of-the-week/film.
Quadrillions may not be far off, but man I wish they'd do a better job of showing the vast emptiness of space regardless. Also, the vastly different forms of life. There could be individual beings the size of planets out there. Networks of intelligent cosmic strings or something. Lifespans in the billions of years or basically immortal from one Big Bang to the next. I don't care about the next humanoid-of-the-week/film.
I think everyone is not factoring the Eugenics War and World War 3 in depopulating the planet of humans. Assuming that a 1/3 of the humans died from these conflicts, I would assume that the population of humans on Earth alone would be less than 10 billion by the early 25th century (STO). That does not include the fact that birth control measures and career choices being the norm.
That's a whopper of an assumption. In "Bread and Circuses", Spock says mere 37 million died in WWIII; the Eugenics Wars don't even get a mention on his list. And while Riker ups the ante to 600,000,000 for WWIII in ST:FC (perhaps Spock only included those killed in combat?), that's still an almost irrelevant dent to the billions supposedly in existence at the time.
And again, there's plenty of time between the 2050s and the 25th century for Earth to redo its real population explosion of the 20th century, and then overdo it, producing hundreds of billions who just happen to like living in those vast arcologies seen in the 2009 film and thus don't crowd the streets of San Francisco.
Timo Saloniemi
And again, there's plenty of time between the 2050s and the 25th century for Earth to redo its real population explosion of the 20th century, and then overdo it, producing hundreds of billions who just happen to like living in those vast arcologies seen in the 2009 film and thus don't crowd the streets of San Francisco.
Timo Saloniemi
I found my copy of The Next Generation Officer's Manual . FASA's version of the TNG era is far more colourful than we got on-screen, IMHO. Here are their population statistics, for season 1 of TNG:
UFP: 589 trillion
Free Worlds of Klinzai: 170 trillion.
UFP: 589 trillion
Free Worlds of Klinzai: 170 trillion.
Huge families could totally be the norm. Colonists out to settle on uninhabited planets would feel strongly motivated to help the population grow, because a larger population means a more viable colony that's less likely to die of disease or weird space disasters. The reason we don't see this is probably just because Star Trek is an American show, & therefore subjective to some American cultural expectations (like families on average having 1-2 kids).
Unfortunately, they covered that base in TNG by declaring that the galaxy was seeded with humanoids. Hence why the vast, vast, vast majority of them are all the same general size and shape with only very few and very rare exceptions.
Don't forget about non-corporeal entities.. they are people too. They may not physically exist on a planet, but they exist and live within our universe and likely within our galactic region, even if in another dimension of it; just because they cannot be perceived by us lower life-forms without their desire for us to, doesn't mean they aren't a part of the galactic community.
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