Demographic history: justifications

[travalv]

If you assume that the Imperial population was doubling once every 70 years, and that the Imperial population is 16 trillion at 1120, then the Imperial population at year zero would be only 244 million people. This is far too low, especially as this population is for all 11,000 worlds at year 0, (most of which isn't even Imerial at the time)

If you asume that the population of these 11,000 worlds is 500 billion - a more reasonable, if still rather small figure (this would only be about 20 billion people per sector) - then, again assuming population doubling every 70 years, the total Imperial population as of 1120 would be 32,768,000 billion (or 32,768 trillion; 32.768 quadrillion) which is far too huge for the Imperium.

You can assume percise popualtion equilibrium, but historically, this has been historically very difficult to achieve. And, while it is not too hard to *lower* a population's birth rate, it's rather harder to bring it back above replacement again (See: Sweden, France, Japan: also ancient Rome, Greece). Moreover, cloning is frowned upon in the Offical Universe: allowing it will bring a new set of problems.

So, what happened to all the people? Seeing how well-armed the Imperium is, I suggest sporadic but brutal warfare - conventional, biological, nuclear, and infrastructural (worldwide strikes against electrical, sewage, and other crucial systems). Actual rebellions against the Imperium is rare: but infighting between major worlds is common. Throw in Solomani racialism and the Vilani preference for 'cost-efficent' fighting (nukes and such), and it's possible that their would be regional die-offs every so often.

It is also possible that the Civil War of the 600s was far more destructive than the Offical Traveller universe states. Offically, the nobles fought to take important worlds, not to destroy them: but this may not have been true. Moreover, many systems may have used the Imperial distraction to 'settle scores': this may well have cut the Imperial population in half, or even to a greater percentage. And, because many high-tech/high-pop worlds did survive (over a hundred or so, compared to the several hundred systems that existed before the civil war) the Imperium could rebuild itself fairly quickly.

This would make a good reason why the Solomani nobles were clearly weaker after the Civil War than before. It may also justify a change of Imperial policy, to promote non-human sapients to positions of authority - see the rise of the Vargr Archdukes in the domain of Antares. And, if you assume that the worlds of the Solomani Sphere did not suffer a maor population drop, this shift in demographics would give them enough power to negoitate a major secession from the Imperium.

 

[vegascat]

Consider that worlds will not have the same rate of growth.
High Pop, High Tech worlds will have a stagnate growth.
Scientific outposts will have no growth.
Ag worlds will have a high growth rate.
Some worlds will die off due to new plagues.

 

[Secrect Cow Level]

Even though the Third Imperium claimed all the former 1st and 2nd Imperium's as their own at year 0, in reality it only controlled Core Sector at that time. The rest was reasorbed (often with military might) over the next few centuries. Thus population figures for Year 0 would only include worlds in Core Sector.

 

[travalv]

True, most worlds may not have the same rate of growth: I am using a "straight-line projection" technique. This is good for a ballpark figure (usually), but there are increasing problems the longer the timeline you are using.

There may be an elegant solution: the Imperial growth rate was high until the Civil Wars, and then slowed down drastically. If the growth rate then started rising up again from 1000 Imperial (say, as a result of annexxing all those Solomani worlds), the resulting problems may well lead (indirectly or directly) to the Rebellion of the Offical Timeline.

[ Supporting evidence: the Solomani Sphere was only about 20 parsecs until their secession from the Imperium: but when it was extended to a 50 parsec sphere, the Solomani population grew rapidly to fill the newly available space. So much so, that when the original area was largely conquered in the Rim War, the rest of the Solomani Confederation could carry on as a respectably-sized interstellar governemnt, and even make credable palns to reconquer the lost territory from the Imperium.

Good counterpoint: why didn't this happen before Margaret II? Probable answer: they were settling Imperial space before their secession - with a special focus on the Domain of Deneb (it's canon that the Marches is largely Solomani, and I would throw in Deneb as well.) ]

******

There is the possibility that both the Vilani and the Solomani are "low birth-rate" cultures. I doubt it: such cultures have difficulty surviving the long term - especially when artifcial contraception is available. (For the Roman case, I seem to remember that there was a plant in the Mediterrarian region that was used as an aborticide (sp?): that plant was so overused that it's now *extinct*)

[Side note: in Vilani and Vargr, it is said that usually the *fourth child* inherited the family property: only with the Solomani was it changed to the First child. This implies a fairly high birth rate, at least until the "Thousand Years of Decadance" sets in...]

Certainly, the Solomani growth rate skyrocked during and after the Interstellar Wars: else, how could they colonize so many worlds? Unless you want to bring in cloning: and then you get the question "whose raising the kids?" Children reared with little/no human contact are NOT going to turn out right...

 

[simontmn]

I've no idea why you think the Imperial population would double every 70 years?

Going by history and substituting world for nation:

Population growth is by world, most people don't migrate interstellar distances. A low population agricultural world may experience rapid growth - it may eventually become a high population industrial world. But that's a localised phenomena.

When a world becomes crowded, if it's a peaceful high-tech world, its population tends to naturally stabilise or decline slightly as people reproduce less. This happened to the later Roman empire, and is happening in many advanced nations today.

If its not peaceful or not high-tech there tend to be wars, famines and suchlike, which cause rapid swings in population size.

In any case, even if people are still breeding no world's population can exceed its capacity to produce & import food for very long.

Applying this to the OTU, there's a good case that long-settled habitable (Earthlike) agricultural worlds should experience natural population increase into the billions, as Earth has done, although the rate will slow over time -Earth's population may never exceed 10-15 billion.
Artificial habitations will tend to be more crowded, and with no empty naturally available space, populations are less likely to grow very large.

 

[simontmn]

Incidentally, using the standard generation method you get 1/36 worlds having over 10 billion inhabitants, or 305 out of 11,000.
If we assume most are nearer to 10 than to 100 billion, and factor in the 1/18 worlds having mere billions of inhabitants, we can put the total population at about 20x305 = 6,111 billion, or 6.1 trillion, an average of 500 million/world.

If the average Code A world has a population of 50 billion the figure will be 2.5 times higher.
In either case the population-per-world figure is likely to remain fairly stable over time, to within an order of magnitude (eg varying from 100-1000 million per world over time).

 

[RainOfSteel]

Using my trusty Access database (downloaded from http://traveller.geekoids.com/software/mainpage.html; original source, the author states, is the Sunbane archive files), I can run a very simple query to calculate the population of the Imperium (including Population Multiplier). Spot checks of various canon sources show the data loaded into this database appears accurate.

Total Imperial Population?

14,719,573,437,820.

Yes, 14.7+ Trillion

 

[PVernon]

Also check out Anthony's map site

http://maps.travellercentral.com/map.html

And look at the statistics pages.

 

[Anthony]

Actually, don't. I was using a variant method of reading population digits. Counting using the standard method, 14 trillion is likely.

 

[T. Foster]

See also this related topic, which sparked a lot of discussion at JTAS (but seems to have been mostly ignored here).