Imperial Census - How Many People Live in the Imperium

[imneuromancer]

Has anyone calculated the population of the Imperium (and maybe other major sophont empires) ??

I know it would be relatively simple given a list of all of the planets, parse out the population number, then add them all up. However, before I take the time to do that, would like to see if anyone else has done it already...

 

[aramis]

Has anyone calculated the population of the Imperium (and maybe other major sophont empires) ??

I know it would be relatively simple given a list of all of the planets, parse out the population number, then add them all up. However, before I take the time to do that, would like to see if anyone else has done it already...

Two HUGE issues preclude it:
1) the UWP's do not include secondary worlds' populations
2) there is insignificant accuracy in a single digit X pop multiplier to make a reasonable accumulation of even the Pop 8-A totals - and those are about 90% of the population, but about 10% of the worlds.

 

[rancke]

The canonical number is 15 trillion, but I very much doubt it is the result of anything more than a guesstimate.

There are supposed to be 11,000 worlds in the Imperium (even though there are only 9,000 systems). Assuming every 36 of those worlds has one pop A world, two pop 9 worlds, etc., and assuming the average population multiplier is 5, the population would be 15.2 trillion. But don't ask me how the Imperium knows which uninhabited planets to count and which not to count as in those calculations.


Hans

 

[shield]

There was a breakdown by sector in the Traveller's digest. I will have a look and find out. But the issues about pop of other minor worlds in system and the population digit are still true

 

[shield]

Its in Travellers digest 10.

Pop is 15.769 trillion voer 11197 worlds in 8976 systems.

Apparently the scouts count main worlds and any secondary worlds with a pop up to 3 levels below main world pop i.e. up to 1/1000th of the main world. The article says 25% of systems have such a seondary world thats counted inthe survey.

They have breakdowns by sector if anyone needs that level of detail

 

[Fritz_Brown]

up to 3 levels below main world pop i.e. up to 1/1000th of the main world.

Or 0.1%

 

[Nathan Brazil]

Two things I ask:

1.Do any of the figures count Client State systems?
2.By including Client State systems, is that how they get "11,000 worlds"?

Hmm. Time to rework my database for T5 data and redownload the Travellermap into my databases. I'll query it and get a mainworld and mainworld propulation count. Easy peasey.

 

[tjoneslo]

http://wiki.travellerrpg.com/Trade_map_summary

All the work has been done for you.

 

[rancke]

http://wiki.travellerrpg.com/Trade_map_summary

All the work has been done for you.

Except the work appears incomplete.

The work shows systems, not worlds_TC (the 'TC' stands for 'that counts' -- for some reason only 2000 of the Imperium's secondary worlds counts). The Imperium is shown as having 8924 worlds_TC and a population of 10,6 trillion. Elsewhere we're told that it has 11,000 worlds_TC and 15.2 trillion inhabitants. Assuming the 2000 extra worlds_TC has an average population no higher (and probably lower) than the 8924 mainworlds, that will increase the population accounted for to 13 trillion or less, leaving 2.2 trillion or more unaccounted for.

Note that I'm playing devil's advocate here. Personally I think that taking the population listed for a system as the total population of mainworld plus everything else is the best way to go. But as I've reluctantly been persuaded recently, that's not, in fact, the case (Even though all trade rules assume that it is).


Hans

 

[aramis]

Except the work appears incomplete.
Note that I'm playing devil's advocate here. Personally I think that taking the population listed for a system as the total population of mainworld plus everything else is the best way to go. But as I've reluctantly been persuaded recently, that's not, in fact, the case (Even though all trade rules assume that it is).


Hans

It's more correct to say that their trade value is subsumed in the always larger mainworld's trade. In a "Mainworld first then expand" generation mode (which is the canonical OTU mode prior to T5), the secondary worlds are ALWAYS less significant than the mainworld due to smaller populations.

As for the missing "2000 worlds" - I would presume those to be cases where a system is a far binary, and jump is required to trade effectively (It's possible to have two worlds in the same system be longer by N-space by a sufficient margin to justify jump between them instead of N-Space, despite significantly lower n-space shipping costs per unit time.

 

[tjoneslo]

Except the work appears incomplete.

The work shows systems, not worlds_TC (the 'TC' stands for 'that counts' -- for some reason only 2000 of the Imperium's secondary worlds counts). The Imperium is shown as having 8924 worlds_TC and a population of 10,6 trillion. Elsewhere we're told that it has 11,000 worlds_TC and 15.2 trillion inhabitants. Assuming the 2000 extra worlds_TC has an average population no higher (and probably lower) than the 8924 mainworlds, that will increase the population accounted for to 13 trillion or less, leaving 2.2 trillion or more unaccounted for.

Well, true. There are two sources of this problem.

The system count is from the days of CT, and the production of the Atlas of the Imperium, the DGP dot maps, and the Genii data. The random generation of data created the gap between the 11,000 number from the library data and the 8924 system in the data. Given the borders were already drawn, finding another (approximately) three sectors of systems wasn't going to be easy. The system vs worlds justification is a old one, even if the UWP data doesn't support showing it well.

I don't recall where the population figure of 15 Trillion comes from, but I suspect the the same problem. The T5 second survey increased the population of the Imperium from 10.397 Trillion to 10.590 Trillion.

I suspect we could add another two trillion people into the existing worlds without too much disruption. But that would require a third survey to add them.

 

[tjoneslo]

I went back and looked at my trade map, and my Imperial history.

The Solomani Sphere used to be part of the Imperium. All 1893 worlds, bringing the Imperial total to 10,817 worlds (rounding to 11,000) and 2.1 Trillion people (total of 12.745 Trillion, still a few trillion short).

Right up until 990 (the start of the Solomani Rim War), that region was part of the Imperium, and may be, in some quarters, still thought of as being so.