Please review Third Imperium Demographic Data Table: 1116

[maksimsmelchak]

Please review Third Imperium Demographic Data Table: 1116

The page here:
External Link: [http://wiki.travellerrpg.com/Third_Imperium#Demographic_Data_Table:_1116 Third Imperium Demographic Data Table: 1116]

...needs review! Please help if you have a little free time to help the Traveller Wiki project.

Thanks to the hard work of Nathan Brazil and many others, we now have a basic census of the races present in the Third Imperium as of 1116. Thank you, Nathan Brazil!

Please review this data, see if you can find any typos or errors, and discuss here or at the Wiki.

Thank you!

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

 

[flykiller]

I've always wanted to know exactly what the spinward marches was up against from the zhodani side, so I've been curious about the contents of ziafrplians sector. the article states that "The highest population worlds are Chabob (Ziafrplians 0905), and Enzhliep (Ziafrplians 1039)" but the world descriptions list them as agricultural (thus low-pop) and specifies no population. of the high-tech worlds ("The highest tech level is E at Devliensh (Ziafrplians 0701), Zhdidnianj (Ziafrplians 0918), Tetayask (Ziafrplians 1839), Siara (Ziafrplians 2236), and Fitl (Ziafrplians 2331)") all are listed as low-pop agricultural worlds except fitl, which seems to be the only world of any significance in the entire sector. so I'm wondering if this data is "official" and vetted, or is it just someone typing in random stuff?

and if it really is that way, and given the trouble the zhodani have caused the imperium, this would tie in nicely with the recent zhodani cultural/government threads. it would indicate that the consulate population is very low - probably by design, the easiest way to establish control is to limit the controllers' workload - but unitary and focused.

 

[whulorigan]

One note about the Syleans: ISTR that only about 10% of the population of Sylea (Capital) are actually pure ethnic/racial-Syleans. The rest are the descendants of mixed Solomani/Vilani settlers from prior Imperia (w/ perhaps some Sylean ancestry mixed in).

Cleon I has definitely been described in prior material as either of Solomani or mixed-Solomani/Vilani ancestry. So I do not know if you would want to slightly reword the phrase under Syleans that says: "Their cultural achievements are the cornerstone of the Imperium and one of their own was the founder of the Third Imperium."

Do we actually know how much native Sylean culture has influenced the culture of Sylea/Capital as a whole, or is present in the larger population? I do not have it with me, but I think the primary source material for the Syleans is GT:Humaniti.

 

[maksimsmelchak]

Hi Wayne,

One note about the Syleans: ISTR that only about 10% of the population of Sylea (Capital) are actually pure ethnic/racial-Syleans. The rest are the descendants of mixed Solomani/Vilani settlers from prior Imperial (w/ perhaps some Sylean ancestry mixed in).

Good call. Thanks for sharing.

Cleon I has definitely been described in prior material as either of Solomani or mixed-Solomani/Vilani ancestry. So I do not know if you would want to slightly reword the phrase under Syleans that says: "Their cultural achievements are the cornerstone of the Imperium and one of their own was the founder of the Third Imperium."

I re-worded under your feedback. Thank you very much.

Do we actually know how much native Sylean culture has influenced the culture of Sylea/Capital as a whole, or is present in the larger population? I do not have it with me, but I think the primary source material for the Syleans is GT:Humaniti.

I had thought that the T4 materials were primary. I am still re-reading them.

And the answer to your question to the best of my knowledge is no. We do not know much about native Sylean culture. The T4 materials are minimal and tantalizing.

I have GT Humaniti and need to further study it.

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

 

[maksimsmelchak]

Hi FK,

I've always wanted to know exactly what the spinward marches was up against from the Zhodani side, so I've been curious about the contents of Ziafrplians sector.

Me too. Very little data on the Zhodani is currently available.

The article states that "The highest population worlds are Chabob (Ziafrplians 0905), and Enzhliep (Ziafrplians 1039)" but the world descriptions list them as agricultural (thus low-pop) and specifies no population. of the high-tech worlds ("The highest tech level is E at Devliensh (Ziafrplians 0701), Zhdidnianj (Ziafrplians 0918), Tetayask (Ziafrplians 1839), Siara (Ziafrplians 2236), and Fitl (Ziafrplians 2331)") all are listed as low-pop agricultural worlds except fitl, which seems to be the only world of any significance in the entire sector. so I'm wondering if this data is "official" and vetted, or is it just someone typing in random stuff?

We'd have to ask Josh (Inexorable) or Thomas Jones-Low. To my knowledge, the sector summaries are automatically generated using Traveller Map data. Sometimes the data seems to not follow common sense or Traveller internal rules... Welcome to the wonderful world of inconsistent Traveller data!

All data is eventually vetted, but I'm never figured out the process or whether it's consistent. T5SS is pretty nebulous and I might be part of it and not even be aware since I've been actively participating in the community since early 2015.

I sometimes get the impression that Marc Miller is Yaskodrei "Grandfather", the master precursor, and the rest of us are various Droyne "children" at various levels of favor. I suspect that we'll all be wiped out or already were... in the Final War.

I'd call the data unofficial to be cautious if anyone asked.

And if it really is that way, and given the trouble the Zhodani have caused the imperium, this would tie in nicely with the recent zhodani cultural/government threads. It would indicate that the consulate population is very low - probably by design, the easiest way to establish control is to limit the controllers' workload - but unitary and focused.

Hard to say... LOL ;-)

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

 

[Garnfellow]

Hmmmmm. Those numbers really don't look right, and that may be more a reflection of the raw T5SS data than the summary table itself. Or may be in how some of these groups are classified.

But in any case my gut reaction is that this breakdown doesn't really reflect the Imperium as portrayed in any canonical descriptions.

Although the wiki's default timeline is 1116, if the data was pulled from Traveller Map it's 1105.

Lancian? Are they really a minor human race, or just a distinct human culture?

Where are the ubiquitous newts?

The Geonee numbers look low.

Where are the Selenites in Imperial space?

 

[Garnfellow]

These numbers show that there are some real problems with leaning too hard on the T5SS data for sophont demographics.

First, population notations are very inconsistent right now and should not be considered comprehensive. If a canonical text source mentioned a significant non-human population, that probably ended up in the T5SS data. But the vast majority of Imperial worlds have never been touched by canon, and no one has yet done a systematic sweep through the data to seed non-human populations. Minority Vargr populations should be more common in the coreward sectors, Aslan populations in Daibei and maybe Magyar. So on and so forth.

Second, several large non-human populations appear to be thinly scattered throughout Imperial space. Vargr, Bwaps, Aslan, and Suerrat are all good examples. While they might not appear concentrated in large enough numbers to show up in the remarks section of a mainworld, in aggregate they probably represent significant populations across the Imperium.

Here's a quick back-of-the-envelop of this second case.

Imperiallines 7 contains some interesting hints at the demographics of the Imperium, noting that "While the Imperium was created by Humaniti and continues to be dominated by humans, roughly half of the nobles in the Imperium are non-Humans or minor Human races that have diverged significantly from the Sylean, Vilani, and Solomani norm, and the Human half includes those minor races that remain part of the main Human genetic pool."

Now, the composition of the nobility does not necessarily reflect the overall composition of the population. My guess is that the nobility intentionally overrepresents non-human sophonts, but that's only a guess.

But Imperiallines gives us some sense of proportions of non-human races within the larger non-human group: "In general, no other race comprises more than 5% of the non-Human noble population, though the Vargr have exceeded that number at times, and the Aslan, Bwaps, and Suerrat routinely approach it."

Let’s assume that any cosmopolitan world will have a sizable minority of non-humans. And by cosmopolitan I’m thinking just pop A, starport A mainworlds. Ignoring the T5SS data, let’s use some standard odds from worldgen to calculate numbers.

• There are about 10,000 worlds in the Imperium
• About 2.77% of those, or 277, will be Pop A worlds. (Collectively these 277 worlds would be almost 81% of the total population.)
• About 16.65% of those, or 46, will have Class A starports
• Assuming a pop multiplier of 5, that gives us about 2.3 trillion as the total Imperial Population on Pop A, Class A starport worlds.

Let’s assume just 10% of that population, or 231 billion, are non-humans on Pop A, Class A starport worlds across the Imperium. Collectively that’s huge, but because no one sophont species has a large percentage they wouldn't show up in the T5SS data.

If you take that 231 billion number and project some assumed percentages, you can see how large the missing populations would be:

• Vargr (assume 5% of non-humans) – 11.5 billion
• Bwap (assume 4% of non-humans) - 9.2 billion
• Aslan (assume 3% of non-humans) - 6.9 billion
• Suerrat (assume 3% of non-humans) - 6.9 billion

Again, that’s just on pop A, starport A worlds.

 

[maksimsmelchak]

Hi Garnfellow,

Hmmmmm. Those numbers really don't look right, and that may be more a reflection of the raw T5SS data than the summary table itself. Or may be in how some of these groups are classified.

But in any case my gut reaction is that this breakdown doesn't really reflect the Imperium as portrayed in any canonical descriptions.

Although the wiki's default timeline is 1116, if the data was pulled from Traveller Map it's 1105.

We'd have to ask Nathan Brazil. I'm pretty sure he used raw Traveller Map data, which could explain some of the observations that you have made.

Lancian? Are they really a minor human race, or just a distinct human culture?

Good question, one that I have asked as well.

Where are the ubiquitous newts?

I also noticed that.

The easy answer is that they must be under 10 billion population, the cut off line... But, that still seems off.

The Geonee numbers look low.

They would because the Geonee have never been allocated through Imperial space. Don was in the process, but someone else will need to take up that saddle now. When things are stable again, I will start working on it. Until then I have been processing other projects.

Where are the Selenites in Imperial space?

You must have missed them. They are there. Use the sort buttons at the top of the chart... Makes it much easier.

Thanks for your observations, Garnfellow.

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

 

[maksimsmelchak]

Hi Garnfellow,

These numbers show that there are some real problems with leaning too hard on the T5SS data for sophont demographics.

I might have a different perspective. I'm just glad that someone not only played with the data, but did something concrete and awesome with it. Sure, it's not perfect yet, but it sure is a great start and I've very appreciative of what Nathan Brazil has done. Good on him.

First, population notations are very inconsistent right now and should not be considered comprehensive. If a canonical text source mentioned a significant non-human population, that probably ended up in the T5SS data.

Agreed.

But the vast majority of Imperial worlds have never been touched by canon, and no one has yet done a systematic sweep through the data to seed non-human populations.

You might be quick to speak... At least one "someone" has done a systematic sweep of the data with sophont seeding in mind. I'm 100% sure of it because I have done it. And I know that Don and Marc were also working on it. There are probably others...

Minority Vargr populations should be more common in the coreward sectors, Aslan populations in Daibei and maybe Magyar. So on and so forth.

Agreed. And so on and so forth.

Second, several large non-human populations appear to be thinly scattered throughout Imperial space. Vargr, Bwaps, Aslan, and Suerrat are all good examples. While they might not appear concentrated in large enough numbers to show up in the remarks section of a mainworld, in aggregate they probably represent significant populations across the Imperium.

Agreed. Good observation.

Thanks for your insights as always, Garnfellow.

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

 

[Nathan Brazil]

Long time no speak.

How I arrived at the numbers:

The base data source is travellermap.com. No others were used as travellermap is the most recent source and more or less approved canon source.

All the sectors data are broken down to each and every data element and parsed thru my purpose build Microsoft Access Database.
Non-standard humans or non-humans of significant population are stored with the SophN codes. From here population count can begin.

I have a population query which converts the codes to into percent, then determines population for the planet then accumulates totals for each Sophont group. Not a perfect query as the values certainly represent a range. I did it like hydrographics is % but more likely represents a range 1=10% but could represent 5-14 %. 0 codes I set at 4% and W at 100 to to intentionally skew towards a less standard human population.
Example

1910 Regina A788899-C Ri Pa Ph An Cp (Amindii)2 Varg0 Asla0 Sa { 4 } (D7E+5) [9C6D] BcCeF NS - 703 8 ImDd F7 V BD M3 V

Regina has population of 700,000,000
It has sophont codes of
Amindii 2
Aslan 0
Vargr 0

Which turn into
Amindii 20%
Aslan 4%
Vargr 4%
Standard Imperial-Human 72%

and so
140 million Amindii
28 million Aslan
28 million Vargr
504 million Standard Imperial-Human

When each of the 8000+ Imperial systems are counted (as indicated by the allegiance codes) and totalled, the Amindii do not make the arbitrary 10 billion population cut. Why 10 billion? Because there are over 150 sophont codes and to save space...

 

[Nathan Brazil]

If you have a canon reference that indicates a larger population, please make me aware of it. To me canon has to be one of the published products from one of the past or current OTU product lines, not a fanzine.

Publication and page please for annotation in the wiki.

As a practical note though, it only makes a difference if it pushes the sophont group over the 10 billion mark or increases a groups population over the current value.

Maksim, for my next trick, I will attempt to determine number of distinct pureblood Vilani based on the DGP Vilani bloodline chart and applying it to the travellermap data (minus the sophonts already determined to be of other groupings).

 

[maksimsmelchak]

If you have a canon reference that indicates a larger population, please make me aware of it. To me canon has to be one of the published products from one of the past or current OTU product lines, not a fanzine.

Publication and page please for annotation in the wiki.

All good. It's practically all a stab in the dark.

Working on primary citations. It will take time.

Only 20k worlds left to go! LOL

As a side note, other than Don's Hermeneutic (...sounds so biblical), Robject's work, and Marc's occasional statements, canon isn't so well defined.

As a practical note though, it only makes a difference if it pushes the sophont group over the 10 billion mark or increases a groups population over the current value.

That's reasonable. I'm a detail man though so I want as much as possible.

That's why I got involved with the wiki, because after almost a decade of watching it, it wasn't getting done and I wanted more. So, I dug in and got to work.

Maksim, for my next trick, I will attempt to determine number of distinct pureblood Vilani based on the DGP Vilani bloodline chart and applying it to the travellermap data (minus the sophonts already determined to be of other groupings).

I'm curious about that too, also how many worlds have Humaniti.

I'd love to see you make more of your demographics tables for the most detailed sectors.

I will assist and support you in any projects you want to work on. And I'm pretty capable.

Positive vibes to you!

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

P.S.
Check this out: [http://wiki.travellerrpg.com/Minor_Non-Human_Race Minor_Non-Human_Race]