Jedi Master Spock wrote:AOTC Novelization wrote:In her heart, Padmé remained steadfast that she had to work defeat the creation of this army. The Republic was built on tolerance. It was a vast network of tens of thousands of systems, and even more species, each with a distinct perspective. The only element they shared was tolerance—tolerance of one another. The creation of an army might prove unsettling, even threatening, to so many of those systems and species, beings far removed from the great city-planet of Coruscant.
OK, let me emphasize this. There are
more species in the Republic than systems.
There are three possible reasons for this that I can think of, off the top of my head. It's quite likely two or even all three of them are true:
One, it's unexpectedly common in Star Wars for a system to have multiple inhabited planets (EU example: Corellia), or multiple sentient species native to a habitable planet (EU example: Mon Calamari and Quarren).
A bit of a complicated way to say that each system would need to have 1.x times species as there are systems. You don't necessarily need several planets for that. There are plenty of planets with different species on it. Tatooine has humans and sand people (the EU has some story about the sand people that details their origins I think). Wayland had two different species.
The more important question is where these species come from, but that's outside of the point.
Two, the inhabited worlds of recent history within the Star Wars galaxy outnumber the worlds of the Republic by a fair margin. Thus, you may have populations whose genetic home planets are not part of the Republic.
Unless Republic territory has shrunk a great deal, excluding exclusive multi-species planets within the Republic, the only sources are obviously from outside, but wouldn't this be actually worth mentioning, as part of the demonstration that the Republic doesn't cover that much galactic territory?
Multi-species systems clearly sound far far more plausible, in light of what has been published.
Three, extra species are being created as a result of having long-term galactic civlization, i.e., divergent colony populations with high genetic drift becoming different species within a couple thousand years, genetic engineered species, etc.
The EU has such an example, with the Duros and Neimoidians. This can lead to point 1.
It's also worth comparing 150 worlds with the 900 billion dead estimate given in DS9. If there were just 150 worlds, then they would all be quite densely populated.
It's especially worthwhile to keep in mind the population of Federation colonies seen in the films. Many are small enough to evacuate with only a few ships; they often begin with a population of hundreds or thousands. New Providence, for example, had a population of "over 900" when the Borg wiped it out. The UFP probably claims and occupies tens of thousands of worlds by the 24th century (humans were spread to a thousand a hundred years earlier) but many have populations under a million.
I would also strongly suspect that 900 billion represents only a relatively small fraction of the total population of the Federation. 10% casualties across an entire population is a devastating blow to a human social structure regardless of what else happened in a war (see, for example,
this list for percentage population losses in WWII); couple it with disarmament and military suppression, and it will be many generations before recovery.
After being invaded by the Mongols, the Russians took 140 years after the fall of Kiev to rebel against the Golden Horde, and 240 years before they stopped paying tribute. That was some lasting trauma.
The Japanese, 60 years after WWII, are only
now starting to once again take "non-defensive" military action, and that only with the permission of their conquerors. Both Japan and Germany are
still heavily influenced by the way WWII ended; I think the Dominion is a rather more effective conqueror than the Allies were.
The Federation could easily have a population of 10 trillion; 900 billion would still be a devastating national trauma with the near-total destruction of all resistance for a half dozen generations.[/quote]
On the other hand, WWII's conflict focused on a fraction of the globe only, despite involving many worlds' resources, which would be quite different from the Dominion literally invading the whole UFP as if it were one unique country.
Without knowing what data Bashir based his estimation on, and not knowing when he uttered those words, I can only speculate that he was considering the full scope of the Dominion's abilities.
If it was before the wormhole cut, it makes even more sense. Counting the massive production of Jem'Hadars, we can clearly see how the Dominion would relentlessly harass the UFP.
Yes, percentages wise, several trillions would fit with our history, but I find it hard to mesh it with what we've seen of UFP worlds.
Earth, no matter the era, has never shown signs of impossible population levels. Even more, with the access to clean energy and good wealth for all, the formerly needed high population growths in poor countries have no reason to remain anymore (although synthetizers would obviously allow ten billions of people to live comfortably).
Not to say that global geopolitical uncertainty on Earth is one of the prime factor that pushes population growth. For example, China piling up numbers during the Cold War. The Federation is totally beyong the cynical exploitation of the masses and the profit of a few, misery is literally gone.
Add to this that cities like San Francisco or Paris show no real major difference to current versions, and that I'm yet to see evidence that previously untamed regions of the planet have now been invaded by hundreds of thousands of villages.
I don't see how one could honestly argue above a pop limit of 20 billions, which itself is sounding very high for such a planet, in a time of space exploration, expansion and colonization and observing how the humans tend to spread out more than many other species.
Then we look at Vulcan and Andoria, they're hardly large centers of population, yet hold a great place as founder worlds.
Tellar Prime could be one of the most populated worlds, eventually, neighbouring Earth or reaching higher, considering how we don't see many of these guys around in Trek, so it seems they'd prefer to say on their planet.
Coridan had 3 billion, and had been in contact with alien and trading with them for centuries. No reason to consider a major pop expansion.
Denobula had 12 billion people on their cramped continent. Unless their culture adopted a massive colonial lifestyle to solve the issue, they would have likely relied on population growth control to some extent, at some point.
Angosia is one of the most impressive places seen thus far, and by all accouts, what could be its most important city appears much greater than any city on Earth. But it was not an UFP world.
You also have odd examples, with
Stratos, being the capital of Ardana.
Compare this to the isolated, small and unimportant exploitation station known as
Cloud City, on Bespin.
Or what about Mars? Closest possible colony, and frankly miserable, even by a time the UFP has high level terraforming technologies.
When it comes to other colonies, needless to say that population levels are obvious going to be low.
MA says, about Gault
Gault is a Federation colony with a sparse population of no more than 20,000 inhabitants. It is widely regarded as a "farm-world".
Minos Korva had 2 million colonists on it.
Omicron colony had 150 people. Omicron Theta had 411 people studying sciences. Penthara IV had millions of people. Tarsus IV had 8000 people.
All other colonies which surfaces could be observed showed small settlements.
We also have Cardassia and its 800 M death toll which brought it to its knees, yet managed to be a constant threat to the UFP, before being so weakened that the Dominion possessed them.
If we pick the highest percentages, starting from 10%, for WWII casualties, we find figures around 12.7%. That's a total of 7,086 billion people.
Huh. Divided by 150, that's an average of 47.24 billion per planet. 70 B for 100 worlds, and 141 B for 50 worlds.
Completely improbable numbers.
Truth is, 900 billion sounds totally
rubbish on its own, only starting to make sense if you bend clues a lot and consider that it represents more than three quarters of the whole Federation population.
