Galactic Populations

I'm slowly getting there (well, I confused the sources but besides that), assuming the 1.75m (not 1.32m sorry, now I understand) full member planet and 69m "some representation" figures are canon?

Am I wrong then to assume that full-member worlds are not more populated than non-full member worlds?

Edit: 100 quadrillion divided by 69 million still equals just under 1.5 billion per planet (1.449bn), surely much too high seeing how there are plenty of planets with populations smaller than that or not much bigger that are sector capitals, no less? Where did you get your 2 million figure from?

 

This is what happens when people have built concrete formulations in their heads on "turn-of-phrase", only to be jarred when they want to put a real concrete number in place.

This is why I champion total vagary with regard to tangible, countable, summable notions in this universe.

It's just not worth the pain, my friends.

 

One could make a heck of an income with a holoblog givn these numbers.

 

Why should a sector capital's population have a bearing on populations elsewhere in the galaxy? Brazilia being the capital of Brazil and less in population than Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, doesn't lead to those cities not existing.

And looking at the areas in the Core and Colonies, we have to remember these are galactic regions containing at least dozens of heavily populated sectors, the biggest conglomeration of urbanized worlds in the entire galaxy. There should be thousands or tens of thousands of Core systems packed with planets, moons, stations etc. where each have tens of billions, hundreds of billions or trillions of citizens, leading to the demographic chart in the Atlas.

 

No, you're right, I completely misread that - little under 2 billion - which matches up with the approximate of the worlds we've been given populations for (with the exception of worlds with marginal populations, which would not meet the requirements for 'representation' within the Empire). Administrative capitals - as can be seen in RL within the US for instance - does not necessarily equate to being one of the major population centers of the region. The median population value is probably below that, say around 800 million as a rough estimate - depending on the minimum value for representation, of course.

 

Yeah, it's all just pie in the sky at the end of the day I guess. I could go on that, whilst Washington D.C. isn't the biggest settlement in the United States, it's still bigger than thousands and thousands of towns across the country. Similarly in my mind I pictured the galaxy having a similar breakdown of planets - so, say, the full member planets are Coruscant, Corellia, Alderaan, Naboo etc. whilst the remaining 67 and a bit million are closer to Tatooine (0.2m), Cilpar, M'Haeli, Circaspous IV, scaling up to a handful of billion. That way, when I'm playing Rebellion or Empire at War with a hundred of so planets on the map, I don't need to suspend my disbelief so completely, because these are the major planets, you know? But ehhh, there are no real answers except an official statistic.

At the end of the day, I guess it would be reasonable to speculate on a galactic population of anything from 1 quad to 100+ quad. In my mind I chose to down-weight the population to reflect what in my mind feels like still quite a small universe: planets can be liberated by a half squadron of elite pilots and a small resistance group; Han Solo can run into Boba Fett every other week, and so on.

I think I'll still choose to interpret that 100 quad number as including plenty of hive-like species planets like Geonosis (100 bn)and Killik-like species that have vast populations and skew the population artificially high. Because I like my galaxy small and tangible.

 

Since I don't like a small or tangible galaxy, I'm going in the opposite direction. Sure, the Rogue Squadron comics show one or two squads on strike runs, but this is only a small aspect of warfare. We'd never finish a story if it'd continue after a victorious assault on a planetary capital, detailing the ongoing insurgencies, counterattacks on the new government etc. That's what the rpg and guidebooks are for.

Given the tendency of armies and navies to keep many resources in scattered, out-of-the-way systems, it makes sense these are the ones depicted in battles so frequently and not the more urbanized regions of the galaxy (which are mostly in the Core and Colonies that are less seen in warfare, anyway). I dare-say most heavily urbanized regions stay out of the stories and conflicts entirely, especially given the examples of Denon and Alsakan, which have seen little to no fighting in the big conflicts, and in the latter's case had its share in the distant past. You're looking at a heavily populated area, which means a potential for heavy civilian casualties, coupled with difficulty of enforcing an occupation and looking out for infiltrating task forces.

Now, in addition to citizenry, there's also another factor to remember, the droids sharing the living space with them. Do we know the amount of droids and how much space they occupy on a given world? That would drive up the numbers further, even though they require less facilities to survive than biological beings.