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[jamesp81]

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

jamesp81 wrote...


The Turians do have multiple worlds with populations measuring in the billions.  So maybe not apples to apples.

However, CGG's scenario could work.  Earth could be re-colonized after a near extinction of the population.  I am wondering how you'd get the warm bodies to colonize it though....loss of Earth's entire population or almost all of it is 95% or more of the human race.  I guess you'd need a hell of a lot of cloning facilities or something.

Also, assume it's possible for the human population to double each generation. All it takes is the average family having 4 kids. Some will have fewer, some will have more. This is not unreasonable: the average woman had 3.8 children in postwar america. Now we have even better technology.

Given that, and assuming a generation is approx 25 years, it takes only 200 years to go from 100 million to 8 billion, unless I've done some math wrong. That may seem like a long time, but in galactic time it's barely an eyeblink. And I really do believe that humanity will do it, especially if they go heavy agrarian on some of the colonies.

Make sure you're figuring in death rates.  I think average human life expectancy in the ME universe is running 130.

100 million people would constitute a 99.13% kill off of Earth's population.  I guess it would depend on how many kids people wanted to have.  My grandmother, for example, had 9 siblings.

[jamesp81]

Rekkampum wrote...

jamesp81 wrote...


The Alliance doesn't HAVE any power outside of Earth.  Almost all of the Alliance's resources are derived from Earth at this point.

That's demonstrably false, since they've been heavily invested in surveying other planets for resources. 

Seriously though, a unicorn wouldn't be out of place. Maybe it could be a long-forgotten race of aliens akin to the beings of light. 

And without Earth's economy, the Alliance will be physically unable to defend those surveyed worlds.  With a population that measures a few hundred million, they will be unable to generate enough of an economy to afford a military that can protect those worlds.

[CulturalGeekGirl]

jamesp81 wrote...

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

jamesp81 wrote...


The Turians do have multiple worlds with populations measuring in the billions.  So maybe not apples to apples.

However, CGG's scenario could work.  Earth could be re-colonized after a near extinction of the population.  I am wondering how you'd get the warm bodies to colonize it though....loss of Earth's entire population or almost all of it is 95% or more of the human race.  I guess you'd need a hell of a lot of cloning facilities or something.

Also, assume it's possible for the human population to double each generation. All it takes is the average family having 4 kids. Some will have fewer, some will have more. This is not unreasonable: the average woman had 3.8 children in postwar america. Now we have even better technology.

Given that, and assuming a generation is approx 25 years, it takes only 200 years to go from 100 million to 8 billion, unless I've done some math wrong. That may seem like a long time, but in galactic time it's barely an eyeblink. And I really do believe that humanity will do it, especially if they go heavy agrarian on some of the colonies.

Make sure you're figuring in death rates.  I think average human life expectancy in the ME universe is running 130.

100 million people would constitute a 99.13% kill off of Earth's population.  I guess it would depend on how many kids people wanted to have.  My grandmother, for example, had 9 siblings.

Exactly. I want to clarify: this just assumes that the average human woman will have 4 kids before dying. This is not unrealistic. Some women will have twelve kids, some with have none. It's all about average population, and humanity has shown a marked ability to breed up after a disaster.

I'm not great at math, so this calculation is very crude. It implies that the average human will have 4 kids, live 'til 50, and die, so this growth rate may well be a lowball estimate. The only limitation is food resources, and on a garden world with future tech, I have no doubt we can feed a population of 2-3 billion, easy.

Edit: Addendum - human population in 1350 was 300 million. It was only 600 million in 1700. We've got this.

Modifié par CulturalGeekGirl, 06 avril 2011 - 07:39 .

[Robhuzz]

 

 take back Earth with the help of all the forces you gathered

We're not really going to play ME3 like it's a proper war to reclaim lost territory. This is about one thing only: Survival of the human race (and other races as well though if they're too weak to defend themselves they don't deserve to survive if you ask me). As such it's not a matter of taking back Earth, hell, if the planet has to be sacrificed in order to save the last million humans or so on another planet and ensure the survival of the human race, then so be it. This victory will not come without great cost. Every single civilisation who has fought against the reapers before were utterly destroyed. So having enough people left to sustain a viable population with every human colony (including earth) in ruins should be considered a major victory.

Will I be pissed off if earth's surface is destroyed by the reapers? No... Will I be sad... well definately. But let's not forget our only true goal in this war: Survival.

[jamesp81]

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

jamesp81 wrote...

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

jamesp81 wrote...


The Turians do have multiple worlds with populations measuring in the billions.  So maybe not apples to apples.

However, CGG's scenario could work.  Earth could be re-colonized after a near extinction of the population.  I am wondering how you'd get the warm bodies to colonize it though....loss of Earth's entire population or almost all of it is 95% or more of the human race.  I guess you'd need a hell of a lot of cloning facilities or something.

Also, assume it's possible for the human population to double each generation. All it takes is the average family having 4 kids. Some will have fewer, some will have more. This is not unreasonable: the average woman had 3.8 children in postwar america. Now we have even better technology.

Given that, and assuming a generation is approx 25 years, it takes only 200 years to go from 100 million to 8 billion, unless I've done some math wrong. That may seem like a long time, but in galactic time it's barely an eyeblink. And I really do believe that humanity will do it, especially if they go heavy agrarian on some of the colonies.

Make sure you're figuring in death rates.  I think average human life expectancy in the ME universe is running 130.

100 million people would constitute a 99.13% kill off of Earth's population.  I guess it would depend on how many kids people wanted to have.  My grandmother, for example, had 9 siblings.

Exactly. I want to clarify: this just assumes that the average human woman will have 4 kids before dying. This is not unrealistic. Some women will have twelve kids, some with have none. It's all about average population, and humanity has shown a marked ability to breed up after a disaster.

I'm not great at math, so this calculation is very crude. It implies that the average human will have 4 kids, live 'til 50, and die, so this growth rate may well be a lowball estimate. The only limitation is food resources, and on a garden world with future tech, I have no doubt we can feed a population of 2-3 billion, easy.

With the exception of third world countries where the government abuses it's citizens, we're feeding 6 billion people now without too much trouble.  Or, put another way, we could easily feed the entire world now if it weren't for political bull**** getting in the way.

[Whatever42]

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

Almostfaceman wrote...

Haven't the Turians had a lot more time to "spread out" than humanity?  That's not exactly an apples to apples comparison methinks.

Gonna break down that quotem pole.

Damnit, I'm trying to keep my posts short! But when short, they're misinterpreted! I can't win!

I'm talking more about the political implications of removing council/citadel protection from a race because that race was devastated by an outside force. The Quarians were abandoned because they were seen as having "made their own bed." They broke council rules, and created a superweapon... then started a war with the superweapon they created.

The "selling point" for the citadel is that once you're there, you're part of a huge agreement to work together and engage in diplomacy. If the Asari and Salarians start chucking races out as soon as they are no longer "useful," more races will decide to take the Batarian route: ditch the council, enslave council races and ravage council colonies. After a Reaper invasion, no one will feel safe. The idea that, if your race is the next one targeted by a Reaper fleet, you'll never get any help? That would hurt the citadel very badly. It's fine to be jerks to the Quarians... you can justify it to yourself, claim that they "had it coming." But being jerks to a race that just got blindsided by an outside force? That reduces the relevance of the council and the citadel. Marketing fail.

A race with only a few million people cannot sit on the council. It would be like the Principality of Andorra having a permenant seat on the Security Council. Not going to happen. And even if it did, can you see them voting any other way other than what the French tell them to vote?

Humanity would be the pets of the Turians. Oh, in a paragon future, we'd have a nice collar and get the best dogfood but we'd still be pets. And in a renegade universe, we'd probably be reduced to being interstellar terrorists. Touch one of our colonies and we'll wipe out your populations with biological agents. We'd be worse than the Quarians. We'd be vicious terrorists, shunned everywhere in the galaxy.

Heck, in that future, my renegade Shepard is helping the Reapers.

[Whatever42]

So we want women to become baby machines? We'd pass laws mandating that they have children? hrm... maybe its not a bad future. Women barefoot and back in the kitchen again.

[raist747]

I'm sure overfishing and resource drainage would speak otherwise. We're at 7 billion now actually. And its only going to get worse.

Like I said earlier. I'm fine with ditching the cradle. I think realistically if colonies in space were possible, we'd see a virtual exodus of the population, like people in Europe did when it became feasable to travel to the Americas. Mass Effect is different from other Sci-Fis in that sense.

[Almostfaceman]

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

Almostfaceman wrote...

Haven't the Turians had a lot more time to "spread out" than humanity?  That's not exactly an apples to apples comparison methinks.

Gonna break down that quotem pole.

Damnit, I'm trying to keep my posts short! But when short, they're misinterpreted! I can't win!

I'm talking more about the political implications of removing council/citadel protection from a race because that race was devastated by an outside force. The Quarians were abandoned because they were seen as having "made their own bed." They broke council rules, and created a superweapon... then started a war with the superweapon they created.

The "selling point" for the citadel is that once you're there, you're part of a huge agreement to work together and engage in diplomacy. If the Asari and Salarians start chucking races out as soon as they are no longer "useful," more races will decide to take the Batarian route: ditch the council, enslave council races and ravage council colonies. After a Reaper invasion, no one will feel safe. The idea that, if your race is the next one targeted by a Reaper fleet, you'll never get any help? That would hurt the citadel very badly. It's fine to be jerks to the Quarians... you can justify it to yourself, claim that they "had it coming." But being jerks to a race that just got blindsided by an outside force? That reduces the relevance of the council and the citadel. Marketing fail.

Well you and I already agree that some humans will gain refuge from citadel races.  But unless the Council races are in a position and of a mind to descend down upon all the remaining Earth colonies and defend them - I don't see a lot of those colonies getting away unscathed.

I think the "humanity as a hero race" is also over-played a bit.  More than likely - all the council races are going to take heavy casualties in the struggle against the Reapers.  They won't be seen as being "jerks" if they're licking their own wounds and can't throw down major (or minor) military force to keep batarians away from human remnant colonies.

I don't mean to come across as argumentative, this is just how I see it.

[CulturalGeekGirl]

Whatever666343431431654324 wrote...

So we want women to become baby machines? We'd pass laws mandating that they have children? hrm... maybe its not a bad future. Women barefoot and back in the kitchen again.

There was no rule mandating that in the 1950s in the US, and yet it happened. There's no rule that mandates it in less developed countries now, but it's still happening. As a woman I'm willing to take one for the team and have a bunch of babies to help humanity. I'd even be willing to try for ten, to let two of my friends off the hook. Heh. Women who don't want to have kids will of course be free to do what they want.

It's not too different than what Wrex is trying to do with the Krogan - focus on breeding. The Krogan's focus on breeding has actually given the women immense power, more than they previously had, or so it's implied. Now, if you think what Wrex is doing is immoral, then we can just agree to disagree.

[jamesp81]

Whatever666343431431654324 wrote...

So we want women to become baby machines? We'd pass laws mandating that they have children? hrm... maybe its not a bad future. Women barefoot and back in the kitchen again.

All joking aside, if CGG's idea of a near depopulation of Earth happens, there's no option but for something like this to happen if the human race is to recover it's numbers.  Assuming we don't just clone people whole sale, of course.

Now that I think about it, this storyline might really ****** off some players

Modifié par jamesp81, 06 avril 2011 - 08:04 .

[CulturalGeekGirl]

@ Almostfaceman and also @Whatever666343431431654324 I'm consolidating my replies to both of you.

No no, it's fine. I am willing to concede that giving us a "symbolic" seat on the council is a best-case scenario. I still think it's possible, but I agree that it is by no means guaranteed, so I'll abandon that idea for now.

But I can't imagine the council not letting us keep at least one or two garden worlds in Citadel space, and helping us evacuate surviving colonists from endangered colonies back there, if they want to be evacuated. Even if all we get to keep is Eden Prime, we may still be OK, as long as we can get back a decent percentage of the surviving colonists.

While letting us still have power may be a pipe dream, letting us go extinct without protecting a single one of our colonies just seems... insane, and would strip them of all credibility, at least for the next few asari lifespans. The best example of this would be relations with species like the Hanar - they seem to lack copious colonies, and to be fairly easy to kill. If the council doens't defend a single human colony in its own space, what benefit do the Hanar get from being an associate race?

I can imagine humanity being a "pet" race for a few centuries, but not forever. We more than doubled our population between 1950 and 1985. That's 35 years, and we don't have humans with a lifespan of 130 and crazy-ass medical tech. If we're reduced to 10 million, rather than 100 million? That's just an extra century or two of breeding before we get back to our 8 billion goal, given my proposal of a human population that doubles every 25 years. Want to make a generation 35 years instead? Ok.

If we start with 100 million surviving humans and double our population every 25 years, it'll take only about 150 years to get us back to 6.4 billion. Even with 10 million people to start and a generation of 35 years, we can get back up to 5.4 billion in 350 years.  We were capable of doubling our global population in 35 years with 20th century technology. Even if we were reduced to using 20th century tech again, I think we could easily recover in a few centuries.

[Zulu_DFA]

jamesp81 wrote...

The Alliance doesn't HAVE any power outside of Earth.  Almost all of the Alliance's resources are derived from Earth at this point.

ALL the power the Alliance has is off Earth. The bulk of it is in the Arcturus system and the rest is dispersed among the colonies. The Alliance became politically independent of Earth in 2157 and soon even reversed the relationship by representing Earth ALONG with the colonies on the Citadel.

The ties that remain between Earth and the colonies are of economic nature. The colonies have to pay rent for the initial investment from Earth. The corporations that generate profit from the resource mining operations and exports to the aliens take a large protion of this profit back to Earth and distribute it between their shareholders, who don't produce anything at all. So if the colonies just "nationalized" the assaets of those corporations, that would have pretty much the same effect as the Reaper invasion of Earth, only the earthworms would die off a bit slower, while the colonists would thrive due to no more sharing with of the 99% of their collective income with them.

Modifié par Zulu_DFA, 06 avril 2011 - 08:21 .

[Malanek]

Saphra Deden wrote...
Or the writers are really bad at their job since the structure of Garrus' loyalty mission forces Paragon Shepard to break character. It's as bad as Arrival.

You know you can talk Garrus into sparing Sidonis?

[Malanek]

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...
I'm not great at math, so this calculation is very crude. It implies that the average human will have 4 kids, live 'til 50, and die, so this growth rate may well be a lowball estimate. The only limitation is food resources, and on a garden world with future tech, I have no doubt we can feed a population of 2-3 billion, easy.

Edit: Addendum - human population in 1350 was 300 million. It was only 600 million in 1700. We've got this.

At that level of technology there would be artificial wombs so your estimates have been quite conservative.

[Zulu_DFA]

Malanek999 wrote...

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

I'm not great at math, so this calculation is very crude. It implies that the average human will have 4 kids, live 'til 50, and die, so this growth rate may well be a lowball estimate. The only limitation is food resources, and on a garden world with future tech, I have no doubt we can feed a population of 2-3 billion, easy.

Edit: Addendum - human population in 1350 was 300 million. It was only 600 million in 1700. We've got this.

At that level of technology there would be artificial wombs so your estimates have been quite conservative.

That's right. Put Cerberus in charge and get on clonin'.

[kaotician]

I dunno, Switzerland's not powerfiul, yet it's stayed safe for ages. It's the powerful militarily who attract the enemies, British Empire, Russia, USA etc.

[Nashiktal]

If cerberus was in charge of cloning they would somehow coincidently kill off all of humanity.Just going by their track record here.

[jamesp81]

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

@ Almostfaceman and also @Whatever666343431431654324 I'm consolidating my replies to both of you.

No no, it's fine. I am willing to concede that giving us a "symbolic" seat on the council is a best-case scenario. I still think it's possible, but I agree that it is by no means guaranteed, so I'll abandon that idea for now.

But I can't imagine the council not letting us keep at least one or two garden worlds in Citadel space, and helping us evacuate surviving colonists from endangered colonies back there, if they want to be evacuated. Even if all we get to keep is Eden Prime, we may still be OK, as long as we can get back a decent percentage of the surviving colonists.

While letting us still have power may be a pipe dream, letting us go extinct without protecting a single one of our colonies just seems... insane, and would strip them of all credibility, at least for the next few asari lifespans. The best example of this would be relations with species like the Hanar - they seem to lack copious colonies, and to be fairly easy to kill. If the council doens't defend a single human colony in its own space, what benefit do the Hanar get from being an associate race?

I can imagine humanity being a "pet" race for a few centuries, but not forever. We more than doubled our population between 1950 and 1985. That's 35 years, and we don't have humans with a lifespan of 130 and crazy-ass medical tech. If we're reduced to 10 million, rather than 100 million? That's just an extra century or two of breeding before we get back to our 8 billion goal, given my proposal of a human population that doubles every 25 years. Want to make a generation 35 years instead? Ok.

If we start with 100 million surviving humans and double our population every 25 years, it'll take only about 150 years to get us back to 6.4 billion. Even with 10 million people to start and a generation of 35 years, we can get back up to 5.4 billion in 350 years.  We were capable of doubling our global population in 35 years with 20th century technology. Even if we were reduced to using 20th century tech again, I think we could easily recover in a few centuries.

While I can appreciate a well written story along these lines, I'll just have to say I prefer it to not go this way.  I want there to be enough humanity left that any subsequent games in the ME universe occur with humanity being a significant power bloc that can take care of itself, with a Council seat.

Personally, I think a lot of good storytelling could happen if the Council, after ME3, reverses it's stance on not opening uncharted mass relays.  I want humanity to be a part of that when it happens.

[xzxzxz701]

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

jamesp81 wrote...


The Turians do have multiple worlds with populations measuring in the billions.  So maybe not apples to apples.

However, CGG's scenario could work.  Earth could be re-colonized after a near extinction of the population.  I am wondering how you'd get the warm bodies to colonize it though....loss of Earth's entire population or almost all of it is 95% or more of the human race.  I guess you'd need a hell of a lot of cloning facilities or something.

Also, assume it's possible for the human population to double each generation. All it takes is the average family having 4 kids. Some will have fewer, some will have more. This is not unreasonable: the average woman had 3.8 children in postwar america. Now we have even better technology. Heck, there are places on earth right now where the average fertility rate is 7 children per woman. I don't have time to do the resarch on survival levels, but we can assume that in the future, it's even easier to have these kids survive.

Given that, and assuming a generation is approx 25 years, it takes only 200 years to go from 100 million to 8 billion, unless I've done some math wrong. That may seem like a long time, but in galactic time it's barely an eyeblink. And I really do believe that humanity will do it, especially if they go heavy agrarian on some of the colonies.

This is a good post and all, but.......... what happened to the other .2 children?

Modifié par xzxzxz701, 06 avril 2011 - 08:54 .

[ErebUs890]

I want the option to get Earth completely blown up.

[kaotician]

Saphra Deden wrote...

Switzerland survives because everybody stores their money there. Ever hear of a Swiss bank?

Well, they may have done, sort of, but Switzerland's been Switzerland for ages, a tiny country, still intact. Plus, if all the money's there, that's all the more reason to invade and robb it, at the time, isn't it? And no one seriously actually stores their money there like bags of gold or stuff. It's all digital wealth these days.