The Duke Dilema

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Originally Posted by solidsamurai

Okay, well in order to prove what you say, we need to first figure out the growth rate on earth. Give me some sample countries that are varied enough (united states, countries in africa, countries in south america, etc.). And then figure out the percentile growth rate in those countries as well as a shifts in growth rate at different time periods.

And then we can figure whether not the growth rate needs to be 'much higher' than that of earth.

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I don't think that works. K-Sector isn't Earth. At no point in human history has medical knowledge been advanced and Earth been empty. (The only "empty" place on Earth is Antarctica, and you can't grow crops there.) Contrast with the K-Sector; empty planets and people know to wash their hands and have baths. The growth/death rate in the K-Sector can be very high, and indeed literally higher than it's ever been on Earth.

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Soft Evidence:
- The old families are renowned in-breeders with large surviving families.
- Nova Terra's mother was about 50 when she gave birth to Nova, I think.

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I don't know where this is coming from. The Old Families are large extended families. Nova herself only had two siblings, Arcturus only had one, Ryk Kydd had one. We have no good information on the sizes of other families. They tend to breed amongst the different families, but not always. There's certainly no evidence of them breeding within families. (This would act against population growth, for that matter.)

We are not told the age of Nova's mother. She seems middle aged, but that's all the evidence we get.

I get the impression a few fringe worlds (Bountiful, and wherever Somo Hung came from, and maybe even Bhekar Ro) have high birth rates (the first two are religious). In the last case, life was so crappy there the death rate was also high.

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I don't think that works. K-Sector isn't Earth. At no point in human history has medical knowledge been advanced and Earth been empty. (The only "empty" place on Earth is Antarctica, and you can't grow crops there.) Contrast with the K-Sector; empty planets and people know to wash their hands and have baths. The growth/death rate in the K-Sector can be very high, and indeed literally higher than it's ever been on Earth.

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Okay, how did you string that conclusion together?

From what you said, empty planets cause exhorbitant death. Empty planets have no relation to death rate, far as I know.
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Also, I'm betting that if blizz read this thread - they'd probably just say 'yeah the birth rate averaged at about 6% over the 250 years' just so they get the population that they want. The existing canon is contradictory enough - obviously, blizz can just step in and go with something semi-logical.

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Originally Posted by solidsamurai

Okay, how did you string that conclusion together?

From what you said, empty planets cause exhorbitant death. Empty planets have no relation to death rate, far as I know.

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No, it's the opposite.

I'm talking about life-bearing planets (so empty in terms of not having humans or other competing intelligent species on them). Kind of like the first human, maybe 40,000 years ago, walking into North America, could expand his tribe's population drastically.

And in fact these first settlers did. However, due to the high death rate due to poor medical care, the population growth rate was not as high as it could have been.

By the time Louis Pasteur wrote up his germ theory, all parts of the world that could be settled (eg not Antarctica) were already settled. Even if you could guarantee a death rate of zero, you still had to compete with neighbors.

In the Koprulu Sector on the other hand, many of the colony planets were life-bearing and suitable for human habitations, but there were no other humans, or zerg or protoss there. At the same time these settling terrans would have had access to 22nd or later century knowledge (eg washing hands, bathing, boiling water, etc). Thus the perfect opportunity; free land, no competition, and a low death rate.

(Note that I said knowledge and not technology. I don't know how much "stuff" the settlers had.)

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I'm talking about life-bearing planets (so empty in terms of not having humans or other competing intelligent species on them). Kind of like the first human, maybe 40,000 years ago, walking into North America, could expand his tribe's population drastically.

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Yes, but no evidence suggests that the original planets that mankind landed on were filled with predators that couldn't be efficiently dealt with any better than on earth.

The ATLAS probably had weapons on it. Mankind could have played it safe for self defense purposes. In fact, the people of tarsonis thought that law and order were the most important things in the early years, more so than science, etc.

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In the Koprulu Sector on the other hand, many of the colony planets were life-bearing and suitable for human habitations, but there were no other humans, or zerg or protoss there. At the same time these settling terrans would have had access to 22nd or later century knowledge (eg washing hands, bathing, boiling water, etc). Thus the perfect opportunity; free land, no competition, and a low death rate.

(Note that I said knowledge and not technology. I don't know how much "stuff" the settlers had.)

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They might have had minimal technology. And your argument has no basis in a high death rate. If the death rate isn't high, then the growth rate is only higher. Terrans have no reason not to breed like rabbits in the early years.

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The growth/death rate in the K-Sector can be very high, and indeed literally higher than it's ever been on Earth.

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Oh, okay. So you're agreeing with me. Why didn't you say so?

And 6% growth is pretty high I think. But by looking at models of growth rates on earth, we can make estimates nonetheless.

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Originally Posted by solidsamurai

Oh, okay. So you're agreeing with me. Why didn't you say so?

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I disagreed with a few points, mainly some stuff about the Old Families and how old Nova's mother is.

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And 6% growth is pretty high I think. But by looking at models of growth rates on earth, we can make estimates nonetheless.

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Yes, 6% is high, but as I've been arguing, there's never been a situation like that on Earth. (Maybe the birth rate has been that high at some points in Earth history, but there's never been a point where the birth rate could have been that high and the death rate could have been that low.)

Regarding this.

I measured the pop growth of canada from 1939 to 2011, based entirely on information from wikipedia. I did some math and came up with a growth rate of 4.26%.

Mind you, this was after the most violent conflict in history and is an effective average (straight division of total growth/years) that accounts for the 'baby boomer' period.

Still, 6% makes sense if Terrans had a similarly willing situation to start families - like in the baby boomer period. Even more willing when you have terran anthropoligists preaching to the masses, etc. Comparitively, baby booming was just a cultural trend.