Is this in the beta? (Korhal image)

According to my estimates the terran population wouldn't allow for a conventional "large" city, New York proper is 8.3 million, the whole metropolis is around 20, that's four and ten times larger than the entire Terran population. It's just silly. They're going to have to retcon the population, and they ought to retcon the zerg as well, their estimate is 10 billion on Char, so if they killed "billions" on Mar Sara, and still outnumber the Terran, that would (1) mean Mar Sara is a huge planet population wise, which is highly unlikely, it was always backwater, and whose going to move there after it was the site of so many battles in Brood Wars? (2) The implication would be that the attack took out a minimum of a tenth of the entire terran population right off the bat, that's silly.

EDIT: 70 children a woman. That's what's needed to result in 1 billion from 32k in two centuries. 1,372 million precisely.
At a rate of 1 baby every 9 months for 30 years (a long fertility period) you couldn't get past forty. The stress on the mother's body would probably kill her before she went infertile though. Working on the math for how many original colonists they would have to update it to for an average 6 children on average, and going infertile around 45, to result in a population of ten billion next.

EDIT 2: To result in a population of 10 billion after 2 centuries at a rate of 5 children per woman with the average age of infertility at age 45 the base population would have to be 256 million.

My equations used, solve for "a"
(a/2)5=b
(b/2)5=c
(c/2)5=d
(d/2)5=10,000,000,000

My reasoning was that the first equation represents the original colonists, the second is their children, third is their children, fourth is the Brood Wars generation.

Regarding the 70 children/woman, it can theoretically be achieved. However, it would require the Terran leaders to be utter bastards.

Currently, menopause sets somewhere between 40 and 60; with it being at the lower end of the spectrum in third world countries whilst those in more modern countries tending to be at the higher end. This would suggest that better nutrition and healthcare prolongs fertility (whether directly or indirectly; e.g. via prolonging life expectancy). If we take 60 as being the new age of menopause, with puberty hitting at 12, that's 48 years of fertility. This leads to a maximum of 64 pregnancies.

Achieving this maximum would likely require a state-run fertility program, involving assisted reproductive technology (whther IVF, GIFT or some other method) which is associated with higher rates of multiple pregnancies (twins, triplets, etc). As a result, the number would rise to >64 children/woman as long as modern medicine keep all parties alive and healthy.


While this is highly, highly unlikely, it is still possible within the realms of theoretical squick.

Added second edit, see above.

You may be right though, with a later menopause it may, possibly work, but even if by some impossible luck it did, that would be 1 billion, Kerrigan's killed billions in one fell swoop, as far as we know, all on just one planet, Mar Sara. Even the added estimates would make that unlikely, just more possible.

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Originally Posted by Roland

Added second edit, see above.

You may be right though, with a later menopause it may, possibly work, but even if by some impossible luck it did, that would be 1 billion, Kerrigan's killed billions in one fell swoop, as far as we know, all on just one planet, Mar Sara. Even the added estimates would make that unlikely, just more possible.

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What states that Kerrigan's Zerg killed billions on Mar Sara? :confused: The video that mentioned billions only stated that the outer colonies were being attacked by the Zerg.

My mistake, I think the news report was from Mar Sara, so I jumped to conclusions, however it was Kerrigan herself on Mar Sara I believe, which is significant because one of the Xel'naga artifacts was on Mar Sara... that's a whole other issue though.

Of course, if you want another, sneakier way of expanding the population, here's another idea:

Perhaps in the future, medicine would be able to create an artificial uterus (e.g. an amniotic tank) which allows fetuses to develop completely outside a woman. Then, when it is time to plan a new colony, the government can then completely harvest a woman's uterus which contain 1-2 million oocytes which can then be artificially matured, inseminated and grown. Twenty+ years later, a new colony has been created.

Granted, using this technique, even with multiple donors on both sides, it still leads to a rather small gene pool. Which for the Terrans, would explain a lot.

A small gene pool isn't much of an option, remember, they've been rapidly evolving psi abilities, theoretically it is an option though, I just don't think it's very likely at all, the thousands of humans dropped half way across the galaxy from their the rest of the humans would have to have remarkably good foresight to decide that they need to grow as large a population as possible for the coming genocidal war.

But as I pointed out earlier, the high population is not in preparation for war but a means to produce a sizable population for the purpose of quickly colonizing a new territory in order to obtain its resources.

Also, the rapidly evolving psi abilities would be better explained using a small gene pool. Mutations surface quicker with smaller gene pools as they are often recessive. Consanguinity increases the odds such traits would appear.

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Originally Posted by mr. peasant

Of course, if you want another, sneakier way of expanding the population, here's another idea:

Perhaps in the future, medicine would be able to create an artificial uterus (e.g. an amniotic tank) which allows fetuses to develop completely outside a woman. Then, when it is time to plan a new colony, the government can then completely harvest a woman's uterus which contain 1-2 million oocytes which can then be artificially matured, inseminated and grown. Twenty+ years later, a new colony has been created.

Granted, using this technique, even with multiple donors on both sides, it still leads to a rather small gene pool. Which for the Terrans, would explain a lot.

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Why, oh god, why are you suggesting the Terrans have wombsises? :mad::confused:

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Originally Posted by mr. peasant

But as I pointed out earlier, the high population is not in preparation for war but a means to produce a sizable population for the purpose of quickly colonizing a new territory in order to obtain its resources.

Also, the rapidly evolving psi abilities would be better explained using a small gene pool. Mutations surface quicker with smaller gene pools as they are often recessive. Consanguinity increases the odds such traits would appear.

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Whose going to do it though? The Terran were very divided until the Dominion, even with the Confederacy on top they had more serious opposition than the Dominion.

Good idea about the size of the population though, genetics are one of my worst sciences but I would assume that the fastest way to evolve a trait in 1% of the population would be to create a sub-population (by artificial means) with a higher percent of that, say you make a colony but instead of an average 1% of psychics, you tilt the scales so 5% of the imported Terrans have the gene, it would spread much faster if you concentrated it. I doubt that would be planned, but through sheer dumb luck it could easily happen. According to the wiki, virtually all terran have a PI of 1, which may mean none, or extremely low, like ESP at best.

For the record I did all that math above to point out that there is a huge issue with the numbers on Terran population, but if Blizzard doesn't want to retcon anything, they can easily just pop in a tidbit about artificial colonization, which I think is what they'll do, if anything.

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Or the Zerg get retconned to the trillions.

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lol IIRC in the UED victory report it said Zerg casualties numbered in the millions but their "Zerg Casualties" counter passed the trillion mark.

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Originally Posted by Pandonetho

lol IIRC in the UED victory report it said Zerg casualties numbered in the millions but their "Zerg Casualties" counter passed the trillion mark.

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That was propaganda, so I really don't trust it.

The original manual states that by the 2300s, there was twenty-three billion people on Earth.

As of 2010, we have seven billion people. The current high estimates by the UN place the population at thirteen billion by 2100. That's almost double in ninety years. We can assume that with a similar rate for another hundred years, it would quadruple from our current number, and by 2300, octuple (my math might be wrong, though). That would put the population at around fifty-six billion (again, possibly wrong).

Given that, it would be reasonable to assume a larger population could be sent on the prison ships. Something around half a billion to a full billion.

Using that number, we might be able to come to an answer that makes more sense given the 'billions of casualties' mentioned in Wings of Liberty.

Just over a quarter billion actually, I did all the math on pg. 5, the point is the canon number was 32k, which wouldn't result in much more than 2 million after 2 centuries. Blizzard will have to retcon it to the hundreds of millions or just work in artificial mass-populating, if they pay any attention to it at all.

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Originally Posted by Roland

EDIT 2: To result in a population of 10 billion after 2 centuries at a rate of a generous 5 children per woman with the average age of infertility at age 45 the base population would have to be 256 million starting in 2300.

My equations used, solve for "a"
(a/2)5=b
(b/2)5=c
(c/2)5=d
(d/2)5=10,000,000,000

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Also, those 32k were separated on 3 planets for 60 years, making the overall population increase even less.

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Originally Posted by Roland

Just over a quarter billion actually, I did all the math on pg. 5, the point is the canon number was 32k, which wouldn't result in much more than 2 million after 2 centuries. Blizzard will have to retcon it to the hundreds of millions or just work in artificial mass-populating, if they pay any attention to it at all.

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I was figuring casualties of around two to four billion for the colonies, and maybe a total population of around twenty or thirty for the Dominion and other nations. But yeah, it definitely needs a retcon.

I find Blizzards major retcons in every new game annoying, they have a lot to learn from how Bioware have constructed the storylines of their series in recent years.

This doesn't really need a retcon, surely? I think people should stop applying so much fridge logic. The general point being put across is that a small colony of convicts quickly flourished in a new environment.

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Originally Posted by mr. peasant

This doesn't really need a retcon, surely? I think people should stop applying so much fridge logic. The general point being put across is that a small colony of convicts quickly flourished in a new environment.

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Fridge Logic? This is no small inconsistency. This is a very large one, one where the Terrans could very well out-zerg the zerg.

It doesn't matter if terrans can "out-zerg" the zerg. Most terrans aren't soldiers, and they can't replace losses almost instantly like the zerg can.

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Originally Posted by Kimera757

It doesn't matter if terrans can "out-zerg" the zerg. Most terrans aren't soldiers, and they can't replace losses almost instantly like the zerg can.

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But, the fact that they have the industry to build a city-planet in only four years suggests that they have just as insane industry military wise as well. Also, some explanations for Terran growth also explain that they can replace losses almost instantly, such as the wombsis idea.

"Wombsis" isn't particularly parsimonious. Ideas such as that, and cloning, have not been discussed in lore.

I think we should stick to what's possible, and it's not a huge deal if the numbers are wrong. StarCraft wasn't a detailed universe when first "written" and, when Blizzard makes changes, sometimes they're for the better.

I'd rather Blizzard retcon something than stick to bad lore written haphazardly 12 years ago. Retcons don't have to be bad; I think people react negatively to them because lots of authors (Blizzard included) frequently are bad.

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Originally Posted by Kimera757

"Wombsis" isn't particularly parsimonious. Ideas such as that, and cloning, have not been discussed in lore.

I think we should stick to what's possible, and it's not a huge deal if the numbers are wrong. StarCraft wasn't a detailed universe when first "written" and, when Blizzard makes changes, sometimes they're for the better.

I'd rather Blizzard retcon something than stick to bad lore written haphazardly 12 years ago. Retcons don't have to be bad; I think people react negatively to them because lots of authors (Blizzard included) frequently are bad.

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Im hoping they do a retcon. I don't want them to explain it away. I thought that could generally be seen.

Are we even sure this is Korhol and not some other heavily populated planet? It doesn't have to be Korhol to have statues of Mengsk.

The image file is actually called Korhal...

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Originally Posted by Kimera757

The image file is actually called Korhal...

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The file on Wikia is called Korhal, so what? That doesn't mean its Korhal, anyone could have named it that.

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Originally Posted by Hav0x

The file on Wikia is called Korhal, so what? That doesn't mean its Korhal, anyone could have named it that.

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The image string in the beta is named Korhal......

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Originally Posted by Roobster

I find Blizzards major retcons in every new game annoying, they have a lot to learn from how Bioware have constructed the storylines of their series in recent years.

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Bioware have constructed the storylines of their series in recent years

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storylines of their series in recent years

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Starting to see the problem yet?

If Heart of the Swarm retcons Wings of Liberty, I might get annoyed. There's no reason for them not to have this stuff thought-through by now. That would be the Bioware equivalent.

More than 13 years have passed. SC's story has changed from an essentially indie project developed by some 3 dudes sitting around an empty office into a world-wide phenomenon that's worked on by experienced professionals.

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The original numbers in the manual always were kinda strange. I mean they make sense logically speaking and all, it's just that you kinda box writers in with numbers like that. You're restricting all your stories involving terrans to take place on planets with nothing more then small shanty-towns and whatnot. Even just largish cities would be extremely rare. It'd all become incredibly dull after a time. So upping the numbers would definitely give the writers more leeway with what they can come up with.

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l33telboi said it best.

I just thought of something.

If within the span of only 4 years or so, the Koprulu terrans were able to transform a radioactive desert world into a ecumenopolis, I shudder to think what Earth must look like In this particular era.

Earth could probably create a black hole to devour the whole K-sector, lulz.

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Originally Posted by Pandonetho

Earth could probably create a black hole to devour the whole K-sector, lulz.

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Nah, they're too busy with their Dyson Spheres to worry about that. :D

Just pointing out that it doesn't have to be commericial or residential districts, I mean, marine suits have to be manufactured somewhere.

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Originally Posted by newcomplex

Just pointing out that it doesn't have to be commericial or residential districts, I mean, marine suits have to be manufactured somewhere.

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Seeing that Marine suits are assembled on site and that we know there are several installations dedicated to military production, I doubt that most of the urban environment on Korhal is for military needs. Maybe the moon or space platforms above the planet are dedicated towards military, but I doubt that the capital planet would have the majority in military production.

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Originally Posted by Shadow Archon

Seeing that Marine suits are assembled on site and that we know there are several installations dedicated to military production, I doubt that most of the urban environment on Korhal is for military needs. Maybe the moon or space platforms above the planet are dedicated towards military, but I doubt that the capital planet would have the majority in military production.

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Industry in general.

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Originally Posted by newcomplex

Industry in general.

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Well that is understandable seeing the super-Sky Scrapers.

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Originally Posted by Shadow Archon

The image string in the beta is named Korhal......

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And the source for that is?

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Originally Posted by Kimeria757

It's been confirmed as Korhal. The loading screen image is actually named loadingscreen_Korhal.

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That. He has the proof for it if you don't believe him and everyone else.

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Originally Posted by Hav0x

And the source for that is?

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The actual beta program. In the game's files, that's what Blizzard named the image.

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Originally Posted by Gradius

The actual beta program. In the game's files, that's what Blizzard named the image.

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Well, all things considered, thats not really conclusive evidence.

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Originally Posted by newcomplex

Well, all things considered, thats not really conclusive evidence.

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What? Are you assuming that its another planet the Dominion has? Or does another race control it? We see a Terran ship flying to the planet, and seeing that beta isn't going to have huge changes, its probably going to be Korhal.