Is this in the beta? (Korhal image)

[Roland]

Why don't people do the math anymore... I'll be giving Blizzard the benefit of the doubt here, allowing for high birth rates etc. EDIT: above poster beat me to it...

The Terran were probably pretty promiscuous, you dropped 32k (real number of survivors from crash) in a place where they have all the technology and resources they want and tell them here, there are no authorities, go ahead and thrive. I figure they'd live like old west frontier families, albeit it was hard, but the birth rates were very high, as many as 8 children per female before infertility. but the terrans have vastly superior technology, the maximum average life-span is 150, though 80 is old (the new 60?). Assuming most Terran would be dead by 90 is reasonable. Although that doesn't matter as much, what matters if fertility, assuming the end date for female fertility was by 60, given all the technology they had, that's a forgiving guess, remember I'm looking for a way it could reasonably be "billions" here. I'll also assume that there is a steady rate of increase, no "baby booms" so to speak, for each generation the number of births is the same per year. I'll also assume that approx every female has 8 children, which is why I mentioned the old west, as that's a reasonable number for frontier families, which the Terran essentially are. I assume every lady

-2300, pop 32k, crash in Koprula sector

-2360, 128k births by now, majority of original colonists dying off within next 20 years, female population has average 8 children each by now est.

-2420, 512k births by now, 30 more yrs and first native generation mostly dead, all infertile, female population has average 8 children each by now est.

-2480, 2 million 48k births, this generation is going into Brood Wars, female population has average 8 children each by now est.

To summarize, 2 million, is not enough that a relatively small population planet could have billions of causalities. To have 1 billion (which is 1k million). You need 500 times a my forgiving estimate on terran population. The number of births per female would be absurd. The equations would be
(32k/2)x=y (originals)
(y/2)x=z (1st native)
(z/2)x=1 billion (2nd native)

x=births per female, y=number of births by 1st native generation, z=number of births in second. Each generation is divided by 2 in order to represent female population.

I don't have time to solve that, anyone who wants should go right ahead.

[hiru]

Who said fucking would be the only way to reproduce for the Terrans? In vitro babies would've surely been within technological range of the terrans when they first arrived in the sector. The numbers changing between sc1 and 2 are harder to explain. ( As is the case for most retcons =p. )
The population growing on Korhal isnt suprising on the other hand. It would make sense for various people living on the lesser populated colonies to seek security and fortune on Korhal. It being the homeworld of the strongest terran faction. Building a cityscape like the picture within 4 years is kinda pushing it tho. But so long we have space bats flying around everything is possible.

[Roland]

The Terran would have to be very clever to learn how to randomize their genetic code by artificial means. I mass identical clones don't work, the Terran have been evolving rapidly, their psi abilities went from under 1% of the original 32k having minute traces of psi-abilities to enough where ghosts are relatively common at this point, at psychics can rival Protoss.. Evolution cannot happen without genetic variation. The Protoss probably can't even control their own genes yet or their extinction issues would be solved, make billions of randomized artificial Protoss and out-zerg the zerg.

[Lupino]

The fact that there is no mention at all of any sort of mass-scale cloning in any of the sources kinda argues against that solution. Unless we're to invent new technologies for the Terrans just because?

Blizzard is probably going to retcon the original number (just like they did with Terran planetary numbers) or they're going to fix the cinematic, because Terrans out-zerging the Zerg would be ridicules.

As for the new Coruscant, nifty.

Edit: Found this. Over the given time period (from first landfall to the first war), with the starting number of Terrans, you'd need a growth rate of nearly five and a half percent just to break one billion. There isn't a single developed country in the world with a growth rate anywhere close to that (for obvious reasons; not everyone wants to have children, much less four or more), even taking into account immigration, and the Terrans would need to maintain this for two centuries.

[PhanttoM]

Why don't people do the math anymore... I'll be giving Blizzard the benefit of the doubt here, allowing for high birth rates etc.

Probably because the mathematical logic is too circumstantial.

The SC universe is a very harsh and gritty one, with a massive contrast between the rich and poor.
That and given how the upper class leadership has been treating the populations over the years, just doesn't give a good impression on the quality and length of human life.

Just look at people like Raynor, all that smoking and drinking can't possibly be healthy.

[Roland]

Probably because the mathematical logic is too circumstantial.

The SC universe is a very harsh and gritty one, with a massive contrast between the rich and poor.
That and given how the upper class leadership has been treating the populations over the years, just doesn't give a good impression on the quality and length of human life.

Just look at people like Raynor, all that smoking and drinking can't possibly be healthy.

Considering this thread has turned into a place to estimate the Terran population, we have to do just that, estimate, I was about as forgiving as I possibly could be. I put that equation up because I couldn't do it quick enough, but anyone who wants to really make a point of Blizzard's error can. I plan to estimate a number of original colonists which could reasonably result in 10+ billion terran.

[Shadow Archon]

Blizzard is probably going to retcon the original number (just like they did with Terran planetary numbers) or they're going to fix the cinematic, because Terrans out-zerging the Zerg would be ridicules.

Or the Zerg get retconned to the trillions.

[Lupino]

If that ends up being the case, then the Zerg will finally be a match for a single Tyranid Hive Fleet

As for the minimum amount needed to get ten billion Terrans, that depends on what growth rate you're willing to ascribe to them. According to the calculator, using the current world population's growth rate ~1.2% you'd need almost a billion. At the super-rate of 5% you'd need almost 600,000.

[Shadow Archon]

The worst thing about the Korhal thing, is that it only took four years for that city planet to be constructed from the desert Korhal once was.

[l33telboi]

I suppose the terrans have the industry to build something like that. At least if you take Sutur's massive space station into consideration. But yeah, the population thing is kinda funky. But with the 'billions dead' comment along with this it really seems like Blizzard went ahead and not only retconned the number of planets but the population too.

I can't say I mind it though. 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.

I'm guessing they're retconning the population number in a similar fashion as they did the planets. The manual said the Confederacy had a dozen worlds, SCII says the Confederacy had a dozen core worlds. A quite transparent attempt at making a change, but at least they didn’t just handwave away the last figures. Maybe SCII will say the ships carrying the convicts to the Koprulu sector had a few tens of thousands of core colonists, with a few billion more just tagging along?