Is this in the beta? (Korhal image)

[Roland]

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.

[mr. peasant]

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.

[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.

[Shadow Archon]

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.

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

[Roland]

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.

[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.

[Roland]

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.

[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.

[Shadow Archon]

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.

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

[Roland]

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.

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.