APPENDIX III: Note on average planetary population:
- -By: Fireangel
Legionnaire [1] states that the TOG Empire has “quadrillions of people scattered across billions of worlds”. The only question then becomes; “How many quadrillions and how many billions?”
We might be able to establish how many quadrillions by looking at the number of Garrison Legions in TOG; we know that TOG doctrine assigns one Garrison Legion per million inhabitants,[2] so the question becomes “How many garrison Legions are there?”
To this question we can also come up with an approximate answer. We know that TOG has eight million Legions of all types, with the vast majority being Garrison Legions.[3]
Legionnaire [4] also speculates on why TOG does not steamroll the Commonwealth and the Renegade Legions through use of their “overwhelming” advantage of sixteen-to-one in the number of Legions and their ten-to-one advantage in Battleship Groups. While the conclusion is interesting and may well have a grain of truth behind it, it completely ignores two basic facts:
First is that while the Commonwealth/Renegade Legions number “only” 500,000 Legions total, fully 80% are Strike or Armored Infantry Legions in the TOG mold with the remainder being Legion-equivalents organized along culturally divergent lines, while the vast majority of TOG Legions are Garrison or second-line Armored Infantry Legions without the high mobility options of front-line Legions. Since Garrison Legions are, for all intents and purposes, immobile (tied to a single world) and essential for maintaining order under the heel of TOG, these units cannot be used to steamroll anything outside their sphere of control.
Second, all 500,000 CW/RL legions are concentrated in a relatively small portion of the galaxy, so they have a much greater concentration of force along the disputed borders. Additionally, a significant portion of the Commonwealth borders either intergalactic space or KessRith space, so the actual front is much smaller that would be guessed by the amount of space of the Commonwealth. On the other hand, TOG has billions of interior worlds and other borders and frontiers to protect; it would be unreasonable to expect that it should lose thousands of worlds to open rebellion or other forces just to put down a rebellion that is effectively contained to the Commonwealth (AKA the remote tip of the spiral arm furthest from Earth).
So we can assume with a fair degree of certainty that TOG has near-parity with the CW/RL in front line units it can spare for the CW/RL campaign. We can guess the number of other front line Legions scattered throughout the Empire and its annexed territories. We KNOW that the “majority” of Legions are Garrison Legions, so the MINIMUM number of Garrison Legions is four million. Now we have to determine the number of front-line and second-line Legions.
We have determined that TOG and the CW/RL have near parity on the Orion Arm Front. If this is true for the ground forces, it should also be true of the Naval forces as measured by Battleship Squadrons. Regarding these; “Like their counterparts on the ground [TOG Garrison Legions], the vast majority of these [squadrons] are reserve fleets.” [5] We know from Legionnaire[6] that TOG has 100,000 Battleship Squadrons compared to CW/RL’s 10,000. We also know that a “vast majority” of these squadrons are the naval equivalent of Garrison Legions.
Taking this into consideration, we have an absolute minimum of 50,000 Battleship Squadrons in the reserve fleets. We will use 60,000 in order to take into account the “vast” part of the quote. This leaves 40,000 squadrons versus 10,000 mainly active CW/RL squadrons. If we assume parity along the front, we have a four-to-one ratio among front-line units, meaning that for every front-line Legion fighting the CW/RL war, three others are enforcing TOG’s will in the interior and along other fronts/borders.
This translates to two million legions. If two million Legions of the eight million total are Strike and Infantry Legions, six million Garrison Legions are left.
One Garrison Legion per million inhabitants yields (1,000,000 x 6,000,000 = 6,000,000,000,000) six TRILLION inhabitants.
Hm. That is three zeroes away from “quadrillions”. This could be a problem; even if every legion type were included in the eight million, we could never reach the “single quadrillion” mark.
Let’s approach the issue from another angle. The minimum number of “quadrillions” is 2. Likewise, the minimum number of “billions” is 2. Simple math; 2 quadrillion people divided into a billion worlds = 1,000,000.
One million people per world average on 2 billion worlds? Now the numbers are far too low. Even after the Snow Plague, a moderate birthrate of 1.2% will have a population of 50,000 snowballing into over 114 TRILLION in 2000 years… ON A SINGLE PLANET.
Hyperbole? Maybe. Estimates place the number of stars in the galaxy at 200-400 billion (let’s split the difference and say 300 billion. If only one in one-hundred are inhabitable (with a single near-Earth planet), that leaves 3 billion worlds up for the taking for ALL the races and empires of the galaxy.
Let’s run with that number. It would be within TOG’s mentality to claim that all sentient beings on all regions of space are part of TOG (the KessRith might take exception to that statement, however). Now all we have to do is determine what part is actually controlled by TOG. Looking at the galaxy map, it is safe to say that TOG directly controls about a third to one half of the galaxy. Assuming they leave the Ssora to govern their own (so no Garrison Legions are present) and further assuming that the Naram are likewise self-governed under TOG’s umbrella, that means that TOG has about one quarter of the galaxy; about 750 million worlds with about 500 trillion inhabitants. 6.6 million per world average.
Still no good. There are far too few Garrison Legions for far too many inhabitants (canonically, most worlds published have a population ranging from around half a billion to several billion). Perhaps Citizens are not included among the “million inhabitants”. Knowing that male citizens account for a third of the population, and assuming that females born from citizens account for an additional third, that means that there is actually a Garrison Legion for every THREE million inhabitants, tripling our earlier estimate to 18 TRILLION inhabitants. Still far too low.
Part II[]
I hate to say it, but this is one place where a retcon may very well have to take place. One school of thought is that Garrison Legions could be assigned at one per Billion. This would leave the Legion woefully undermanned for its population control duties. A Legion is stated to be approximately 50,000 troopers, but an analysis of the TO&E shows that only about one in five are actually line/MP troops; the equivalent of one quarter of the NYPD being assigned to police the entire country of China.
One Legion per 10 million yields a total population of 60 trillion (180 trillion if we don’t count citizens or their women).
One Legion per 100 million reaches the magical quadrillion (not including citizens in the equation), but leaves the Legion understaffed for its duties; the equivalent of three quarters of the NYPD being assigned to police the whole of the United States in 2010.
Simply changing the “quadrillions” to “hundreds of trillions” might work, as might revising the total number of legions (on both sides). Finally, reducing the number of worlds might also be a solution. Reducing the number of planets might be the better solution (incidentally, better supported in canon):
Published counties have approximately 40 worlds. The one Grand Dukedom (Prefecture) we have stats for has 15 counties (600 worlds). The Commonwealth plus TOG’s New Orion Sector (Commonwealth Grand Dukedoms turned TOG Prefectures) have a combined 21 Grand Dukedoms/Prefectures (12,600 worlds). This goes well with the information in Legionnaire[7] describing TOG’s Senate: Provinces (Counties) = 40-50 worlds, Prefectures (Grand Dukedoms) = 12-30 provinces (counties) and: “Prefectures are divided into a total of seven districts empire-wide.”
How many prefectures per district? There are practical limits to the number of “subordinate” components that can be efficiently governed; 40-50 is definitely pushing the limit (much like provinces/counties), but we’ll go with this number for this experiment. [Note: Interceptor pp. 60 gives the total number of prefectures per at 1,000 – FA]
Let’s use the maximums:
- 50 worlds per county (province) x 30 counties (provinces) = 1,500 worlds per Grand Dukedom (Prefecture)
We have a problem. Ledionnaire states that there are three types of Senators: Clarissimi (one world), Spectibles (one province; 40-50 worlds = county) and Illustrus (one per prefecture; 12-30 provinces = grand dukedom). We might be missing a level both on the organization and in the senate.
Let’s review.
Each world elects a Clarissimi Senator to represent them in the Provincial Senate.
One Spectabiles Senator is elected per province for the Prefecture Senate. (Shannedam County)
One Illustrus Senator is elected per prefecture for the Imperial Senate. (Alaric March Grand Dukedom)
Even putting all the Grand Dukedoms into one District, we are still chronically short on worlds.
50 x 30 x 50 = 75,000 x 7 districts = 525,000
So what numbers work? Let’s do it the other way around; determine the average number of inhabitants in a world and multiply it until we get to the “two quadrillion” number which marks the minimum of (plural) “quadrillions”.
With an average of two billion inhabitants, one million worlds will contain 2 quadrillion inhabitants; a far cry from the “billions of worlds” mentioned in canon, but a much more realistic number to work with.
We are still unsatisfactorily short on Garrison Legion numbers; with two billion average per world, each world would have, on average, 2,000 Garrison Legions, meaning that we’d need to have TWO BILLION Garrison Legions across a million worlds.
Yet another solution would be to change “8 million Legions” to “8 million Armies”, assigning 1 Army per world. This might make more sense; with an average of 1.296 billion inhabitants per world, (based on 1 Army = 1,296 Legions), we would have an overall TOG population of 10.638 quadrillion across 8 million worlds, which seems to be on the high side.
(See Appendix X for a more viable possible solution.)