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This topic has moved here: Subject: Total number of Forerunners (math help)
  • Subject: Total number of Forerunners (math help)
Subject: Total number of Forerunners (math help)

I started up the heated debate on whether the SPARTAN-II in the cryo tube near the end of Reach is really Linda.
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I found this in the terminals:

Estimated number of citizens
evacuated before commencement of
orbital blanket bombardment:
1,318,797 civilian/42,669 military
(.0006% of total population).

This means that 1,361,466 is just .0006% of the entire Forerunner empire?! Could somebody please do the math and figure out what 100% was. Though this could just be the total population of the planet and not the entire empire.

  • 05.19.2011 1:54 AM PDT
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Deva Path


Posted by: DecepticonCobra

We are all going to get banned aren't we?

It was just a single planet, can you please atleast add all this garbage into one post?

[Edited on 05.19.2011 4:48 AM PDT]

  • 05.19.2011 4:48 AM PDT

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Posted by: ImmortalJoshua
I found this in the terminals:

Estimated number of citizens
evacuated before commencement of
orbital blanket bombardment:
1,318,797 civilian/42,669 military
(.0006% of total population).

This means that 1,361,466 is just .0006% of the entire Forerunner empire?! Could somebody please do the math and figure out what 100% was. Though this could just be the total population of the planet and not the entire empire.

You do the math. Im not putting effort into somehting you cant be bothered to do.

  • 05.19.2011 4:50 AM PDT
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no need to be mean guys, josh, i had a go but drew a blank... ill keep going tho . . .

  • 05.19.2011 5:04 AM PDT
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roughly 226,911,000,000 ish,

happy?

  • 05.19.2011 5:06 AM PDT
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It's only a number from the total population of a small section of the Forerunner empire. I doupt even them had 226,911,000,000 citizens per planet. Not for the whole empire either as they had millions of worlds and that divided even with as small number as one million makes only 226,911. It's way too low to be the average amount of citizens on a planet. Of course that could always be from a huge world like the Capital which isn't exactly a planet.

  • 05.19.2011 5:08 AM PDT

They most likely did not have a million colonized words. It would consume a massive amount of resources to make a decent settlement on each planet. They most likely lived on a small number of custom built worlds (Shield Worlds ETC) which would be custom build to support a large population. I imagine something around 10,000 planets max, which is around 22 million per planet. A reasonable amount.

  • 05.19.2011 7:25 AM PDT
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Assuming the planet was roughly earth sized, that's a population density of 1,524 forerunners/km^2 (of land). That's about the density of the LA metropolitan area. With a denser population, like that of the tokyo metropolitan area, over half of the planet would be open space.

[Edited on 05.19.2011 7:57 AM PDT]

  • 05.19.2011 7:41 AM PDT
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Posted by: NK 0WNS 4 FUN
They most likely did not have a million colonized words. It would consume a massive amount of resources to make a decent settlement on each planet. They most likely lived on a small number of custom built worlds (Shield Worlds ETC) which would be custom build to support a large population. I imagine something around 10,000 planets max, which is around 22 million per planet. A reasonable amount.

Their empire spanned over three million fertile worlds. This was said in the ninth page of Halo Cryptum. Forerunners had a huge empire. Their empire probably consisted of trillions of individuals.

  • 05.19.2011 7:56 AM PDT

Posted by: tsassi2
Posted by: NK 0WNS 4 FUN
They most likely did not have a million colonized words. It would consume a massive amount of resources to make a decent settlement on each planet. They most likely lived on a small number of custom built worlds (Shield Worlds ETC) which would be custom build to support a large population. I imagine something around 10,000 planets max, which is around 22 million per planet. A reasonable amount.

Their empire spanned over three million fertile worlds. This was said in the ninth page of Halo Cryptum. Forerunners had a huge empire. Their empire probably consisted of trillions of individuals.


Just because the world is capable of holding life does not mean that they would live on it. They cataloged a large amount of the life forms in the galaxy, as such, they would know what planets are fertile, but it is unlikely they would actually colonize and live there. It would be a logistical nightmare, and communication between the planets would be extremely hard.

Also, if we look at the wording of the quote, its is questionable as to what population it is referring to. It may be referring to the total population of the planet.

However assuming that is referring to the entire forerunner empire, lets do some more math.

Lets assume that .0006 of the population includes every single forerunner on the planet. That is 1/16,667 of the total empire. If every planet is equally populated, that is roughly 16,667 colonized planets.

If 1/2 of the population was evacuated, that is 1/8,333 of the population. If every planet is equally populated, that is a 8,333 planet empire.

This makes my original estimate at 10,000 planets reasonable, and completely rules out the idea of a 1 million plus planet empire.

  • 05.19.2011 12:10 PM PDT

There is a certain point of tolerance that should never be reached.


Posted by: NK 0WNS 4 FUN
Posted by: tsassi2
Posted by: NK 0WNS 4 FUN
They most likely did not have a million colonized words. It would consume a massive amount of resources to make a decent settlement on each planet. They most likely lived on a small number of custom built worlds (Shield Worlds ETC) which would be custom build to support a large population. I imagine something around 10,000 planets max, which is around 22 million per planet. A reasonable amount.

Their empire spanned over three million fertile worlds. This was said in the ninth page of Halo Cryptum. Forerunners had a huge empire. Their empire probably consisted of trillions of individuals.


Just because the world is capable of holding life does not mean that they would live on it. They cataloged a large amount of the life forms in the galaxy, as such, they would know what planets are fertile, but it is unlikely they would actually colonize and live there. It would be a logistical nightmare, and communication between the planets would be extremely hard.

Also, if we look at the wording of the quote, its is questionable as to what population it is referring to. It may be referring to the total population of the planet.

However assuming that is referring to the entire forerunner empire, lets do some more math.

Lets assume that .0006 of the population includes every single forerunner on the planet. That is 1/16,667 of the total empire. If every planet is equally populated, that is roughly 16,667 colonized planets.

If 1/2 of the population was evacuated, that is 1/8,333 of the population. If every planet is equally populated, that is a 8,333 planet empire.

This makes my original estimate at 10,000 planets reasonable, and completely rules out the idea of a 1 million plus planet empire.
Sorry, but it still say the FORERUNNER EMPIRE consisted of 3 Million fertile worlds. 3 million planets is not alot. There are Billions of stars in the galaxy. I don't think 3 percent of the galactic world space is too big of a stretch for the friggin Forerunners.

  • 05.19.2011 12:39 PM PDT
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"Time was your ally human. But now it has abandoned you. The Forerunners....have returned. And this tomb... is now yours". - The Didact


Posted by: opogjijijp
Assuming the planet was roughly earth sized, that's a population density of 1,524 forerunners/km^2 (of land). That's about the density of the LA metropolitan area. With a denser population, like that of the tokyo metropolitan area, over half of the planet would be open space.


That perfectly fits the destription of the Halo legends FR planet which was half ocean half urbanized.

Really it seems that many FR planets are like that,like Borns world.

  • 05.19.2011 12:45 PM PDT

I started up the heated debate on whether the SPARTAN-II in the cryo tube near the end of Reach is really Linda.
I created the Moa XING avatar pic.
Also I earned the All Star nameplate with this submission to Week 14 All Stars http://www.bungie.net/images/News/Inline11/bwu_0415/art/likea boss.jpg

The only problem I have with that number is if there was that many Forerunners on one planet, how was the rescources?
Water, food, etc. Was there enough?

  • 05.19.2011 2:04 PM PDT
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Posted by: ImmortalJoshua
The only problem I have with that number is if there was that many Forerunners on one planet, how was the resources?
Water, food, etc. Was there enough?
They had 3 million fertile worlds plenty of room for farming.

  • 05.19.2011 2:37 PM PDT

This is actually a very feasible number. It is estimated that there are 50 billion planets in the Milky Way Galaxy, 500 million of which may be within the habitable zone of their star(s). (Borenstein, Seth (2011-02-19). "Cosmic census finds crowd of planets in our galaxy". The Washington Post. Associated Press. Archived from the original on 2011-02-21. (Archived version can be found here: http://www.webcitation.org/5wg3VVKg4))

I can't find any error data, so assuming that this is estimate is at most one standard deviation off, that would still mean that there are about 335 million planets within the habitable zone of their star(s). So the Forerunner's 3 million planets is only .86% of all the habitable planets.

Now, considering that the Forerunners were a Tier 1 civilization (A.K.A. World Builders), it can be easily seen that they would be capable of this achievement rather easily. Not only this, but taking into account the fact that it is never said that all 3 million planets were inhabited, it is not too surprising.

Assuming also that the Forerunners had a average population density similar the human population density of the Earth, it is highly likely that this is the case. The population of the Earth is about 7.1 billion; the surface area of the Earth is about 510 million km^2. 7.1 billion/510 million=13.92 people per km^2. This is .000000009% of the population per unit. Using this figure, an average of .000000009% of the Forerunner's galactic population on each of 3 million worlds is not too insane.

Considering that the earliest terminal encountered in Halo 3 has commercial shipping vessels, and private recreational ships, we can assume that a Forerunner capital planet would be unlikely to have the highest population of all of the planets in their empire, since the evidence in the terminal would mean that the Forerunner's were unlikely to be 100% socialist. Hence we can use this information to estimate their total, galactic population.

(1,318,797 (civilians) + 42,669 (military))*(100%/.0006%) = 226,911,000,000 (total population of this planet)

Using this figure now as the average population of 9% of Forerunner planets (1), as 10% below that of the highest 1% (2), and as 90% above the lowest 90% (3), we can find a good estimate of the total population of the Forerunner Empire.

(1) .09*3,000,000 (planets) = 270,000 (planets)
270,000 (planets) * 226,911,000,000 (people) = 61,265,970,000,000,000 (people on these planets)

(2) 226,911,000,000 (people) * 1.1 = 249,602,100,000 (people)
.01 * 3,000,000 (planets) = 30,000 (planets)
30,000 (planets) * 249,602,100,000 (people) = 7,488,063,000,000,000 (people on these planets)

(3) 226,911,000,000 (people) * .1 = 22,691,100,000 (people)
.9 * 3,000,000 (planets) = 2,700,000 (planets)
2,700,000 (planets) * 22,691,100,000 (people) = 61,266,000,000,000,000 (people on these planets)

Adding these figures together gives us 130,020,000,000,000,000 total Forerunners at that point in history, in the Halo Universe. This of course is based on some very rough estimates of the Earth's population distribution, and assumptions about the Forerunners.








TL;DR The numbers listed in both the terminal entry and Halo Cryptum are very feasible based on information provided about the Forerunners.

  • 05.19.2011 3:11 PM PDT

I forgot to quote the post I was replying to, but I was basically just replying to the entire discussion.

  • 05.19.2011 3:12 PM PDT

There is a certain point of tolerance that should never be reached.


Posted by: NeuralLotus
This is actually a very feasible number. It is estimated that there are 50 billion planets in the Milky Way Galaxy, 500 million of which may be within the habitable zone of their star(s). (Borenstein, Seth (2011-02-19). "Cosmic census finds crowd of planets in our galaxy". The Washington Post. Associated Press. Archived from the original on 2011-02-21. (Archived version can be found here: http://www.webcitation.org/5wg3VVKg4))

I can't find any error data, so assuming that this is estimate is at most one standard deviation off, that would still mean that there are about 335 million planets within the habitable zone of their star(s). So the Forerunner's 3 million planets is only .86% of all the habitable planets.

Now, considering that the Forerunners were a Tier 1 civilization (A.K.A. World Builders), it can be easily seen that they would be capable of this achievement rather easily. Not only this, but taking into account the fact that it is never said that all 3 million planets were inhabited, it is not too surprising.

Assuming also that the Forerunners had a average population density similar the human population density of the Earth, it is highly likely that this is the case. The population of the Earth is about 7.1 billion; the surface area of the Earth is about 510 million km^2. 7.1 billion/510 million=13.92 people per km^2. This is .000000009% of the population per unit. Using this figure, an average of .000000009% of the Forerunner's galactic population on each of 3 million worlds is not too insane.

Considering that the earliest terminal encountered in Halo 3 has commercial shipping vessels, and private recreational ships, we can assume that a Forerunner capital planet would be unlikely to have the highest population of all of the planets in their empire, since the evidence in the terminal would mean that the Forerunner's were unlikely to be 100% socialist. Hence we can use this information to estimate their total, galactic population.

(1,318,797 (civilians) + 42,669 (military))*(100%/.0006%) = 226,911,000,000 (total population of this planet)

Using this figure now as the average population of 9% of Forerunner planets (1), as 10% below that of the highest 1% (2), and as 90% above the lowest 90% (3), we can find a good estimate of the total population of the Forerunner Empire.

(1) .09*3,000,000 (planets) = 270,000 (planets)
270,000 (planets) * 226,911,000,000 (people) = 61,265,970,000,000,000 (people on these planets)

(2) 226,911,000,000 (people) * 1.1 = 249,602,100,000 (people)
.01 * 3,000,000 (planets) = 30,000 (planets)
30,000 (planets) * 249,602,100,000 (people) = 7,488,063,000,000,000 (people on these planets)

(3) 226,911,000,000 (people) * .1 = 22,691,100,000 (people)
.9 * 3,000,000 (planets) = 2,700,000 (planets)
2,700,000 (planets) * 22,691,100,000 (people) = 61,266,000,000,000,000 (people on these planets)

Adding these figures together gives us 130,020,000,000,000,000 total Forerunners at that point in history, in the Halo Universe. This of course is based on some very rough estimates of the Earth's population distribution, and assumptions about the Forerunners.








TL;DR The numbers listed in both the terminal entry and Halo Cryptum are very feasible based on information provided about the Forerunners.
Your math is making me sweaty

LOL


That's some seriously nice math though, but I doubt that there were that many forerunner simply because by the time the council reacted, the grave-mind had already been at it for like, what?, 200 years. There were probably more that 10 trillion bodies fit for combat (assuming your numbers are correct) that the flood owned, plus enough craft to move a large amount around.

No army can hold THAT much back.

  • 05.20.2011 1:39 AM PDT
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Posted by: DecepticonCobra

We are all going to get banned aren't we?

^^^^


The "War" was on the outer reachs of forerunner space, which is why 99% of the forerunners still thought the flood was a myth until it broke the line.

and this is the population of a single planet, not the empire

  • 05.20.2011 2:38 AM PDT
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Posted by: NeuralLotus
Wait, you are suggesting that there were 130 quadrillion Forerunners? That goes even over my expectations. that could be somewhat close but I believe the number is that high. I would lower the population density to around 9.0 people/km^2 as I don't believe Forerunners live as cramped as humans when they can get a new planet almost whenever they want. I also have to reject the idea that there are 226,911,000,000 Forerunners on one planet. As I previously talked about living cramped, 226,911,000,000 of them on a Earth sized planet (we can assume that the ideal gravity for life is 1.0 g) gives us population density of 1524 people/km^2. this would mean the whole land area of the world was filled with two story houses assuming every Forerunner had 25 m^2 of living space. This would also mean that there is no space between the houses and no public buildings that aren't meant for living. I just can't see the Foreruners living like that.

  • 05.20.2011 6:22 AM PDT
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Posted by: DecepticonCobra

We are all going to get banned aren't we?


Posted by: tsassi2
Posted by: NeuralLotus
Wait, you are suggesting that there were 130 quadrillion Forerunners? That goes even over my expectations. that could be somewhat close but I believe the number is that high. I would lower the population density to around 9.0 people/km^2 as I don't believe Forerunners live as cramped as humans when they can get a new planet almost whenever they want. I also have to reject the idea that there are 226,911,000,000 Forerunners on one planet. As I previously talked about living cramped, 226,911,000,000 of them on a Earth sized planet (we can assume that the ideal gravity for life is 1.0 g) gives us population density of 1524 people/km^2. this would mean the whole land area of the world was filled with two story houses assuming every Forerunner had 25 m^2 of living space. This would also mean that there is no space between the houses and no public buildings that aren't meant for living. I just can't see the Foreruners living like that.


Majority of the worlds the forerunner live on are massive earth like planets (based off IRIS,Terminals,evolutions) So that "high" of a number isn't too drastic when you put it into concept. Not to mention they couldn't "get a new world whenever they wanted" as the librarian stated she had to shuffle planets for colonization; while born had thought they achieved maximum growth.

your thinking too much about humans which is clouding your idea. based of the cover of cryptum we do know can generally apply the concept that worlds of builders have high buildings spread out across the planet. not to mention they change the entire planet's geography to maximize space for buildings.
that added with the fact rooms get bigger the longer you spend time with them, makes the number reasonable.

As of today there are what nearly if not 7 billion humans on earth and we state it is getting crowded. Yet 500 years later i think the pop was 10 billion + due to new advances in technology that allowed more efficient building designs.

So seeing how the forerunners have millions of worlds and are a tier two race it isn't inaccurate for them to have a higher population per planet. Born was shocked for the capital (a decently large construct) to have only a few thousand forerunners. while that is a low and understandable number and we understand his shock; i do think it vaguely supports the idea that they have a much larger population per planet.

  • 05.20.2011 9:29 AM PDT