- Cortland_Brewer
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- Fabled Member
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.