- anton1792
- |
- Noble Legendary Member
"Find where the liar hides, so that I may place my boot between his gums!" - Rtas 'Vadum
Posted by: Primo84
I digress: what is the current accepted count for UNSC colonies, 700 still? (I know that number has fluctuated as much as the S-II roster.) If you assume every colony has a population comparable to Earth, yeah, trillions easy. However, I recall Harvest only having a population of either several hundred thousand or just a few million.
There basically isn't a confirmed number of colonies. Every source that gives solid numbers conflicts in some way. Contact Harvest (pg32) said that Harvest was the 17th colony, established in 2468. Additionally, it said that with enough fuel, a UNSC ship with a slipspace drive could traverse the volume of space containing all Human territories within a year. (Harvest was 2 months from Reach and was described to be the farthest Human colony from Earth) So taking Staten's interpretation, there is not much space for trillions. I think it's just hyperbole, perhaps the guy is talking about the future as well where one day Humanity might be spread far and wide.
I think Staten's is a bit too low personally. I'd be happy to accept that the Covenant cannot actually travel 912 light years per day because that sounds a bit ridiculous, and I doubt Nylund was really thinking abut the technical details when he was trying to get Blue Team to Onyx. (Ships travel at the speed of plot) Even with that though, I doubt the war would have lasted for 27 years if Humanity only had 17 colonies, nor would the death toll have been as high. Reach has one of the highest, if not the highest, population of about 700 million. Harvest is the lower end of 300'000. 23 billion deaths is impossible from >17 worlds destroyed.
As much as Staten's figures are flawed though, (Maybe they weren't at the time though. The 23 billion number came after him. Still not sure about how long the war should have lasted with that low number though) the numbers 343i gave us with the Encyclopaedia were even more daft, just on the opposite end of the scale.
In 2362, the first of what would be known as the Inner Colonies was established (pg33). 28 years later, and apparently 210 Inner Colonies have now been established... This is a number that I would think is sensible for Outer + Inner in 2552... Not Inner only after merely 28 years of interstellar travel. Over the next 100 years, until 2490, the UNSC supposedly has 800 Inner colonies. Not Outer. Inner.
Then it goes and contradicts itself like 5 pages later. Although this sounds a bit more sensible than the timeline page, and falls more in line with the numbers Staten gave. In 2390, 21 Colonies are established. (The 210 from earlier may have been a typo. I don't know if it has been corrected; I only have the 1st Encyclopaedia) These range from population centres to mining and industrial worlds with little to no long term population. Then it gets a bit silly again by saying that by 2490 Human space encompassed over 800 worlds but that only 17 of them had Human settlements. These again ranged from centres of industry and technology to settlements that could barely sustain 10'000 people.
It all sounds a bit iffy, but the Encyclopaedia's second lot of figures is what I generally tend to rationalise with. 21 worlds with a Human flag, but only a few were proper colonies. 100 years later, 800 worlds with a Human flag, but no where near all of them where proper colonies. I still think 17 is too low though, just due to the scale of the war. It should be much higher given the 23 billion casualties from the war.