[MatthTheGeek]

How many millions civilians do you think they managed to evacuate from Vasuda Prime.

[Phantom Hoover]

Whatever your point is, the scenarios aren't comparable. The Great War was a complete outside context problem: nobody could have expected that they'd have to evacuate an entire planet; by the time of Capella, the GTVA was entirely prepared for the possibility they may have to abandon systems, even if only as a temporary measure. What's more, the population of Vasuda prime was at least 4 billion, an order of magnitude higher than that of Capella.

[The E]

Well, no. An Orion carries somewhere around 10000 people, other ships presumably fewer people. All in all, it would be astonishing if the total number of people working for the GTVA military in that system approaches 500.000, if that.

[Lorric]

I can't answer the question, but can you just imagine the frenzy among the Vasudans? I imagine no Vasudan would have rested while the evacuation was going on, every effort would have been spent on the evacuation of their home planet. The resistance to the Shivans would have been of the highest fanaticism.

[CT27]

One problem I heard people had with the movie "2012" was that it showed a lot of rich people getting on the evacuation Arks (it was said that a lot of them gave considerable funding to the project though).

When the Capella evacuations started, do you think rich Capellans (Bill Gates level relatively) were able to throw money to get out first?

[Lorric]

They probably had their own ships and could just up and leave.

[NGTM-1R]

The interesting part of that for me is "Since the Great War". I wonder what they were talking about, specifically, that moved 250 million people around? Other than the (presumed) evacuation of Vasuda Prime, I can't think of any known event that would have required that kind of movement.

Talania is a common guess.

But Vasuda Prime is a decent guess as well. We have no idea how many people got off the place.

[WouterSmitssm]

but by the last Original freespace 2 campain mission
the transports try to run to the node
but while battleling fighters bombers cruisers
thay opened up a supernova
all died
but if you want to run to the node and than jump out
campaign ends
capella is destoryed by 's of shathanases
so peace shall never return
the end of freespace 2 main campaign

[Beskargam]

Would it not make sense for the GTVA to have contingency plans in case of a failed colonization attempt, and people would need to be evacuated? Capella would be larger scale of course, but same principle.

Likewise, during the Great War, wouldn't it be likely for their to be contingency plans in the case of invasion troops or orbital bombardment? (I don't remember reading anything about either happening)

[Drogoth]

I'd expect they would just get whoever gets their ass to the transports first. An armada of more than 80 Juggernauts + myriads of support craft invading my home is not something that encourages me to think rationally and pick between that dude over there that has legit passports or this woman here with some picture of her grandma on her documents. + They started evac as soon as the first Jug made it to "Armada's Coming," The GTVA probably has some clause which allows them to take over private stuff to haul people out in case Shivans.

The evacuation had been ongoing for weeks, long before the 80 jugs.

Besides, the evac brief says Capella has all said and done: 250 million civilians.

Since that's the rough number of who got out, I'd say not only was the evacuation very successful, but they certainly had time to follow protocol and prioritize

[Scourge of Ages]

I'd say it was some combination of:
Millitary sends flyers and cars to collect VIPs in stages according to need, according to criteria like Orph3s5 posted.

The rest of the space would be filled with whoever was nearby and ready, only turning away very few (such as old, feeble, and sick, or those needed to stay behind for a bit), since those people alone wouldn't be able to fill all transports in all phases, if they could even get to the spaceports in time for the phase they were due.