[karajorma]

Seems rather unlikely though given the known lift capabilities the GTVA have. Remember that in the first mission landing 600,000 troops was seen as a reasonably big offensive but not an enormous one. Getting 250 million people out of Capella was similarly seen as do-able. Shake and bake colonies are the sort of thing you have when your colony has no backup. Not when they can dump another 100,000 people on your planet next week.

[The E]

Yeah, we kinda have to assume that there are ships out there that can lift that many people with ease. So basically Colossus-sized vessels that are nothing but big colony transports....

[Mobius]

We have never seen a civilian liner in FreeSpace so we can only speculate on their capacities. If you compare modern day cruise ships to combat carriers, it becomes clear that the former can carry much more people. That's surely because a lot of space in carriers is devoted to military stuff like storing weapons, supplies, airplanes, etc.

A double decker Airbus A380 can carry some 800 passengers in a full Economy-class configuration, and some 500 passengers in a 3-4 classes configuration. Considering that in FreeSpace two or three Ursae bombers put together are probably bigger than a Superjumbo, imagine how many passengers a corvette-sized space faring ship could carry.

Since when the population of Terran systems in FS2 is believed to be high?

Just look at the numbers from the evacuation of Capella. Even if you assume Capella was one of the largest ones, that still makes hundreds of millions of people.

Which is still nothing compared to the 15+ billions, at least, who were living in Sol at the time.

Also, demographics change over time: just because 200 million Capellans escaped from the Shivans in FS2, it does not imply that 200 million Terrans colonized the system during the T-V War. At first they could have been only a few million individuals that gradually increased during the Reconstruction Era, both thanks to new births and immigrants who moved from systems like Delta Serpentis.

[karajorma]

It does however show that the GTVA and therefore probably the GTA have the capability to put that many people on a planet.

[Luis Dias]

All this population discussion is immensely interesting and intelligent (lets hope it doesn't get derailed by that-you-know-what-topic), but I think you are missing one key element. While it is true that 250 million inhabitants in Capella seems like a monstruous figure in so short notice, we might just be experiencing a lack of imagination due to our 20th century experiences. We could debate this properly, for instance I think bringing the figure of 2 Orions per day is slightly disingenuous since it's very possible to fit way more than 10k civilians in an Orion, perhaps as much as 100k, or depending how decks are arranged we could imagine 1m We can easily imagine giant civilian cruisers bringing the new generations from other more populated colonies (and Earth) into the "new promised lands" (this could prove useful in imagining new civilian liner ideas for made ships in FS2), or just hundreds of simple civilian frigates always making these rounds (and the economics of which would justify the size of the fleets).

Finally, you are also assuming that new generations are still born in the old-fashioned slow way. Simple improvements on this technical limitation could change the whole maths of the discussion.

It does however show that the GTVA and therefore probably the GTA have the capability to put that many people on a planet.

Yeah. Exactly.

[karajorma]

It's also worth remembering that a trip from Sol to even an outlying system like Capella might take the same amount as a flight from the UK to New Zealand. A lot of people seem to be in the mindset that this is a long journey taking weeks or months. When in fact they only really need the logistics to carry a couple of in-flight meals and some peanuts.

[Droid803]

If that's economy-class seating, it's still rather unpleasant, just recently re-experiencing it firsthand. Ungh.

[Luis Dias]

We should also bear in mind that if we are to take lessons from the 20th century seriously, we have witnessed the biggest exodus (from the countryside to the cities) in history globally (in the order of billions of people).

[The E]

Billions of people moving through areas that are very friendly to humans and already have lots of infrastructure in place. Slightly different to moving to a fresh colony, I should think.

[Luis Dias]

I'm not going to start discussing the environmental feasability of building colonies in wild planets. I'm working on the assumption these planets are StarTrekkian in the sense they are mostly and miraculously just like Earth, at least in the basics (atmosphere, existence of water, no biological threats).

[Dragon]

Well, I think it's a reasonable assumption. Afterall, why would humans settle on any other sort of planet? Hostile worlds could have mining outposts, but cites would be built on Earth-like, reasonably human-friendly planets.

[General Battuta]

We have never seen a civilian liner in FreeSpace so we can only speculate on their capacities. If you compare modern day cruise ships to combat carriers, it becomes clear that the former can carry much more people. That's surely because a lot of space in carriers is devoted to military stuff like storing weapons, supplies, airplanes, etc.

A double decker Airbus A380 can carry some 800 passengers in a full Economy-class configuration, and some 500 passengers in a 3-4 classes configuration. Considering that in FreeSpace two or three Ursae bombers put together are probably bigger than a Superjumbo, imagine how many passengers a corvette-sized space faring ship could carry.

Yep, exactly. There must have been massive civilian lift capabilities in constant use for the demographics to make sense.

The only sane conclusion of the canon information we have about the 14 year war - including a GTA whose central, unifying ideology was one of colonial expansion - is that the colonization project went on during the war, in massive scale, and was perhaps such a big part of the state's strategic objectives that it was itself part of the war effort.

[Mars]

The Argo has a gross tonnage modestly larger than the largest cruise ships of today. Assuming a single Argo can carry 4000 people (not a ridiculous number I don't think) and a fleet of 2000 Argos (also doesn't seem to be beyond the GTVAs capability) you could move 250 million people in just over thirty one trips.

Obviously, the GTA must have used Elysiums, but the principle remains the same, the smallest Freespace ships are quite large indeed. I don't think we need to imagine a Colossus sized colony ship for the one canon population figure we see to be feasible, or even mobile. The Elysiums tech description implies that it is the GTAs primary mover, and in sufficient numbers (quite a large figure) they could probably move millions, and eventually billions.

Now movement of equipment, I don't know about that. The GTVA must have cities, I suppose this must have taken many hundreds of thousands of TC containers to get industry started. (EDIT) On multiple planet sized colonies,

[General Battuta]

I don't think anyone in the thread has argued that the seed population figures are infeasible - simply that they required people and their infrastructure to move in large numbers, and that the timeframe of the TVW means this has to happen DURING the war.

[Luis Dias]

During the war? I'm skeptical about that. If it is possible to move people quickly and without great effort, then I don't think the 14 year gap is so necessary in order to account for all the canon numbers.

What I agree is necessary is that the colonies already have a sufficient number of humans when the Great War ends, so that the GTA doesn't dissolve by pure numbers and remains sufficiently relevant inside the GTVA (and is able to arrange colonies of hundreds of million humans 32 years later). If those massive colonization processes happened before or during the TV war is something where I am ignorant that any relevant canon information is able to lock it down. So I guess is up to your tastes.

[General Battuta]

The problem is that there's (logically speaking) barely any time before the war breaks out to do all this colonization, and since interstellar travel was a recent discovery, that's the point at which the GTA is probably going to have the least colonization infrastructure ready. So you end up having to place most of the work during the war, which fits nicely with the FS Ref Bible's description of GTA ideology.

[NGTM-1R]

It does however show that the GTVA and therefore probably the GTA have the capability to put that many people on a planet.

Not just that; the initial colonization is still going to have to bring anything more sophisticated than raw timber or stone with them even on the nicest of planets. If the GTVA can supply 600000 people with trooplift, that also means they can keep them in rations and ammo and weapons from offworld.

I don't think FS armies have gone back to foraging for supply.

[Lorric]

We have never seen a civilian liner in FreeSpace so we can only speculate on their capacities. If you compare modern day cruise ships to combat carriers, it becomes clear that the former can carry much more people. That's surely because a lot of space in carriers is devoted to military stuff like storing weapons, supplies, airplanes, etc.

A double decker Airbus A380 can carry some 800 passengers in a full Economy-class configuration, and some 500 passengers in a 3-4 classes configuration. Considering that in FreeSpace two or three Ursae bombers put together are probably bigger than a Superjumbo, imagine how many passengers a corvette-sized space faring ship could carry.

Yep, exactly. There must have been massive civilian lift capabilities in constant use for the demographics to make sense.

The only sane conclusion of the canon information we have about the 14 year war - including a GTA whose central, unifying ideology was one of colonial expansion - is that the colonization project went on during the war, in massive scale, and was perhaps such a big part of the state's strategic objectives that it was itself part of the war effort.

Uh... why did you turn him yellow?

[Luis Dias]

It's a vasudan ploy to destroy your concentration.

DON'T LOSE YOUR FOCUS PILOT

[NGTM-1R]

Uh... why did you turn him yellow?

Both are equally painful to read, so I really don't see the difference.

I'd have gone with hot pink, myself.