Hive Cities and Population in the 41st Millenium

[Warden]

I was watching this video on hive cities today:

...and decided to do some math based on these three estimates:

1. A hive city can have on average upwards of 2 trillion inhabitants (that is 2,000,000,000,000 people or 2x10^12, twelve zeroes).
2. There are roughly 1 million inhabited worlds under the control of the Imperium (that is 1,000,000 worlds or 1x10^6, six zeros)
   
3. 80% of the Imperium's worlds have hive cities on them, so roughly 800,000 worlds

Doing some quick math, that leaves the total population of the imperium to be AT LEAST = 1.6x10^18 citizens of the Imperium (which is a huge number, 1,600,000,000,000,000,000; that is 17 zeroes after the 1.6!!!). I am also assuming these are all humans as well, which means humans are definitely very successful in the 41st millennium!

Biggest thing I am missing here is HOW MANY hive cities there are per planet. Very few hive planets have only one hive!!! So that means this estimate is SEVERLY UNDER the total population of the imperium!! Perhaps as much as two or three more zeroes could be added onto this total depending on how many there hive cities there are on each world... its a really staggering amount.

 

[Warden]

In other news... I wonder how big the ork population is versus the human population of the milky way galaxy?

Two orks to every one human?

Ten orks to every one human??

One Hundred to one???

 

[Scalenex]

A hive city can have on average upwards of 2 trillion inhabitants (that is 2,000,000,000,000 people or 2x10^12, twelve zeroes).

Are the planets earth sized? The idea that an Earth-like planet could support one hive city strains my suspension of disbelief. Two, destroys it.

Especially since a lot of 40K worlds are described as desolate hell-holes which would suggest less population density.

 

[Scalenex]

In other news... I wonder how big the ork population is versus the human population of the milky way galaxy?

Two orks to every one human?

Ten orks to every one human??

One Hundred to one???

I am pretty sure most GW do not put as much as thought into world building as you and I do. They just like to slap giant numbers on things. So probably 50 or 100 to 1 is the "official" number.


From a world building perspective, that is uneccessary. I understand that the idea is orks have ludicrous numbers and the only thing that keeps them from destroying the universe is that they have short attention spans and fight each other alot.

This could still happen if orks and humans were 1:1 in Warhammer 40K.

Why and how could be this. Sun Tzu said you need at least 20 people at home producing supplies to support one soldier in the field and soldiers STILL were expected to forage for supplies and steal from the enemy.

One of the reasons that the Mongols were so terrifying is that they didn't rely on vulnerable supply lines. Most archers had five or six mares. They can and did drank their own horses milk. The could craft their own bows and arrows. Each soldier was more or less self sufficient. That's why they were so mobile.

The 20:1 ration was pretty much constant in all cultures and eras from Sun Tzu until the 19th century. Once war became mechanized, it took MORE people at home to support one soldier.

The United States of America spends more money on the military then the next five or six countries combined at least. The United States has roughly 300 civilians to every military man or woman. And a lot of the military people we do have are support, not front line fighters. Hypothetically if we mobilized for World War III, we might be able to triple the size of the armed forces if we implemented tough rationing.

Given that the Imperial Guard has to be trekked around in interstellar space craft and supplied, it probably takes in the vicinity of 400-500 to support one expendable guardsmens. Sisters of Battle probably take twice that. Space marines could easily require thousands of mortals to support all the doohickeys and whatsits that make space marines space marines.

Orks are like the Mongols of 40K. They can make functional spaceships and dakkas out of garbage. They don't have women and children since they grow from spores. They aren't picky eaters. Few if any orks are stuck in support roles, so almost 100% of the ork population can fight. There could be half as many orks as humans and they could still field impossibly large armies that outnumber almost everything the Emperor can muster.

 

[Lord Agragax of Lunaxoatl]

The 20:1 ration was pretty much constant in all cultures and eras from Sun Tzu until the 19th century. Once war became mechanized, it took MORE people at home to support one soldier.

I can understand this for unified civilisations with professional armies like Rome, but I would raise the question as to whether tribal peoples like the Celts and Native Americans were this reliant upon their own civilians, given that their warriors were also capable hunters and their races were used to surviving in harsh environments with relatively few resources.

Orks are like the Mongols of 40K. They can make functional spaceships and dakkas out of garbage. They don't have women and children since they grow from spores. They aren't picky eaters. Few if any orks are stuck in support roles, so almost 100% of the ork population can fight. There could be half as many orks as humans and they could still field impossibly large armies that outnumber almost everything the Emperor can muster.

Certainly in the case of Orks the problem is amplified even further by the fact that the spores that grow Orks are created whenever an Ork is killed - so by killing them in the current raid you’re giving them even greater numbers to make use of in future raids. The only way to truly beat Orks would be to have line upon line of troops with flamers incinerating the ground after a load of Orks have been killed to make sure those spores don’t produce yet more Orks.

 

[Imrahil]

Certainly in the case of Orks the problem is amplified even further by the fact that the spores that grow Orks are created whenever an Ork is killed - so by killing them in the current raid you’re giving them even greater numbers to make use of in future raids. The only way to truly beat Orks would be to have line upon line of troops with flamers incinerating the ground after a load of Orks have been killed to make sure those spores don’t produce yet more Orks.

So the 40K Orks are basically fighting mushrooms?

Grrr, Imrahil

 

[Lord Agragax of Lunaxoatl]

So the 40K Orks are basically fighting mushrooms?

Indeed so - in 40K lore Orks are humanoid fungi and have more in common with mushrooms than humans. They’re probably trying to get us back for all the mushrooms our kind have eaten over the millennia because they’re probably long lost cousins of theirs...

 

[Nazqua]

I am pretty sure most GW do not put as much as thought into world building as you and I do. They just like to slap giant numbers on things.

Truly, that'd be one of the best way's to describe AOS and 40k. Numbers, lots of big fancy numbers and events.

 

[Imrahil]

Truly, that'd be one of the best way's to describe AOS and 40k. Numbers, lots of big fancy numbers and events.

The next even bigger then the one before

Grrr, Imrahil

 

[Killer Angel]

GW never put much thoughts in building realistically the universe of 40 k.
They put cool and big numbers, then they justify their existence with support from unclear "farm worlds" (or whatever) and are done with it.
They are not able to give some sense even to the mere military aspect.
For example, the fact that 1.000.000 SM can effectively support the guards in defending such a immense space... there are more than one billion words, if only 1% of them is a world worth defending, you would have 1 single SM for 10 worlds.
If only the 0.01 % of said billion is a key world, you could afford to dispatch 10 SM to it. even less when you consider the permanent garrisons in their homeworlds, or the marines on duty on their spaceships.
Yet marines are deployed in the hundreds on multiple worlds, responding to threats that the imperium, by lore, takes years to even notice.
Complete nonsense.

Cool, but nonsense nonetheless.

 

[Warden]

Are the planets earth sized? The idea that an Earth-like planet could support one hive city strains my suspension of disbelief. Two, destroys it.

Especially since a lot of 40K worlds are described as desolate hell-holes which would suggest less population density.

GW never put much thoughts in building realistically the universe of 40 k.
They put cool and big numbers, then they justify their existence with support from unclear "farm worlds" (or whatever) and are done with it.
They are not able to give some sense even to the mere military aspect.
For example, the fact that 1.000.000 SM can effectively support the guards in defending such a immense space... there are more than one billion words, if only 1% of them is a world worth defending, you would have 1 single SM for 10 worlds.
If only the 0.01 % of said billion is a key world, you could afford to dispatch 10 SM to it. even less when you consider the permanent garrisons in their homeworlds, or the marines on duty on their spaceships.
Yet marines are deployed in the hundreds on multiple worlds, responding to threats that the imperium, by lore, takes years to even notice.
Complete nonsense.

Cool, but nonsense nonetheless.

Quite true on all accounts. Nothing about this is realistic.

...but now that I think about it some more Orks ARE the fighting population of their species. Gretchin/grots and snotlings, with squigs as the food, are the "support" subspecies within the overall greenskin species. No clue how to calculate the ratio between grots/orks and the other greenskin fungoid races, but I assume orks would be the least numerous, though they are the omnipresent and most represented force on the tabletop due to them doing most of the fighting!