Inspired by the "how common are solarians" question, how big do you think the population of the Pact System is (in your campaign).
Population means anything recognized as sentient/sapient which is granted rights and protected by law.
Maybe excluding Anacites or listing them separately as they would likely inflate the number a lot.
For comparison, Earth currently has nearly 8 Billion people on it.
It's an odd situation I hope to find out more about in the upcoming AP. On the one hand we have references to things like Absalom station being the centre of human civilization with Golarion gone yet it has less than 1 million humans and Castrovel is still mostly jungle. On the other we have the fact they're able to field a fleet comparable to what the multi-system Atzlanti empire is able or willing to field. You'd expect a multi-planet advanced stellar system to be either a holiday resort for a few rich elites or have populations in the 6-10 billion per planet range massive arcology's, space stations, ships, mining outposts in asteroid belts, etc. Obviously there'd be some variation depending on planet size.
Take earth and give it advanced tech + a unified government and 8 billion would be fairly easily supportable, then say we terraformed Venus and Mars with similar ranges that's around 15 - 24 billion people on 3 planets (Earth and venus in the 6-10 Billion and Mars at half the size 3-4 billion) not counting other population centers. The starfinder has half a dozen habitable worlds (lets ignore the ones that are techncially lived on but would be very hostile to anyone actually attempting to do so) you should have populations ranging in the 40-60 billion range easily (assume long lived/immortal beings are offset by the shorter lived races) yet they seem more in line with medieval Golarion era population numbers.
Honestly I'd like a Pact Worlds population of around 60 - 70 billion sentient beings but I think we probably only have around 10 billion spread across all the worlds and that's on the high range I feel it could be half that from what I've seen.
For some reason I was thinking that the listed the total population of every major planet/settlement in the setting materials but that doesn't look like it's the case.
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It's a fun thought experiment, but the thing I always end up banging my head against when thinking about Pact Worlds demographics is the matter of souled constructs. The anacites, SROs, androids, and whatever else that definitively have souls, but can be constructed.
Like, if ever there was a need, Aballon could, theoretically, churn out a few million more citizens on demand, I'd imagine - between the continent-spanning megaplex manufactories, high-level NPCs, effective immortality, and near limitless energy from solar power, the raw material needs and build-times must be pretty inconsequential. It's sort of a grey area, but there's also references to anacites uploading their consciousnesses to digital forms, too, so potentially they wouldn't even really need physical forms: spin up a few server banks, and boom, the population of Aballon just grew by a few billion, overnight.
In the end, the answer is, "meh whatever the story needs," of course. I just think this specific impact of souled constructs makes the matter pretty fuzzy.
*runs off to write a campaign summary about nefarious AI trying to run the River of Souls dry by creating as many anacites as possible in as short a time as possible*
Kishmo wrote: It's a fun thought experiment, but the thing I always end up banging my head against when thinking about Pact Worlds demographics is the matter of souled constructs. The anacites, SROs, androids, and whatever else that definitively have souls, but can be constructed.
Like, if ever there was a need, Aballon could, theoretically, churn out a few million more citizens on demand, I'd imagine - between the continent-spanning megaplex manufactories, high-level NPCs, effective immortality, and near limitless energy from solar power, the raw material needs and build-times must be pretty inconsequential. It's sort of a grey area, but there's also references to anacites uploading their consciousnesses to digital forms, too, so potentially they wouldn't even really need physical forms: spin up a few server banks, and boom, the population of Aballon just grew by a few billion, overnight.
In the end, the answer is, "meh whatever the story needs," of course. I just think this specific impact of souled constructs makes the matter pretty fuzzy.
*runs off to write a campaign summary about nefarious AI trying to run the River of Souls dry by creating as many anacites as possible in as short a time as possible*
Thats why I suggested to exclude Anacites.
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Haha, so you did! Whoops - I do get carried away with robopopulation :D
Kishmo wrote: It's a fun thought experiment, but the thing I always end up banging my head against when thinking about Pact Worlds demographics is the matter of souled constructs. The anacites, SROs, androids, and whatever else that definitively have souls, but can be constructed.
Like, if ever there was a need, Aballon could, theoretically, churn out a few million more citizens on demand, I'd imagine - between the continent-spanning megaplex manufactories, high-level NPCs, effective immortality, and near limitless energy from solar power, the raw material needs and build-times must be pretty inconsequential. It's sort of a grey area, but there's also references to anacites uploading their consciousnesses to digital forms, too, so potentially they wouldn't even really need physical forms: spin up a few server banks, and boom, the population of Aballon just grew by a few billion, overnight.
In the end, the answer is, "meh whatever the story needs," of course. I just think this specific impact of souled constructs makes the matter pretty fuzzy.
*runs off to write a campaign summary about nefarious AI trying to run the River of Souls dry by creating as many anacites as possible in as short a time as possible*
Maybe there's a limit on how fast they actually get souled and if you make too many too fast, they're just blank constructs.
My take would be that brand new souls are generated from whatever cup of protoenergy is used to create a soul. I mean petitioners meld into the planes they go to (eventually) if they don't become outsiders, and that is recycle to produce new souls.
But perhaps more of the protosoulenergy can be created?
Or maybe it would literally cause the end of the current incarnation of the multiverse that Pharasma is trying to avoid/stave off.
Or perhaps thejeff is more correct that the attempted creation of a punch of anacites simply results in the creation of a bunch of soulless but intelligent constructs, that are stuck just prior to the point of being granted a soul.
I mean, did the replicants in Blade Runner have a soul? Were they behaving purely based on incredibly complex programming that it even fooled the being itself into thinking it was real? Where is the line? Can it be crossed?
I personally take all given population numbers with a grain of salt. I don't imagine much more thought goes into the stated numbers than what "feels right" at the time, as population statistics are a vastly complicated issue especially with interstellar travel involved.
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I kind of would prefer Paizo not delve too much into demographics, mostly because their numbers so far have been kind of terrible. *ahem*
Anyway, if I had to make estimates, I'd probably go with something like. . .
-Verces has roughly the same popular as modern day Earth. It has a smaller habitable area, but its much more heavily built up, stable, and with a lot of megalopolis arcology tech. Call it a wash.
-Castrovel and Akiton have smaller populations, but still in the billions. Both have less hospitable environments than Earth, without major balancing factors, but are still fully Earth sized with major long term habitation.
-Triaxus is less, probably under a billion. Smaller planet, more hostile environment, long term instability.
-Aballon and Bretheda are notably higher "population" than Earth, probably way higher. Both are inhabited by populous hive mind entities, with high stability and social development. Not only are they big, but they can probably go bigger if and when they choose.
-Eox and Apostae are probably both significantly smaller than Triaxus, for various reasons. Small worlds with habitability issues and either apocalyptic destruction or recent colonization. Maybe smaller than 100 million, though it depends on a lot of sketchy factors.
So, my overall guestimate of the Pact Worlds system population? Call it on the order of 50 billion, between the major worlds and the countless smaller moons, stations, and whatnot.
Metaphysician wrote: I kind of would prefer Paizo not delve too much into demographics, mostly because their numbers so far have been kind of terrible. *ahem*
Anyway, if I had to make estimates, I'd probably go with something like. . .
-Verces has roughly the same popular as modern day Earth. It has a smaller habitable area, but its much more heavily built up, stable, and with a lot of megalopolis arcology tech. Call it a wash.
-Castrovel and Akiton have smaller populations, but still in the billions. Both have less hospitable environments than Earth, without major balancing factors, but are still fully Earth sized with major long term habitation.
-Triaxus is less, probably under a billion. Smaller planet, more hostile environment, long term instability.
-Aballon and Bretheda are notably higher "population" than Earth, probably way higher. Both are inhabited by populous hive mind entities, with high stability and social development. Not only are they big, but they can probably go bigger if and when they choose.
-Eox and Apostae are probably both significantly smaller than Triaxus, for various reasons. Small worlds with habitability issues and either apocalyptic destruction or recent colonization. Maybe smaller than 100 million, though it depends on a lot of sketchy factors.
So, my overall guestimate of the Pact Worlds system population? Call it on the order of 50 billion, between the major worlds and the countless smaller moons, stations, and whatnot.
Triaxus is actually earth sized, same as Castrovel or Verces. And with a large habitable area and no voluntarily limit on development I would guess its one of the more populous Pact Worlds. Akiton on the other hand is half the size of earth (actually half the diameter, so a quarter of the surface area).
The sizes of all planets is in the Core Book. And a long time ago I also did an map overlay of the planet maps I could find and earth.
https://paizo.com/threads/rzs42jbh?Pact-Worlds-Earth-size-comparison
There is a big difference between the populations of the examples shown in Pact Worlds and the ones in Near Space with the latter one actually having cities with millions of inhabitants. It makes for more believable numbers, but also makes the Pact System look really backward to the Veskarium.
But 50 billion sounds good to me (maybe going up to 60).
I should say that, for the purposes of my very rough estimate, I consider Earth and Mars to be "the same size". We are talking "order of magnitude estimates", basically. The difference in population carrying capacity for that difference in total planetary surface area probably matters less than difference in habitable regions or population buildup or social stability.
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The issue for Triaxus is that it is more difficult to feed the population during the winter -- and they know about the coming of winter far enough in advance that they are not foolish enough to overpopulate the world during the summer.
My best guess is that the seasonal cycle should cut the maximum population in half from the maximum that it would have with a more temperate climate.
David knott 242 wrote:
The issue for Triaxus is that it is more difficult to feed the population during the winter -- and they know about the coming of winter far enough in advance that they are not foolish enough to overpopulate the world during the summer.
My best guess is that the seasonal cycle should cut the maximum population in half from the maximum that it would have with a more temperate climate.
With modern greenhouses, heating, probably even scifi hydroponics food shouldn't be much of an issue. And you can make food out of UPBs, too.
It also depends on how adapted the ecology is to winter. The Pact Worlds book (or maybe even the core book) says that the planet has two different ecologies, one for summer and one for winter so winter wouldn't be as desolate as real world Siberia for example simply because everyone is used to it.
Its even possible that the transitional years between summer and winter is the meager season for Triaxus.
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There's a Starfinder Society scenario involving a non-profit trying to develop genetically modified food crops that can grow during the Triaxan winter, so there's still a market in cracking the frozen agriculture nut.
John Mangrum wrote: There's a Starfinder Society scenario involving a non-profit trying to develop genetically modified food crops that can grow during the Triaxan winter, so there's still a market in cracking the frozen agriculture nut. There is always a demand for better crops.
Do far I have seen no indication or explanation why Traxus would be underdeveloped compared to other planets.
As I said, it just being cold would hardly be a problem with Starfinders tech level, especially when the ecology evolved in that cold.
Whenever the local population reaches a certain point, some passing faction of the Dominion of the Black comes for the harvest and makes sure the ones left behind don't remember too much. Perhaps they slightly overdid it this time with the Gap and all, and Transparent Motivations Between Silent Moments accidentally took 100% of Golarion, but usually the squishy warm humanoids get over these problems in a few generations.
Honestly, the issue with Triaxus, in my eye, is more the social stability than the weather. They are evolved to the climate, and have modern tech, but a lot of the ways to maximize productivity ( and thus population ) are just really contra-indicated by the recurring warfare. Besides, thematically speaking, the place reads to me as "Post Soviet Russia", and that is a formula for big, but not *that* big population wise.
Metaphysician wrote: Honestly, the issue with Triaxus, in my eye, is more the social stability than the weather. They are evolved to the climate, and have modern tech, but a lot of the ways to maximize productivity ( and thus population ) are just really contra-indicated by the recurring warfare. Besides, thematically speaking, the place reads to me as "Post Soviet Russia", and that is a formula for big, but not *that* big population wise. As far as I understand the history of Triaxus the fighting was contained to the Skyfire Mandate landbridge, meaning that most of the planet did not suffer from it, especially remote places as Ning.
And war actually has not that much of an effect on population, or at least a long lasting one. Just look at how fast many nations could recover from wars in real life.
In my headcanon the low population was caused by the Swarm which devoured billions before being defeated. The setting is basically post apocalyptic.
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