Terran Human Population Math

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Terran Human Population Math

Unread post by ShadowLogan »

Per Supreme Commander Leonard in Ep37 there where only 70,000 survivors, and in TSC an unnamed UEEF officer during the Briefing for the attack on Reflex Point mentions there are still several million people down on Earth in his objection to the use of the Neutron-S Missiles.

Spoiler:
EP37 Leonard: ... the task before you will not be easy but are well prepared and as the decedents of the 70,000 survivors of the Zentraedi Holocaust you are well aware of the conditions here on our planet ...

I do not have TSC quote handy, sorry.


During the 2029-30 Period the ASC suffered losses ON-SCREEN** (establishing a minimum) of:
47 Fighters (37 Slyphid, 5 Phantom, 5 from Carpenter's Tokagawa)
40 AGAC
22 Roc Shuttles
09 VHT (all 15th ATAC, though IINM there is at least one other ATAC unit in this theatre)
09 Battloids (Assort type)
08 ASC Cruisers (generically bunched together, I am treating them as equal to a Tri-Star)
04 Pegasus Shuttle
04 Logans (Note Marie trashed her Logan a few times, but is not counted here)
02 Infantry (there are also crew members injured/killed on ship but I am not counting them to avoid double counting with the loss of a ship/vehicle)
Plus the Communities of Newton & Manville (had ASC forces present), Moon Base (ASC not the civilian ALUCE, mentioned in Ep38), ASC HQ (though a portion could have been evacuated), Suburban Base in Sector 3 ("Danger Zone"), and some armored vehicles (IIRC).

By 2044 the UEEF suffered losses on-Screen** (establishing a minimum) or other canon losses in the 85Ep series (not TSC) of:
24 Alpha-class (some may or may not have been docked to a Beta, but as the Beta is usually unmanned, includes Shadow)
13 Garfish
12 Cyclones (mostly VR-052s)
04 Horizon-T (no idea what was in the cargo pods: troops or just hardware/logistics and I'm not speculating)
03 Ikazuchi
Plus the Tokagawa Grant Commanded in Prelude and Point K (6000 troops, was there more than 1 Point X base, Invasion Video Game had a Point L, if that is the case A-L would mean 12 bases, if they are identical to Point K in population...), the UEEF fleet loses in TSC (sorry I don't have numbers, but some of them might be double counted in Ep84-5 so best to avoid them), Edwards rogue group, and the 10th MD (Implied strength is 14 Garfish and 3 Ikazuchi in opening panel of Invasion comic for a population of ~6400 people). The UEEF would also suffer losses against the Regent and possibly other races they came into conflict with (mentioned in AotSC about the Angel-Class and colonization).

In terms of population we know the ASC could staff a Tokagawa Cruiser (I'm assuming this is distinct from Grant's) that appears to have survive the 2RW without loss (on-screen), x1 ASC Desert Base, Monument City's Aerospace Base, and the UEEF could staff the SDF-3 and eventually SDF-4 along with Space Station Liberty (evacuated aboard the Ark Angel putting a cap on size), ALUCE Moon Base staff, Tirol Base, at least 1x ASC Naval Base seen in NG saga and countless mecha/ships/vehicles seen but not destroyed on-screen but that can not be otherwise uniquely identified between shots to prevent double counting that would have to be alive in 2029.

There is also a deep space colonization effort that required the construction of at least 14 Angel-Class vessels (converted into Neutron-S missiles), of which we have no real data on but we know exist (85ep had 7N-S missiles in one shot, TSC shows at least that many in another shot still at SSL in dry dock).

Using in order of preference RT.com Infopedia, AotSC, and then 2E PB RPG for crew counts of these platforms this means in terms of minimum population size of both entities in 2029 would be:
ASC 15,501
UEEF 29,644 (some of which are children in this time frame, some might also be micronized Zentreadi in UEEF service, includes Point K along with Grant's Tok and the SDF-3/4).
Grand Minimum Total: 45,145

We also know CIVILIANS exist in 2029 on Earth in large numbers (a few hundred are captured alone to be reprocessed as Bioroid Pilots per dialogue, massive numbers are also seen during evacuations in the last episode or two).

So what kind of (Average) Population Growth Rate* did humans experience between 2012 and 2029 and then to 2044 (this also doesn't factor in premature loss of life due to war, the most major event occurring in 2029-30):
-@01.10% in 2029 the population would be 84,308 and in 2044 it would be 99,342
-@02.10% in 2029 the population would be 99,663 and in 2044 it would be 136,120
-@04.20% in 2029 the population would be 140,880 and in 2044 it would be 261,135
-@08.67% in 2029 the population would be 287,501 and in 2044 it would be 1,000,000
-@11.05% in 2029 the population would be 415,828 and in 2044 it would be 2,000,000 (TSC dialogue implied minimum)
-@15.48% in 2029 the population would be 808,347 and in 2044 it would be 7,000,000

An average human population growth rate of 1.1% (current rate) or even 2.1% (highest on record set in 1968 per Wikipedia) do not work because of all the unaccounted for personnel in 2029 IMHO (even a pessimistic simple doubling of the minimum size for those two factions causes issues and this is before even considering the colonization effort). In order to get population numbers that come close to working (with what is stated in TSC if we use it) and give wiggle room the average population growth rate in these periods has to be over 4x higher than any period in recorded human history which seems unlikely to be the case. Given that the casualties of the 2RW are not accounted for in progression from 2029 to 2044, that would also mean you need even more people in 2029 if they had been subtracted out to meet TSC's stated population.

I think we can rule out Zentreadi/Tirolian survivors (as a major factor) contributing to population growth in this period since mixed individuals are apparently rare (making them a minor factor at best) and therefore not counted. The 2E RPG (unlike the 1E, Novels, and current cannon) does allow for it beyond the Sterlings, but gives no real percentage of the overall population or other numbers who are mixed race, just that they exist (and how they break down internally by genetic donor castes from each group).

So how do we explain the population size issue in 2044? The only options I can see (in universe) would be:
1. There are more than 70,000 human survivors contributing to the human population growth (the 1E RPG had 30% world survivor rate, or 300million per billion survived, the 2E RPG and Novels also go with basic premise though not necessarily the number 1E used AFAIK). In order to get 2 milion people in 2044 (ignoring war losses) would require a total survivor population (minimum) x20 what Leonard stated. This is achievable I think (treating Leonard's statement with some room for interpretation), the RoD did not strike everywhere (per Global Map in Ep27 @ approx 6:37-40) and we know NYC survived intact due to NG (if even ~1/8 of the city's population survived it would provide enough people) and did not suffer a direct hit. NYC would still have to contend with secondary effects, but if they could get help it would go a long way in explaining Earth's population issue on screen and what the math/history says is possible versus Leonard's and the officer in TSC dialogue statement.
2. There was cloning of Terran humans, though nothing in RT establishes they did this or even contemplated it. The technology would have to come from the Zentreadi, either adapting the Sizing Chamber technology found on their ships or the Factory Satellite that was captured.
3. There was a historically unprecedented population growth rate that was sustained/averaged-out-to for this entire period. This seems difficult to believe, at least at the rates required.
4. Some combination of the above

*
Spoiler:
I used the formula here in a spreadsheet to calculate the results:
https://calculator.academy/population-g ... ator/#f1p1

**From an old screen counting attempt I did years ago, I may have missed things it is possible. Nor do I dispute that losses occurred off screen, these numbers should be taken as the minimum.
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Re: Terran Human Population Math

Unread post by Seto Kaiba »

ShadowLogan wrote:Per Supreme Commander Leonard in Ep37 there where only 70,000 survivors, and in TSC an unnamed UEEF officer during the Briefing for the attack on Reflex Point mentions there are still several million people down on Earth in his objection to the use of the Neutron-S Missiles.

Of course, the simplest explanation with the most evidentiary support is that the second one is simply an exaggeration or error... it is well-known and eminently demonstrable that Robotech fans MASSIVELY overstate almost everything. The quality of research, if such a poor effort can even be called that, serving the Robotech fandom has only ever been abysmally poor.

Warning: Trolling and Flamebaiting. This could have been said without the qualifications and the point made just fine.


As a simple example, let's the Garfish-class high speed transport.

The Robotech Infopedia claims that the Garfish-class ship is 179 meters long, has a crew of 97, and carries 15 Alpha fighters.

That same Infopedia page has line art that clearly shows the Garfish is only 6-7 times the length of an Alpha fighter (which is 10.25m, by the way), that 15 Alpha fighters physically will not fit into the ship, the notation they cropped out of the line art indicates explicitly that it carries only 9 fighters, and the animation shows us that the ship has a crew of just five people. So the size of the ship was exaggerated by 3x, its crew complement by 7x, and its mecha complement by almost 2x.

That's actually one of the more subdued cases of exaggeration, come to that.

For instance, correctly statted the largest regular warship of the UEEF - the Ikazuchi-class, is actually significantly smaller than the ARMD-class. It's actually about 3/4 the size of one of the ARMD-class's "pontoons".


The population numbers work better if you boil out the fanon that certain Robotech fans hoodwinked Harmony Gold into printing.

The entire 2nd Earth Recapture mission taskforce consisted of ten Ikazuchi-class ships, forty Garfish-class transports, 160 Horizont descent shuttles, and 200 independent fighters which were flying escort. Not counting the flight crews of these transports, that's a mere 5,960 soldiers.[sup]1[/sup] This force is implied in Robotech to be a significant portion of the UEEF, yet it would fit neatly into the smallest NFL stadium currently in use with more than 90% of available seating still empty.[sup]2[/sup] If you apply these same correct numbers to the battle scene in RTSC, the fleet that is supposedly the vast majority of the UEEF can only muster about 7,440 frontline troops and the whole force including ship crews barely crosses into five digits (about 10,560)... and that's without accounting for the modifications to ship designs that visibly reduced aircraft counts.

Removing exaggerations from the Masters Saga materials produces similarly dramatic results. Most of the groups that are erroneously presented as branches of service or large formations are actually just single specialist squads inside the regular army. Even formations that are classified as actual branches of the armored forces are vanishingly tiny. The Alpha Tactics Armored Corps has barely 200 actual soldiers - the equivalent of just 15 infantry squads - to its name. Earth's entire military likely consists of only a few thousand to slightly over ten thousand soldiers. This would also explain why deadweight like Dana and the ATAC 15th squad aren't simply discharged... they're not so flush with manpower they can afford to turn away even badly-behaved volunteers.


Once you discount the obvious hyperbole of the "millions" remark in RTSC and start using accurate information, the population picture suddenly works pretty well in terms of Earth having only a couple hundred thousand people one to two generations down the road.



1. 140 Legioss pilots per Ikazuchi, 9 Legioss pilots on each Garfish, 1 Legioss pilot on each Horizont, 200 independent Legioss fighters, and 24 ground troops carried on each Horizont: (140x10)+(40x9)+160+200+(24x160) = 5,960.
2. The current smallest NFL stadium is Soldier Field in Chicago, Illinois. It seats 61,500.
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Re: Terran Human Population Math

Unread post by Peacebringer »

ShadowLogan wrote:Per Supreme Commander Leonard in Ep37 there where only 70,000 survivors, and in TSC an unnamed UEEF officer during the Briefing for the attack on Reflex Point mentions there are still several million people down on Earth in his objection to the use of the Neutron-S Missiles.


From a story-perspective, that's just what a person said. They could have been mistaken or misinformed or given a best guess estimation.

#4's your best bet.

Honestly, all those figures, about populations and numbers of crew, etc. are really just stuff that writers pulled out of the thin-air right before they went out for a smoke-break.

From an RPG perspective, those numbers gives a GM some insight for their campaign. Re-calibrating the number of people would make for an interesting-game.
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Re: Terran Human Population Math

Unread post by Jefffar »

ShadowLogan wrote:Per Supreme Commander Leonard in Ep37 there where only 70,000 survivors, and in TSC an unnamed UEEF officer during the Briefing for the attack on Reflex Point mentions there are still several million people down on Earth in his objection to the use of the Neutron-S Missiles.


Basically it comes down to if you believe that Leonard was speaking only of those aboard the SDF-1 or if he was referring to everyone who survived.

I personally believe the former because:

1) It clearly does not include the Zentraedi allies who also survived the final battle - but there may have been a political reason for leaving them out
2) The size and number of colony ships seen in Shadow Chronicles certainly implies multiple colonies with populations likely in the tens if not hundreds of thousands
3) Counting UEEF and ASC ships really only gives us a minimum, not a maximum. Using the same logic would limit the number of humans on earth in 2009 to 2013 considerably.
4) In the Shadow Chronicles there is a reference to millions of humans leaving on Earth
5) In the RPG context it's more fun to have dives communities of human survivors scattered around the planet.
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Re: Terran Human Population Math

Unread post by Seto Kaiba »

Peacebringer wrote:From a story-perspective, that's just what a person said. They could have been mistaken or misinformed or given a best guess estimation.

That'd be an argument better suited to the "millions" remark, TBH. That line came from a UEEF soldier who has almost certainly never set foot on Earth in his lifetime and, like Scott at the start of the New Generation, would have no idea what the actual conditions on the planet were like.

The "70,000" line comes from an official speech being made to a military academy graduating class by the Supreme Commander of Earth's armed forces and de facto ruler of the planet. Leonard would be the one best equipped to know, since he's both the actual head of state and head of the planetary defense and security forces. He's (canonically) a bigot and prone to rash decisions, but he's not stupid. (Well, OK... bigotry is stupid, but he's not uniformly stupid.)


Peacebringer wrote:Honestly, all those figures, about populations and numbers of crew, etc. are really just stuff that writers pulled out of the thin-air right before they went out for a smoke-break.

Eh... yes and no. The Robotech stats are absolutely pulled out of thin air by fan-fiction writers with at-best questionable research practices. That much is a well-established fact. The info about the populations is partly based in the original dialog, though skewed somewhat by Robotech's rewriters going in and changing the actual numbers and by the Robotech story missing a few OSM details like the ~1 million other survivors of the Zentradi attack that existed in the original Macross story and presenting the SDF-1's survivors as the only survivors. Or the mass cloning. Etc. Using the correct/original stats from the creators of the animation ironically greatly alleviates the Robotech population problem for reasons already given.




Jefffar wrote:1) It clearly does not include the Zentraedi allies who also survived the final battle - but there may have been a political reason for leaving them out

Or a practical one... the Robotech TV series dialog leaned towards the idea that the Zentradi died out after Khyron's revolt, with Scott implying at one point the Zentradi are extinct by the New Generation era.

Subsequent material (e.g. Sentinels) took a slightly different approach that's still consistent with Leonard's omission of them, taking a stance that the vast majority of the Zentradi were killed in Khyron's revolt and the almost exclusively male remainder ending up back in military service on the SDF-3 on its mission to the Robotech Masters homeworld... and then getting killed off without reproducing.


Jefffar wrote:2) The size and number of colony ships seen in Shadow Chronicles certainly implies multiple colonies with populations likely in the tens if not hundreds of thousands

There are a lot of problems with the colony ship idea, both chronologically and just in general. Both the RPG and official setting have it that there aren't any civilians in space, full stop. The awkward choices of phrasing in AoTSC make it sound like the ships weren't even started until after the 2nd Robotech War ended, meaning they built ships for a nonexistent colonist population, or that the ships were not even completed before being mothballed. The whole idea of them setting up colonies is also kind of incongruous since Robotech changed the dialog about space colonization in the OSM to dialog about going to the Robotech Masters homeworld to launch a preemptive strike.

Esp. since the official setting and RPG both lean into the idea that there aren't any civilains in space (excl. Minmei, who stowed away and doesn't count?) and that there's nothing for anyone born in space to do except become a soldier.


Jefffar wrote:3) Counting UEEF and ASC ships really only gives us a minimum, not a maximum. Using the same logic would limit the number of humans on earth in 2009 to 2013 considerably.

The ASC, sure... but the UEEF are a fleet-based force whose members self-identify as having been "born out in deep space on a robotech ship". Assessing their population by the ships they have is, at least in a broad sense, a pretty good directional estimate of their total population. Especially given how lightly crewed massive installations like Space Station Liberty seem to be.

The 2nd and 3rd ERF are supposed to, together, be almost the entirety or the actual entirety (depending on whether you're going RTSC or TV) of the UEEF, which makes ship-counting a pretty reliable estimation tool.


Jefffar wrote:4) In the Shadow Chronicles there is a reference to millions of humans leaving on Earth

Which may be hyperbole or an estimate at best, since the UEEF had basically no intel about the state of things on Earth until right before the end of the New Generation, and that intel was focused on studying the Invid. It makes the moral calculus of the objection a bit more sustainable-sounding, since otherwise an obvious rejoinder would be "yeah, but thousands of people are dying up here RIGHT NOW and we can save them".


Jefffar wrote:5) In the RPG context it's more fun to have dives communities of human survivors scattered around the planet.

Yeah, big flat stretches of dusty nothing do not an exciting adventure make... unless your players are a pack of lightly pickled geologists.
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Re: Terran Human Population Math

Unread post by ShadowLogan »

Ultimately what and how a GM uses the information provided in the original post is up to them, I do hope that it and the subsequent discussion does generate campaign/scenario ideas.

Seto wrote:Of course, the simplest explanation with the most evidentiary support is that the second one is simply an exaggeration or error... it is well-known and eminently demonstrable that Robotech fans MASSIVELY overstate almost everything. The quality of research, if such a poor effort can even be called that, serving the Robotech fandom has only ever been abysmally poor.

Of course there is that option, but there are issues with it given it ignores canon development in terms of story:
1. This is using HG approved sources to calculate crew size, 2 of which are canon level.
2. Use of the OSM IMHO still requires some "adjustments" to the material to account for setting changes between it and the OSM. In the OSM, with the exception of possibly the Tri-Star (SDC:SC) but definably the Tokagawa (SDC:SC), several of the ship classes have to be "adjusted" due to the change from Inter/Intra-Planetary Vessel in their original form to Interstellar Vessel (this could require an increase in crew count).
3. While I do not disagree about the size of the Garfish/Ikazuchi change, the question does have to be considered if you can still fit the number of people HG says are present in the original volume. Which you can if we use real world naval ship size as an analogy for the Ikazuchi (a Garfish is bigger than a School Bus, which has a capacity of ~80 IIRC so I'm going to say yeah). As for the Garfish-Alpha storage ratio, all I'm going to say is that alternate deck arrangements make it possible to partly explain the animation error that is the basis for the capacity change.
4. Your estimates for UEEF strength are not considering the the UEEF existed in 2029 and sent token ships back to Earth (Carpenter, Transport Squadron 85, Wolfe/old-timers might be from these or another wave), losses suffered while fighting the Invid away from Earth (Sentinels/Prelude), or the staff at certain facilities we know exist in canon (Tirol, ALUCE, SSL, MARS-III space station from a still in Ep61), not to mention the SDF-3 itself (and as an intended SDF-1 doppelganger could have a requirement of >=5,000 people on board), etc. You really haven't knocked much off the Minimum total to remove the the issue (if 1st/2nd/3rd are all similar in size, that's ~18,000 people or ~2/3 of my minimum, and you still have to account for crew of those ships not just their mecha-troops).
5. The use of SDC:SC OSM material is even more problematic given that it doesn't go into as much detail as other settings IINM. Most of the people I counted for the ASC come from their space "cruisers" (Tri-star, Tokagawa-II, two types w/o canon designations ((fan designations of Banshee and Battle Classes exist))) and the ASC can be shown to have a lot of Space "cruisers" (Nordoff's Attack Group, ALUCE Relief Group, Emerson's Group, Earth based ships post Emerson departure) beyond the 7 seen destroyed (50 ship-size fleet is probably IMHO low balling it).
6. Colonization Effort is broken I can agree, but again its part of canon. The UEEF had at least 14 Angel-Class Colony Ships available to convert into Neutron-S Missiles (personally I don't like this backstory for the N-S missile frames, a Zentreadi origin IMHO is more plausible but that's a topic for another time). Logically the population numbers should exist to be able to meet the capacity these ships provide, otherwise why would they have built 14+ ships of this type by 2044, not to mention having constructed at least one (in process of more?) a 2nd Generation Colony Ship Class (Ark Angel and its ridiculous capacity per AotSC).
7. While I did not include it in my original post I had considered the following, with a base of 70k in 2011, by 2029 and realistic population growth numbers for humans you could fit the entire population onto a single Tokagawa (with 1 or 2 existing minimum at the end of the 2RW, per AotSC capacity), meaning the ASC or UEEF could have evacuated Earth completely leaving not a single human behind intentionally to live under the Invid for over a decade. That Earth could not be evacuated completely when the Invid arrived requires some explanation I would think, especially if they (now) have colony ships, with the simplest explanation being the Capacity of those ships was exceeded by the available population.

Seto wrote: and by the Robotech story missing a few OSM details like the ~1 million other survivors of the Zentradi attack that existed in the original Macross story

Maybe they didn't, we know Leonard's statement is NOT 100% accurate given Lisa Hayes (technically transferred to the Grand Cannon and NO LONGER part of the SDF-1 crew) and Edwards (also at the GC per his canon back story IINM), not to mention NYC physical state in 2044 (long term survivability is only an issue if they can not get outside support/assistance that a city requires). So it may be that 70k statement is not 100% accurate and is in fact the hyperbole, it certainly haven't been taken literally in numerous adaptations of the setting (1E RPG, 2E RPG, Mckinney Novels, most likely the old comics to) and going forward into TSC. Even if we question TSC as a viable end point in terms of population, one also has to consider where the UEEF officer in question came up with this number and why no one corrected/attempted-to-correct him.

Jeffar wrote:Basically it comes down to if you believe that Leonard was speaking only of those aboard the SDF-1 or if he was referring to everyone who survived.

I personally believe the former because:

Leonard was addressing a graduating class in this scene, it is entirely possible that the class in question where all (or close enough) from that pool of survivors making it a true statement within unstated constraints (I mean even in canon we know this is not technically accurate since Lisa Hayes was at the Grand Cannon, and its been part of Edwards backstory that he was there since Sentinels and has carried forward IINM).

It is also possible, given the situation, that he was playing loose (to varying degrees) with the facts like any/all politicians attempt to do. It wasn't a history class lesson after all, and we do see Leonard play loose with the facts when the Monument City civilians are captured, he had them listed as killed (I could see classifying the truth, but that is not what Leonard did).

Jeffar wrote:3) Counting UEEF and ASC ships really only gives us a minimum, not a maximum. Using the same logic would limit the number of humans on earth in 2009 to 2013 considerably.

I agree counting like this does have limits and mostly establishes minimums, but even that can be useful. I do not think the logic would limit the human population on Earth in 2009 as there is nothing to suggest a catastrophic population drop has occurred before 2011 (RoD) like we receive in 2029.
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Re: Terran Human Population Math

Unread post by Seto Kaiba »

ShadowLogan wrote:Of course there is that option, but there are issues with it given it ignores canon development in terms of story:

Does it, though? Harmony Gold's sourcing policies consistently put the animation and OSM resources at the highest level of reliability. They also place the TV series above any subsequent animated works in terms of authoritativeness.

What we have here, in terms of a problem, is a clear-cut and objectively demonstrable set of issues springing from a group of Robotech fans who for all practical intents and purposes lied about the sources of their material in order to pass their fan fiction off as "official". I think there is an excellent argument to be made for dismissing what we can prove to be animation-contradicting and common sense-contradicting BS, especially where doing so would improve the overall consistency of the setting.


ShadowLogan wrote:2. Use of the OSM IMHO still requires some "adjustments" to the material to account for setting changes between it and the OSM. In the OSM, with the exception of possibly the Tri-Star (SDC:SC) but definably the Tokagawa (SDC:SC), several of the ship classes have to be "adjusted" due to the change from Inter/Intra-Planetary Vessel in their original form to Interstellar Vessel (this could require an increase in crew count).

To be frank, that's an entirely cosmetic concern.

This isn't Star Trek. These ships don't loiter out in deep space for years at a time. How these ships are presented in Robotech does not materially differ from their OSM presentation except in terms of "offscreen" FTL capability. The ships from Southern Cross aren't long-haul warships, they're light system defense craft meant to sortie from a base to intercept an attacker nearby. The ships from MOSPEADA are assault craft, not aircraft carriers... they're designed not for endurance, but to directly move the greatest possible number of troops and quantity of materiel from a staging area directly into a combat zone, disembark them, and go back for another load. Even in RTSC, this is how they're shown operating. You don't need to have large crews if the ship spends very little actual time out of port.


ShadowLogan wrote:3. While I do not disagree about the size of the Garfish/Ikazuchi change, the question does have to be considered if you can still fit the number of people HG says are present in the original volume.

I would say right off the bat that thats immaterial. We're talking about these ships at operating capacity, not packed to the rafters with evacuees or some other nonsense.

You could theoretically fit a hundred people into a Garfish, but it wouldn't be comfortable or hygenic or sustainable in any way... you'd be packing them into the cargo bay like sardines, without adequate food, water, or facilities to support that many people.


ShadowLogan wrote:4. Your estimates for UEEF strength are not considering the the UEEF existed in 2029 and sent token ships back to Earth (Carpenter, Transport Squadron 85, Wolfe/old-timers might be from these or another wave), losses suffered while fighting the Invid away from Earth (Sentinels/Prelude), or the staff at certain facilities we know exist in canon (Tirol, ALUCE, SSL, MARS-III space station from a still in Ep61), not to mention the SDF-3 itself (and as an intended SDF-1 doppelganger could have a requirement of >=5,000 people on board), etc. You really haven't knocked much off the Minimum total to remove the the issue (if 1st/2nd/3rd are all similar in size, that's ~18,000 people or ~2/3 of my minimum, and you still have to account for crew of those ships not just their mecha-troops).

Granted, but that margin of error is small to say the least given that the UEEF sent back lightly-crewed rear echelon transport craft rather than any kind of combat-effective warship. Considering how small the crew sizes for even allegedly-massive ships have been shown to be (via RTSC), the total losses the UEEF sustained from that could easily be only a few hundred people. Depictions of these ground installations also show similarly sparse populations. A fact which would actually make it somewhat more forgivable that Hunter never noticed what Edwards was up to... if your entire main base has only a few hundred soldiers manning it then proper supervision of everyone present is going to be a lot harder.


ShadowLogan wrote:5. The use of SDC:SC OSM material is even more problematic given that it doesn't go into as much detail as other settings IINM. Most of the people I counted for the ASC come from their space "cruisers" (Tri-star, Tokagawa-II, two types w/o canon designations ((fan designations of Banshee and Battle Classes exist))) and the ASC can be shown to have a lot of Space "cruisers" (Nordoff's Attack Group, ALUCE Relief Group, Emerson's Group, Earth based ships post Emerson departure) beyond the 7 seen destroyed (50 ship-size fleet is probably IMHO low balling it).

There is that, yes... but we know these ships aren't very large given that they're dwarfed by the Zor Lords city ships, and the actual crews are shown to be on the small side similar to MOSPEADA's, especially when we see a ship evacuated. It would be entirely consistent with what we know about the ground forces having entire branches of service that could fit onto a single jet airliner with seats left over for those ships to also have crews of at most a couple dozen.


ShadowLogan wrote:6. Colonization Effort is broken I can agree, but again its part of canon.

Yes, but it's also not relevant because all available information both in canon and RPG is that no actual colonizaton ever took place... and the capacities of those colony ships are as grossly overstated as it gets. ESPECIALLY in the Ark Angel's case 750,000 people living sustainably and comfortably inside a "colony bay" that measures about 1/8th of a cubic kilometer? That's three times the population density of the Kowloon Walled City.


ShadowLogan wrote:7. While I did not include it in my original post I had considered the following, with a base of 70k in 2011, by 2029 and realistic population growth numbers for humans you could fit the entire population onto a single Tokagawa (with 1 or 2 existing minimum at the end of the 2RW, per AotSC capacity), meaning the ASC or UEEF could have evacuated Earth completely leaving not a single human behind intentionally to live under the Invid for over a decade. That Earth could not be evacuated completely when the Invid arrived requires some explanation I would think, especially if they (now) have colony ships, with the simplest explanation being the Capacity of those ships was exceeded by the available population.

So, the obvious problems being 1. the assumption that the known-to-be-false size and capacity of the Tokugawa are accurate, 2. that any such ships were available (everything the UEEF could spare got blown up and the ASC didn't use them), and 3. the logistics of trying to evacuate a scattered and fearful population whilst under enemy fire and without infrastructure or logistical support to do so thanks to the Masters blowing it the hell up.

(The reason the colony ships weren't used is stated right as the reason the colony ships weren't used... they were not equipped to defend themselves for some insane reason. That's why they got mothballed and a new class with actual defenses was commissioned to replace them but wasn't available until after the Invid left.)


ShadowLogan wrote:Maybe they didn't, we know Leonard's statement is NOT 100% accurate given Lisa Hayes (technically transferred to the Grand Cannon and NO LONGER part of the SDF-1 crew) and Edwards (also at the GC per his canon back story IINM),

Are they actually honoring that technicality, though? Lisa considered herself still a part of the SDF-1 crew, having been sent on detached duty to talk with the top brass on Earth. The SDF-1's crew had the same opinion of her status, and anyone who differed is too dead to split hairs over it.

Edwards is probably also counted among the SDF-1's survivors as he would have been recovered by the SDF-1. Even if we treat Edwards as a retconned-in single man exception to the rule, that doesn't throw the door open for millions of never-ever-mentioned survivors elsewhere.


ShadowLogan wrote:not to mention NYC physical state in 2044 (long term survivability is only an issue if they can not get outside support/assistance that a city requires).

Earth's surface and population are indicated in the series to have been totally wiped out... the squatters living in the ruins of New York c.2044 are not a compelling argument for unmentioned survivors in New York thirty years earlier.


ShadowLogan wrote:[...] it certainly haven't been taken literally in numerous adaptations of the setting (1E RPG, 2E RPG, Mckinney Novels, most likely the old comics to) and going forward into TSC.

Eh.. let's not get into what non-canon works say. They're non-canon for a reason, and for most of them that reason is explicitly given as "bearing so little resemblance to the Robotech setting and story as to be Robotech in name only".


ShadowLogan wrote:Even if we question TSC as a viable end point in terms of population, one also has to consider where the UEEF officer in question came up with this number and why no one corrected/attempted-to-correct him.

We're talking about an organization composed almost exclusively of people who've only seen Earth in pictures or from the Moon's surface... their ignorance is understandable.



ShadowLogan wrote:It is also possible, given the situation, that he was playing loose (to varying degrees) with the facts like any/all politicians attempt to do. It wasn't a history class lesson after all, and we do see Leonard play loose with the facts when the Monument City civilians are captured, he had them listed as killed (I could see classifying the truth, but that is not what Leonard did).

There is no reason for Leonard to lie to a class of academy graduates in peacetime.

His wartime decision to report the missing as killed in action can be easily taken as a measure intended to prevent a panic or at least prevent indecision on the firing line when faced with the prospect that you might have to shoot at your brainwashed neighbor come to kill you at the Masters behest.
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Re: Terran Human Population Math

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Seto wrote:Does it, though? Harmony Gold's sourcing policies consistently put the animation and OSM resources at the highest level of reliability. They also place the TV series above any subsequent animated works in terms of authoritativeness.

If we pull the OSM resource though doesn't that sort of mean that there are ~1million additional survivors on the planet, a number that loosely works with the 70k x20 I mentioned in the initial post. I know dialogue is supposed to be the trump card essentially, but their is some wiggle room with interpreting the dialogue statement in Ep37.

Seto wrote:To be frank, that's an entirely cosmetic concern.

To a certain extent it is a valid concern. The ships are supposed to have full Solar System Transit capability, even the ships in the Southern Cross we have information on. That is profoundly different than the ARMD/Oberth ranges, which match closer to the OSM. The ASC (Ep37) is shown to have ships on Patrol in the Solar System prior to the start of the 2RW (due to recycled animation).

Seto wrote:I would say right off the bat that thats immaterial. We're talking about these ships at operating capacity, not packed to the rafters with evacuees or some other nonsense.

I disagree. It is very relevant to the topic. At 300m long, that's the length of some real world aircraft carrier classes or even out-dated Battleships. The Garfish would still be large enough, you could park a School Bus (~45ft or 13.7m long) can hold 80 people, the Alpha is ~10m long, the volume of the 2x3 pods can fit roughly into the upper body north of connecting spar, which means plenty of room for 80 people in the main body of the Garfish.

Seto wrote:Granted, but that margin of error is small to say the least given that the UEEF sent back lightly-crewed rear echelon transport craft rather than any kind of combat-effective warship. Considering how small the crew sizes for even allegedly-massive ships have been shown to be (via RTSC), the total losses the UEEF sustained from that could easily be only a few hundred people. Depictions of these ground installations also show similarly sparse populations. A fact which would actually make it somewhat more forgivable that Hunter never noticed what Edwards was up to... if your entire main base has only a few hundred soldiers manning it then proper supervision of everyone present is going to be a lot harder.

The margin of error is lot bigger than you give it credit. Point K alone means 6000 people the UEEF supposedly setup on Earth, if every letter between A-K is used and the bases are similar that's 11 bases (12 if Invasion Videogames Point L) for a grand total of 66,000 (72k w/Point L) right there. Then there is the who Sentinels aspect to consider (UEEF vs Regent Invid, UEEF support of the Sentinels) that has not been elaborated upon. The staff at Space Station Liberty (not to mention the other Factory Satellites in UEEF control mentioned in AotSC). The Tokagawa crew total is ~6,500 people (per Infopedia) and is similar in size to the SDF-1 which had 6000 people (per Infopedia, technically can add another 11,000 troops) without counting Macross City (55k).

Seto wrote:There is that, yes... but we know these ships aren't very large given that they're dwarfed by the Zor Lords city ships, and the actual crews are shown to be on the small side similar to MOSPEADA's, especially when we see a ship evacuated. It would be entirely consistent with what we know about the ground forces having entire branches of service that could fit onto a single jet airliner with seats left over for those ships to also have crews of at most a couple dozen.

The Zor Lord Cityships are 7.2x5.8x1.2km overall, that dwarfs a Zentreadi Flagship's 4x0.6x0.6km dimensions, never mind the smaller ships (no human ship is even this large). The only thing the Zentreadi have that is larger than this is the Factory Satellites and Dolza's Fortress. So to point out the ASC ships being "small" compared to a Cityship really doesn't mean anything.

Seto wrote:Yes, but it's also not relevant because all available information both in canon and RPG is that no actual colonizaton ever took place... and the capacities of those colony ships are as grossly overstated as it gets. ESPECIALLY in the Ark Angel's case 750,000 people living sustainably and comfortably inside a "colony bay" that measures about 1/8th of a cubic kilometer? That's three times the population density of the Kowloon Walled City.

I do not dispute that Colonization has not taken place, but the question still has to be addressed why build all these Colonization Ships if you don't have people to fill them. (As far as the Ark Angel goes I agree 750k is to many people, but the Tok and SDF-3 capacities are more reasonable given they are similar in size to the SDF-1 which hosted 70k people).

Seto wrote:So, the obvious problems being 1. the assumption that the known-to-be-false size and capacity of the Tokugawa are accurate, 2. that any such ships were available (everything the UEEF could spare got blown up and the ASC didn't use them), and 3. the logistics of trying to evacuate a scattered and fearful population whilst under enemy fire and without infrastructure or logistical support to do so thanks to the Masters blowing it the hell up.

The ASC did use a Tokagawa-class vessel. It can be seen in the animation post Carpenter (who self-destructed his ship in Ep47) in Ep60 launching from Earth (fate unknown).

I agree the logistics of such a feat is a potential issue, but Leonard did say it would take 7 days to pull off. I am taking that at face value.

Seto wrote:We're talking about an organization composed almost exclusively of people who've only seen Earth in pictures or from the Moon's surface... their ignorance is understandable.

While it is understandable they wouldn't have a population count in 2044, they would certainly have records from the 2020s and could base things on that information. They might even be able to generate some idea using observation of the Earth.

Seto wrote:There is no reason for Leonard to lie to a class of academy graduates in peacetime.

I disagree, I did not say Leonard outright lied in this case, I am saying he played loose with the facts which means he could be exaggerating or omitting things to make them feel special.
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Re: Terran Human Population Math

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Seto Kaiba wrote:That'd be an argument better suited to the "millions" remark, TBH. That line came from a UEEF soldier who has almost certainly never set foot on Earth in his lifetime and, like Scott at the start of the New Generation, would have no idea what the actual conditions on the planet were like.

The "70,000" line comes from an official speech being made to a military academy graduating class by the Supreme Commander of Earth's armed forces and de facto ruler of the planet. Leonard would be the one best equipped to know, since he's both the actual head of state and head of the planetary defense and security forces. He's (canonically) a bigot and prone to rash decisions, but he's not stupid. (Well, OK... bigotry is stupid, but he's not uniformly stupid.)


It's an epistemology-question. What can one really know? Shadowlogan made a good point.
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Re: Terran Human Population Math

Unread post by Seto Kaiba »

ShadowLogan wrote:If we pull the OSM resource though doesn't that sort of mean that there are ~1million additional survivors on the planet, a number that loosely works with the 70k x20 I mentioned in the initial post. I know dialogue is supposed to be the trump card essentially, but their is some wiggle room with interpreting the dialogue statement in Ep37.

That would certainly solve the problem, if only it didn't conflict horribly with later materials in the Masters Saga.

But addressing the demonstrably inaccurate stats also addresses the problem in a way that doesn't break the Robotech story.



ShadowLogan wrote:To a certain extent it is a valid concern. The ships are supposed to have full Solar System Transit capability, even the ships in the Southern Cross we have information on. That is profoundly different than the ARMD/Oberth ranges, which match closer to the OSM. The ASC (Ep37) is shown to have ships on Patrol in the Solar System prior to the start of the 2RW (due to recycled animation).

Not really. Remember, these later ships are fold-capable. That means they're basically never more than a minute or two from their home port if they're on patrol in the solar system. Also, having ships on patrol doesn't really have any implications for crew size up to a certain point. As we've seen via RTSC, on these ships the automation is good enough that you can operate even the largest of warships with a crew barely big enough to constitute a baseball team provided you're not taking the ship into combat immediately.


ShadowLogan wrote:I disagree. It is very relevant to the topic. At 300m long, that's the length of some real world aircraft carrier classes or even out-dated Battleships. The Garfish would still be large enough, you could park a School Bus (~45ft or 13.7m long) can hold 80 people, the Alpha is ~10m long, the volume of the 2x3 pods can fit roughly into the upper body north of connecting spar, which means plenty of room for 80 people in the main body of the Garfish.

Just because a certain number of people can theoretically fit into a space doesn't mean they should, that they would be able to contribute anything, or that it would be sustainable. There's no point in having more crew than you actually need to operate the ship. Those aircraft carriers and old battleships in history needed large crews because they had few, if any, automation resources. Most tasks still needed to be done manually. These also aren't carriers or battleships, they're assault ships. They don't NEED to have the resources to maintain these aircraft long term aboard them because their job is to move all those troops and all that war materiel from a staging area to a combat zone and back, not to lug them around and act as their mothership indefinitely.


ShadowLogan wrote:The margin of error is lot bigger than you give it credit. Point K alone means 6000 people the UEEF supposedly setup on Earth, if every letter between A-K is used and the bases are similar that's 11 bases (12 if Invasion Videogames Point L) for a grand total of 66,000 (72k w/Point L) right there.

This assumes that those are ALL meant to be occupied simultaneously... which isn't the case. As per their description, those were simply the predefined rallying points for troops who successfully landed on Earth. There may have been supposed to be ~6,000 troops at the rally point in an ideal world, but a vast majority of those troops died before ever making planetfall. (Incidentally, ~6,000 was the number of troops Scott would've been landing with if they hadn't all died in orbit.) The Point K we see in the series is DEFINITELY nowhere near big enough to hold the men and materiel for a 6,000-strong force of Mars troops.


ShadowLogan wrote:Then there is the who Sentinels aspect to consider (UEEF vs Regent Invid, UEEF support of the Sentinels) that has not been elaborated upon. The staff at Space Station Liberty (not to mention the other Factory Satellites in UEEF control mentioned in AotSC). The Tokagawa crew total is ~6,500 people (per Infopedia) and is similar in size to the SDF-1 which had 6000 people (per Infopedia, technically can add another 11,000 troops) without counting Macross City (55k).

So, skipping past the point where I remind you the Infopedia's numbers are ridiculous distortions that are wide of the mark by orders of magnitude...

As I mentioned, we've seen the fleets which are alleged to be either the totality or overwhelming majority of the UEEF and I computed those in a previous post... we're talking a military force of ~20-30k, which would still be sizable for a planet of only ~250k people. As vast as Liberty station is, the entirety of that station is evacuated in a matter of minutes and they all fit into a single ship that is operated by a skeleton crew. There can't be very many of them... same as what we see WRT the UEEF base on Tirol.


ShadowLogan wrote:I do not dispute that Colonization has not taken place, but the question still has to be addressed why build all these Colonization Ships if you don't have people to fill them. (As far as the Ark Angel goes I agree 750k is to many people, but the Tok and SDF-3 capacities are more reasonable given they are similar in size to the SDF-1 which hosted 70k people).

That's the million-dollar question... since no matter what, it doesn't make sense to have built all these ships in any context we know about. Even if Earth did have millions of people living on it, that number of ships is grotesque overkill, and it doesn't... which means it's even more ridiculously overkill.

The only possibility I can think of that would justify those numbers would be if they were trying to evacuate an entire one of the Sentinels planets for some reason. Either that or someone was blindly copying from Macross and forgot there weren't that many people in Robotech.


ShadowLogan wrote:I agree the logistics of such a feat is a potential issue, but Leonard did say it would take 7 days to pull off. I am taking that at face value.

7 days to pull off, before the Robotech Masters obligingly destroyed the UEDF's logistical backbone and command structure.


ShadowLogan wrote:While it is understandable they wouldn't have a population count in 2044, they would certainly have records from the 2020s and could base things on that information. They might even be able to generate some idea using observation of the Earth.

Maybe from ~2022, but they were out of contact with Earth for almost the entirety of the next two decades and had no real picture of what the conditions there were like given how oblivious the troops landing there are.

That also doesn't discount simple hyperbole.


ShadowLogan wrote:I disagree, I did not say Leonard outright lied in this case, I am saying he played loose with the facts which means he could be exaggerating or omitting things to make them feel special.

To what end? He has no need to ingratiate himself to those recruits, he's the de facto King of the Earth and if there were survivors from elsewhere it'd just antagonize them leaving them out.
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Re: Terran Human Population Math

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Seto wrote:Not really. Remember, these later ships are fold-capable. That means they're basically never more than a minute or two from their home port if they're on patrol in the solar system. Also, having ships on patrol doesn't really have any implications for crew size up to a certain point. As we've seen via RTSC, on these ships the automation is good enough that you can operate even the largest of warships with a crew barely big enough to constitute a baseball team provided you're not taking the ship into combat immediately.

If a ship is on Patrol, the duration of the patrol has to be considered. Do you have periods where you leave the ship on auto, or do you have shift rotation. How many do you have on hand for maintenance both for the ship itself and any mecha carried. What level of medical care is the ship going to be setup for (I don't expect them to do open heart surgery, but they should be able to handle routine injuries).

Fold Systems, at least in RT, might have minimum range requirements. The several ASC Fleets/Task-Force making the Earth-Moon trips did not use their Fold Drive. We also do not know (Officially) that the Battle/Banshee "Cruisers" even have Fold Drives, but we know the Tri-Star does (and Fold Bubble method to catch groups of additional ships).

Seto wrote:Just because a certain number of people can theoretically fit into a space doesn't mean they should, that they would be able to contribute anything, or that it would be sustainable. There's no point in having more crew than you actually need to operate the ship. Those aircraft carriers and old battleships in history needed large crews because they had few, if any, automation resources. Most tasks still needed to be done manually. These also aren't carriers or battleships, they're assault ships. They don't NEED to have the resources to maintain these aircraft long term aboard them because their job is to move all those troops and all that war materiel from a staging area to a combat zone and back, not to lug them around and act as their mothership indefinitely.

I agree about the theoretical fit vs what is actually needed, but we have no way to really determine how many are actually needed. I know we see only a small fraction, but that doesn't mean others do not exist off camera because these are big ships (if it wasn't for dialogue statements how many people would you put on the Enterprise in TOS/TNG just off the visuals).

I'd also point out that officially these are considered Cruisers/Carriers/Battleships not assault ships or transports (aside from the Horizon) as they are in the OSM for the ships we do have information on.

Seto wrote:This assumes that those are ALL meant to be occupied simultaneously... which isn't the case. As per their description, those were simply the predefined rallying points for troops who successfully landed on Earth. There may have been supposed to be ~6,000 troops at the rally point in an ideal world, but a vast majority of those troops died before ever making planetfall. (Incidentally, ~6,000 was the number of troops Scott would've been landing with if they hadn't all died in orbit.) The Point K we see in the series is DEFINITELY nowhere near big enough to hold the men and materiel for a 6,000-strong force of Mars troops.

No it doesn't assume simultaneous occupation of all 11/12 bases, we can't even be sure that they are all staffed identically. What it assumes is that there is no overlap in personnel. I know IIRC they are rallying points in the OSM, but Scott was expecting 6000 troops (with 2000 Veritech Fighters) at an advanced attack base setup for an unknown enemy in Robotech (that's per Dialogue in EP70 from Scott). Rally Points and Advanced Attack Bases are militarily distinct.

As for being large enough to hold 6000 men, we have to remember that we see Point K after it had been destroyed. Nor do have any idea what it would looked like when in operation (or even how long they had been there). We do not know if any survivors relocated after the battle leaving behind wreckage (or what they thought was wreckage given the serviceable 2 Alphas and Beta recovered) or if others had picked over the site before (we know it happens). So a size discrepancy is explainable IMHO.

Spoiler:
While not on the CURRENT timeline at RT.com, 2002 Timeline found on www.web.archive.org takes a different approach to these bases which would require 20k per base in 2031 or at least 220k sent by the UEEF for this purpose in 2031, mentions of this appears to have been dropped sometime in 03 or 04. Just as a historical aside from RT.com.


Seto wrote:As I mentioned, we've seen the fleets which are alleged to be either the totality or overwhelming majority of the UEEF and I computed those in a previous post... we're talking a military force of ~20-30k, which would still be sizable for a planet of only ~250k people.

Except we aren't talking about a population total of 250k people (in 2044) unless you assume an unprecedented population growth rate of 4.2% for the entire period in question (record is 2.1% in one year). A more reasonable growth rate of 1.x% at best is ~130k by 2044, and in 2029 ~96k.

The easiest way to make the various numbers work is to either have more survivors, cloning, or a mix of the two.

Seto wrote:That's the million-dollar question... since no matter what, it doesn't make sense to have built all these ships in any context we know about. Even if Earth did have millions of people living on it, that number of ships is grotesque overkill, and it doesn't... which means it's even more ridiculously overkill.

The only possibility I can think of that would justify those numbers would be if they were trying to evacuate an entire one of the Sentinels planets for some reason. Either that or someone was blindly copying from Macross and forgot there weren't that many people in Robotech.

14+ ships with a population of millions is not overkill depending on the what those Angel-Class ships actually carry and how the ships are actually used in colonization (one-way or reusuable). Building the colony ships for the Sentinels doesn't make much sense given the Kabarrens could do it faster than the UEEF could (SDF-3's reconstruction occurred so fast because of the Kabarrens). Invasion Comic (#2) mentions the Gloval Initiative of 2014 having a Long Term Goal of UEEF being Colonization. But if we assume 70k starting, and realistic population growth Rates it would not be until the late 22nd/early 23rd Century before the human population reaches even 1million people.

While I agree someone is blindly copying from Macross is a very probable thing in this case, the fact is we do not know what the actual population looks like in the 85ep series post TMS if we toss out TSC. And TSC pushes for "several" million, which is not a well defined number (it could be as low as 2 but less than "many"), but it is still part of canon (unless TSC has been moved out of canon status).

Seto wrote:Maybe from ~2022, but they were out of contact with Earth for almost the entirety of the next two decades and had no real picture of what the conditions there were like given how oblivious the troops landing there are.

The out of contact thing doesn't mesh with the 85ep series and the role assigned to SSL. In point of fact Carpenter's ship is said to be responding to the mayday from SSL (the Masters where jamming Earth-SSL link, and SSL was Earth's link to the Pioneer Mission). But even if we go with the notion the UEEF was out of touch, they received an influx of evacuees from Earth post 2RW (L&W comic, LLA), which include Dana Sterling and Louie Nichols (seen in Prelude or TSC).

Seto wrote:To what end? He has no need to ingratiate himself to those recruits, he's the de facto King of the Earth and if there were survivors from elsewhere it'd just antagonize them leaving them out.

I agree it could antagonize, but we already know that he left out the Zentreadi survivors in that period and their positive contribution to reconstruction. Now I guess a case could be made Leonard was only talking about humans, but given the way he presents the Zentreadi it does bring into the question if the 70k figure is "truthful" if he is not presenting the Zentreadi correctly. This is why I say he is playing loose with the facts like a politician, but not out right lie because in terms of fact checking politicians there are "grades" of truth/faslehoods even when there is no apparent need to lie.
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