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So I was reviewing some of the data we have about cadia, and basically I've come to the conclusion that it makes no sense.

Cadia has a population (according to Codex:Eye of Terror) or 250,000,000 apparently Codex: Chaos Space Marines (3rd ed, 2nd edition) puts this figure at 850,000,000, but as EoT is more recent I'll go with that one. According to the same Codex, Cadia has 71.75% of its population under arms, this translates to 179,375,000 men at arms. This number is unfeasibly large. According to US census data about 60% of the population are aged 16-60. This means that cadia has to be dipping into the elderly and children to maintain this men men in its army. So, are the fluff writers trying to say that every single person aged 10-70 is in the cadian military.

Normally this wouldn't be unreasonable, except that apparently Cadia is also the biggest arms producer in the sector. So apparently all this muntions production is done by infants and the very elderly. Not to mention that society still needs small business owners, government officials, doctors, postal workers and all those other vital jobs to function. Cadia has the Internal Guard to root out chaos cult activity, but who the heck are they guarding, themselves? There's no one to raise the children born either, all of their parents are either in the military or the PDF or the internal guard. According to C:EoT only 10% of Cadia's military are PDF, so the vast majority of the population is offworld all the time.

This, simply put, makes no sense, nothing on cadia could function, unless the vast majority of those people under arms are actually reservists, but then they're not quite "under arms" are they, and they're certainly not imperial guard, as they would all be off world as only 10% of cadian soldiers stays on Cadia.

Keeping in mind that most major hive worlds in the IoM are like societies unto themselves, it's feasible to imagine a completely militarized society. Join at a young age, continue in service for most of your life. Even at advanced ages, one can still serve in command, administrative, operations, supply, etc... positions.

Hell, the population of Krieg was decimated by nuclear holocaust in mid-M39, but less than 2000 years later, they produce more regiments for the Imperial Guard than nearly any other world.

Total militarization is not that unbelievable.

Different countries have different demographics. Usually less developed countries have a youth majority population. It's not hard to imagine that Cadia is mostly young people since most people will die in service of the Imperial guard before they turn 40. Where do those people come from in the first place? There are probably programs that reward couples for having lots and lots of kids.

It's not just the 10% PDF that are on Cadia. The Shock Troops that are meant for offworld operations routinely rotate into and out of the Interior Guard (the PDF) as well, basically collecting experience elsewhere in the Imperium they can then apply to Cadia's defence. Indeed it may well be that at any point in time you have more regiments of the Shock Troops on Cadia than away. It would certainly make sense given Cadia's role as a Fortress World, and would turn campaigns elsewhere into a sort of life fire training ground for the Cadians. The 10% are merely the "guaranteed" PDF that won't ever leave the planet.

And yes, it may well be that the fluff writers mean that "every single person aged 10-70 is in the military", for it has long been said that on Cadia, recruitment numbers are equal to births. Either the planet is highly automated, or (what I would deem more likely), the "under arms" refers to each non-mobilised citizen being part of a Reserve, perhaps following a civilian vocation for 5 days a week but having drill on the weekend, and keeping their arms and armour at home all time in case their unit is mobilised. Since the Cadian cities, the Kasr, are all built like a garrison, I could well see entire neighborhoods being organised like military units, with one company of troops all living in the same street. And when the alarm sounds they stop mowing their grass and grab their guns to gather at the bus stop to wait for the Chimaeras.

PS: somebody needs to slap the writer who came up with Internal Guard in addition to the Interior Guard. Those two terms are bound to make people confused given that they sound almost alike but mean two completely different things.

Well asuming that Cadia's population pyramid is close to an American is probably not a very good idea. The entire poulation of Cadia is bred for war and evryone is engaged in it, therefore Cadia's amount of elderly is probably non-existant as they have almost all died in war before they can retire. If we asume that the amount of retired citizens are almost non-existant your 70 % moblisation would mean that pretty much everyone aged 18 to 60 would be under arms. Correct me if I'm wrong but the whiteshields are recruited much earlier than age 18, let's say 12. This would give us a surplus population of 10 % that could be placed in the arms manufactoria together with a very large amount of servitors.

Due to the strategic importance of Cadia I don't think that a large amount of the IG regiments raised on Cadia are actually sent to other warzones but kept under permanent mobilisation in the various Kasrs and usually engaged in fighting against the ruinous powers. Thi would separate them from the PDFs that are esentially reservists who are only mobilised for larger conflicts and still keep Cadia populated.

I wanted to point out a few things that may alter the OP's original estimate:

* The population demographic is not the same as a modern society. Most people will die in combat and few will make it to old age. You will have a population distribution skewed to the younger ages with sharp drop-offs at older age. And yes, they are dipping into the elderly and children.

* Human labor is not used in large-scale production in 40K Imperial worlds. The largest and most numerous Manufactoriums build Standard Template Construct technology and are largely automated.

* Government officials are high ranking military (military government). Doctors are military medics. Communications and postal are likely in the form of battle reports either transmitted via radio. They also don't have mail delivery trucks, they will have military convoys carrying supplies.

Large military organizations (think WW2, not the contracted and privatized wars we have today) are like huge moving cities with engineers, repair, cooks, communications, etc.

Imperial Guard regiments are raised as part of tithes from Imperial worlds and they are sent to active war zones. Cadia is a major war-zone, thus it would receive a large net influx of Imperial Guard from other worlds in the sector.

My guess is that the Imperium needs veterans to train new Imperial Guard, and much of the constant fighting that goes on at Cadia can be done with less experienced men. So it makes sense to send many of Cadia's veterans off-world to train new regiments, and these new regiments would be constantly arriving on Cadia to fight the battles there.

I like the work you've put into this. The only thing i can think of isn't cadia a death world? I'm guessing that would drastically reduce the life span of the man, so you would have a much lower average age. But who knows, its all fluff.

This means that cadia has to be dipping into the elderly and children to maintain this men men in its army. So, are the fluff writers trying to say that every single person aged 10-70 is in the cadian military.

Yes, and Cadia is not alone in this. The Imperium average for age of majority is 16, which is due to its British heritage. The Cadians have what they call "Whiteshield Regiments" which are regiments of child-soldiers. If you can't strip and clean a lasgun by the age of 10 on Cadia, you're worthless.

The only thing i can think of isn't cadia a death world?

No, it's a Fortress World. You might be thinking of Catachan.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ScifiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale

There, glad I could answer the question.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ScifiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale

There, glad I could answer the question.

Not exactly true. The fact of the matter is, scale has no sense for what writers need.

I understand very well that armies have their own cooks, mechanics etc, and if GW simply said that everyone on cadia was in the army this wouldn't matter so much, but the existence of the internal guard implies that there is infact some sort of civilian (or at least reservists doing normal civilian jobs) society, but with over 2/3's of the population under arms this simply wouldn't be the case.

Also I don't think that most guard equipment is made by STC, the original plans come from STC, but I was under the impression that most of the work force was still human labor. The only way any of this would make sense would be that most of the population under arms was actually reservists who work in all the normal jobs required when not fighting.

I also accept that Cadia's demographics are probably different from a western society. However if large amounts of the population are away fighting when are they finding time to conceive and raise children?

A given military unit isn't fighting 100% of the time. There is certainly some down time for are & are which is absolutely required if you want to the force to maintain any level of effectiveness.

The best way to do this is rotate the regiments through some amount of time on the front lines and some amount at rear bases in order to train, equip and take a break before going back out.

Any military has a huge number of people whose primary purpose is not to pull a trigger but rather to provide support on those that do. Laundry, food, cleaning, doctors, logistics etc. those positions can easily outnumber those actually doing the fighting.

As to the rest of the population: you have people who are no longer ( or never were ) combat effective. Crazies, invalids, criminals, etc. although the last of those would probably just be thrown into a penal legion and sent to the front line.

The Israelis military is probably a good pattern to compare Cadia to. They have mandatory conscription once you reach a certain age. So everyone musters through for a period of time. Cadia could easily be seen to do this.

I'm well aware what real world armies do and don't do. Not a member of the armed forces, I'm a military historian (with a degree, not just some guy w ho likes military history) however fluff in the IG codex indicates that once you're in the guard (ie 90% of the cadian soldiers) you get shipped off world forever. This probably isn't the case with cadia however.

Have you seen the casualty rate of guard? There are probably very few 60 year olds. Hell if they start at age 16 then 16 1/2 should make you a veteran!
"Yeah, I'm a veterans! Whats that mean anyway?"
"Means you get to suicide charge tanks with a melta gun!"

 Psienesis wrote:

The only thing i can think of isn't cadia a death world?

No, it's a Fortress World. You might be thinking of Catachan.

Raging Chaos Daemons and warp madness or exploding Toads and brain eating fauna, I don't think either would be great holiday destinations

On the aspect of arms manufacture, who says you can't have soldiers working in a factory? I'm sure that a lot of modern militaries have people creating spare parts, and then there are military r&d labs. It just becomes another specialism or duty rotation.

Also Cadia is special, so the normal rules of induction into the Guard don't apply.

Cadia is the closest Imperial planet to the Eye of Chaos. I'm sure that an labor shortfalls would be compensated by massive shipments of supplies from other worlds. Like.many things about the Imperium, holding Cadia at all costs is probably more expensive than it may be worth, but containing the Eye and keeping the Gate closed makes more stubborn sense. It will be a futile defense if Chaos united and furiously erupted from the Eye.

 EmilCrane wrote:
So I was reviewing some of the data we have about cadia, and basically I've come to the conclusion that it makes no sense.

Cadia has a population (according to Codex:Eye of Terror) or 250,000,000 apparently Codex: Chaos Space Marines (3rd ed, 2nd edition) puts this figure at 850,000,000, but as EoT is more recent I'll go with that one. According to the same Codex, Cadia has 71.75% of its population under arms, this translates to 179,375,000 men at arms. This number is unfeasibly large. According to US census data about 60% of the population are aged 16-60. This means that cadia has to be dipping into the elderly and children to maintain this men men in its army. So, are the fluff writers trying to say that every single person aged 10-70 is in the cadian military.

Normally this wouldn't be unreasonable, except that apparently Cadia is also the biggest arms producer in the sector. So apparently all this muntions production is done by infants and the very elderly. Not to mention that society still needs small business owners, government officials, doctors, postal workers and all those other vital jobs to function. Cadia has the Internal Guard to root out chaos cult activity, but who the heck are they guarding, themselves? There's no one to raise the children born either, all of their parents are either in the military or the PDF or the internal guard. According to C:EoT only 10% of Cadia's military are PDF, so the vast majority of the population is offworld all the time.

This, simply put, makes no sense, nothing on cadia could function, unless the vast majority of those people under arms are actually reservists, but then they're not quite "under arms" are they, and they're certainly not imperial guard, as they would all be off world as only 10% of cadian soldiers stays on Cadia.

The thing is Cadia is supported by a massive supply chain.

Like forge and hive worlds, it literally cannot function without outside aid.

Some great posts raised in this thread!

I am an enthusiast in all things 'Cadia' and the 13th Black Crusade. I'd like to point out a common misconception made by both authors and gamers: Cadia is not one world, it is a planetary system.



Accordingly, there are for more people around to produce weapons, fight in the Guard, and provide a standing PDF.

Lexicanum link for the curious: http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Cadian_System#.UkQgLT_udSp

Current population of Cadia reads at 850m, I assume that was before the start of the most recent Black Crusade, so figure that number has dwindled a bit. I suppose since Cadia is often referred to as a 'Spartan' society it wouldn't be impossible to militarize the majority of the planet, given that historically Spartans held regular jobs and titles when not marching to war, but were soldiers first.

A dedicated, trained, and militaristic society would have no problem mobilizing their entire population in a time of war, it's been done in our own history, why is it so impossible that it could be done here?

 Frankenberry wrote:
Current population of Cadia reads at 850m, I assume that was before the start of the most recent Black Crusade, so figure that number has dwindled a bit. I suppose since Cadia is often referred to as a 'Spartan' society it wouldn't be impossible to militarize the majority of the planet, given that historically Spartans held regular jobs and titles when not marching to war, but were soldiers first.

A dedicated, trained, and militaristic society would have no problem mobilizing their entire population in a time of war, it's been done in our own history, why is it so impossible that it could be done here?

Every spartan male citizen served in the military, but they were supported by a huge middle class of Periokoi and an even bigger underclass of Helots, Spartan men were by law forbidden from trade and manufacturing

Male spartan citizens in the military were only a small percentage of the population.

Another thing to factor in is officers and senior staff can be very old. There's some novels which have officers way above 21st centry retirement age.

North Korea has a very militerized population

As of 2013, with 9,495,000 active, reserve, and paramilitary personnel, it is the largest military organization on earth.[8] This number represents nearly 40% of the population, [9] and is the numeric equivalent of the entire population between ages 20 and 45

from wikipedia on the KPA

If they started recruiting at 15 and moved everyone over 45 off world(or everyone over 45 was killed in fighting) you could get up to 60%. 70% is a little high but it could happen.

What if young adults are brought in to cadia to supplement the fighting force?

Though, they should cross St. Josmane's Hope off the map there, it was destroyed by Exterminatus during the 13th Black Crusade.

Exergy wrote:If they started recruiting at 15 and moved everyone over 45 off world(or everyone over 45 was killed in fighting) you could get up to 60%. 70% is a little high but it could happen.
What if young adults are brought in to cadia to supplement the fighting force?

I think the Cadian Youth Army recruits are way younger than 15, too.

Just to throw a couple numbers out there - assuming that the average lifespan for a Cadian is 50 years (natural life much longer, but actually considerably shortened due to casualties from military service), then a Cadian will be within the age range for military service for about 80% of his life. Deduct a further 10% for any Cadians that are actually released from service (really old people, or really badly injured ones where not even bionics or desk jobs would keep them useful for society) and there you go, 70% under arms.

I think Cadia is one of those worlds with a greater expatriate population than on planet. It seems like every major war has Cadians in it and that is probably because they are very good soldiers and very famous soldiers. Every Lord Militant General probably requisitions them. I think there's actually billions of Cadians outside of the Cadian system dying on battlefields no ones every heard of.

 EmilCrane wrote:

 Frankenberry wrote:
Current population of Cadia reads at 850m, I assume that was before the start of the most recent Black Crusade, so figure that number has dwindled a bit. I suppose since Cadia is often referred to as a 'Spartan' society it wouldn't be impossible to militarize the majority of the planet, given that historically Spartans held regular jobs and titles when not marching to war, but were soldiers first.

A dedicated, trained, and militaristic society would have no problem mobilizing their entire population in a time of war, it's been done in our own history, why is it so impossible that it could be done here?

Every spartan male citizen served in the military, but they were supported by a huge middle class of Periokoi and an even bigger underclass of Helots, Spartan men were by law forbidden from trade and manufacturing

Male spartan citizens in the military were only a small percentage of the population.

I think what is meant by "Spartan" in this sense is that it has few frills and is almost totally functional, rather than being a copy of ancient Sparta.

Not that hard for me to imagine a society where 70% is under arms ..when they are under seige..Considering all law enforcement,intell,custums, etc are handled directly by the military with manufacturing and distribution being mostly automated..don't forget they do not have to make everything on Cadia.Food comes from garden worlds, weapons from forge worlds, Luxuries are non-existant...Letters are not mailed about just transmitted ..even the local Clergy is under arms (Tech and Battle Preists)
So training starts early..age 4 or 5 ..and they enter the military at around 12 or 13 ..yep plenty easy to see that 70% under arms is about right ..there are no retiree's or maimed/disabled vets to worry about (maimed personell get cybernetic implants and sent to the front or become servitors if their brains are damaged) so no waste..

 Flinty wrote:

 EmilCrane wrote:

 Frankenberry wrote:
Current population of Cadia reads at 850m, I assume that was before the start of the most recent Black Crusade, so figure that number has dwindled a bit. I suppose since Cadia is often referred to as a 'Spartan' society it wouldn't be impossible to militarize the majority of the planet, given that historically Spartans held regular jobs and titles when not marching to war, but were soldiers first.

A dedicated, trained, and militaristic society would have no problem mobilizing their entire population in a time of war, it's been done in our own history, why is it so impossible that it could be done here?

Every spartan male citizen served in the military, but they were supported by a huge middle class of Periokoi and an even bigger underclass of Helots, Spartan men were by law forbidden from trade and manufacturing

Male spartan citizens in the military were only a small percentage of the population.

I think what is meant by "Spartan" in this sense is that it has few frills and is almost totally functional, rather than being a copy of ancient Sparta.

Fair points all. Just tryibg to point out that civilizations can do it.

Interesting investigative work there, however I don't think the fluff writers put much thought into the age of populations in warhammer 40k...