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Where do these numbers with hundreds of billion of people on a single planet come from? There's nowhere to put that many people on a planet.

Edit: especially not a heavily war torn planet.

Page eight of the Guard codex. "For a hive world such as Armageddon, caught in the throes of an all-consuming war, a draft of a hundred million men at arms and several million armoured vehicles is typical - a tiny fraction of the total populace which numbers in the hundreds of billions."

You're underestimating the density of hives. Think of the most densely populated cities on Earth. Now stack them on top of each other until you have a column several miles high. Now cover a space the size of North America with it. Now add two or three more of those elsewhere on the planet. That is a hive world. Terra itself has a population of 32 trillion.

Sir Pseudonymous wrote: Terra itself has a population of 32 trillion.

Though these is wildly unreliable given the constant influx of pilgrims which make up a great deal of the population.

Actually, if we were to take even New York City's population density (27,532/sq mi), and cover a mass the size of the United States alone (3,536,294 sq mi), we'd end up with 97,361,246,408 people, or at least room for them. And that's not even taking into consideration that for a hive world, you have several vertical miles of hive (I can't factor this in because I don't know an average height to the structures in New York City, if I had to guess I'd probably say around a quarter of a mile). Considering this, I'd say it's safe to say that 40k's Terra would actually have hundreds of trillions at the very least, considering it's described as having its entire surface covered in one giant hive.

So really, either all these "ridiculously high" population figures for hive worlds are yet another example of Sci-fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale, or Hives are actually less dense than your average suburb.

If the Imperium could arm and train even 1% of its population, it would outnumber the tyranids' infantry a hundred to one...

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:Actually, if we were to take even New York City's population density (27,532/sq mi), and cover a mass the size of the United States alone (3,536,294 sq mi), we'd end up with 97,361,246,408 people, or at least room for them. And that's not even taking into consideration that for a hive world, you have several vertical miles of hive (I can't factor this in because I don't know an average height to the structures in New York City, if I had to guess I'd probably say around a quarter of a mile). Considering this, I'd say it's safe to say that 40k's Terra would actually have hundreds of trillions at the very least, considering it's described as having its entire surface covered in one giant hive.

So really, either all these "ridiculously high" population figures for hive worlds are yet another example of Sci-fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale, or Hives are actually less dense than your average suburb.

If the Imperium could arm and train even 1% of its population, it would outnumber the tyranids' infantry a hundred to one...

You have NY population density a little too high, by a factor of 10. NY metro is ~2800/sq mile. The 27,000 figure only applies to a small section of the overall city. (If you want a really dense figure, Manhattan comes to 70,000).

Keep in mind you can't cover the entire surface of the planet with hives, you have to give most of the planet over to producing oxygen (which is really the only reason to ever set foot on a planet once you have space travel).

Retribution wrote:Kryptmann said that the IoM needs to increase recruitment by 500% thereby inducting every man, woman, and child into the Guard...except an increase of 500% simply means that instead of taking the top 10% of the PDF, the guard would take 50%...and again writers have no sense of scale <_<

Clearly he made a mistake, even he don't know how many Tyranids there are. Maybe these fleets that invadwe our galaxy is all of Tyranid race, maybe not. But to put every man, woman and child into Guard - that's impossible. Unless you intend to arm them with rocks
Imperium has millions of worlds, every world around 4 - 50, even 500 billion Humans. Try to make Lasgun for all of them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Requia wrote:
Keep in mind you can't cover the entire surface of the planet with hives, you have to give most of the planet over to producing oxygen (which is really the only reason to ever set foot on a planet once you have space travel).

Terra is entirely covered in Hive cities. The great oceans of Earth disappear long ago, I imagine that they recycle what little of water has left beneath the surface and import food from nearby agri-worlds. And IoM have Terraforming technology, so it's not strange that they can produce enough oxygen for all inhabitants.

8.4 million people in an area of 305 square miles works out to 27,540 per square mile. Even if we use the lower densities you list it still comes out to over a thousand times the current population of the Earth. Besides, this is just a rough estimate for the purposes of showing just how many people would be able to live in a hive that covered only 6% of the surface of the land on Earth (1.8% of the surface area of the planet as a whole...). Remember too that hives are miles high, and extend a good deal below the ground as well in most cases...

Keep in mind that the Imperium also has ships that spend hundreds or thousands of years in the void, never taking in more oxygen. Surely they have machines that can do the job of recycling air?


Edit: wait, no, that's not right. It comes out to several billion more than the current population of the Earth, on 6% of its landmass, not a thousand times. I wasn't paying close enough attention to the number of digits. Working backwards from the provided 32 trillion figure, we can gather that the population density is probably something on the order of 63,000 per square kilometer, with an unknown height. Armageddon's several hundred billion figure makes a whole lot more sense now, rather than seeming quite low...

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:8.4 million people in an area of 305 square miles works out to 27,540 per square mile. Even if we use the lower densities you list it still comes out to over a thousand times the current population of the Earth. Besides, this is just a rough estimate for the purposes of showing just how many people would be able to live in a hive that covered only 6% of the surface of the land on Earth (1.8% of the surface area of the planet as a whole...). Remember too that hives are miles high, and extend a good deal below the ground as well in most cases...

Keep in mind that the Imperium also has ships that spend hundreds or thousands of years in the void, never taking in more oxygen. Surely they have machines that can do the job of recycling air?

And remember that they live in 41'st millennium. We are in 3'rd millennial (at the beginning to add). Ordinary man from year 1000 have no way to know where the civilization will go in the year 2000. The same man from 2000 cannot know where the civilization will go in year 3000. We cannot know where civilization will go in year 40000. I am sure we will evolve much much more than today - world has changed a lot in last 20 years. Imagine in 200 years, or even 2000....
The things that we cannot do in this time - maybe we will do in the future.

Brother Coa wrote:

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:8.4 million people in an area of 305 square miles works out to 27,540 per square mile. Even if we use the lower densities you list it still comes out to over a thousand times the current population of the Earth. Besides, this is just a rough estimate for the purposes of showing just how many people would be able to live in a hive that covered only 6% of the surface of the land on Earth (1.8% of the surface area of the planet as a whole...). Remember too that hives are miles high, and extend a good deal below the ground as well in most cases...

Keep in mind that the Imperium also has ships that spend hundreds or thousands of years in the void, never taking in more oxygen. Surely they have machines that can do the job of recycling air?

And remember that they live in 41'st millennium. We are in 2'nd millennial (at the beginning to add). Ordinary man from year 1000 have no way to know where the civilization will go in the year 2000. The same man from 2000 cannot know where the civilization will go in year 3000. We cannot know where civilization will go in year 40000. I am sure we will evolve much much more than today - world has changed a lot in last 20 years. Imagine in 200 years, or even 2000....
The things that we cannot do in this time - maybe we will do in the future.

We're in the third millennium (0-999 is the first, 1000-1999 is the second, 2000-2999 is the third, and so on), and what? I don't understand what you're responding to there.

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
We're in the third millennium (0-999 is the first, 1000-1999 is the second, 2000-2999 is the third, and so on), and what? I don't understand what you're responding to there.

My respond to: why do you think it's impossible to house trillions on Earth? Or sustain that many population with no natural water or food supplies?

I don't. I was arguing that it was possible. After running the numbers again, however, it would give a population density of 67,000 per square kilometer, even for a hive that covered the entire surface of the Earth. I don't know how thick the layer of buildings is, so I can't really comment on whether or not that's actually feasible. In the lower trillions, however, I think it's quite possible for a particularly large hive, and in the case of the stated figures of several hundred billion for Armageddon quite reasonable.

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:I don't. I was arguing that it was possible. After running the numbers again, however, it would give a population density of 67,000 per square kilometer, even for a hive that covered the entire surface of the Earth. I don't know how thick the layer of buildings is, so I can't really comment on whether or not that's actually feasible. In the lower trillions, however, I think it's quite possible for a particularly large hive, and in the case of the stated figures of several hundred billion for Armageddon quite reasonable.

Well for reference the Imperial palace is NOT the highest building on Terra. And it lies on the top of Himalayas. So hives on Terra are EXTREMELY big.

Bjorn_Stormwolf02 wrote:I would say based on the evidence seen so far the other galaxies couldn't have put up nearly as much resistence as the races occupying the milky way are. Reason the hive mind is supposedly an all remembering entity that memorizes past foes and strategies. The initial tactics that the Imperium used at Macragge completely caught them of guard, relatively simple hit and run tactics allowed the tau to defeat a hive fleet (a small one but still a hive fleet nonetheless) and the orks of octarius have been holding the tyranids at bay in an indefinite stalemate. This suggests that the hive fleets opposition to this point has been either:
A) signifigantly less numerous
B) far less intelligent and advanced
C) scattered, isolated or otherwise unable to unite against the common threat they faced.

I'd say its probably a combination of all these things. I would say that they have never faced a race as numerous, tenacious, indomitable and warlike as the orks and have never faced an organization or empire as vast and cohesive as the imperium. The very fact that the hive fleet is learning and adapting to relatively simple stratagies suggest that it is highly unlikely any other galaxy has put up signifigant resistance until now.

My take on the tyranids:

The individual races of the galaxy have been able to hold them at bay for a long time. However, there is evidence to suggest that the real tyranid threat is too great to hold off forever, even if the Imperium forged an alliance with the Eldar and the Tau. The tyranids are a force too great to defeat militarily, but they do have one weakness: the hive mind.

The hive-mind is a powerful psychic entity, it communicates with the hive fleets via psychic synapses directed at individual Tyranid organisms. much like a brain this is a multi-tier communication. hive mind to hive fleet, hive fleet to ship, ship to hive tyrant, and so forth. like any communication signal, it can sent both ways, tapped, and even jammed.

What happens when you plug a pariah in? what happens when you overload the circuits using, say, the astronomicon's power or the infinity circuit.

new tactics have worked up to this point, but the tyranids will adapt. psychic warfare is the way to go.

just my 20,000x2 cents

To see how well the Imperium is doing against Leviathan, just look at the map notes in the codex. They're making big stands on planets, inflicting terrible damage to the ground forces of the Tyranids before retreating.

That does nothing but lose the Imperium soldiers. As soon as they retreat, the Tyranids reclaim the dead from both sides and the planet.

It also mentions Eldar are fighting them back by employing age old weapons that completely destroy planets in an effort to deny them biomass. Great work there.

As for jamming the hive mind - the hive mind jams everything else, not the other way around. There's no one node to plug into with the hive mind - it is the Tyranid race in its entirety. The synapse creatures just have a better link into it. To stop the hive mind, you have to kill every single Tyranid.

-Loki- wrote: To stop the hive mind, you have to kill every single Tyranid.

No problem, where is my Lasgun?