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I have been thinking over time that a lot of the fluff concerning the IG under estimates the real size of the imperial guard and sheer number of men and women that would be involved in a muster for a crusade for example.

I have seen numbers that seem quite large thrown around but I think the sheer size of the imperium and its population would see even bigger numbers being available.

I have used numbers I think are quite open to debate so please take it with some degree of scepticism

Small planet with limited population - 2.3 billion inhabitants (earth 1940)
Acceptable lose to the population without destroying economy - 25 million (military casualties of WW2 NOT overall casualties just military)
roughly 1%

SO factoring that up.

Imperial Hiveworld population - 100 billion (sketchy info available here, ranges of 5 billion to 500 billion but have discounted lower number given earth today at 6billion is not really as crowded as people think)

1% of the population (easy numbers this time)

1 billion, that's a big army and there are reportedly 32,000 hiveworlds, so 32,000 billion (there is a special name for that I am sure but meh) (EDIT there is and its trillion so 32 TRILLION) soldiers in a single raising forgetting all the other worlds out there.

Now I know you will be thinking yes but you cant take that many every five minutes

so lets look at birth rates.

Assuming something comparable to today in terms of successful births - 20 per thousand population each year
Death rate I assume its a harder life so lets double the current death rate of 7 to 14 per thousand per year.
So every year we have another 6 people per thousand.

so in a population of 100 billion (a single hiveworld) that's a 100,000 thousands so 600,000 new peeps every year. So I would think that the IG levy is just to keep population levels in check!

If we take a billion into the guard every other year the population would still rise by 200,000.

Going on from there the imperium could lose 32 Trillion soldiers every two years and not really notice.....!!

My maths is somewhat crude so I may have missed something there but those numbers are huge. No wonder in the grimdarkness of the far future there is only war, its the only way to stop overcrowding!

Thoughts?

I'd hazard to guess that monstrously high birthrates to support equally ludicrous populations are probably encouraged by Planetary Governors out of necessity as the Imperial Tithe is mandatory unless you want the Imperium to come knocking on your door.

 Steinwand wrote:
I'd hazard to guess that monstrously high birthrates to support equally ludicrous populations are probably encouraged by Planetary Governors out of necessity as the Imperial Tithe is mandatory unless you want the Imperium to come knocking on your door.

I did consider that but thought that things such as level of mutation and poor standards of living might balance out those things in relation to "successful" births but if there was just imagine how much larger the number would be!

I'm currently running a fever so my mind is not 100%. Unfortunantely I'll be away from my books for a while starting tomorrow otherwise I would have loved to dwelve deep into this thread.

Now the first question is where it states that there's 32.000 hive Worlds in the Imperium?

Second is that there's naturally far more worlds where regiments are drafted then Hive Worlds. The list that follows is the usual catagories that spring to mind in the order of how many recruits they provide. You'll find mention of the imperial tithe below. It translates to taxes, reascourses and most importantly Imperial guard regiments. If I'm up for it I'll edit this with access to source material (and numbers) later:

Fortress World
Hive worlds
1*Agri World
2*Shrine World
3*Forge World
Frontier World(/Warzone)
Developing World <--Earth of today
Pleasure World
Feudal World
Feral World
Death World
4*Astartes home Worlds/Reaserch Stations/small Colonies/space farers

1*Agri Worlds wary immensly in recruitment since it's a catch all term for worlds that does not fit the bill of the others. Basicly "main export: foodstuffs" may be enough to title something as an agri World.
2*In the case of Shrine worlds they usually fall under the jurisdiction of the Ecclesiarchy and hence are forbidden to field "men at arms" with the assumed exception of PDF. They are also the most commonplace to find Adepta sororitas but as far as I know they are not an exception to the Imperial tithe.
3*Usually theese are technically under the jurisdiction of the adeptus mechanicus but seeing how they produce military supplies, tanks and sometimes are oblidged to provide Imperial guardsmen I've put them fairly high on the list. Though the Mechanicus stand outside the ordinary imperial tithe.
4* All of these are an exception to the Imperial tithe. The only documented example of an Astartes homeworld that provide Imperial Guard regiments is Ultramar, which makes sence since Ultramar is the only astartes realm to Composite multiple worlds (at it's highest point it apparently incorporated about 500 worlds. Currently it's something like 10).

Now to put it in perspective Earth of today is considered to be a developing world so our planets entire military + is drafted upwards in the list. Naturally the size of the planet, ammount of reasources, competent of rulers, social order, proximity to conflicts, schola progenium and Adeptus presences are all factors in the final ammounts of recruits drawn.

You never really know the ammount of inhabited planets in a system but the administratum works in sector scale tithes (a sector being roughly 500planets) with the sector governor being in overall responsibility of the planetary governors delivering the tithe. With this system, even with only a 1% of a sectors population being drafted to military service it can usually fend for itself or at least have enough reasources to halt of potential threats untill help can arrive.

Edit: In addition there's abhuman worlds and alien mercenaries for hire. Most commonly Hrud, Kroot and Orcs.

Nerak wrote:
Now the first question is where it states that there's 32.000 hive Worlds in the Imperium?

wh40k lexicanium 32,380 - approx.

I didn't even start with factoring in the numbers from other non hiveworlds as the numbers just from these are mind boggling.

Could you link the page? I'd like to see a reference.

Yeah, the Imperial war machine is epic in scale. Usually it's a question of internal politics (and HERESY) that slows down it's workings though. Don't dwell to much on it though. If you do you'll soon realise how unfair it is when one of the space marine poster boys falls to a lasgun.

The Imperium of Manking is composed of around 1 000 000 worlds. The Imperium loses (and sometimes gain) around 1000 world each century and it doesn't even notice because those loses (and sometime gains) aren't recorded. The High Lords of Terra don't even know exactly how numerous Space Marines are let alone the Imperial Guard. Half the Imperium could die without the other half noticing it before centuries. Some corner of the Galaxy probably don't know about things like Necron or even important event like the Battle of Macragge. It seems completly believable to lose that much soldiers without noticing it.

eh, sort off. Communications is still pretty good throughout the Imperium. That's why astropaths are so important. If half the Imperium where to be annihalated the other half would quickly be made aware.

Usually the numbers of 40k are extremly rough estimates. The whole "Empire of 1.000.000 Worlds" as quoted in fire warrior probably wouldn't hold up if you could meassure it properly. I guess it serves nicely since no one really in the Imperium has got any idea. The closest things we've come to legit information on this stuff is all fantasy flight published informations, which may or may not be canon. I love it because it gives a depth to the Imperium that GW produced stuff simply lack.

Realistic? Its great to throw around huge population numbers but once you get into the levels that GW likes to use in fiction, you have to wonder how they they provide food/water for such huge populations. Clearly planets that are hive worlds are well beyond the natural carrying capacity of the world. Fiction notes that the huge Imperial populations are fed from Agri-worlds. Assuming the capacity of the Earth - scientists are currently trying to figure out how to wring support for projected 9B people in 2050 out of the planet... meaning that even if we reach this level, a hive world of 100B needs 10+ agri-worlds supporting it. Sure you could "science the gak out of it", if the IoM uses more efficient / sustainable systems - I'm sure the number of support worlds would go up (as there are hard limits to carrying capacity), and the IoM can't afford to lose any supply worlds. IMHO, agri-worlds should be STRATEGIC VALUE ABSOLUTE. It doesn't matter how many titans you have if you have no food.

On top of this, a hive world would need extremely regular resupply. Given the issues with Warp travel, one would expect that oversupply is necessary to prevent shortage/riots on these worlds. its great to throw around these gigantic numbers but the logistical problems are enormous.

Realistic is not a word I'd apply to GW's population numbers.

Actually it wouldn't be that difficult to support these massive populations at all. I will provide numbers later.

For now, let's just say Earth is capable of supporting trillions of people. Overpopulation in terms of running out of food and places to grow food is a total myth.

Personally, I find even the idea of ruling the galaxy by controlling a mere million worlds to be severe understatement in and of itself. Why? Because these worlds include gas giants used exclusively for mining, feral worlds, etc. etc. There upwards of one hundred billion planets in the Milky Way, and you expect me to believe that you can dominate the galaxy without even controlling one percent of it? Balogna. IN my headcanon, the Imperium controls at least a billion planets, with the Imperial Guard numbering in the hundreds of trillions, while the Space Marines actually act like an elite special forces group and maybe I need to find a new fictional Universe, because this one is breaking suspension of disbelief with any number ever mentioned in it.

Remember for as grim dark as the setting is, for it's size the IOM does a decent job of keeping the engine of civilization going.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Actually it wouldn't be that difficult to support these massive populations at all. I will provide numbers later.

For now, let's just say Earth is capable of supporting trillions of people. Overpopulation in terms of running out of food and places to grow food is a total myth.

This, I remember reading somewhere in Scientific American that Earth is actually capable of supporting trillions of us if we just calmed the feth down and stabilized the planet instead of fighting wars/getting consumed by bureaucracy. If we got our act together we could turn Africa into a garden and use algae farms to feed everybody.

I have it in my head that a manpower tithe involves taking 10% of a planet's Planetary Defence Force. I can't remember where I read this, it could have been the second edition Imperial Guard codex. I think 1% of a planet's population as PDF is realistic (including part time reservists) so a tithe would take 0.1% of the planet's population each time. Even for a planet with 7 billion people (current day Earth equivalent) this is still 70 million people, so the equivalent of the entire population of the U.K in one go. A planet would need several years to "restock" after such a tithe.

Regarding the Imperium being "only" 1 million planets, this seems about right to me. Even with the little knowledge we have of the planets in our galaxy it seems clear that the vast majority are uninhabitable (too big, too close or too far away from their star, etc...)

I agree that 32,000 hive planets seems a bit high. That's 3.2% of all planets in the Imperium. Each hive planet will also need a number of support planets providing food, clothes, equipment and so on.

From page 9 of the Imperial Guard codex, "... each world must provide one-tenth of its total military force to fight for the Imperial Guard." So the actual size is going to vary depending on the planet, and I believe there are some worlds, namely Krieg, who always provide a higher than normal amount of Guardsmen for the size of their planet.
I'll have to check my AdMech codices later, but I thought I read in one of them that Forgeworlds are exempt from the Imperial Tithe due to some political wonkiness surrounding the Mechanicus.
Also, in regards to supporting Hive Worlds and the like, one thing I've seen a number of Sci-Fi settings that deal with sustaining huge populations is that not everyone gets to eat real food. Many lower class citizens (usually the largest social group) tend to make due with nutrient gruel or some other kind of synthetic food. I don't know if this sort of thing exists in 40k or not, but I could definitely see a group like the Adeptus Biologis developing something along these lines (in fact I think AdMech does tend to make heavy use of nutrient fluids to feed their troops).

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Actually it wouldn't be that difficult to support these massive populations at all. I will provide numbers later.

For now, let's just say Earth is capable of supporting trillions of people. Overpopulation in terms of running out of food and places to grow food is a total myth.

This, I remember reading somewhere in Scientific American that Earth is actually capable of supporting trillions of us if we just calmed the feth down and stabilized the planet instead of fighting wars/getting consumed by bureaucracy. If we got our act together we could turn Africa into a garden and use algae farms to feed everybody.

There's two parts to this:

1. Grow the food.
2. TRANSPORT THE FOOD. The logistics of sending food / water for billions of people to a non-agriculture world is insane.

I don't want to go into how monoculture agriculture and destruction of ecological diversity is a recipe for disaster. I'm pretty sure that instead of mass algae farming, that the IoM just uses the Soylent Green method.

 keezus wrote:
Realistic is not a word I'd apply to GW's population numbers.

You realize that's a problem Star Wars struggles with as well? Loads of worlds with populations in the trillions. And these are often ecumenopolises - entire worlds covered in buildings, even more built on than Hive Words. Sensing a double standard here.

 keezus wrote:
I'm pretty sure that instead of mass algae farming, that the IoM just uses the Soylent Green method.

They do. They grow food in nutrition vats.

 EngulfedObject wrote:

 keezus wrote:
Realistic is not a word I'd apply to GW's population numbers.

You realize that's a problem Star Wars struggles with as well? Loads of worlds with populations in the trillions. And these are often ecumenopolises - entire worlds covered in buildings, even more built on than Hive Words. Sensing a double standard here.

Eh... YMMV. In 40k, supply is completely reliant on warp travel, which is stated by canon to be a "perilous" exercise due to currents and storms in the warp. There is no such impediment in Star Wars. Travel through/around Warp phenomena requires Navigators. Not sure how many transport lines employ these mutants en-masse. Its unsafe to do calculated jumps of more than 4 light years. Super-populations require regular resupply. A warp storm stopping resupply lasting a week or so would absolutely wreck any world with a super-population reliant on external supply of food / water.

In the Philverse interpretation, a lot of people in a Hive World are basically peasants who farm food in hydroponic racks.

1) The Imperium recycles its dead into foodstuff. Corpse-starch rations are what these are called.

2) The Imperium recycles water from any source it can find it.

3) Agri-Worlds can be huge, and have relatively tiny populations compared to their volume of production. You can also use orbital platforms for growing crops.

4) The Imperial Guard is uncountable. Billions upon billions of soldiers for every need the Imperium may have. Trillions, even. It is a military so vast it beggars the imagination and defies logical comprehension.

5) Hive Worlds that are cut off from their food supplies *do* fall to riots, cannibalism, strife, and other problems. This happens fairly frequently. The Mordian Iron Guard exist because they were required to put down rioting civilians.

I thought the Imperium only had to use Warp travel to move between solar systems, but were capable of moving between planets just fine without it. Which if true would mean that Agri-Worlds probably tend more to supporting worlds in their own system with any excess being shipped elsewhere.

 keezus wrote:

Eh... YMMV. In 40k, supply is completely reliant on warp travel, which is stated by canon to be a "perilous" exercise due to currents and storms in the warp. There is no such impediment in Star Wars. Travel through/around Warp phenomena requires Navigators. Not sure how many transport lines employ these mutants en-masse. Its unsafe to do calculated jumps of more than 4 light years. Super-populations require regular resupply. A warp storm stopping resupply lasting a week or so would absolutely wreck any world with a super-population reliant on external supply of food / water.

 Steinwand wrote:
I thought the Imperium only had to use Warp travel to move between solar systems, but were capable of moving between planets just fine without it. Which if true would mean that Agri-Worlds probably tend more to supporting worlds in their own system with any excess being shipped elsewhere.

Exactly, the Imperium is organized into sectors, and then sub-sectors. Planetary systems with Hive Worlds usually have several agri-worlds in the same system to supply them. They're not exactly shipping grain from Ultramar to Terra.

 keezus wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Actually it wouldn't be that difficult to support these massive populations at all. I will provide numbers later.

For now, let's just say Earth is capable of supporting trillions of people. Overpopulation in terms of running out of food and places to grow food is a total myth.

This, I remember reading somewhere in Scientific American that Earth is actually capable of supporting trillions of us if we just calmed the feth down and stabilized the planet instead of fighting wars/getting consumed by bureaucracy. If we got our act together we could turn Africa into a garden and use algae farms to feed everybody.

There's two parts to this:

1. Grow the food.
2. TRANSPORT THE FOOD. The logistics of sending food / water for billions of people to a non-agriculture world is insane.

I don't want to go into how monoculture agriculture and destruction of ecological diversity is a recipe for disaster. I'm pretty sure that instead of mass algae farming, that the IoM just uses the Soylent Green method.

Its only a disaster if you care about preserving the natural environment. But if you want you can turn an entire planet into a giant farm which can be sustained indefinitely without making the planet uninhabitable. The Imperium is all about long term solutions.

While the unreliability of warp travel is very real, its not enough to make interstellar commerce impossible. It happens a lot, and food is shipped from agriworlds to hive worlds as needed.

Nerak wrote:
Could you link the page? I'd like to see a reference.

BRB 5th edition IIRC


But, we had a bit more info in 3rd edition.

BRB, pages 114 and 115.

9 Classifications shown.
(The following is my own translation from a localized source so please feel free to correct if something is off )


Hiveworlds ( 140000+ )

pop. = 500.000.000.000 - 100.000.000.000
ti. = Decuma Particular - Exactis Extremis
class = B50 - E400

Examples = Armageddon, Avellorn, Ichar IV, Kado, Lastrati, Mordian, Necromunda, Vanaheim.

Civilized world ( 350000+ )

pop. = 10.000.000.000 - 15.000.000
ti. = Soltutio extremis - Exactis Tertius
class = A50 - F1000

Examples = Desedna, Espandor, Korsk II, Luxor, Rhanda, Tallarn.

AgriWorld ( 200000+ )

pop. = 1.000.000 - 15.000
ti. = Exactis prima - Exactis particular
class = C500 - B50

Examples = Bellis XIV, Chiros, Kabaal II, Silvanos II, Verdan III.

Pre-black Powder / stone age World ( 80000+ )

pop. = 5000.000 - 100.000
ti. = Solutio Tertius
class = F400 - G800

Examples = Belami, Davin, Fenris, Forman C2, Kimmeria, Oran.

Lifeless world ( 20.000 )

pop. = below 1.
ti. = Aptus non
class = G500 - G1000

Examples = Istvaan III, Naogeddon, Prandium, Truan IX, Zhoros.

Death world ( 60.000+ )

pop. = 15.000.000 - 1.000
ti. = Solutio Tertius - solutio prima
class = D500 - G50

Examples = Canak, Catachan, Lost Hope, Miral, Piscina IV.

Orbitals, Labs, research facilities etc ( 10.000+ )

pop. = 500.000 - 100
ti. = Aptus non
class = A760 - D45

Examples = A1709, Arx, Fornoth, Lucan, Purgatory, Sentinel V, Ymgarl.

Feudal World ( 40.000+ )

pop. = 500.000.000 - 10.000.000
ti. = Solutio prima - Solutio extremis
class = C750 - F1000

Examples = Atilla, Boras Minor, Chbal, Molov, Solstice, Yamnan.

Forge worlds ( 100.000+ )

pop. = 15.000.000.000 - 1.000.000
ti. = Aptus non. ref. contracts 1/0027-16/5244
class = A1 - C500

Examples = Esteban VII, Gryphonne IV, Lucius, Mars, Ryza, Triplex Phall.


Missing are Astartes Home worlds and Shrine worlds of the Ecclesiarchy in this list. Or ? Maybe they didn't specify the ownership except the ad mech forge worlds which are too different in many things...

4th ed is "more colorful" than 3rd but less hard numbers to crunch. Just a Map and Macragge as Example of a System and a World.
Pages 90 + 91.

Macragge , Astartes Home World.
pop. = 400.000.000
ti. = Aptus non
class = D0

A System of 11 named Worlds.

5th ed BRB, the source of 3238 x 10^4 at page 115.

Example is Minea:

pop. = 154.000.000.000
ti. = Exactis extremis.
class = D146

Garrison = 2.000.000
tithe per year = 1.249.000

Another page of interest in the 5th ed book is page 138 The Imperial Guard.
A Map of Fortresses and recrutement of the Guard.

Fortress : Macharia , Cadia , Coronis Agathon, Canta IX
Example Coronis Agathon has a pop of 120.000.000.000 and a garrison of 10.000.000
Worlds with a tithe of 5.000.000 to 10.000.000 = 27x
Worlds with a tithe of >50.000.000 = 11x

The basic defense of an Imperial World is the PDF ( planetary defense force ), which stays on the planet it was raised on. The IG is the mobile force, transported by the IN and supplied by the munitorum.

If a planet has 1.000.000.000 people and 1% of them are able to hold a lasgun correclty, the PDF could be 10.000.000. If the tithe is 10% of the PDF, the planetary governor has to provide 1.000.000 recruts for the IG.
This is the moment when GW's idea of math kicks in. 100.000.000.000 Inhabitants of a hive world would add up to 1.000.000.000 PDF and 100.000.000 IG. This is not a bunch of angry civilians but armed and trained angry Humans, so who could oppose 100.000.000 ???

True to the background of the 40k verse , maybe Orks and nids , possibly necrons whose numbers aren't given yet, could play the "clash-of-millions-game". ( chaos has a chance too cause demon recycling...).

So IMHO we are not getting hard numbers from GW because they cannot afford to make a stand. Epicness and hordes of millions sound good but the game is heavily "zoomed in", not a bad choice but the grandeur of the
Background doesn't translate to the TT this way and the value of the few models is blown out of proportion. The scale of the TT is more squad level - company level. And GW goes for the RPG-like hero approach to the 40k verse, thus a Hammer like the IG cannot bring its weight to bear as it normally would.
So running with billions and millions creates a extreme large military , the IG, billions of regiments , but it won't show in fluff like it should , as a "realistic scaled IG planet levy" would lead to too many absolutely outnumbered elite special snowflakes and the fluff has to support the models ....
Thats why I think GW isn't going to touch the question of how many recruts per planetary pop beyond foggy answers.

 1hadhq wrote:


Thats why I think GW isn't going to touch the question of how many recruts per planetary pop beyond foggy answers.

I totally agree, for GW to acknowledge the true scale of there setting would have serious issues with the tabletop systems. (but hey GW is a collectables company not a games company right heheh)

When you are talking about the fluff needing to reflect the tabletop I think we are already some way away from that to be honest but I think when you start talking number it should be even further. Although there is an awful lot of float when it comes to the fluff capabilities of different groups. Marines for example are quoted in some sources to be on par with 50 or 100 "normal" men, in others they are capable of taking on worlds of millions single handed.

If you look at the first idea (50-100 equivalence) then given the scale of the imperium then they are nothing more than a small elite good for certain situations, amazing for others but in insufficient numbers compared to the guard. They would just end up a subsection of the guard, for boarding actions, or assaults or something. The second idea? well then they are much more useful and have an appreciable impact even with their small numbers but do we really think they are that effective?

Going back to the main topic, I was really interested in establishing a feel for the scale of what is really going on and how in much of the fluff the numbers, while seeming huge are in fact woefully low in comparison to the "reality". If we think of an average earth like world and look to conquer it, a single raising of guard from a single hiveworld would give you an army with 1/6 or 1/7 of the size of the planetary population of the earth! Can you imagine even the combined armies of the earth standing up to that kind of force?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 keezus wrote:
.

On top of this, a hive world would need extremely regular resupply. Given the issues with Warp travel, one would expect that oversupply is necessary to prevent shortage/riots on these worlds. its great to throw around these gigantic numbers but the logistical problems are enormous.

Realistic is not a word I'd apply to GW's population numbers.

And that's why the Administratum and Munitorum and all the other logistical bodies exist, to deal with exactly those issues.

No I will concede that given the scale of the problem and the scale of the bureaucracy that's there to "sort it" that huge cock ups occur, that's enshrined in the fluff as a true example of the grimdark, but largely it all works.

In my mind fluff, for many of the back water worlds the only contact there receive will be the balckships to collect any psykers and the tithe ships of the administratum. For the more important systems we know there are huge amounts of trade and commerce going on with everything from little in system traders right out to the rogue traders and huge trading conglomerates.

I liken it back to the early days of the British Empire where trade around the world was key to keeping it all moving and yet communication around the world was gak and slow and ships very often delayed or lost at sea. but it worked!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Nerak wrote:
Could you link the page? I'd like to see a reference.

Yeah, the Imperial war machine is epic in scale. Usually it's a question of internal politics (and HERESY) that slows down it's workings though. Don't dwell to much on it though. If you do you'll soon realise how unfair it is when one of the space marine poster boys falls to a lasgun.

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Hive_World

Obviously I am uncertain where they source is but its a big galaxy so it doesn't surprise me.