Size of different galactic populations

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**Ashiraya**

Wyzilla wrote:
Even with a very generously low interpretation of population density in the Dark City would leave us with hundreds of billions, if not trillions.

Gonna need the source for this.

**2BlackJack1**

Though necrons are quite large in number, reproduction of them is little or not existent besides converting a blank into a pariah, and a lot are damaged when they wake up, due to the time they spent slumbering, iirc.

**Wyzilla**

Ashiraya wrote:
Wyzilla wrote:
Even with a very generously low interpretation of population density in the Dark City would leave us with hundreds of billions, if not trillions.

Gonna need the source for this.

The Dark City encompasses the mass of several planets, and uses captured stars as lightbulbs. It's a gigantic mass of multiple planet-sized entities seemingly with the building density of bloody coruscant, only so large that I don't know if the cities orbit the stars, or the stars orbit the cities.

Spoiler:

The shear scale of Commorragh is mindboggingly large. The population it houses must be immense, even if its density of population is low in comparison. It's folded dimensions upon folded dimensions of an endless city-scape locked away from the rest of the universe.

**Kid_Kyoto**

And they still can't afford to put roofs on their transports?

Nah, didn't know that about Commorragh, sounds cool and properly over the top.

Though I'd imagine the vast majority of the people are slaves with DE as a small overclass.

**Exergy**

BrianDavion wrote:
It's worth noting that Necrons are outright stated at times to be numerical equal if not superior to the IoM in numerous sources, should they ever all wake up.

So for necrons I figure 10-100 awake 1000 still asleep.

in other words, we're only seeing 1-10% of the necrons in existance right now.

that seems highly unlikely. Necrons never populated the entire galaxy.

Also even if 1% of the Necrons are awake, it would mean the necrons would have many times more warriors than the entire IoM, because every Necron is a warrior where as less than 1% of human are.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Wyzilla wrote:
Ashiraya wrote:
Wyzilla wrote:
Even with a very generously low interpretation of population density in the Dark City would leave us with hundreds of billions, if not trillions.

Gonna need the source for this.

The Dark City encompasses the mass of several planets, and uses captured stars as lightbulbs. It's a gigantic mass of multiple planet-sized entities seemingly with the building density of bloody coruscant, only so large that I don't know if the cities orbit the stars, or the stars orbit the cities.

Spoiler:

The shear scale of Commorragh is mindboggingly large. The population it houses must be immense, even if its density of population is low in comparison. It's folded dimensions upon folded dimensions of an endless city-scape locked away from the rest of the universe.

Commorragh is a city the size of a solar system. Something like a dysons sphere, except it is folded into a fourth dimension. It could be anywhere from 10,000 to 1 billion times larger than a planet. A lot of the space is not inhabited, but there is so much room there it isnt even funny. It is so much larger than any hive planet the two are incomparable. Or at least the codex says that it would be like comparing a modern city to an ant hill.

**Iron_Captain**

Exergy wrote:

Commorragh is a city the size of a solar system. Something like a dysons sphere, except it is folded into a fourth dimension. It could be anywhere from 10,000 to 1 billion times larger than a planet. A lot of the space is not inhabited, but there is so much room there it isnt even funny. It is so much larger than any hive planet the two are incomparable. Or at least the codex says that it would be like comparing a modern city to an ant hill.

No, the codex says that comparing the largest of Imperial Hives to Commoragh would be like comparing an ant hill to a towering mountain.
Commoragh is hard to fathom because being in the Webway, it does not obey the laws of physics and pulls off some weird multidimensional stuff. Commorragh is also surrounded by several smaller sattelite realms.

**Exergy**

Iron_Captain wrote:
Exergy wrote:

Commorragh is a city the size of a solar system. Something like a dysons sphere, except it is folded into a fourth dimension. It could be anywhere from 10,000 to 1 billion times larger than a planet. A lot of the space is not inhabited, but there is so much room there it isnt even funny. It is so much larger than any hive planet the two are incomparable. Or at least the codex says that it would be like comparing a modern city to an ant hill.

No, the codex says that comparing the largest of Imperial Hives to Commoragh would be like comparing an ant hill to a towering mountain.

yes that is right, still it's beyond planetary in scale.

**40kSpartan**

The new necron codex even states " should the necrons ever fully wake and untie, the imperium would face a foe as
numerous as themselves"
So what ever number the imperium is, say 1000 then the necrons are also 1000. Except not all are awake, maybe 50 are awake or 100. But all necrons are soldiers as mentioned so have a far superior military

**ALEXisAWESOME**

We tried to put a number on the population of the Dark Eldar over on TDC a while ago and a friend came up with this math. It's a little bit ridiculous and a lot literal minded, taking the Term Mountain to Termite Mound seriously to see what kind of numbers it'd give us. Not entirely accurate, but quite intriguing none the less.

Spoiler:

No matter how you look at it, Dark Eldar are the dominant type of Eldar. Dark Eldar are thriving in the Webway. The Eldar are still a dying race, but not every facet us dying of numbers.

**Iron_Captain**

ALEXisAWESOME wrote:
We tried to put a number on the population of the Dark Eldar over on TDC a while ago and a friend came up with this math. It's a little bit ridiculous and a lot literal minded, taking the Term Mountain to Termite Mound seriously to see what kind of numbers it'd give us. Not entirely accurate, but quite intriguing none the less.

Spoiler:

'Commaragh to a hive world would be to compare a mountain to a termite mound'

Ok so an average terminte mound is say 4x2x2 meters = 16 m^3
The average mountain according to ask.com is 300 m high 1200 m base so 130000 m^3

Hive worlds have around 5-20 hives per planet each hive housing 10-100 billion people.
So the bottom end of that; 5 hives, 10 billion per hive gives 50 billion people and that is the termite mound.

So the population of Commorragh on the low end using my assumptions is around 542 trillion minimum.
At the high end 100 billion per hive 20 hives per planet 21666 trillion maximum.

No matter how you look at it, Dark Eldar are the dominant type of Eldar. Dark Eldar are thriving in the Webway. The Eldar are still a dying race, but not every facet us dying of numbers.

The average mountain is 300m high? Where did you get that number from? A 300m high mountain is not even possible! It differs from region to region, but mountains usually have to be at least 500-600m high. Anything lower is a hill. Mountains are usually a lot higher than that. For example: The average height of the Alps is 2.5km, the Andes 4km and the Himalaya has an average of 6km. Even a low mountain range like the Massif Central still has an average of 725m. (information according to geopgraphy/geology sites found via Google)

But yes, Craftworld Eldar and Exodites may be slowly dying, but Dark Eldar certainly not. Commorragh has a huge population, and the Dark Eldar have a very high rate of reproduction due to the fact that they are almost all artificially grown in vats. Only the nobility is still born naturally. Also, they rarely die because the Haemonculi can resurrect fallen Eldar.

**Exergy**

40kSpartan wrote:
The new necron codex even states " should the necrons ever fully wake and untie, the imperium would face a foe as
numerous as themselves"
So what ever number the imperium is, say 1000 then the necrons are also 1000. Except not all are awake, maybe 50 are awake or 100. But all necrons are soldiers as mentioned so have a far superior military

perhaps they are referring to an army as numerous as themselves, rather than a total population that includes women, children, farmers, etc.
An equally large fighting population would still be increadibly scary, and would still defeat the IoM in short order.

**Perfect Organism**

Exergy wrote:
40kSpartan wrote:
The new necron codex even states " should the necrons ever fully wake and untie, the imperium would face a foe as
numerous as themselves"
So what ever number the imperium is, say 1000 then the necrons are also 1000. Except not all are awake, maybe 50 are awake or 100. But all necrons are soldiers as mentioned so have a far superior military

perhaps they are referring to an army as numerous as themselves, rather than a total population that includes women, children, farmers, etc.
An equally large fighting population would still be increadibly scary, and would still defeat the IoM in short order.

That seems more plausible. A force as large as the Imperial Guard but where every soldier is almost as strong as a Space Marine would be more than enough to conquer the galaxy. If the necrons had hundreds of trillions of warriors left after their war against the old ones, I can't see how the Eldar would have stood a chance.

**Exergy**

Perfect Organism wrote:
Exergy wrote:
40kSpartan wrote:
The new necron codex even states " should the necrons ever fully wake and untie, the imperium would face a foe as
numerous as themselves"
So what ever number the imperium is, say 1000 then the necrons are also 1000. Except not all are awake, maybe 50 are awake or 100. But all necrons are soldiers as mentioned so have a far superior military

perhaps they are referring to an army as numerous as themselves, rather than a total population that includes women, children, farmers, etc.
An equally large fighting population would still be increadibly scary, and would still defeat the IoM in short order.

That seems more plausible. A force as large as the Imperial Guard but where every soldier is almost as strong as a Space Marine would be more than enough to conquer the galaxy. If the necrons had hundreds of trillions of warriors left after their war against the old ones, I can't see how the Eldar would have stood a chance.

even if we are just talking about equal power. So more necron warriors than the IoM has space marines but perhaps less than the total number of bodies the IoM has it would still defeat the IoM easily. The IoM's armed forces are largely already engadged. Fighting orks, chaos, DE, nids, or garrisoning planets. If necrons woke up with any real scale they could sweep through the IoM easily.

**KamikazeCanuck**

In regards to the Eldar and Earth. I believe in the 3e rulebook it says the largest hive is 500 billion and the largest hive is simply Earth itself. The DE codex says the DE population is bigger than the largest human hive which is earth so despite all the doom and gloom about the Eldar I think there probably more than half a trillion DE. Eldar are even more populour so could be closer to a trillion.

**Ashiraya**

Dark Eldar are more numerous than Eldar, from what I have seen.

They must be, for they suffer way way more casualties and I do not think their cloning can keep up.

**Grey Templar**

They are. The exact numbers aren't given but a good metric I heard about was as follows,

94% of the population died during the Fall. 1% escaped on the Craft worlds, and 5% fled into the web way and founded Corrmorragh.

So roughly 85% of elder today are dark elder.

**Exergy**

Grey Templar wrote:
They are. The exact numbers aren't given but a good metric I heard about was as follows,

94% of the population died during the Fall. 1% escaped on the Craft worlds, and 5% fled into the web way and founded Corrmorragh.

So roughly 85% of elder today are dark elder.

There are definitly more DE than CWE. More of them surrived/fled into the WW and then they have a higher birth rate, due to not actually having to give birth.
There are more DE than Exodities.

As to whethere Exodities outnumber CWE IDK
As to whether DE outnumber both Exodities + CWE IDK.

**Psienesis**

Iron_Captain wrote:
ALEXisAWESOME wrote:
We tried to put a number on the population of the Dark Eldar over on TDC a while ago and a friend came up with this math. It's a little bit ridiculous and a lot literal minded, taking the Term Mountain to Termite Mound seriously to see what kind of numbers it'd give us. Not entirely accurate, but quite intriguing none the less.

Spoiler:

'Commaragh to a hive world would be to compare a mountain to a termite mound'

Ok so an average terminte mound is say 4x2x2 meters = 16 m^3
The average mountain according to ask.com is 300 m high 1200 m base so 130000 m^3

Hive worlds have around 5-20 hives per planet each hive housing 10-100 billion people.
So the bottom end of that; 5 hives, 10 billion per hive gives 50 billion people and that is the termite mound.

So the population of Commorragh on the low end using my assumptions is around 542 trillion minimum.
At the high end 100 billion per hive 20 hives per planet 21666 trillion maximum.

No matter how you look at it, Dark Eldar are the dominant type of Eldar. Dark Eldar are thriving in the Webway. The Eldar are still a dying race, but not every facet us dying of numbers.

The average mountain is 300m high? Where did you get that number from? A 300m high mountain is not even possible! It differs from region to region, but mountains usually have to be at least 500-600m high. Anything lower is a hill. Mountains are usually a lot higher than that. For example: The average height of the Alps is 2.5km, the Andes 4km and the Himalaya has an average of 6km. Even a low mountain range like the Massif Central still has an average of 725m. (information according to geopgraphy/geology sites found via Google)

But yes, Craftworld Eldar and Exodites may be slowly dying, but Dark Eldar certainly not. Commorragh has a huge population, and the Dark Eldar have a very high rate of reproduction due to the fact that they are almost all artificially grown in vats. Only the nobility is still born naturally. Also, they rarely die because the Haemonculi can resurrect fallen Eldar.

300m = 300 meters. That's more than possible.

**KamikazeCanuck**

Ok, makes sense that there would be more DE than Craftworld because y'know...it's more grimdark that way.

**Iron_Captain**

Psienesis wrote:
Iron_Captain wrote:
ALEXisAWESOME wrote:
We tried to put a number on the population of the Dark Eldar over on TDC a while ago and a friend came up with this math. It's a little bit ridiculous and a lot literal minded, taking the Term Mountain to Termite Mound seriously to see what kind of numbers it'd give us. Not entirely accurate, but quite intriguing none the less.

Spoiler:

'Commaragh to a hive world would be to compare a mountain to a termite mound'

Ok so an average terminte mound is say 4x2x2 meters = 16 m^3
The average mountain according to ask.com is 300 m high 1200 m base so 130000 m^3

Hive worlds have around 5-20 hives per planet each hive housing 10-100 billion people.
So the bottom end of that; 5 hives, 10 billion per hive gives 50 billion people and that is the termite mound.

So the population of Commorragh on the low end using my assumptions is around 542 trillion minimum.
At the high end 100 billion per hive 20 hives per planet 21666 trillion maximum.

No matter how you look at it, Dark Eldar are the dominant type of Eldar. Dark Eldar are thriving in the Webway. The Eldar are still a dying race, but not every facet us dying of numbers.

The average mountain is 300m high? Where did you get that number from? A 300m high mountain is not even possible! It differs from region to region, but mountains usually have to be at least 500-600m high. Anything lower is a hill. Mountains are usually a lot higher than that. For example: The average height of the Alps is 2.5km, the Andes 4km and the Himalaya has an average of 6km. Even a low mountain range like the Massif Central still has an average of 725m. (information according to geopgraphy/geology sites found via Google)

But yes, Craftworld Eldar and Exodites may be slowly dying, but Dark Eldar certainly not. Commorragh has a huge population, and the Dark Eldar have a very high rate of reproduction due to the fact that they are almost all artificially grown in vats. Only the nobility is still born naturally. Also, they rarely die because the Haemonculi can resurrect fallen Eldar.

300m = 300 meters. That's more than possible.

But it wouldn't be a mountain, and certainly not one of average height...

**GKTiberius**

Iron_Captain wrote:
Psienesis wrote:
Iron_Captain wrote:
ALEXisAWESOME wrote:
We tried to put a number on the population of the Dark Eldar over on TDC a while ago and a friend came up with this math. It's a little bit ridiculous and a lot literal minded, taking the Term Mountain to Termite Mound seriously to see what kind of numbers it'd give us. Not entirely accurate, but quite intriguing none the less.

Spoiler:

'Commaragh to a hive world would be to compare a mountain to a termite mound'

Ok so an average terminte mound is say 4x2x2 meters = 16 m^3
The average mountain according to ask.com is 300 m high 1200 m base so 130000 m^3

Hive worlds have around 5-20 hives per planet each hive housing 10-100 billion people.
So the bottom end of that; 5 hives, 10 billion per hive gives 50 billion people and that is the termite mound.

So the population of Commorragh on the low end using my assumptions is around 542 trillion minimum.
At the high end 100 billion per hive 20 hives per planet 21666 trillion maximum.

No matter how you look at it, Dark Eldar are the dominant type of Eldar. Dark Eldar are thriving in the Webway. The Eldar are still a dying race, but not every facet us dying of numbers.

The average mountain is 300m high? Where did you get that number from? A 300m high mountain is not even possible! It differs from region to region, but mountains usually have to be at least 500-600m high. Anything lower is a hill. Mountains are usually a lot higher than that. For example: The average height of the Alps is 2.5km, the Andes 4km and the Himalaya has an average of 6km. Even a low mountain range like the Massif Central still has an average of 725m. (information according to geopgraphy/geology sites found via Google)

But yes, Craftworld Eldar and Exodites may be slowly dying, but Dark Eldar certainly not. Commorragh has a huge population, and the Dark Eldar have a very high rate of reproduction due to the fact that they are almost all artificially grown in vats. Only the nobility is still born naturally. Also, they rarely die because the Haemonculi can resurrect fallen Eldar.

300m = 300 meters. That's more than possible.

But it wouldn't be a mountain, and certainly not one of average height...

Why are we are splitting hairs of the specifics of a clearly symbolic comaprison. To say the comparison between the two was exact and measureable is absurd. You can extrapolate and estimate all day, but the fact is the fluff is too vague to put an accurate number on DE and their home (I hate trying to spell it). It is extra dimensional, so its exact dimensions are however big the authors and writers want it to to be. We cannot seriously be fighting over calculations based on symbolic comparisons. we are better than that.

**Co'tor Shas**

Wyzilla wrote:
Few nitpicks, for one the average Imperial World is going to have a far greater population density then Earth, especially given their backwater, often despot nature which leads to runaway population levels. Our population after all is about to skyrocket to around 11-15 billion people in a century, and 40K worlds have been around for far, faaaaar longer. Basing the Imperium's population on Earth in the modern day is completely nonsensical as Earth's population is going to increase by around 63% by 2100, if not sooner. Meaning that the Imperium's population would be increasing at that rate as well.

Eldar meanwhile aren't small at all. Even with a very generously low interpretation of population density in the Dark City would leave us with hundreds of billions, if not trillions. Craftworld Eldar and Corsairs also number in the tens of billions as well. They're only "dying" in the sense that their reproduction speed is very, very slow and their original population was in the quadrillions at least, if not far higher.

Daemons meanwhile are inifnite in number. They aren't limited to the number of souls, and do not even need souls to sustain themselves. They just exist and proliferate in the warp without end.

Orks also don't need any infrastructure. They're completely magical fungi that require no farming or gathering of food. Their ecosystem that spreads through their constant contact with ANY ground (even space stations) sprouts the fungal food that they eat. They hilariously outnumber everyone besides Daemons and Tyranids that they do NOT require any such logistical needs. They just exponentially increase in number until they're killed. Unless they're killed, they simply multiply at a constant rate.

Only for advanced worlds. You have to consider than many, many worlds' average tech level is in the middle ages. Feral worlds are even lower down the chain.

**2BlackJack1**

Wyzilla wrote:

Orks also don't need any infrastructure. They're completely magical fungi that require no farming or gathering of food. Their ecosystem that spreads through their constant contact with ANY ground (even space stations) sprouts the fungal food that they eat. They hilariously outnumber everyone besides Daemons and Tyranids that they do NOT require any such logistical needs. They just exponentially increase in number until they're killed. Unless they're killed, they simply multiply at a constant rate.

Orks also do a last spurt of extra spores upon death, so even when they die, more orks will come, and I also believe the bodies can continue to pop out spores, so wouldn't you have to burn the bodies?

**Wyzilla**

2BlackJack1 wrote:
Wyzilla wrote:

Orks also don't need any infrastructure. They're completely magical fungi that require no farming or gathering of food. Their ecosystem that spreads through their constant contact with ANY ground (even space stations) sprouts the fungal food that they eat. They hilariously outnumber everyone besides Daemons and Tyranids that they do NOT require any such logistical needs. They just exponentially increase in number until they're killed. Unless they're killed, they simply multiply at a constant rate.

Orks also do a last spurt of extra spores upon death, so even when they die, more orks will come, and I also believe the bodies can continue to pop out spores, so wouldn't you have to burn the bodies?[/quote

To permanently get rid of Orks, you have to burn EVERYTHING, practically scorch the entire biosphere of any area they've contaminated just to make sure they don't come back.

**2BlackJack1**

I wonder if kroot could get that kind of genetics from orks, yet again, not a whole lot of background info has been revealed in that department, and it is pretty complex, so I don't know if the kroot are up to such a genetic trait. If it were, one could easily farm their own kroot mercenary army for their own benefits, simply by hiring one set of kroot mercenaries. Yet again, kroot are known to not reproduce asexually, so I don't know how this one would work out.

**skink007**

Wyzilla wrote:
Few nitpicks, for one the average Imperial World is going to have a far greater population density then Earth, especially given their backwater, often despot nature which leads to runaway population levels. Our population after all is about to skyrocket to around 11-15 billion people in a century, and 40K worlds have been around for far, faaaaar longer. Basing the Imperium's population on Earth in the modern day is completely nonsensical as Earth's population is going to increase by around 63% by 2100, if not sooner. Meaning that the Imperium's population would be increasing at that rate as well.

Actually the most recent estimates have Earth's population leveling off at around 9 billion in the next 100 years. Population dynamics tells us that populations can't grow without limit. Comparing 40k growth rates and real world growth rates is nonsensical, as growth rates are controlled by a huge number of variables, none of which we have information for from the setting. Birth rates may vary tremendously based on a world's society, death rates are probably sky high on most worlds even without factoring in tithes. It seems to me that the original relative comparison by the OP is the closest we can get to understanding anything about population sizes. Anything else is essentially pulling numbers out of a hat.

**TheNewBlood**

Dark Eldar are definitely larger than regular Eldar, but not by much. The lore mentions a wide variety of alien races living in Commoraugh, both as slaves and as mercenaries, so that edges the maximum population of the Eladrith Ynneas down significantly. It also helps that they have a work-around for the traditional elven birthrate problem via hyper-accelerating fetal growth and development.

For the Craftworlds, the ships themselves are described as the size of planets. IMO, they're about the size of a small rocky world (ex: Terra) or a very large moon (ex: Titan). Keeping in mind that scale, plus the amount of space devoted to ships systems and maintaining the on-board ecosystem, I would imagine that the population of the average Craftworld is around 7 billion living eldar. Exodites are even smaller, perhaps millions to a Maiden World, 100 million at the very most.

Eldar are a drop in the bucket on a galactic scale, but they still number enough to be a significant threat.

**Wyzilla**

TheNewBlood wrote:
Dark Eldar are definitely larger than regular Eldar, but not by much. The lore mentions a wide variety of alien races living in Commoraugh, both as slaves and as mercenaries, so that edges the maximum population of the Eladrith Ynneas down significantly. It also helps that they have a work-around for the traditional elven birthrate problem via hyper-accelerating fetal growth and development.

For the Craftworlds, the ships themselves are described as the size of planets. IMO, they're about the size of a small rocky world (ex: Terra) or a very large moon (ex: Titan). Keeping in mind that scale, plus the amount of space devoted to ships systems and maintaining the on-board ecosystem, I would imagine that the population of the average Craftworld is around 7 billion living eldar. Exodites are even smaller, perhaps millions to a Maiden World, 100 million at the very most.

Eldar are a drop in the bucket on a galactic scale, but they still number enough to be a significant threat.

Craftworlds are not described being the size of planets, but planetoids or even just continents.

**Pendix**

Wyzilla wrote:
Craftworlds are not described being the size of planets, but planetoids or even just continents.

According to the most recent codex, the Tau are building space-borne structures in the same ballpark. which reminds me: I've gotten the vague impression that Tau space is very densey populated, even if individual worlds don't reach Hive-like population levels. I'd even go so far to argue that they might outnumber CW Eldar.

**Co'tor Shas**

It's quite likely. The area the tau are located in is supposed to be dense, and tau are stated to know how to terraform (or perhaps t'auform

), meaning a few worlds per system. We're also not sure how big a sept really is. Each one is at least one system, (possibly more), plus various orbitals, space stations, moon bases, ect. And the dy'lath sept world (I think) was described to be a bit like a tau hive world, except all spread out, instead of in several hive-mountains. So probebly anywhere from 5-10 billion on average worlds. And places like T'au and Tau'n are going to be very high density.

They also have shorter lifespans than humans (something like 60-80 instead of 80-100), so they probably mature and breed quicker as well (repopulate faster).