Size of different galactic populations

Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:

No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.

If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

**Exergy**

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

It makes sense because DE are more similar to PreFall eldar than CWE.
It makes sense because DE dont get their homes attacked by every random race in the galaxy
It makes sense because DE reproduce faster, growing children in vats rather than birthing them naturally.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

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.

But a craftworld has interior areas that can support life while a planet only has space on the surface.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

GKTiberius wrote:
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.

We cannot know exaclty how many DE there are just by knowing how large their main city is. Their extradimensional home, that contains 4 stars for light, is not doubt enormous. Beyond imagination in size, but whether it all has a massive population density is uknown. There are more termintes in a mound than there are humans on a mountainside.

DE probably like a little more breathing room than Hiveworlders. A lot of the lifeforms in Commorragh are probably not DE. The DE also manufacture all of their own weaponry, and that means factories taking up more space.

**Psienesis**

If we're using the number 1000 to represent the Imperium of Man's total population, the rest come out looking something like this:

Tau: 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000001
CW Eldar: 0.0001
Tyranid: 10000000000000000
Daemons: Infinite
CSM and Chaotic Societies: 0.00000000000000000000000001
Squats: 0
Dark Eldar: 0.001 (There's a lot of theses guys, but not a galaxy full of them).
Orks: 10000000
Necrons: 1000 (probably)

**Perfect Organism**

Psienesis wrote:
If we're using the number 1000 to represent the Imperium of Man's total population, the rest come out looking something like this:

Tau: 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000001

If there are even a few billion tau, that would mean that the Imperium's biomass just from humans is larger than most galaxies.

**epronovost**

Imperium of man

considering around it's made of around 1 000 000 worlds each with an average of 2 billion individuals per world (rather reasonable in my opinion) that would make the insane number of 2 000 000 000 000 000. I don't know how such a number would be called, but I like the trem countless. I don't think that number would count the billions of servitors of all types that exist, but would count abhumans and mutants.

Chaos society, deamons world population and other non warp spawned servants of Chaos

They control about 100 000 worlds each with a population of around 2 billions. So they basically have a total population of around 10% that of the Imperium.

Craftworld Eldars

I would say there is around 500 hundred Craftworlds each with a population ranging from a few hundred thousand living eldar to several billions for an average of 400 000 000 per craftworld. this makes a total of 200 000 000 000 living eldars on the Craftworlds.

Exodite Eldars

I would say there is around 1000 exodite planet still under eldar control that are inhabitted by around 50 000 000 living eldar each. for a total of 50 000 000 000 individuals.

Dark Eldar

The most populous eldar group by far. Considering the size of Commorragh and the various other slaves living their I would say there is 100 Dark Eldar for each Craftworld Eldar alive. Commorragh is inhabitted by 10 times more slaves and monsters than actual Dark Eldars.

Orks

Orks are about has numerous has human and control about has many worlds.

Necrons

Technically twice less numerous than humans, 90% of them are still asleep and many amongst them might never awaken again due to glitch, sabotage or damage. These numbers are for Necrons only not scarabs or canoptek construct. So their actual working numbers in 40K is around 5% of the Imperium global population.

Tau

The Tau Empire is made of around a 100 worlds each with an average population of 10 billions for a total population of 1 000 000 000 000 (so there is a thousand times more humans than Tau).

Kroots

The Kroots are a little bit more numerous than the Tau but not by much. They also occupate more worlds, but they are much less populated. This includes all types of kroots.

Tyranids

Impossible to count if you consider than the ammunition of their guns are also Tyranid Creature, so are the guns and those transporting them. Their population is also to variable from times of feeding to times of travelling. I would say this each Termagaunt with a fleshborer represent around a 100 different Tyranid organism. Try to wrap you head around how much tyranid a world devoring swarm represent!

**tydrace**

For Khorne daemons from the Khorne Daemonkin codex:

"Directly below Khorne are his eight Bloodthirsters of the first host."

"Each of these Exalted commands eight Bloodthirsters of the second host, who in turn command eight Bloodthirsters of the host below them, and so on down to the eight rank."

"It is the Bloodthirsters of the Unfettered Fury who command the daemonic foot soldiers, each ruling over a legion of eight cohorts led by attendant Heralds or Daemon Princes."

A Bloodthirster of Unfettered Fury is of the eight host.

An average Charnel Cohort is:

Daemon Prince / Herald
8 packs of Bloodletters
4 packs of Flesh Hounds
4 packs of Bloodcrushers
4 Skull Cannons

Though it can vary, because Cohorts can be specialised. But let's take the above as an average.

This means there are:

8 Bloodthirsters of the first host.
64 Bloodthirsters of the second host.
512 Bloodthirsters of the third host.
4,096 Bloodthirsters of the fourth host.
32,768 Bloodthirsters of the fifth host.
262,144 Bloodthisters of the sixth host.
2,097,152 Bloodthirsters of the seventh host.
16,777,216 Bloodthirsters of the eight host.
For a total of 19,173,960 Bloodthirsters.

Bloodthirsters of the eight host each have eight cohorts. If we say a pack is at full strength as described in the codex we have:
134,217,728 Daemon Princes / Heralds of Khorne
21,474,836,480 Bloodletters
10,737,418,240 Flesh Hounds
4,831,838,208 Bloodcrushers
536,870,912 Skull Cannons
For a total of 37,734,355,528 daemons of Khorne.

If I did the math correctly, at least. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, it's been a long day.

I take the other three gods are probably somewhat similar, since they all have their own numbers.

**Perfect Organism**

How do 16 million Bloodthirsters with eight cohorts each have over a billion cohorts total?

**tydrace**

You're correct, I wrote it down wrong. Hold on.

I think it's fixed now.

**BrianDavion**

keep in mind terraforming takes time (as in centuries) so the Tau likely haven't had time to terraform a whole bunch of worlds.

**NauticalKendall**

Commoragh is described as this "Commoorragh is no mere metropolis, for it is to the greatest cities of real space as a soaring mountain is to a mound of termites." - Dark Eldar codex. Pg.10

It then goes on to say it is impossible to comprehend how big it is, complicated it is, and that it's population is greater than whole star systems.

So, I would assume whatever the highest populated city in whatever faction has far lower population than Commoragh. But, it is still true that the Dark Eldar are outnumbered there, but I would still assume that the Dark Eldar are still vastly greater than the next biggest city.

**Ratius**

I did some work on this a few years back

Spoiler:

**Da Stormlord**

Humans: 2000
Necrons: 50
Tau: 10
Orks: 2000
Eldar:1
Height eldar: 1,000,000
Daemons:9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999