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Is there any info on how much the Imperial population in 40k has grown compared to its 30k population?

I'm wondering how much higher the ratio of defenders the current 40k FoC Traitor Legions face is compared to the SM Legions during the Great Crusade.


Hmmm, no FOC, Forces of Chaos, in the Glossary

That's an interesting question, and one that is probably very difficult to answer.

Is the population decline caused by the 'only war' of the 41st millennium better or worse than the population decline caused by the Old Night?

No real way to tell TBH. Going with a gut feeling of the whole 'death by a thousand cuts' feel of the Imperium I'd say it's probably either break-even or declining.

 Ynneadwraith wrote:
No real way to tell TBH. Going with a gut feeling of the whole 'death by a thousand cuts' feel of the Imperium I'd say it's probably either break-even or declining.

Surely the population is much larger now despite the constant warfare. Think about it, the Great Crusade only lasted 200 years and started with only Terra, Mars, and Luna under the Emperor's control. Many human worlds were reunited during the crusade but many were also destroyed (for using AI, interacting with Xenos, some other kind of corruption, or just for resisting), or were very underdeveloped. Plus even before the Age of Strife humans were hardly the dominant power in the galaxy. So what the Imperium of the Heresy-era hardly had enough time to colonize and develop all the conquered worlds.

Also, after the Heresy there were certain periods of relative calm (between the Great Scouring and the War of the Beast for example, or when the Traitor Legions were busy fighting each other in the Eye) where the Imperium expanded and consolidated its holdings.

Maximus Bitch wrote:
I'm wondering how much higher the ratio of defenders the current 40k FoC Traitor Legions face is compared to the SM Legions during the Great Crusade.

If we're looking at SMs alone, then the numbers are roughly the same. A figure of ~1 million is often given for the current number of Space Marines. The average legion had around 100k marines (with some being much larger and others much smaller) and there were 9 loyalist marines. So I guess it evens out.

 EngulfedObject wrote:
Surely the population is much larger now despite the constant warfare. Think about it, the Great Crusade only lasted 200 years and started with only Terra, Mars, and Luna under the Emperor's control. Many human worlds were reunited during the crusade but many were also destroyed (for using AI, interacting with Xenos, some other kind of corruption, or just for resisting), or were very underdeveloped. Plus even before the Age of Strife humans were hardly the dominant power in the galaxy. So what the Imperium of the Heresy-era hardly had enough time to colonize and develop all the conquered worlds.

Also, after the Heresy there were certain periods of relative calm (between the Great Scouring and the War of the Beast for example, or when the Traitor Legions were busy fighting each other in the Eye) where the Imperium expanded and consolidated its holdings.

Good points. In light of that, I wonder if the human population in today's universe is greater than it ever was in the Dark Age of Technology, given that they had to share the universe with the sizeable Eldar Empire and presumably dozens and dozens of other xeno races that have lost out in the great game of survival...

Maximus Bitch wrote:
I'm wondering how much higher the ratio of defenders the current 40k FoC Traitor Legions face is compared to the SM Legions during the Great Crusade.

If we're looking at SMs alone, then the numbers are roughly the same. A figure of ~1 million is often given for the current number of Space Marines. The average legion had around 100k marines (with some being much larger and others much smaller) and there were 9 loyalist marines. So I guess it evens out.

 Ynneadwraith wrote:
Good points. In light of that, I wonder if the human population in today's universe is greater than it ever was in the Dark Age of Technology, given that they had to share the universe with the sizeable Eldar Empire and presumably dozens and dozens of other xeno races that have lost out in the great game of survival...

I would assume so since the Eldar Empire would've clamped down on a potential rival otherwise (judging from GC era tech, the humans from that time were quite advanced, if inferior to the Eldar). I have nothing to back that up of course since we know so little about that time.

 Ynneadwraith wrote:

I've always been one that believed that the hard numbers given by GW for Marine forces are a crock of sh*t

No way even a million Marines would make any discernible difference in a galactic-scale conflict. Either they are simply poster-boys used as propaganda, each chapter is much, much larger than 1000-1500 Marines. or there are many, many more chapters than initially claimed.

Of course, that's all headcanon, and I can see why they chose the numbers they did (more 'your dudes' friendly to have a company size you might feasibly be able to collect). If you want the actual numbers given in the fluff then what Maximus is saying is pretty accurate

Well, legion-wise it kinda makes sense to me since in the GC era that'd make around 2.5 or so million marines with massive back-up in the form of own fleet assets, planetary supply and recruitment networks (Ultramar for example, with 500 worlds during that era), as well as the Imperial Army and Mechanicum (Titans, cybernetica, etc) assets operating under their command. They also operated in significant concentrations and several legions would gather for certain campaigns.

40k-era wise I'm not sure since they operate independently and 1000 marines really is a very small number (though you have to take fleet asssets with planet-killing weapons into account).

Personally I'd change the chapter size to 10k. That way the number of chapters in the Second Founding would make a lot more sense.

 Ynneadwraith wrote:
That's an interesting question, and one that is probably very difficult to answer.

Is the population decline caused by the 'only war' of the 41st millennium better or worse than the population decline caused by the Old Night?

No real way to tell TBH. Going with a gut feeling of the whole 'death by a thousand cuts' feel of the Imperium I'd say it's probably either break-even or declining.

No, no Old Night considered. As a whole, the Imperium's population should have grown in the 10,000 years since the end of the HH.

The surviving SM Legions are all Chaos Traitors, which is less than half of the total no. of SM Legionnaires during the Great Crusade, and they now face a much larger Imperium than they did during the Great Crusade (when the Imperium was being created)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 EngulfedObject wrote:

Maximus Bitch wrote:
I'm wondering how much higher the ratio of defenders the current 40k FoC Traitor Legions face is compared to the SM Legions during the Great Crusade.

If we're looking at SMs alone, then the numbers are roughly the same. A figure of ~1 million is often given for the current number of Space Marines.

Sorry, you need to read more carefully. I'm not counting the current (40k) number of SMs.

During the Great Crusade, the 18 Legions faced a lot of human enemies.

"Today", in 40k, the Traitor Legions face even more human enemies.


So I'm just wondering how much harder it is to be a conquering legionnaire in 40k (vs 30k).

Maximus Bitch wrote:
Sorry, you need to read more carefully. I'm not counting the current (40k) number of SMs.

During the Great Crusade, the 18 Legions faced a lot of human enemies.

"Today", in 40k, the Traitor Legions face even more human enemies.


So I'm just wondering how much harder it is to be a conquering legionnaire in 40k (vs 30k).

Oh I see, completely misunderstood you.

Well then yea, I think they definitely face more enemies, though perhaps in weaker and less organized concentrations (as the Imperium has become more paranoid about concentrating power and technology has regressed). At the same time, FoC have also deteriorated, or at least the CSMs have, as most outside the Black Legion operate as independent warbands (aside from the Word Bearers and Red Corsairs I guess).

 EngulfedObject wrote:

 Ynneadwraith wrote:
Good points. In light of that, I wonder if the human population in today's universe is greater than it ever was in the Dark Age of Technology, given that they had to share the universe with the sizeable Eldar Empire and presumably dozens and dozens of other xeno races that have lost out in the great game of survival...

I would assume so since the Eldar Empire would've clamped down on a potential rival otherwise (judging from GC era tech, the humans from that time were quite advanced, if inferior to the Eldar). I have nothing to back that up of course since we know so little about that time.

I would imagine that the 30k or 40k human population would be small compared with the DAoT human population.

First you have so many worlds like Mars that were during the DAoT terraformed to have huge populations. Looking through the list of worlds we know about, like those the primarch landed on, so many are past their prime in some sort of slow death caused by pollution or terraforming going amiss. During the DAoT, they all would have been lush places supporting huge populations. There wouldnt be any "death worlds" any "Feudal Worlds" etc.

As to the eldar not quashing humanity, remember that there were a ton more Prefall eldar, and that they had tech even better than they have now. With the complete webway they could bring their entire warhost to bear on any one point at any given time. They feared nothing.

in size: I'd say a fair bit. (remember Macharius took over a massive amount of space)
in basically every other way: little to none.

I mean... population growth would be exponential for every world occupied. On the other hand that one guy wiped out a whole bunch of systems to try to turn the tyranids away. It's been called the greatest act of violence humanity has committed against itself since the horus heresy. So.... you know... that set back the population a little bit.

 Exergy wrote:

 EngulfedObject wrote:

 Ynneadwraith wrote:
Good points. In light of that, I wonder if the human population in today's universe is greater than it ever was in the Dark Age of Technology, given that they had to share the universe with the sizeable Eldar Empire and presumably dozens and dozens of other xeno races that have lost out in the great game of survival...

I would assume so since the Eldar Empire would've clamped down on a potential rival otherwise (judging from GC era tech, the humans from that time were quite advanced, if inferior to the Eldar). I have nothing to back that up of course since we know so little about that time.

I would imagine that the 30k or 40k human population would be small compared with the DAoT human population.

I'm only trying to compare 30k and 40k

Maximus Bitch wrote:

 Exergy wrote:

 EngulfedObject wrote:

 Ynneadwraith wrote:
Good points. In light of that, I wonder if the human population in today's universe is greater than it ever was in the Dark Age of Technology, given that they had to share the universe with the sizeable Eldar Empire and presumably dozens and dozens of other xeno races that have lost out in the great game of survival...

I would assume so since the Eldar Empire would've clamped down on a potential rival otherwise (judging from GC era tech, the humans from that time were quite advanced, if inferior to the Eldar). I have nothing to back that up of course since we know so little about that time.

I would imagine that the 30k or 40k human population would be small compared with the DAoT human population.

I'm only trying to compare 30k and 40k

Yeah, well it got mentioned, so I added that I think things would be much higher DAoT

I would say the the human population probably ballooned massively during the Great Crusade. Machinery being rehabed and put back to use, humans controling more worlds, new technology being found to make life better. The human population in the galaxy probably went up a lot in the 300 years leading up to the heresy. I dont know how much of the population gain there would have continued had the heresy not happened

The heresy though then was massively destructive. Lots of fertile worlds turned to ash. For instance Nostromo, a planet of tens of billions was completely destroyed as the HH started.

Not sure how the population would have gone from there. I expect a slight increase after the great scouring(possibly a large increase) but from 31k-40k probably a slow steady decline.

id say number of systems, shrunk after several massivive interstellar wars like thanks to the Beast, age of apostasy, various waaaghs, a couple tyranid invasions, and some chaos shenanagins like the 'dominion of fire' when angron and friends wasted 70 imperial sectors in only 200 years. in contrast macharian crusade was the most succesful imperial campaign since the great crusade , liberating 1,000 worlds - while thats a lot i doubt makes up for the losses of 10,000 years.

human population wise, id say risen depite(because of?) the grimdark between the poverty ridden masses breeding like rabbits, probably encouraged by planetary governors to meet conscription quotas to breeding programs like that on krieg.

space marine wise, with the 1 million number thrown around for space marines, id say compared to loyalist 30k doubled to roughly match what the preheresey numbers were.

 IMMORTAN_AL wrote:
id say number of systems, shrunk after several massivive interstellar wars like thanks to the Beast, age of apostasy, various waaaghs, a couple tyranid invasions, and some chaos shenanagins like the 'dominion of fire' when angron and friends wasted 70 imperial sectors in only 200 years. in contrast macharian crusade was the most succesful imperial campaign since the great crusade , liberating 1,000 worlds - while thats a lot i doubt makes up for the losses of 10,000 years.

And as soon as Macharus died all his holdings went into revolt and it took 70 years and elements from 100 space marine chapters to put an end to most of the unrest. You have to assume that there was some more collateral damage done in the reconcista.