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Destroyer Question: Number Of Colonists At Reunion
Topic Started: Apr 16 2008, 06:07 PM (3,075 Views)
Pangloss

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Ok I'm new here and I'm guessing you guys get this question a lot, so I hope you all go easy on me!

I have just started "Destroyer", and I'm a bit boggled by the number of colonists Bren says they've taken in from Reunion. He says it's 4000-ish. But in the previous book, he and Jase talk about 17,000+! (Explorer, page 342 paperback.)

What's up with that?
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Xheralt
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Pangloss,Apr 16 2008
01:07 PM
Ok I'm new here and I'm guessing you guys get this question a lot, so I hope you all go easy on me!

I have just started "Destroyer", and I'm a bit boggled by the number of colonists Bren says they've taken in from Reunion. He says it's 4000-ish. But in the previous book, he and Jase talk about 17,000+! (Explorer, page 342 paperback.)

What's up with that?

No, I think you're the first to notice that.

Jase's info may not have been accurate, early on, and may have been arrived at indirectly. And/or, there may have been casualties when the kyo slagged part of Reunion, from the beam itself, decompression, starvation in resultant food crisis, while making repairs afterward, mining for fuel, any number of things. As :cherryh: takes pains to point out living in space is damn dangerous!

Or, she may have flat out goofed. Not something we're going to fret about.
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Pangloss

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Xheralt,Apr 16 2008
04:37 PM
Pangloss,Apr 16 2008
01:07 PM
Ok I'm new here and I'm guessing you guys get this question a lot, so I hope you all go easy on me!

I have just started "Destroyer", and I'm a bit boggled by the number of colonists Bren says they've taken in from Reunion.  He says it's 4000-ish.  But in the previous book, he and Jase talk about 17,000+!  (Explorer, page 342 paperback.)

What's up with that?

No, I think you're the first to notice that.

Jase's info may not have been accurate, early on, and may have been arrived at indirectly. And/or, there may have been casualties when the kyo slagged part of Reunion, from the beam itself, decompression, starvation in resultant food crisis, while making repairs afterward, mining for fuel, any number of things. As :cherryh: takes pains to point out living in space is damn dangerous!

Or, she may have flat out goofed. Not something we're going to fret about.

Thanks for the reply. I completely agree, not something to fret about. I just wondered if it was a subtle plot point, because the info actually came from one of the four Reunion security people who were captured on the bridge and then interrogated in that wonderfully dramatic scene with the dowager and heir. The security guard was the source of that 17,000 figure so it seemed possible he just inflated the number to sound more impressive.

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agricola
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I have found numerous 'questions' on numbers throughout the books, actually, and the number of Reunioners is only one of them.

In an early book - the second one?, Jase says he and Yolanda are part of a group of 10 or 12 (I forget) - but not one single other of those quasi-siblings has ever been mentioned.

And Yolanda and Jase had classes together and studied languages - but Yolanda is several years older than Jase, and I can't see a 12 year old sedately accompanying a seven year old (about) all day every day in class. What gives?

First Reunion had about 300 survivors - when the news was first announced that the station had not been destroyed. Jules Ogun posted names of known survivors, remember? then it had about 5 or 6 thousand. Then it had 17000 - and where did they put them all on Phoenix then?

In the next to last book, Jase mentions his age as being middle TWENTIES - what the hey??? He was on planet for close to ten years and was mid twenties at the START. He has to be late thirties - and Bren has to be pushing forty - when they return to the atevi world.

Granted atevi aren't humans - but Cajeiri is still a child - and he is doing things I'd accept in a bright TWELVE year old - but no way on earth OR atevi world is a seven year old going on eight thinking and reacting like this kid.

Plus - a big deal is made of his birthday, when he is becoming eight. Well I don't know about you guys, but I became 'eight' at the END of my eighth year of life, not the beginning of it.

Unless atevi call a newborn 'one year old' like the Chinese are rumored to do - in which case he is even YOUNGER....

Look, that stuff bugs me big time.

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griffinmoon
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agricola nadi:

"Variety is the spice of life".
Age counting varies widely even in the here & now (there are a number of cultures still extant that don't consider a child a "person" until age 3--because said kid might never reach that age). Same goes for ages vs abilities/capabilities. You can bet that a pioneering kid was a Whole Lot More Responsible at 10 than any 10 yr old of this date. (Look at history: Alexander was raised in & to war: at 18 he was outGeneraling his enemies. Think the ave 18 yr old of today could do that?)
If anthing, the current Day/Age in this country is abnormal in these respects.

Also, one suspects that oner of the Reunion enforcers fessed up that there were only 1500 Reunioners left (minimum viable human genetic diversity population needed to maintain same--even without the already extant inbreeding before rescue).
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agricola
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No, Jase said there were 1500 on PHOENIX - told that to Bren while still on planet, explaining about how Phoenix was so happy to find several million humans on the atevi world, because they were afraid they were the very last ones. And Bren was thinking that they (on planet) had guesstimated the population on the ship at no more than about 3 thousand, and he asked, and Jase told him '1500'.

Of course, Jase has been known to lie to Bren. But that little interchange looked like the truth, and of course, once Bren et al started going back and forth to the station/ship, they would have had a very good idea of the real numbers.

As for Reunion station -
first the captains reported 300 survivors.
then they equipped the ship to go and pull the survivors off - and fitted up three decks, for apparently several thousand.
then they GOT to Reunion and had numbers all over the place. 17 thousand, 6 thousand - whatever.
Then they actually loaded people onto Phoenix to travel back to the atevi world, and the numbers changed again.



I'm all discombobbled.
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Arianne_Luinithil
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Well nadiin, I don't actually pay attention to the numbers in the heavens. :atwink I simply look at the numbers in one book, and then forget them in the next. Cherryh-aiji is perhaps too busy to actually keep track of her population estimates.
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Sherbs
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Quote:
 
Yolanda and Jase had classes together and studied languages - but Yolanda is several years older than Jase, and I can't see a 12 year old sedately accompanying a seven year old (about) all day every day in class. What gives?


I don't really see what the issue is with this one I'm afraid. In small communities, which is essentially what a ship is, there;s nothing unusual about children being taught in very mixed age groups. Some small rural schools in existence have only one classroom and children are all taught in that room just with individual learning plans appropriate for their age, stage of development, ability and interests. In this model a child might well study with others older or younger than themselves where their abilities and interests coincide.
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Reading_fox

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I didn't pay close attention to the numbers but I thought it went something like this:

Pheonix arrived in system low thousands. Poulation grew in base, but most landed. Pheonix departed system 1500 or so. Started Reunion population grew.
Left lots on Reunion, retuned to find slagged hence expected no survirors.
Jase learns there were survivors expects few huddled in core 600 or so.
Learns there was a organised survival upgrades estimate to 6000. BUT didn't allow for the fact that population was in reasonable accomodation and hence grew to the given size of 17000. Now I don't know how big Pheonix is but they can double shift beds etc and get a lot of people in.
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ready
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When Bren was first "questioned at Malguri he said the population on Mospheira was 4 million. A couple of books later he said the population was 6 million. As Ms :cherryh: points out she hates bookkeeping/accounting so variations are to be expected.

My real question is how did Mospheira population grow to 4 million in less than 200 years from arrival on planet given War of the Landing?
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griffinmoon
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ready nadi:
We breed, nadi, we breed fast for a mammal of our body mass. Think of it as heaven for right-to-lifers: every female knocked up as fast & often as possible for as long as possible. Every single child a keeper & absolutely no infant mortality.
4.5 million in 200 yrs is easy. Expansion to 6 million 20 yrs later--equally easy.
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Saidaro

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griffinmoon,Apr 17 2008
02:34 PM
ready nadi:
4.5 million in 200 yrs is easy. Expansion to 6 million 20 yrs later--equally easy.

I ran a simple model where every couple has 5 children by age 30, and everyone lives 90 years. Starting with a population of 2000 in year 0, by year 180 the population is 3.3 million.
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Chanor-ji

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agricola,Apr 16 2008
08:56 PM
I have found numerous 'questions' on numbers throughout the books, actually, and the number of Reunioners is only one of them.

In an early book - the second one?, Jase says he and Yolanda are part of a group of 10 or 12 (I forget) - but not one single other of those quasi-siblings has ever been mentioned.

And Yolanda and Jase had classes together and studied languages - but Yolanda is several years older than Jase, and I can't see a 12 year old sedately accompanying a seven year old (about) all day every day in class. What gives?

First Reunion had about 300 survivors - when the news was first announced that the station had not been destroyed. Jules Ogun posted names of known survivors, remember? then it had about 5 or 6 thousand. Then it had 17000 - and where did they put them all on Phoenix then?

In the next to last book, Jase mentions his age as being middle TWENTIES - what the hey??? He was on planet for close to ten years and was mid twenties at the START. He has to be late thirties - and Bren has to be pushing forty - when they return to the atevi world.

Granted atevi aren't humans - but Cajeiri is still a child - and he is doing things I'd accept in a bright TWELVE year old - but no way on earth OR atevi world is a seven year old going on eight thinking and reacting like this kid.

Plus - a big deal is made of his birthday, when he is becoming eight. Well I don't know about you guys, but I became 'eight' at the END of my eighth year of life, not the beginning of it.

Unless atevi call a newborn 'one year old' like the Chinese are rumored to do - in which case he is even YOUNGER....

Look, that stuff bugs me big time.

In order to save my time, my fingers and your time, please assume that you have just read my standard rant about the criminal lack of editing by the major publishing houses these days. These are mistakes that should have been caught in the editing process.
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pence

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I have a recollection that on the way back from Reunion there were pregnancies, because the Reunioners had been freed from the constraints on births. There were only a very few children in Cajieri's age cohort.
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ready
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Quote:
 
4.5 million in 200 yrs is easy. Expansion to 6 million 20 yrs later--equally easy.


I ran some numbers based on the following short term projections:
At start of time span (Bren's interrogation at Malguri) the then current population of Mospheira was 4.3 million (Foreigner chapter IX page 310 in my copy) . Average life span was guestimated at 90 years. Time span length was ten years between time the two numbers 4.3 million and 6.7 million (I think it was actually in the three to five year time frame but I need to go back and check for sure). I postulated that the percentage of women in the population was about 55% (biological bias towards more females than males) and that a woman's average child-bearing years were spread over twenty years. That meant that about 2/9 of the women would bear children during the time period. I estimated 3 births per child-bearer during that 10 year period (based on historic data) and added it to the base population. I then subtracted out 1/9th of the population due to death in the 10 year period. Total population at the end of the time span was approx 5.2 million. In order to get up to 6.7 million I had to expand the number of children born within a woman's child-bearing years to 12.5. Given the lack of chronic crowding, the small family sizes for the known families (Bren was one of two children, Toby had two children, and I think I remember Shawn Tyers having three) and lack of strain on infrastructure I don't believe the population of Mospheira (excluding Phoenix crew and stationers) could have expanded that quickly. I'm not saying that the population couldn't have grown that large that quickly but as a professional mathematical researcher it is highly unlikely.
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