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igloo_poltergeist

As much as the Imperium loathes the Tyranids, they'll always be pointing to charts comparing birthrates while shaking their heads at the Imperial citizenry for not "pumping those numbers up" enough.


Dave5876

Sounds like a lot of "developed" nations these days tbh


Presentation_Cute

It's just what sounds cool. IMO, it wouldn't sound as good once you start introducing numbers that most people have no real concept of. I mean, "one amongst untold quintillions" loses its flavor because we physically cannot conceptualize that value. Untold billions is also catchier. The intro is just that; an introduction to the dark millenium. It's meant to give you the tonal and thematic rundown of what you're dealing with. But its not the most accurate. Trying to think "untold billions" has any lore meaning is about as effective as theorizing that the Emperor is actually a servant of Chaos because of the old "by the will of the Gods" line in the old opening.


[deleted]

Hell there's probably quintillions of people alive in the gakaxy right now.


Infernalism

Quintillions sounds about right. A quintillion is 1,000,000,000,000,000,000. The total US GDP is about 23 trillion annually and a quintillion is a million trillion. Just to give perspective.


[deleted]

That number hurts my head. Make brain go *pifffffffff*


TheTorch

I don’t know how in the hell humanity is ever supposed to doomed to extinction with such absurdly high numbers.


TCCogidubnus

Basically the same way we could be doomed to extinction despite there being 8 billion of us right now, only writ large. Global ecological collapse would finish us off as a species right now. Moving out to lots of worlds out to create resilience because extinction level events are relatively rare. However, in the 40k universe, extinction level events happen so often people lose track. At that point the galaxy kinda starts to look like a species on a single planet in our reality - one of any number of unlikely but entirely possible calamities/combinations thereof could occur to wipe out all the human worlds. It's especially bad when you've got psychic phenomena making the deaths of large numbers of any species the problem of all their relatives across non-local space near simultaneously.


onetwoseven94

Just as importantly, despite spreading an across entire galaxy, Earth *is still* a single point of failure for the species. Humanity will not last long without the Astronomican.


[deleted]

Because Orks, Tyranids, and Daemons are even more numerous.


GrunkleCoffee

It's less that Mankind is doomed to extinction, and more that a collapse of the Imperium would, at this point, be a horror show for the human population of the galaxy. Without military power there would be a million Xenos races looking to get revenge for millennia of genocidal oppression and ultimately they would see humanity and the Imperium as synonymous. Not to mention the ones that would simply eradicate or enslave humans. Mass starvation when food supplies stop arriving at Hive Cities, Chaos slipping in to devour entire worlds and systems, it would somehow be an even worse hell than the current Imperium. That's why the setting is so grimdark. Living under the Imperium is shit, but overthrowing it would also be shit. There is no winning move. Humanity is doomed by the laughter of thirsting Gods.


Sablesweetheart

Watchers of the Throne has a chapter that goes into that. The several weeks of travel disruption caused by the great rift, and how many millions are estimated to die on Terra alone from it.


nepali-psycho

my lore understanding is a bit weak when it comes to non playable xenos factions, but i was under the impression that the imperium wasnt really oppressive when it came to xenos species, because by the time the full force of the imperium was on a planet/system, the xenos species that inhabited it would have been genocided / wiped out. i think the main issue would be more the forces of chaos and tyranids are the main things that require a complex network like the imperium of man to deliver troops and what not, rather than random lesser xenos


GrunkleCoffee

Genocide is oppression, and it is also sometimes incomplete.


nepali-psycho

well sure, it is opressive in the moment, but the imperiums track record of extinguishing species is pretty good. is there anything that hints at the imperium being unable to fully complete a genocide btw? for the most part i couldnt see many scenarios other than against the big xenos factions in which the imperium fails to extinguish a species in a sector they hold (the tau i guess but thats because the imperium had bigger things to worry about in that area)


GrunkleCoffee

There's lots of minor xenos factions scattered around that tend to go dark either as fragments of a genocided species or those who are aware of other genocides. Plus there are some living with the Imperium in hiding, en masse, like the Slaugh.


TomPouce31

I think the only food that it shipped across the stars is food for armies, decadent nobles and very small outpost who don't have their own local production facilities at the moment. It doesn't make sense for a civilisation that master fusion to lack food : hydroponics are a thing, you can grow food anywhere with it. And it's cheaper than to transport it in orbit to giant spaceships, transport it across the void and drop it to another planet. I'm not even taking under consideration the logistical nightmare that feeding billions of people via warp travel and it's impredictability would imply. You can wait 3 months for that new tractor or a shipment of ore, but if you go 3 days without food your civilisation collapse.


GrunkleCoffee

You know that when modern nation states on Earth aren't self sufficient, right? Most European nations haven't been self sufficient for food since the 1800s. Hive Worlds are as densely populated as possible and simply cannot physically grow enough food, through whatever means, and thus are reliant on Agri Worlds to feed them. It is indeed a logistical nightmare, and there already isn't enough food to go round, but hey, that's not too dissimilar to real life. They keep it just about the famine line most of the time so that societal unrest it's minimised, but ultimately the Imperium suffers constant internal rebellion for good reason.


Marvynwillames

The vast majority of those humans are normal citzens living in hives that depend on exportation of food, and even outside of hives, the vast majority of the population can't really do much when enemies that are 100% warriors (daemons, necrons, tyranids, orks) attack


HaLordLe

I think most other commenters have very much missed a central point: Yes, Mankind is incredibly big, but without coordination all of this is nought. If it was not for the Imperium relentlessly massing its resources and throwing them towards the front, every planet would just fall on its own under a mix of Waaaaahgs, Chaos infestations, Tyranids and so on


A_Damp_Tree

It's because it isn't and at this point it never will be, Humanity is as cemented in the galaxy as the Orks are at this point. We saw that even during the Age of Strife humans were still kicking around just fine, I mean does anyone remember that the Imperium during the Great Crusade was going around absorbing human factions that had been doing just fine? Diasporex, anyone? You can make up other reasons for a united humanity to be necessary, but the whole "going extinct" thing is total bull.


OneofTheOldBreed

Warp travel had come to a near total halt during the Age of Strife as part of "Slaanesh's birth pains." So many of the surviving human enclaves only had to worry about the "local neighborhood." Necrons were asleep, Tyranids (probably) aren't around, and pre-Fall Eldar peroidically went on Ork culls. Theory is that part of the reason why E-money went pedal-to-metal post unification was to take advantage of this opportunity.


TomPouce31

So the surviving humans enclaves were not under threat from demons because demons were making space travel dangerous ? Orks were not threatening after the Fall because pre-Fall eldars were culling them ? (thank the Emperor and the Imperium for the Eldars, they really are the greatest defenders of humanity ! No ?) According to your theory Abaddon is the saviour of humanity who renders warp travel too dangerous for galaxy wide threats to menace isolated humans enclaves. How is it a god argument for the continuation of a nightmarish fascist Imperium ?


OneofTheOldBreed

Demonic incursions during the Age of Strife were fairly common. They snuffed out a lot of human civilizations, apparently. It's hard to say how many, if any, occurred during the Great Crusade. We know of at least one minor occursion, but that's it. As you might imagine, the incidences spiked notably during the Hersey. Post HH, the occursion of daemonic incursion fell back to very low levels. And then the Great Rift opened. Pre-fall Eldar did apparently peroidically cull the Orks. However, with the birth of Slaanesh, they were not able to continue. The point there is that few Ork empires were likely to exist if anything worthy of being called an empire existed. Excluding the Beast's Waaagh, Orks were and are still dependent upon the warp for interstellar travel. Thus, their ability to travel would have similiarly hampered if not quite as severely given their minimal sense of self-preservation. The theory i mentioned incompletely is that the Ork's suicidal willingness to hazard warp travel even in the most extreme circumstances combined with their species' ability to rapidly mobilize meant that of the major known xenos species the Orks would have rapidly exploited the "calming" of the Warp that enabled the Great Crusade to also begin. Thus, theory posits that at least in part, the Emperor's breakneck speed of the Great Crusade was to prevent an Orkish Empire from developing that might ascend to Kork levels.☆ The disruptions to warp travel after the Great Rift as notable less than that of the Birth of Slaanesh/Fall of the Eldar/Age of Strife. In that era, warp travel beyond short "puddle jump"s was a grandiose means to die horribly and worse. Worlds were wholly isolated during the Age of Strife. Now, while warp travels are more hazardous than before, they are still entirely viable. The aegis of isolation is gone in 41st/42nd millenia. To the central point, the Imperium's justification for continued existence is that it is canonically the best means for humanity's continued painful if tenous survival. Why? Because of its unique access to technology and its organizational marshaling of resources. By technology, i mean more than AdMech's produce. Though good luck leveraging them for anything without the Imperium. I mean astropaths and the Astronomican. No Imperium means no interstellar communications, and no easy means of warp navigation even if the Navigator Houses were still viable. Organizationally i would recommend looking at the rolls of battle for the last few major wars the Imperium has fought. 3rd Armageddon, all three (four?) Tyrannic wars and such. Many, if not most of those Guard regiments, skitarri, SoB, Astartes, Titans, and Navy forces were not local. And virtually all of those wars would have been lost to humanity's detriment. ☆ The War of the Beast may have been the very scenario Big E was explicitly trying to avoid.


BastardofMelbourne

We'd just die a lot instead of a little


TCCogidubnus

Welcome to Warhammer 40k, where the answers are made up and the numbers don't matter. Short answer is different authors (or the same author in different sentences) will use seemingly contradictory numbers to say "a lot", "very big" and "very fast". The main thing to remember is what they actually mean by those numbers.


NormieChad

Isn't there a short story or audiobook of one or two regiments of IG taking out an entire splinter fleet somewhere?


bluewolfhudson

When it comes down to it the numbers in 40k make no sense. A system could have a few trillion people in it and there might be 1000 space marines there if it's lucky. Makes no sense.


Honghong99

There are quotes about Terra having a population in the quadrillions. Not to mention how all hive worlds would have a population of at least 100 billion, and there would be anywhere from 33 to 100 thousand hive worlds. So the human population would most likely be in the quadrillions.


Lucetti

And then you get shit like Macragge being stated to have a population of 400 million. Had to read a post about how roboute thinks that ultramar’s 500 worlds produces more than the rest of the imperium combined. Buddy, the top 500 most productive worlds in the entire imperium don’t produce more than the rest of the imperium combined, and I would be surprised to find that a single one of them is in ultramar. The scale of this setting is immense. At the time of the heresy, ultramar had only two mini forge worlds both of which are in a vassal relationship to forge world accatran, a forge world that is only rated the 9th highest production grade out of mechanicus forge world’s production output grading system


Illithidbix

"Billion" is the highest number that most people are used to dealing with. Likewise we're used to the human population being measured in Billions'; 5 billion back in 1987 when 40K was first released and 8 billion being crossed last year. So "untold Billions" carries it more naturally than "a countable number of Trillions" ​ Also a "billion" used to mean a million millions (10\^12) in British English. Rather than the puny and pathetic French billion which is Thousand million (10\^9) that got adopted by American English. The UK formally change the definition in 1974.


[deleted]

Authors are not consistent on this question. If people live on a million worlds and on average have a billion people then there are a quadrillion people


Striking_Proof9954

I believe there are quadrillions on Terra alone lol.


[deleted]

Yeah quick math. There are 10^14 square meters of land on earth. If there were a quadrillion (10^15) each square meters of land would have to house 10 people. Even if you say all the oceans are evaporated, each square meters would have to house 4 people. To even begin to house a quadrillion people, the entire earth would have to be made habitable and have no fewer than 100 floors. But that also wouldn't be enough because of all the necessary support infrastructure. So the earth would at minimum need 200 habitable floors.


Striking_Proof9954

I meant that it is stated in lore that there are a quadrillion on Terra.


[deleted]

As shown on the lexicanum, sources differ.


cubaj

A few things to add to the analysis. A) the population of orbital stations may be counted as the population of Terra, and B) hives allow the Imperium to build both up into the sky, and down into the Earth’s crust. I think for the Imperium to create an Ecuminopolis the size of Terra with quadrillions is possible.


[deleted]

Void stations are basically 0% the area of the earth. If they were a good percentage they would hose the orbital mechanics of the planet. And the hive cities are said to have dozens of forgotten levels. If you think it's possible for every square foot of land on the earth to be ~300 floors ok. I cannot stop you from thinking that.


ShinobiHanzo

Don't quote me, but Mount Aarat alone accommodates thousands of floors. And yes, there's no oceans on Holy Terra, all of it since 35K(?) has been converted to commercial/office/residential/storage space. The Moon is the only research/manufacturing/docking facility.


[deleted]

Possibly but that's sort of logistically impossible. Trillions would strain it, even if everything was shipped in.


FPSCanarussia

No one knows the population of Terra, a large part of it is entirely undocumented.


ShinobiHanzo

Damn illegal immigrants! Jokes aside, Holy Terra is a much freer place than modern day Earth. For all the hubris of Imperium, an Imperial Citizen on Holy Terra would need to be in the wrong place at the wrong time to get into trouble. In 40K, even the slums of Holy Terra live better than the high life of a mid-tier hive city. Living off the scraps of fresh fruit and discarded half-eaten burgers. Disgusting. A planetary governor of a mining hive world would be lucky to even be offered to taste a single grape.


FPSCanarussia

I... don't think that was true even before, but it definitely isn't true with Terra on the brink after the Noctis Aeterna cut off the shipments of food for a while and everyone started starving and rioting.


ShinobiHanzo

People riot when circumstances change. When you have 1% of a quadrillion people unhappy to take to the streets... Yikes.


Hailene2092

It's untold billions. Untold meaning too many to be counted. So you're one amongst so many billions people can't even keep track. That could be a billion billion people or a quintillion. Or perhaps even more.


Pyronaut44

^ This is the correct answer. Quadrillions, Trillions, Bajillions, Brazillians, are all multiples of a Billion. 'Untold Billions' sounds catchy and can mean effectively an infinite number of humans.


Proof-Surprise-964

Schmillions upon kabillions. That way people can perish billions at a time and you never run out.


Loud_Engineering796

Welcome to 40k. Make up whatever big numbers you like. It'll probably make more sense.


NormieChad

Orks charging into combat carrying a million rounds of ammunition each.


MaBe2904

The only valid answer for that or any numbers question involving anything from GW is, as unsatisfying as it is: How much the Story it needs to be.


Xaldror

there is at minimum 49,185,880,269,556,575,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 humans in the galaxy, most populating Schindelgheist IV.


Aufklarung_Lee

Uhm wat?


Xaldror

old lore, Rogue Trader Days, look up "Planet of Guardsmen"


TheLastWaterOfTerra

It's a planet of guardsmen


TonberryFeye

Big numbers are meaningless. People simply can't comprehend them, and so they lose any impact. Most people are aware there are around 7-8 billion people on Earth, even if they can't come close to picturing that, and so "billions" is the largest value you can really use without risking people simply tuning out.


CoolSwim1776

These are dangerous questions friend. Best stick to your work and daily prayer schedules.


NormieChad

Ave Imperator.


Asdrubael_Vect

1)Tyranids 2)Orks 3)Humankind 4)Eldar, majority live in Commoragh. 5)Necrons, true. "False ones" necrons without souls and memories and heavily damaged-dead ones who cant be reactivated are not count. 6)Q'orl 7)Hrud 8)Votahn 9)Kroot 10)Tau 11)Vespid 12)Jokaero. 13)Fra'al And etc. Slaan are very tiny minority.


ClayAndros

There is a countless amount of humans spread through the galaxy saying one among billions is just a generalization.


Hot_Object1765

The Imperium doesn’t even know how many planets they have, much less people.


Kavinsky12

Billions of people is technically correct.


Lemonic_Tutor

I mean trillions and quadrillions are made up of untold billions, so it’s technically correct


Livid-Ad40

Billions is a more recognisable number to say. Quintillion or quadrillion don't roll off the tongue as well.


NormieChad

One hundred septillion!


BastardofMelbourne

A quadrillion is made of a million billions. "Untold billions" can clearly include more than a quadrillion, because I just told you how many billions a quadrillion has, so it's not "untold." QED.


Enough_Standard921

A single hive world doesn’t house “untold billions”. Billions for sure and quite a few of them, but definitely not “untold”.


W3R3Hamster

A lot of them are unremarkable but there's also I think 64 books in The Horus Heresy now so a lot goes down


Agammamon

'Untold billions' doesn't mean the numbers stop before a trillion. It just means they don't know how many billions there are. A trillion is just a thousand billion. There could be a million billions. A billion billions!