Elendel vs The Final Empire

[RShara]

Isaac is doing an AMA on reddit, and I got confirmation that this overlay of the Elendel Basin over the Final Empire map was pretty close, size and location-wise. It's crazy thinking of how many people must have died and how little ground has been resettled since then! If I remember correctly, the population of Elendel is in the low millions somewhere, and the population of TFE was in the 100 million range. So we're talking a 90% loss of life. And pretty close to that for land, it seems.

[+Invocation]

Wow yeah that's...quite a difference.

[Friendshipspren]

Wow I thought they were similar in size and what really boggles my mind is that it's been 300 yrs yet there is no population explosion even though the final empire had horrible conditions while elendel has self renewing land , good climes and better medicine and technology. Damnation that would be impossible irl.

Up until the 18th century population was directly proportional to agricultural output . So even with the larger size , the final empire had pretty much the same agricultural output as elendel. Since :

A). The land wasn't renewing.

B). Large tracts of the empire was uncultivated and fallow .

C). The plants were less nutritional.

D).  The ashfalls took thier toll even with the ash consuming microbes. The skaa had to manually remove Ash from the plants.

Realistically the population of elendel should be higher than the empire or atleast in the 10s of millions. Khriss mentions that child mortality rates are quite high so that means ppl are still having more children.

So why is the population so low ?

Is it a blooper or is there some morbid minded entity at work ? The ruin part of Harmony maybe.

Edited October 2, 2019 by PrinceGenocide
A little polishing

[+Invocation]

2 hours ago, PrinceGenocide said:

So why is the population so low ?

There's only so many people you can shove into a small area, and Elendel is at that cap because no one leaves thanks to the Basin being too perfect for habitation. Plus, the indolence that arises as a result of having to "fight to harvest quick enough" as it is phrased doesn't lend itself to having a lot of children. It's also not long enough for the genetic bottleneck that arose after the survivors of the Catacendre came out of their shelters to find the majority of everyone dead to have gone away yet, which is likely impacting development on a multitude of levels. 

[Calderis]

@PrinceGenocide they haven't expanded out word because the plentiful area that allows all of that is the Basin on the smaller map.

Everything outside of that is "The roughs" and much harsher. 

[RShara]

3 hours ago, PrinceGenocide said:

So why is the population so low ?

Because only some thousands of people survived the Catacendre in the Northern Continent. However many people fit into the caverns. They were large caverns, but it seems unlikely that they would amount to even a million people. 300 years is about 10 generations, give or take a few. If we want to guesstimate that 50-100 thousand people managed to get into the storage caches and caverns (and I think that's high, because there was no official evacuation), and they had an average of 4 children per couple, so that the population doubled every generation, we'd still be looking at the low millions of people in 10 generations.

[Karger]

1 hour ago, RShara said:

Because only some thousands of people survived the Catacendre in the Northern Continent. However many people fit into the caverns. They were large caverns, but it seems unlikely that they would amount to even a million people. 300 years is about 10 generations, give or take a few. If we want to guesstimate that 50-100 thousand people managed to get into the storage caches and caverns (and I think that's high, because there was no official evacuation), and they had an average of 4 children per couple, so that the population doubled every generation, we'd still be looking at the low millions of people in 10 generations.

Personally.  I think that in world people lowball Elendal's population.  Also individuals who live in different (poorer) lifesyles tend to produce more children.  Also survivorism stresses producing children(one of the reasons for its homophobia) so it could be as many has 5 children per couple.  That may not seem like that much over 10 generations but it adds up.

[Friendshipspren]

20 minutes ago, RShara said:

Because only some thousands of people survived the Catacendre in the Northern Continent. However many people fit into the caverns. They were large caverns, but it seems unlikely that they would amount to even a million people. 300 years is about 10 generations, give or take a few. If we want to guesstimate that 50-100 thousand people managed to get into the storage caches and caverns (and I think that's high, because there was no official evacuation), and they had an average of 4 children per couple, so that the population doubled every generation, we'd still be looking at the low millions of people in 10 generations.

Mam I'm afraid the math isn't on ur side.

  Let's assume the originator population was a low 10,000 .

So in 10 generations ,assuming the demographics doubled each generation. U would get the era 2 population as:

(2 ^10 )×10,000=

1024*10,000=10,240,000.

That's roughly 10 million.

Now let's move on to more realistical terms. I think about a fourth of the era 2 population is terris. 

Now in HoA , it's said some 40 thousand terris refugees are at hathsin. Now many were eunuchs , so let's say about 25 thousand of them count. So if the ethnic ratio was constant through the centuries , it means about 75 thousand other ppl made it alive. So we have a total originator population of a hundred thousand. So we get : 

(2 ^10 )×100,000=

1024*100,000=102,400,000.

That roughly 100 million.

Now in best case scenario , about 150 thousand ppl made it. In that case , we have :
    (2 ^10 )×150,000=

1024*150,000=153,600,000.

That 153.6 million

Even assuming a moderate originator population of 50,000 , we get :

(2 ^10 )×50,000=

1024*50,000=51,200,000.

That 51 million.

Geometric growth sure is amazing.

So yeah , there's either a mistake by Mr. Sanderson or there's some thing at work.

[RShara]

Let's say 10,000 people made it into the caverns. I think that's a really high number, but we'll run with it.

Gen 2 would be ~20,000. 3 would be 40,000, 4 would be 80,000, 5 would be 160,000, 6 would be 320,000, 7 would be 640,000, 8 would be ~1.3m, 9 would be 2.6m, 10 would be 5.2m, which is right around the estimated population, if I did my math right. You could add a million or so on to that if you think the average was 5 children (I don't feel like doing the math on that)? But an estimate of around 5-10 million seems right to me, without needed any other factors.

[Friendshipspren]

@Karger  nice to see someone who understands geometric growth.  Now u said survivorians  are homophobes and encourage increased fecundity. Really ?Well I didn't pay much attention to the religious parts while reading but are u sure ? I might have missed it . Can u like give some WoBs or quotes or something.

 

[RShara]

11 minutes ago, PrinceGenocide said:

@Karger  nice to see someone who understands geometric growth.  Now u said survivorians  are homophobes and encourage increased fecundity. Really ?Well I didn't pay much attention to the religious parts while reading but are u sure ? I might have missed it . Can u like give some WoBs or quotes or something.

 

Yeah, it's said in the books that Survivorists emphasize fecundity. I can't remember what segment of the population they are, however, and they would have sprung up a little while after the Catacendre and taken some time to become established. I really think that an average of 4 children per family is reasonable.

However, you're probably right that there were other factors. Space, illness, primitive conditions, would all account for some attrition, especially the first few generations. And I wonder how many became world hoppers?

Edited October 2, 2019 by RShara

[Friendshipspren]

9 minutes ago, RShara said:

Let's say 10,000 people made it into the caverns. I think that's a really high number, but we'll run with it.

Gen 2 would be ~20,000. 3 would be 40,000, 4 would be 80,000, 5 would be 160,000, 6 would be 320,000, 7 would be 640,000, 8 would be ~1.3m, 9 would be 2.6m, 10 would be 5.2m, which is right around the estimated population, if I did my math right. You could add a million or so on to that if you think the average was 5 children (I don't feel like doing the math on that)? But an estimate of around 5-10 million seems right to me, without needed any other factors.

Oh kkkk , I made a mistake. it's not (2^10)= 1024, it's ( 2^9 )=512.

I assume u will forgive my arrogance .

But I digress in other matters , I sincerely doubt only 10,000 ppl made it into the caverns.

I mean , at hathsin alone there were atleast 20,000 fertile terrismen and atleast a similar no of skaa and nobles. All of them fled to the caverns. It's what anyone would do when like 40 thousand Koloss are attacking u. U get into the safest place. In this case the caverns. 

Then there was urteau , where a lot of ppl escaped into the caverns to run from the fire raging across the city. I'm guessing at least 5000. 

Then fadrex where I'm sure Yomen was wise enough to here atleast 10,000 ppl into the caverns, if only as a defense against a feint by the Koloss. So u get some 50 thousand right there. 

So it would be :

512×50000= 25,600,000

So 25.6 million ppl. 

 

[RShara]

Sorry, I just edited my comment:

However, you're probably right that there were other factors. Space, illness, primitive conditions, would all account for quite a bit of attrition or limiting, especially the first few generations. And I wonder how many became world hoppers? I know Wax only had the one sister, and his father only had the one brother.

[+Invocation]

4 minutes ago, PrinceGenocide said:

But I digress in other matters , I sincerely doubt only 10,000 ppl made it into the caverns.

More might have made it into the caverns, but it's unclear how many died in the aftermath anyway. Trying to rebuild civilization would have some serious stress effects, and that would probably send at least a few people to an early grave.

[Friendshipspren]

3 hours ago, Invocation said:

There's only so many people you can shove into a small area, and Elendel is at that cap because no one leaves thanks to the Basin being too perfect for habitation. Plus, the indolence that arises as a result of having to "fight to harvest quick enough" as it is phrased doesn't lend itself to having a lot of children. It's also not long enough for the genetic bottleneck that arose after the survivors of the Catacendre came out of their shelters to find the majority of everyone dead to have gone away yet, which is likely impacting development on a multitude of levels. 

Nah. Like look at South Korea . It's probably tinier than elendel. And only 22% of it's land is arable. Yet they have a population of 50 million. They import a lot of food. But then again they can only farm on a fifth of the land and the land isn't as fertile as elendel's.  Although I guess chemical fertilizers compensate for that. 

Seeing that elendel is atleast twice as large and has like 80% arable land. It's actually not hard for them to support higher populations of atleast 20 million

[+Invocation]

15 minutes ago, PrinceGenocide said:

Nah. Like look at South Korea . It's probably tinier than elendel. And only 22% of it's land is arable. Yet they have a population of 50 million. They import a lot of food. But then again they can only farm on a fifth of the land and the land isn't as fertile as elendel's.  Although I guess chemical fertilizers compensate for that. 

Seeing that elendel is atleast twice as large and has like 80% arable land. It's actually not hard for them to support higher populations of atleast 20 million

South Korea is also a much more advanced society (you mentioned chemical fertilizers, but that doesn't even cover the half of it!), not to mention that they're not still trying to recover from an apocalypse that wasn't all that long ago in generational terms. South Korea is also an outlier in terms of population density, and Elendel hasn't gotten to the point that they need to be that dense yet. 

Edit: Look at SK over time. [https://tradingeconomics.com/south-korea/population] Their population is shooting up thanks to modern stuff, which Elendel has none of.

Edited October 2, 2019 by Invocation

[RShara]

18 minutes ago, PrinceGenocide said:

Nah. Like look at South Korea . It's probably tinier than elendel. And only 22% of it's land is arable. Yet they have a population of 50 million. They import a lot of food. But then again they can only farm on a fifth of the land and the land isn't as fertile as elendel's.  Although I guess chemical fertilizers compensate for that. 

Seeing that elendel is atleast twice as large and has like 80% arable land. It's actually not hard for them to support higher populations of atleast 20 million

I'm sure the population will continue to go up. But you're comparing a fully modern country (SK) to one that started with literally nothing, not so much as a stick of cut wood, other than what was in the storage caches, and is barely entering the Industrial Revolution currently. How fast did populations rise 100-200 years ago?

As an example, here in Utah, reproduction is hugely encouraged. It's not rare to find 6+ children, and it's been like that since its settlement. However, we've still only have a population of less than 5 million, despite arable and buildable land that I'm sure is comparable to Elendel Basin, if not more.

"In 1850, the Utah population was recorded at 11,380 but some significant increases were to follow. Just ten years later, the census of 1860 revealed a leap in figures of over 250% to 40,273.

Further sustained growth was to follow and by the end of the century, the population of Utah had grown to 276,749. While the overall picture through the 1900s was one of further increases, it wasn’t until 1970 that numbers breached the one million mark for the very first time.

However, from that point onwards, percentage increases on a census by census basis have been quite significant, and in the present day, the Utah population is now climbing toward three million.

Utah Population Growth

While the Utah population may be relatively small, it is growing rapidly. By the time of the next census in 2020, figures should have comfortably exceeded three million."

http://worldpopulationreview.com/states/utah-population/

Edited October 2, 2019 by RShara

[Karger]

1 hour ago, RShara said:

Gen 2 would be ~20,000. 3 would be 40,000, 4 would be 80,000, 5 would be 160,000, 6 would be 320,000, 7 would be 640,000, 8 would be ~1.3m, 9 would be 2.6m, 10 would be 5.2m, which is right around the estimated population, if I did my math right. You could add a million or so on to that if you think the average was 5 children (I don't feel like doing the math on that)? But an estimate of around 5-10 million seems right to me, without needed any other factors.

Is the estimated population for Elendel or the entire basin.  Other settlements do exist.

[+Invocation]

5 minutes ago, Karger said:

Is the estimated population for Elendel or the entire basin.  Other settlements do exist.

True, other areas exist, but a solid chunk is in Elendel. Wax said something like 8 million in Elendel, if I recall correctly.

Edited October 2, 2019 by Invocation

[Karger]

21 minutes ago, Invocation said:

True, other areas exist, but a solid chunk is in Elendel. Wax said something like 8 million in Elendel, if I recall correctly.

He also says that no one realy knows how many people live in each octant.

[+Invocation]

Just now, Karger said:

He also says that no one realy knows how many people live in each octant.

True, but 8 million seems like a fair estimate. 

[Karger]

23 hours ago, RShara said:

and the population of TFE was in the 100 million range

I would like a source on that if possible.  It is not on TFE's coppermind page(and it should be).

[RShara]

Just now, Karger said:

I would like a source on that if possible.  It is not on TFE's coppermind page(and it should be).

Quote

wackyHair

What's the population of the shardworld's we've seen so far (even in very general terms, like one's much bigger than the others or something)?

Brandon Sanderson

Scadrial is certainly the least populated of the major shard worlds. Then Nalthis, I'd guess, followed by Roshar, and finally Sel--which likely has the largest population. I would have to look closely to see which is bigger between those last two.

Phantine

Does a population of about 100 million during The Final Empire (with 1-2 million in Luthadel), and around 15 million during Alloy of Law (with about 5 million in Elendel) seem right?

Brandon Sanderson

Have to RAFO this for now, for reasons I can't explain without giving spoilers.

Phantine

How about as far as Elend/Wax knows, at the beginning of their respective series?

Brandon Sanderson

Then those numbers, if they're off, are at least close.

faragorn

Interesting that Sel has such a large population, given that the actual numbers of soldiers shown seem to be quite small.

Brandon Sanderson

Let's just say that Opelon has an inflated opinion of its own size in relation to the rest of the world.

Footnote: The RAFO about the Scadrian population may be due to the existence of the Southerners, which had not been revealed as of this time.
/r/books AMA 2015 (June 8, 2015)

 

[Karger]

10 minutes ago, RShara said:

Then those numbers, if they're off, are at least close.

Thank you

[Friendshipspren]

@RShara,@Invocation , yeah I guess it is ridiculous to compare a modern country with elendel. And yeah , the originators didn't have things easy. 

But u seem have agreed upon a population of 10-15 million. Yeah that's fine by me.. 

Still I wonder if similar trends occured in the south ? If they have similarly low populations. They probably do. 

Well this was fun.