The sheer horror of the Catacendre just struck me

[Nightstar The Bright]

Like the title states, the sheer horror of the Catacendre just struck me. Around a hundred million people lived in the Final Empire. About 40 000 Terris people lived at the pits, and a fifth of the originators were Terris. While there would have been more Terris people, there couldn’t have been that much more. So a little over 200 000 people survived the Catacendre. 
 

Wow, that’s more then 99 million deaths… For reference, 75 million people died in ww2. 

[+Oltux72 he/him]

46 minutes ago, Nightstar The Bright said:

Wow, that’s more then 99 million deaths… For reference, 75 million people died in ww2. 

Brandon Sanderson is a bloodthirsty butcher. He is just very nice about it. He won't torture somebody on screen, but megadeaths in the background is OK.

[alder24]

11 minutes ago, Nightstar The Bright said:

Like the title states, the sheer horror of the Catacendre just struck me. Around a hundred million people lived in the Final Empire. About 40 000 Terris people lived at the pits, and a fifth of the originators were Terris. While there would have been more Terris people, there couldn’t have been that much more. So a little over 200 000 people survived the Catacendre. 
 

Wow, that’s more then 99 million deaths… For reference, 75 million people died in ww2. 

It's even worse when you look at this in percentages. Around 3% of the world's population (total ~2.3 bil) died during WW2. Less than 1%, 0.2% to be precise, of the Final Empire population survived Catacendre - 99.8% died. That's horrific. For comparison, Mongols conquests killed approximately 11% of the total world population, while the Three Kingdom war killed around 20% of the global population, both are nowhere near as high as Catacendre. The Black Death killed 30-60% of the European population, 17-54% of the entire global population. Still only halfway there at best.

Let's look at the global extinction events. 66 mil years ago Chicxulub impact event killed an estimated 75% of all species on Earth.  250 mil years ago the Late Permian extinction event, the Great Dying, the biggest extinction event on Earth, killed 80-95% of all marine species and around 70% of all terrestrial species. This means that Catacendre was harsher to northern Scadrians than the biggest extinction event was for all life on Earth. The death toll among terrestrial species was probably very high too because of all the ashfall and later sun's heat. This is just wild.

[Treamayne]

1 hour ago, Nightstar The Bright said:

Like the title states, the sheer horror of the Catacendre just struck me. Around a hundred million people lived in the Final Empire. About 40 000 Terris people lived at the pits, and a fifth of the originators were Terris. While there would have been more Terris people, there couldn’t have been that much more. So a little over 200 000 people survived the Catacendre. 
 

Wow, that’s more then 99 million deaths… For reference, 75 million people died in ww2. 

You may want to check out these (older) threads:

• Population of the Final Empire
• HoA Impact on population
• (Era 2 spoilers) Scadrian Industrial Revolution
  • Population impacts are discussed

 

[Nightstar The Bright]

12 hours ago, Treamayne said:

You may want to check out these (older) threads:

There’s a wob somewhere that says that about 100 million people lived in the Final Empire. So yeah… do the math and 200 000 people survived…

[Treamayne]

2 hours ago, Nightstar The Bright said:

There’s a wob somewhere that says that about 100 million people lived in the Final Empire. So yeah… do the math and 200 000 people survived…

Do you mean this WoB?

Spoiler

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.

/r/books AMA 2015 (June 8, 2015)

Because that was kind-of my point, 100 million has never been confirmed by Brandon or his team, they are fan generated calculations. The best we get is "it's close," so I thought you might be interested in the threads where those numbers were calculated. I wasn't trying to dispute anything you said, just provide additional info to you (and anybody reading this thread).

[Nightstar The Bright]

On 12/29/2023 at 12:30 PM, Treamayne said:

Because that was kind-of my point, 100 million has never been confirmed by Brandon or his team, they are fan generated calculations. The best we get is "it's close," so I thought you might be interested in the threads where those numbers were calculated. I wasn't trying to dispute anything you said, just provide additional info to you (and anybody reading this thread).

Well, no indeed it wasn’t confirmed, he did however say that it’s close, and a couple million more or less then 100 doesn’t really matter for the true horror of the Catacendre.

[Treamayne]

1 hour ago, Nightstar The Bright said:

Well, no indeed it wasn’t confirmed, he did however say that it’s close, and a couple million more or less then 100 doesn’t really matter for the true horror of the Catacendre.

You know, it's okay to just say "I don't care about reading old threads" ?

No need to quibble semantics (or use sarcastic "do the math" comments) when I was just trying to be thorough and help you find info I thought you might be interested in reading.

[Duxredux he/him]

Just saying... Scadrial was horrifying waaaay before the Catacendre. The series starts with attempted legal rape, murder and a massacre before we even get out of the prologue. There's the slaughter of the Vin's old crew, Camon's execution by a Steel Inquisitor, and general skaa treatment including arbitrary executions. The very mechanism of Hemalurgy with the distortion of human souls to create Koloss or Inquisitor puppets for Ruin is deeply disturbing. Throw in the siege of Luthadel with the invading Koloss, and the Terris breeding program and Scadrial seemed horrible to me long before what was basically the end of the world.

Yes, the death toll leading up to the Catacendre was terrible. Quality of life on average was dreadful. The fact that smiling and choosing to be happy was one of the greatest legacies of Kelsier is really disturbing when you think about how extraordinary people thought that was.

Edited December 30, 2023 by Duxredux

[Nightstar The Bright]

23 hours ago, Treamayne said:

You know, it's okay to just say "I don't care about reading old threads" ?

No need to quibble semantics (or use sarcastic "do the math" comments) when I was just trying to be thorough and help you find info I thought you might be interested in reading.

Yeah that’s the problem with online chatting. You can’t accurately read someone’s tone. I did read the threads, and they were interesting, the Catacendre was really horrible. I meant no harm/anger, I’m sorry if you experienced it that way. 

[Treamayne]

9 minutes ago, Nightstar The Bright said:

Yeah that’s the problem with online chatting. You can’t accurately read someone’s tone. I did read the threads, and they were interesting, the Catacendre was really horrible. I meant no harm/anger, I’m sorry if you experienced it that way. 

That's why my signature has a color code, and I use text highlighting when tone of voice is important to my message (as per the message you quoted).

That said, some acknowledgment of what you were quoteing rather than making the same point three times in a row would go a long way to pointing out that the message was received and appreciated. By just saying some variant of the same sentance three times in a row (and without further context), it comes across as:

Quote

<fingers in ears> "my message matters more"

I don't think that is what you meant (now), but that was the tone I received - sans context. More personal example (and please tell me if this is an issue).

Your original Quote:

On 12/29/2023 at 4:19 AM, Nightstar The Bright said:

On 12/28/2023 at 4:05 PM, Treamayne said:

You may want to check out these (older) threads:

There’s a wob somewhere that says that about 100 million people lived in the Final Empire. So yeah… do the math and 200 000 people survived…

What I think you may have meant based on neew context:

On 12/29/2023 at 4:19 AM, Nightstar The Bright said:

On 12/28/2023 at 4:05 PM, Treamayne said:

You may want to check out these (older) threads:

Interesting links. I [did|didn't] know that the fans generated that number. Wasn't there a WoB somewhere about that?

So, 200,000 survived - Does my math still hold?

Do you see the difference?

• One example "feels" like it's blowing the comment off to restate the original post (with a side of sarcastic "do the math")
• The other example acknowledges the information, restates the opinion and asks if we agree or not (with a side of faux-self deprication)

Does that make sense to anybody other than me?

[alder24]

27 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

Does that make sense to anybody other than me?

I've never interpreted this:

On 12/29/2023 at 10:19 AM, Nightstar The Bright said:

On 12/28/2023 at 10:05 PM, Treamayne said:

You may want to check out these (older) threads:

There’s a wob somewhere that says that about 100 million people lived in the Final Empire. So yeah… do the math and 200 000 people survived…

as:

22 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

Quote

<fingers in ears> "my message matters more"

but as:

Quote

I based my numbers on this one WoB that said "around 100 million," and when you do the math you get 200k out of 100 million.

But the "you" here is general "you", not "you Treamayne do your own math," or something dismissive/sarcastic. So I was really surprised by your "drama color" comment because from my point of view it was out of nowhere.

[Longshot97 he/him]

On 12/28/2023 at 1:37 PM, Nightstar The Bright said:

Like the title states, the sheer horror of the Catacendre just struck me. Around a hundred million people lived in the Final Empire. About 40 000 Terris people lived at the pits, and a fifth of the originators were Terris. While there would have been more Terris people, there couldn’t have been that much more. So a little over 200 000 people survived the Catacendre. 
 

Wow, that’s more then 99 million deaths… For reference, 75 million people died in ww2. 

It's even more striking when you realize that this all occurred to Preservation's plan. This was the only way to help Scadrial. Any other way, and there would have been a planet-wide extinction.

I wonder if any Shardworlds have ever experienced true planet-wide extinction events...Ashyn, I guess?

[alder24]

6 minutes ago, Longshot97 said:

I wonder if any Shardworlds have ever experienced true planet-wide extinction events...Ashyn, I guess?

Not even Ashyn, at least there was no full extinction on Ashyn. There were survivors, those who fled to Roshar and those who stayed and settled in the clouds. But situation on Ashyn was probably comparable to Catacendre.

Spoiler

Questioner

A friend of mine wanted me to ask: Was the cataclysm that rocked Ashyn and forced its inhabitants into the flying cities Investiture-based, and if it was was it Shardic in nature?

Brandon Sanderson

The same cataclysm that the-- did you finish [Oathbringer]?

Questioner

Yes.

Brandon Sanderson

The same cataclysm that they were fleeing, that they caused, is the one that forced people into the skies...

Oathbringer Portland signing (Nov. 16, 2017)

However there was a major Shardworld that was destroyed, so there is at least one place with probably 100% fatalities:

Spoiler

Excelsius

Has ever a Shard been forced - besides Odium in Roshar - to leave their planet after it was destroyed.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Excelsius

Yes - besides Odium?

Brandon Sanderson

Besides Odium? Yes. Has a Shard been forced to leave their planet after the planet was destroyed? Yes.

Bonn Signing (May 15, 2019)

[Nightstar The Bright]

17 hours ago, Treamayne said:

Do you see the difference?

• One example "feels" like it's blowing the comment off to restate the original post (with a side of sarcastic "do the math")
• The other example acknowledges the information, restates the opinion and asks if we agree or not (with a side of faux-self deprication)

Does that make sense to anybody other than me?

Your right here, that’s better. 

17 hours ago, Treamayne said:

That's why my signature has a color code, and I use text highlighting when tone of voice is important to my message (as per the message you quoted).

That said, some acknowledgment of what you were quoteing rather than making the same point three times in a row would go a long way to pointing out that the message was received and appreciated. By just saying some variant of the same sentance three times in a row (and without further context), it comes across as:

A color code is nice I suppose, but I think that’s a little over the top, a little to much effort, for me. Your right about me saying the same thing thrice, but I felt more like; hey nice threads, but they don’t really matter to my point here. And so I stated my point again. Online chatting can get a little confusing sometimes lmao. Once again I’m sorry for sounding rude, I didn’t mean it that way.

 

16 hours ago, alder24 said:

But the "you" here is general "you", not "you Treamayne do your own math," or something dismissive/sarcastic. So I was really surprised by your "drama color" comment because from my point of view it was out of nowhere.

Alder is right here. It was more like, when a person does the math, instead of when YOU do the math. It wasn’t a personal attack.

 

15 hours ago, Longshot97 said:

It's even more striking when you realize that this all occurred to Preservation's plan. This was the only way to help Scadrial. Any other way, and there would have been a planet-wide extinction.

I wonder if any Shardworlds have ever experienced true planet-wide extinction events...Ashyn, I guess?

I love how preservation, who cares so much about preserving things and people, thought of this plan but couldn’t bring himself to hit Elend with a knife. That’s a good example, if there isn’t something else playing, of how a vessel is changed by a shard, aligning to the shard’s intent.

 

15 hours ago, alder24 said:

However there was a major Shardworld that was destroyed, so there is at least one place with probably 100% fatalities:

Oh wow, I never knew that WoB existed, nice though, I wonder when we’ll see (/ hear of because it’s destroyed) the planet. 

[+Oltux72 he/him]

22 hours ago, alder24 said:

However there was a major Shardworld that was destroyed, so there is at least one place with probably 100% fatalities:

  Hide contents

Excelsius

Has ever a Shard been forced - besides Odium in Roshar - to leave their planet after it was destroyed.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Excelsius

Yes - besides Odium?

Brandon Sanderson

Besides Odium? Yes. Has a Shard been forced to leave their planet after the planet was destroyed? Yes.

Bonn Signing (May 15, 2019)

(Cosmere & Announcements)

Spoiler

This may be the first mention of the "Grand Apparatus" from the state of the Sanderson 2023. They fled into space building a megastructure. Innovation?

[Nightstar The Bright]

(Cosmere and accouncements)

Spoiler

It could be, but I see no good reason for it to be.

 

[Voidlit Man he/him]

Another thing to consider, the Terris were close to extinct in The final Empire, but make up a sizeable amount of the population in MIstborn Era II, probably because a much smaller percentage of them died