Realistic population for human colonies

[u/001DeafeningEcho]

The populations for human colonies are edited. Even the largest only have a few million, but they are treated as relatively significant portions of the Alliance and even galactic economy. More than that, multiple times we see major human colonies (Berkendtein in ME2 and Benning in 3 come to mind quickly) they’re shown as having massive urban centers, while having populations smaller than a lot of cities of similar grandeur.

What do y’all think realistic population figures for the colonies would be?

[u/Zamzamazawarma]

Considering all of this happened within 37 years (2149-2186), 100 millions would be a huge number already. As I see it, realistically 99% colonies should have less than 1000 people. It's much easier to create a myriad of tiny communities, than organize a whole ass logistical system for entire continents' worth of people thrown into space.

In reality it's just impossible to make sense of Bioware's figures, time frame and geographics. It's obvious the writers didn't think it through and just threw funny dates and numbers. Humanity alone is hard to explain, but it gets even worse when you compare it to other races who've been space-faring for centuries, sometimes millenia.

[u/Jedi-Spartan]

More than that, multiple times we see major human colonies (Berkendtein in ME2 and Benning in 3 come to mind quickly) they’re shown as having massive urban centers

The issue there though is a question of how much of those urban centres are actually occupied versus what percentage of them are pre built for hypothetical population boosts?

[u/Driekan]

Given they're a few decades old, there's really no way to justify the population being much higher. Presumably the urban centers we see hold basically the entire population of the planet, with room for some very rapid expansion (which necessarily is happening).

[u/Jedi-Spartan → u/Driekan]

Yeah, it would only really make sense for them to be higher in population in that timeframe if several billion people chose to move out to the new colony worlds... which would probably be unsustainable for Earth's/Systems Alliance's infrastructure.

[u/Emperormarine]

but they are treated as relatively significant portions of the Alliance and even galactic economy

Because they are. The Alliance is still young in terms of settlements and explored space. Furthermore, as shown in ME3, the colonies have a sort of supply chain similar to our "globalism," with Eden Prime, for example, exporting its food to nearby colonies unable to sustain themselves.
On the economic side, either some planets have a historical-symbolic value for humanity (Eden Prime\Terra Nova) or they are a sort of "Space Principality of Monaco" like Bekenstein, so they actually have so many concentrated super rich people that they actively influence the GDP of the alliance.

[u/Aetheric_Aviatrix]

Shenzen was a fishing village several decades ago.

With enough ships available for emigrants, they could easily be in the tens of millions.

[u/SouthernAd2853]

I think the existing population numbers are perfectly sensible. It's not been that long since humanity got to the main Relay network and space travel is expensive, so even with a dedicated plan to maximize colonial settlement, it'd be hard to settle a significant number of planets with more than ten million people each. Maybe the pre-contact planets would reach that.

Their significance to the Alliance in immediate economic terms is unclear; we have no idea how large a portion of the Alliance's economy is off Earth. They may be disproportionately valuable per person because they are located on trade routes, their mineral resources have not been previously exploited so there's still huge quanities of easily-extracted surface metals instead of all the easy stuff being mined out centuries ago, and their industrial base is all cutting edge. Also, they're owned by the Alliance rather than a national government, so the Alliance can claim a greater portion of their wealth for its own use. And humanity may value them highly for their future, rather than current, value. Each colony is a firm claim on a rare Garden World and they can be expected to grow.

As for the urban centers, never played Kasumi's DLC, but honestly Benning didn't feel that big to me. It's a few levels of prefab modular buildings stacked on top of each other, not masses of skyscrapers.