I just watched the new Star Trek again yesterday. It was 6 billion Vulcans killed on the planet, and 10,000 left (that's what young Spock says in his captain's log entry right after the event). Memory Alpha shows only 2 Vulcan colonies, one of which was seized from the Andorians and later given back.
I've always gotten the impression that the Vulcans are a very insular, private people. They certainly are not warlike, territorial empire-builders. While 10,000 survivors might be a bit low (it was an estimate after all), I don't think that it is all that unbelievable.
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It is when you realize that Romulans and Vulcans and several other "races" are from ancient groups of Vulcans. To have the kind of territory that Vulcans must have had and the time involved to have cause that as well taking into account failed attempts... It's just way to low and not all that reasonable. They as a culture keep their ways, but they do explore and they do colonize and they had expanded for many generations. |
Originally Posted by sleestack
I just watched the new Star Trek again yesterday. It was 6 billion Vulcans killed on the planet, and 10,000 left (that's what young Spock says in his captain's log entry right after the event). Memory Alpha shows only 2 Vulcan colonies, one of which was seized from the Andorians and later given back.
I've always gotten the impression that the Vulcans are a very insular, private people. They certainly are not warlike, territorial empire-builders. While 10,000 survivors might be a bit low (it was an estimate after all), I don't think that it is all that unbelievable. |
Heck, if Vulcans were really that small of a group, Earth would have been considered a much bigger threat as by the time Enterprise launched they had 2 or 3 colonies and given 100 years they'd have had quite large populations and easily would have dominated the area which Vulcans, regardless of how accepting they had become of Humans by that time, would not have stood for.
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Originally Posted by Durakken
Does it both anyone else that it appears that a number of writers don't seem to understand population sizes, how populations grow, and how much space is needed for any particular amount of a population...
Some numbers come to mind immediately that annoy me... In Star Trek (XI) the Vulcan home world is destroyed and it's stated something like the number of Vulcans killed was 4,000,000,000 and there are only something like 4,000 Vulcans left in the galaxy... Ok, the 4 bil number could be understandable because once you get space capabilities it could be thought that a pop stabilizes at a given number, but then saying there are only 4,000 Vulcans left...That is so unrealistic and unlikely it's really not ignorable. Looking at all the history of Star Trek we know AND just basic logic about a culture that have been out in space and have expanded to the level that we are left to assume they have there is no way that the Vulcan population was ALL on Vulcan nor that only that amount of pop was savable or off-world... clearly if the Enterprise, a ship from a 100 year old space civ could carry that many when it's not designed to, a colony ship from a 200+ year old space civ could carry more than that and thus indicates that there had to be at least that many on every Vulcan colony when they were originally set up and had expanded. Of course there is always mass Gotham population movement... From 10m to 2m to 6m to 8m over the course of 10 years would throw the DCU USA into mass chaos...and not to mention the, I think, 8 million people that were killed in the Coast City thing...and then the complete repopulation of that area. in that same time >.> but we'll forgive that because comics are odd like that. |
On Vulcan, population could have stabilized (or reduced) for other reasons.
It's known that, on Earth, people with more advanced educational backgrounds tend to have fewer children. Vulcan's society is highly regimented towards intellectual achievement. As such it probably has a great moderating influence on population growth.
Additionally, from what we've seen of Vulcan, the environment is moderately inhospitable. This would likely limit the population due to limits on natural resources and habitable biomes.
Also, you're assuming Vulcan had some massive outflux of immigrants to various space colonies.
We're roughly 40 years out from the first moon landing. Do we have even the equivalent of a train station (let alone a small town of a couple hundred people) on the moon? And does it look likely we're going to get there any time in the next 50-100 years?
And something you forget about colony ships. Moreso than the planet Vulcan itself, they're resource limited. You don't simply stack multiple hundreds (or thousands) of people into a ship that way.
Several thousand go away from the planet because they were able to reach a ship and get away from the planet in time. These could be anything from shuttles on up to military/research vessels. Only a very small number of individuals were actually beamed onto the Enterprise.
Most of the population simply said "A singularity. Fascinat.."
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Wait a second... didn't you claim not too long ago that the DC Earth must be 4 times the size of our planet because of the stated size of Metropolis? Sounds like a bit of confusion on your part, really.|
Originally Posted by Durakken
Does it both anyone else that it appears that a number of writers don't seem to understand population sizes, how populations grow, and how much space is needed for any particular amount of a population...
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In Star Trek (XI) the Vulcan home world is destroyed and it's stated something like the number of Vulcans killed was 4,000,000,000 and there are only something like 4,000 Vulcans left in the galaxy... Ok, the 4 bil number could be understandable because once you get space capabilities it could be thought that a pop stabilizes at a given number, but then saying there are only 4,000 Vulcans left...That is so unrealistic and unlikely it's really not ignorable. |
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Star Trek: Vulcans are anything but home bodies, from what is known. They are an insular civilization which is why Spock gets all that grief. And we're not talking 100-200 years... We're talking, if I remember right, something like 5000 years of exploration and expansionism. It could be they just don't call anyone that calls home another planet as a Vulcan for some reason, but there is just no way there would only be "10,000" Vulcans. Especially since we know there are ships that are all Vulcan in Starfleet and ships are generally 500-1000 people... that's saying there are less than 10 vulcan starfleet ships... Highly unlikely given Vulcans having their own fleet for well over 1000 years.
DC: I said that the DCU Earth is up 4x bigger due to the fact there are roughly four major cities in one area and there is a ton more countries. Despite that DC also maintains that their population is 6 or 7 billion people on Earth which means that there is a lot more empty space just from that, but also there is a ton more because there are several more mega cities. The average major city has only around 3 million people, New York has like 10 millionish, and the biggest city has something like 17 or 18 million. Regardless, the major disasters and such of the DCU Earth has well over 15 million people dying and moving about the country in mass waves that I'm pretty sure no system could sustain for very long.
Remember, Vulcan sent out a distress signal to Starfleet for help. It is possible that a lot of Vulcans "rushed home" at that distress signal and abandoned their posts/faraway lands.
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nope... We saw all the ships that rushed there. They used the "we are the closest people to the distress signal" thing, which means any other ships other than the academy ships we would have seen would have come after the Enterprise arrived.
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Originally Posted by BafflingBeerMan
Remember, Vulcan sent out a distress signal to Starfleet for help. It is possible that a lot of Vulcans "rushed home" at that distress signal and abandoned their posts/faraway lands.
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They are the closest people to the distress signal that could feasibly help. Doesn't mean that the Vulsmiths on Alpha Centauri XII hears the distress signal from home and don't rush back home. The Vulcans rely on Starfleet, their resources diverted elsewhere, but that doesn't mean those resources aren't near, just that they probably can't help in a significant way in a crisis.|
Originally Posted by Durakken
nope... We saw all the ships that rushed there. They used the "we are the closest people to the distress signal" thing, which means any other ships other than the academy ships we would have seen would have come after the Enterprise arrived.
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Since the Vulcans aren't as warlike as the Romulans, for example, it is feasible that many of their ships are exploratory in nature or scientific and, while they wouldn't be useful in an attack scenario, would still rush to Vulcan to help and be caught in crossfire. They could have come first (don't you think Vulcans would first lean on their own people to help?), been ineffective and then called Starfleet. Even if that all happened in a span of a few minutes.
Also, remember what Alt-Spock said at the end of the movie: he had already found another planet to help relocate the survivors. This means there aren't many, if any, Vulcan outposts out there. They had to start completely from scratch. So it seems to stand for reason that if any significant number of Vulcans were living off-planet, they were in starships that could easily have reached Vulcan (not to necessarily to help, but to simply return home in a crisis) and been destroyed.
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/shrug What can I say? That's what the movie says.|
Originally Posted by Durakken
Star Trek: Vulcans are anything but home bodies, from what is known. They are an insular civilization which is why Spock gets all that grief. And we're not talking 100-200 years... We're talking, if I remember right, something like 5000 years of exploration and expansionism. It could be they just don't call anyone that calls home another planet as a Vulcan for some reason, but there is just no way there would only be "10,000" Vulcans. Especially since we know there are ships that are all Vulcan in Starfleet and ships are generally 500-1000 people... that's saying there are less than 10 vulcan starfleet ships... Highly unlikely given Vulcans having their own fleet for well over 1000 years.
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| DC: I said that the DCU Earth is up 4x bigger due to the fact there are roughly four major cities in one area and there is a ton more countries. Despite that DC also maintains that their population is 6 or 7 billion people on Earth which means that there is a lot more empty space just from that, but also there is a ton more because there are several more mega cities. The average major city has only around 3 million people, New York has like 10 millionish, and the biggest city has something like 17 or 18 million. Regardless, the major disasters and such of the DCU Earth has well over 15 million people dying and moving about the country in mass waves that I'm pretty sure no system could sustain for very long. |
Besides, if the Earth were four times larger, the gravity would be at least four times greater, probably more like 6 times greater. That's just ridiculous, since that world is shown to be the same as ours with all the same stuff in it. Building on a planet with 4-6 times our gravity would look different, as would human beings. Much easier to simply assume they have a couple more cities which are the equivalent of Shanghai or Mumbai. A world 4 times the size of ours is far more difficult to hand-wave away than three or four cities with 12 million+ people in them.
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Originally Posted by BafflingBeerMan
They are the closest people to the distress signal that could feasibly help. Doesn't mean that the Vulsmiths on Alpha Centauri XII hears the distress signal from home and don't rush back home. The Vulcans rely on Starfleet, their resources diverted elsewhere, but that doesn't mean those resources aren't near, just that they probably can't help in a significant way in a crisis.
Since the Vulcans aren't as warlike as the Romulans, for example, it is feasible that many of their ships are exploratory in nature or scientific and, while they wouldn't be useful in an attack scenario, would still rush to Vulcan to help and be caught in crossfire. They could have come first (don't you think Vulcans would first lean on their own people to help?), been ineffective and then called Starfleet. Even if that all happened in a span of a few minutes. Also, remember what Alt-Spock said at the end of the movie: he had already found another planet to help relocate the survivors. This means there aren't many, if any, Vulcan outposts out there. They had to start completely from scratch. So it seems to stand for reason that if any significant number of Vulcans were living off-planet, they were in starships that could easily have reached Vulcan (not to necessarily to help, but to simply return home in a crisis) and been destroyed. |
Sorry but that assumption is just silly. Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space. So there is no possible way that all the millions of Vulcans that had spread out across the Star Trek Universe managed to return home in just a few minutes to get killed.
And yes I said millions of Vulcans. Vulcans had been been exploring space and spreading across the galaxy for 1,500 years. It's ludicrous to assume that all but 10,000 died.
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What evidence do we have that the Vulcan population was spread out in any significant way though?|
Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
Sorry but that assumption is just silly. Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space. So there is no possible way that all the millions of Vulcans that had spread out across the Star Trek Universe managed to return home in just a few minutes to get killed.
And yes I said millions of Vulcans. Vulcans had been been exploring space and spreading across the galaxy for 1,500 years. It's ludicrous to assume that all but 10,000 died. |
Alt-Spock said they found a new spot to repopulate the Vulcan race with. Not that there was already an established spot they were relocating to, but a (implied) new suitable spot.
Yes, space is big. But that doesn't mean the Vulcans were spread out far, with any regularity. One can even assume they tended to avoid traveling around space that much by the movie First Contact, where they were trying to avoid Earth somewhat (or were even unaware there was life on our planet) until we developed warp drive.
Also, in Enterprise, weren't the Vulcans hesitant to help Captain Archer? They wanted to keep to themselves. Which again, wouldn't mean they wouldn't like to explore and see space, but would also tend to signify that they would be insular and depend on themselves more than Starfleet, unless the situation was dire, and keep their own resources nearby enough to help, if need be.
In none of the Star Trek franchise did I ever get the impression that the Vulcans were explorers and SETTLERS. It is equally feasible that while they explored the vast intricacies of space, these explorers often returned home. Hence, any number of them could be just leaving or just entering Vulcan's sphere of influence and easily return home during the attack and be decimated.
Again, space is big. A civilization's presence in that space may not be.
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Yet you're assuming that Vulcan had established numerous LARGE colonies and had a huge exploratory/defense force out there.|
Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
Sorry but that assumption is just silly. Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space. So there is no possible way that all the millions of Vulcans that had spread out across the Star Trek Universe managed to return home in just a few minutes to get killed.
And yes I said millions of Vulcans. Vulcans had been been exploring space and spreading across the galaxy for 1,500 years. It's ludicrous to assume that all but 10,000 died. |
What if Vulcan society ran more towards isolationism? Something similar to Krypton post-Age of Discovery? Or Daxam? Or if you want an in-canon comparison, the Talosians? Sure, they may have a progressive faction in there someplace, so exploration hasn't COMPLETELY ceased.
If you wanna fanboy-wrangle about trivia, knock yourself out. Just remember that for ever "if" you pull out (and make sure to brush off the feces), I can do the same to create a plausible answering argument.
It accomplishes nothing more than leaving that portion of our anatomy quite sore.
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Actually, this brings up a question regarding the Federation's/Starfleet's role in the Star Trek Universe:
Did we ever encounter a multiplanetary exploration/settling group that was not under the umbrella of the Fed/Starfleet?
That is, are humans populating other planets on their own or is it under Federation mandate? Are the Klingons free to take over a class-M planet without Federation approval? Or is everything regulated?
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I'm no expert on ST canon, but don't Vulcans live a lot longer than us and mate rather infrequently? If so it would seem that even with many colonies there wouldn't be as many as we'd expect in a human colony.
/shrug.
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We don't actually know that. Its plausible to suspect that the proto-Romulans that left Vulcan took basically most or all of the exploratory types with them, leaving behind a much more insular society. And we know Vulcans are not as diverse or as evoutionarily progressive as humans are: in Enterprise its revealed that Vulcans are actually afraid of humans, primarily because they are amazed that humanity was able to recover from a global nuclear war that destroyed their civilization in less than a century, something that took Vulcans over a millenium to accomplish. Vulcans are smart, but they were only a few decades ahead of humanity at the time of Enterprise after having more than a thousand year head start. They are not progressive people.|
Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
Sorry but that assumption is just silly. Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space. So there is no possible way that all the millions of Vulcans that had spread out across the Star Trek Universe managed to return home in just a few minutes to get killed.
And yes I said millions of Vulcans. Vulcans had been been exploring space and spreading across the galaxy for 1,500 years. It's ludicrous to assume that all but 10,000 died. |
In many ways, Vulcans are analogs for historical Chinese. At one time China had huge exploration fleets and the best science and technology in the world. But it was Europeans who colonized much of the world, and when they did they didn't find very much in the way of Chinese outposts in their way. China withdrew, much as Vulcan could have.
10,000 does seem low given that Starships would still be out there, but if all Vulcan ships were primarily science vessels, its possible that such ships only contained crews of a hundred or so each, not a thousand like a ship comparable to Enterprise.
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Ok few points,
Firstly, the worlds current most populous city is Tokyo at around 36 million with Delhi, Sao Paulo, Mumbai and Mexico city all sitting around the 20 million mark but that has already been addressed so moving on.
Vulcans next. As mentioned these guys have been partaking in interstellar travel for quite some time now. Developing Warp travel around the 9th century BC. This is confirmed by the P'Jem Monistery being constructed on a world near Andoria. Also the Vulcan civil war which led to the formation of the Romulan Empire by those who "march under the raptors wings" was around this time.
So we know Romulans are Romulans and have become different enough from Vulcans to not be counted. We also know there must be of have been a Vulcan presence on P'jem which could very well just be a religious contingent which could account for the 10,000.
At this point in time Spock was supposed to be the first and only Vulcan in Starfleet so there could not have been an all Vulcan crew on a Starfleet vessel.
Also by the time Nero had destroyed Vulcan (2258). Vulcan had been a member world of the Federation for 90 years (Formation of UFP 2168). So it would be logical to assume that the Vulcan high command no longer required a military as it became reliant on the Federation and Starfleet for protection.
Any ships solely operated by the Vulcan Science Academy would likely have small crews or be few in number compared to the early days of human exploration or during the threat of invasion by Andor.
That said Vulcans also live much longer than humans so the need to reproduce like rabbits in order to continue the population is not necessary. Also being technologically advanced for so long with limited infant death. It would be logical to keep the population at a comfortable level hence why Humans need to colonise heavily whilst Vulcans (as mentioned earlier) are an insular species and can be quite comfortable on a single planet. Hyperstrike gave a good insight on this.
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Actually, standard complement of a Constitution Class vessel (like Enterprise) is roughly 400 (430 according to Memory Alpha).
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
not a thousand like a ship comparable to Enterprise.
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There was one Starfleet ship (USS Intrepid) that was crewed entirely by Vulcans. It was mentioned in the Original Series episode "The Immunity Syndrome" (a.k.a the Giant Space Amoeba episode), and in the episode "Court Martial". According to Memory Alpha, "The Immunity Syndrome" occurred in 2268 which is 10 years after Vulcan is destroyed in the new movie, and "Court Martial" was in 2267. I don't know if the USS Intrepid was around at the time of Vulcan's destruction, but it likely was since it was a Constitution-class like the USS Enterprise.
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Unfortunately that is for a different universe now because the Enterprise of the Star Trek XI is much bigger than that of TOS.|
Originally Posted by Hyperstrike
Actually, standard complement of a Constitution Class vessel (like Enterprise) is roughly 400 (430 according to Memory Alpha).
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Originally Posted by MentalMaden
I'm no expert on ST canon, but don't Vulcans live a lot longer than us and mate rather infrequently? If so it would seem that even with many colonies there wouldn't be as many as we'd expect in a human colony.
/shrug. |
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Originally Posted by Hyperstrike
Yet you're assuming that Vulcan had established numerous LARGE colonies and had a huge exploratory/defense force out there.
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Also according to various guides Romulus is like 100-200 LY away from Vulcan. Now what could happen is that Vulcans grew expanded, warred on itself, and split into several empires and now they just call the ones directly from Vulcan... Vulcans, but thats still silly when you are talking about the writing because even if that was the case heritage-wise and such there are still all those other Vulcan empires they just don't care to call Vulcan.
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But that's a bit of a semantic quibble, because the Vulcans themselves don't consider those people "Vulcans" (and neither do those people) so when Spock estimates that only ten thousand Vulcans survived, that's a reasonable estimate that doesn't count Romulans or other ancient Vulcan offshoots.|
Originally Posted by Durakken
It's hard to argue that they aren't colonizers considering they have rival empires that come from Vulcan... There is Vulcan and Romulus, both should be considered Vulcan in terms of heritage, but beyond that there is also 1 or 2 other ancient groups that existed that were Vulcan that settled half-way between Romulus and Vulcan...
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Technically, the movie never asserts that only ten thousand genetic Vulcans are still alive. The character of Spock states his belief that only about ten thousand Vulcans, as he considers Vulcans, are likely to be alive. The reasonableness of his assertion has to be judged based on his perspective when he made the statement.
A perfectly reasonable theory is that colonization itself was an aggressive behavior suppressed after the time of Surak, and all those that rejected that philosophy basically left and became Romulans. So while there are small outposts here and there (i.e. P'Jem) its possible that the Vulcan and Romulan split actually divided the race into the empire builders (Romulans) and the isolationists (Vulcans) and that explains why Vulcan wasn't very colonial post-Surak, and why so few Vulcans don't live on the homeworld at the time of the movie.
The European colonial model of expansion is so ingrained, its often seen as the obvious inevitable one. But historically, it has not been the only model. Polynesian Pacific migration is another model, for example. It was simultaneously wide ranging and rapid, but left behind isolated and culturally distinct settlements, most of which eventually lost the technology or the will to continue such exploration and colonization. Vulcan may have been the pseudo-Polynesians, while the proto-Romulans that left were the pseudo-Europeans.
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No. Romulans descended from Vulcans who didn't like Surak's ideas of logic and emotional control. They left Vulcan in pre-warp capable ships. They were never part of any interstellar Vulcan empire. In their time away from Vulcans, the Romulans became physiologically different enough from Vulcans to be considered a seperate species, despite the similarities they still shared. Therefore, they do not count as Vulcans.|
Originally Posted by Durakken
It's hard to argue that they aren't colonizers considering they have rival empires that come from Vulcan... There is Vulcan and Romulus, both should be considered Vulcan in terms of heritage, but beyond that there is also 1 or 2 other ancient groups that existed that were Vulcan that settled half-way between Romulus and Vulcan...
Also according to various guides Romulus is like 100-200 LY away from Vulcan. Now what could happen is that Vulcans grew expanded, warred on itself, and split into several empires and now they just call the ones directly from Vulcan... Vulcans, but thats still silly when you are talking about the writing because even if that was the case heritage-wise and such there are still all those other Vulcan empires they just don't care to call Vulcan. |
Additionally, in the TOS era, even in the JJ continuity, no one in the Federation had ever seen a Romulan. They didn't know that Romulans and Vulcans were related. So, even if they did count as part of the Vulcan population, which they don't, no one would have known about it anyway.
Vulcan did have an aggressive colonization period, although it was never specified whether it was in space or whether it was a Vulcan version of Earth's colonial period. It was pre-Surak. But then it tore itself apart in a blaze of atomic warfare. After that, it took Vulcans 1,500 years to rebuild their society and become space-faring once again. By the time of Enterprise, they'd been in space for about 300 years. They were much less aggressive, and it is reasonable to assume that there was little desire for off-world colonization.
There are a number of species similar to Vulcans, yes. But they're not Vulcans. Just like there are a lot of species that look identical to humans but are not humans.
Spock was the first Vulcan to serve in Starfleet. Prior to him, Vulcans believed Starfleet was far too militaristic. It was Spock's service that finally brought Vulcans into the fleet. So at the time of Vulcan's destruction, there was a grand total of one Vulcan in the fleet. Or, rather, half-Vulcan.
And beyond all of those points, you're missing an even bigger question than why there are only 10,000 Vulcans left. Namely, in the hours it took for Nero to drill into Vulcan, why were they only able to evacuate around 10,000 people from Vulcan? Ok, so Nero warps in and starts doing **** to Vulcan. Distress signal goes out. Starfleet warps in and dies. Maaaybe that should've been an indication that people should GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE BEFORE SOMETHING REALLY REALLY BAD HAPPENS!!! And it's not like they wouldn't have any ships. There would've been interplanetary shuttles, cargo ships, the Vulcan Science Academy's own fleet. They had options. Instead, they sat around with their thumbs up their ***** while a big scary ship sits in orbit, kicks the **** out of a small fleet, and drills into the center of the planet. Seriously, how many signs did they need before they realized that something bad was going to happen?
Goodbye, I guess.
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That's actually somewhat wrong Nightblade, there are others that are not "Vulcan" or Romulans. It's actually a focal point of a few episodes of TNG.
Spock was not the first Vulcan in Starfleet.... T'pol was. He may have been the only at the time.
Officially noone had seen a Romulan for a long time, but Humans had, and Vulcans did know that they were related to Romulans.
the distress call was for an earth quake evac...apparently they didn't see the giant ship and such.. Also again it was a "anyone in range that can help" type alert, not a "oh **** we gettin blown up" type alert and if any other alert went out before then starfleet would have known of it and it is general protocol to send a message back saying we're on the way.
As far as the why Romulans left, that is likely a lie or been warped over time as the teaching of Surak had beened and so many other things are so I would never take that at face value...
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If you pick and choose what parts of canon to accept, you're writing canon, not critiquing in.
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Originally Posted by Durakken
As far as the why Romulans left, that is likely a lie or been warped over time as the teaching of Surak had beened and so many other things are so I would never take that at face value...
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A larger ship isn't easier to maintain, it's more difficult. Whereas a smaller ship may have a couple of miles of wiring, a ship the size of a city would have hundreds of miles of wiring. A few thousand feet of pipes for smaller ships, versus a hundred miles of pipes to carry water, steam, waste, air, etc. 500 square feet of hull to monitor for breaches, versus 50,000. The more there is, the more there is to check, monitor and repair. It becomes increasingly more difficult to track down and fix problems when you increase the size and complexity of the ship. Yes, you have potentially 17,000,000 skilled technicians to handle the maintenance and repair, but the reality is that the larger and more complex the device is, the more frequent and potentially catastrophic the problems are.
So, essentially, you're saying that a space station the size of New York would be easy to maintain in comparison to discrete ships and shuttles (and you're not heading NASA? Inconceivable!).
Does it both anyone else that it appears that a number of writers don't seem to understand population sizes, how populations grow, and how much space is needed for any particular amount of a population...
Some numbers come to mind immediately that annoy me...
In Star Trek (XI) the Vulcan home world is destroyed and it's stated something like the number of Vulcans killed was 4,000,000,000 and there are only something like 4,000 Vulcans left in the galaxy...
Ok, the 4 bil number could be understandable because once you get space capabilities it could be thought that a pop stabilizes at a given number, but then saying there are only 4,000 Vulcans left...That is so unrealistic and unlikely it's really not ignorable. Looking at all the history of Star Trek we know AND just basic logic about a culture that have been out in space and have expanded to the level that we are left to assume they have there is no way that the Vulcan population was ALL on Vulcan nor that only that amount of pop was savable or off-world... clearly if the Enterprise, a ship from a 100 year old space civ could carry that many when it's not designed to, a colony ship from a 200+ year old space civ could carry more than that and thus indicates that there had to be at least that many on every Vulcan colony when they were originally set up and had expanded.
Of course there is always mass Gotham population movement... From 10m to 2m to 6m to 8m over the course of 10 years would throw the DCU USA into mass chaos...and not to mention the, I think, 8 million people that were killed in the Coast City thing...and then the complete repopulation of that area. in that same time >.> but we'll forgive that because comics are odd like that.