Quote Originally Posted by Yora View Post
Or you could just eyeball it. Assuming modern standards of living and really great incentives to have kids, let's put the birth rate at 3 children per women. That's more than double what you have in current highly industrialized countries.
500 in Generation P means 750 in Generation K1. Since the Ps are nw in their 70s, we can assume almost all are still alive. The K1s are now age 35 to 45, so they probably mostly had their 3 kids as well, making 875 in K2. The oldest K2s are just reaching 20, so assuming really good incentives to have kids very early, let's give them 1 kid per woman, or 435 in K3.

500+750+875+435 = 2560

Which isn't too much different from Jeffs calculation.

Now of course people are entering old age and it will probably be just another generation until they start dying of old age, significantly decreasing the growth rate. But with more than 2 births per woman, you still have a population pyramid with growth keeping going .
This sounds about right, I didn't need a precise number, just a scale that could withstand a superficial analysis so that it doesn't strain the suspension of disbelief of my most analytic players, but as with all sci-fi writers (which I am for the purpose of this campaign) I have a really bad sense of scale...
Thanks a lot!