Colonial Populations (1): Introduction and Neubayern

I have issues with the Colonial Atlas, or rather with a few of the articles in it. Specifically two writeups don't follow what is written elsewhere and make little sense, whilst another two don't fit descriptions but are less problematic. In fact there is also a systematic problem which I'll address, and I'll address that first.




1. No-one dies.




GDW wrote some fairly sensible rules about population growth. The population of a colony naturally inflates at 4% per year for the first 50 years and then 2% per year thereafter. This is reasonable as it starts to assume people start dying of old age (in fact I'd argue that after 100 years this should drop to 1%). However the tables supplied don't follow this rule for light and heavy efforts. The population keeps expanding an no-one dies.




Kevin Clark noticed this a long time back. Kudos to him.




The compound interest effect of this is huge, and is the root cause of our next problem child:




2. Neubayern




85 million people? Frankly I'm gobsmacked and call "bullshit" on that one, especially in light of the nature of the planet (a tidelocked hellworld with a small livable peninsula). It's worth noting that Neubayern in both the DG and CA is mentioned to be a sparsely settled agricultural world supporting some (largely defunct) insystem mining with food. The primary export is textiles from a local wool.




I can see how this figure was reached. The author of the article (Loren K. Wiseman) set up Neubayern as a "heavy effort" colony and kept inflation at 4%, even past 100 years, the end of the table. If we correct the "4%" error the population of Neubayern the population drops to ~ 18 m.




In fact I'd go further. Several times with population the simple mistake of putting adding a zero was made by GDW (Manchuria especially, whose 2.7 billion implies the population has grown 22 times. Nice, but all the fertile livable land is actually in the 2300 nation of Canton). This would make Neubayern a respectable colony of a little over 8 m people. This is a reasonable fix. In fact I posted my notes on the colony to 2300noncanon ten years ago:




Niebelungen: Bavaria’s First National Colony

Niebelungen was the first colony established independently by Bavaria in 2169, only 2 years after
the establishment of their portion of the ESA claim on Tirane. Bavaria took great pride in this world, found
by the AR-I in 2142, it has parts as almost as habitable as Terra. Even better, tantalum was found on
one of the other worlds in the system, and Bavaria made vast sums of money by charging the various
nations and corporations who came to mine the precious metal for services. Today, Niebelungen is a colony of the new Germany, but fiercely independent, pledging alligence but brooking no interference from Berlin.

The world of Niebelungen

Niebelungen is the first world of the Neubayern system, and is tidally locked to Neubayern. His
presents many problems for human colonisation. Physically, Nibelungen is just under 8,000km in
diameter, with a density roughly equal to Earth. The atmosphere is quite thin, roughly 60% of that of
Earth, and the partial pressure of oxygen is only 0.09 atm, making it only bearly breathable for people who haven’t adapted. Non-natives need respirators.

The geography of the planet is strange, consisting of 6 distinct regions: Hotside, Coldside, Westmeer,
Eastmeer and the 2 Icecaps. The two Oceans occupy most of the habitable belt of the planet, where liquid
water can exist freely, while the separated from each other by the icecaps. The hotside is a vast desert,
with an indentation at the equator where the Ostmeer extends into the region. The coldside is covered by a vast icesheet, and rarely reaches temperatures above –40 centigrade. The environment is similar to
Antarctica on Earth.

The colony

The Twilight Zone is where most of the colonists live. There are two separate livable areas, the Ostmeer and Westmeer, and most Terran life lives on the islands in these two seas or on the shores of it. The colony is situated in the Ostmeer area, the Westmeer is essentially uninhabited.

The Ostmeer is a roughly rectangular sea around 1,000 km across and about 6,000 km from North to South, almost cut in half by the Grosshalbsiel, a huge peninsula jutting out of the Hotside creating by far
the largest living area on the planet, where the main colony site is located. The colony is situated in a
vast grassland used to grow Wollgrasse, Niebelungen Cotton which is the colonies main export, growing on the Eastern and Northern shores, while much of the Southern shores and interior are used for grain and cattle.

Minerals, unfortunately, only exist in quantity on the coldside, where Vulcanism forced them to the surface, only to be buried under a kilometre of ice. This has stopped much of the industrial progress made by the colony, which has never had much of a manufacturing base (which has built mainly on Tirane and Hochbaden) beyond textile processing and tantalum extraction on Wiesbaden, a failed core. It is a rich world though.

Local military presence

Niebelungen currently has no major naval bases, and no DSKM squadron is stationed there (Invasion), the
colonists have a very active militia though.

The people

The inhabitants of Niebelungen look quite strange compared to the terrestrial norm. Their average height
is 7 feet and their chests are enormous, a consequence of the low partial presence of oxygen which requires a much larger lung capacity. Their skins are also quite dark, giving them a Mediterranean look.

Currently, of the 8,500,000 population, 11% are white South African Afrikaners.