OYW Population Figures

[Deacon Blues]

Welp, here's some useless information from moi as usual. Paging through the U.C. Hardgraph Novel (Zeon Side), I came across a population distribution footnote for one of the chapters. Skipping the in between blurbs that state what happens, here's the gist of it:

OVERALL POPULATION: Approximately 11.3 billion (at the time of the outbreak)

EARTH FEDERATION GOVERNMENT SIDE

Earth: 4.3 billion
Sides 1, 2, 4: 2.8 billion (total)
Side 5: 2 billion (up to 80 colonies are here)

PRINCIPALITY OF ZEON

Side 3: 1.3 billion

NEUTRAL

Side 6: 900 million

Cue the One Week War, Battle of Loum and the good ole colony drop and we're left with this:

EARTH FEDERATION GOVERNMENT SIDE

Earth: 3.8 billion (500 million killed)
Sides 1, 2, 4: Virtually Annihilated (2.8 billion killed)
Side 5: Virtually Annihilated (2 billion killed)

PRINCIPALITY OF ZEON

Side 3: 1.3 billion (Virtually Unharmed)

NEUTRAL

Side 6: 900 million (no change)

In other words, there was a change in the ratio of the population of the Earth Sphere from the One Week War to the Battle of Loum: Earth Federation Government (3.8 billion) versus Principality of Zeon (1.3 billion). In the span of just two weeks, 5.3 billion people's lives were turned into space dust.

[Destiny_Gundam]

The narraration at the start of the series said that both sides lost half of their population, right? But with these numbers the Federation lost over half while the Zeon lost nothing. Just another inconsistancy or did something happen between here and the start of the series?

[toysdream]

That's not what the narration actually says. In the archive section of my website, I listed literal translations of the various opening narrations. The original TV series opening just says that "In roughly one month of fighting, the Principality of Zeon and Federation Forces caused the deaths of half the total population." This doesn't tell us anything about the allocation of casualties, or the distribution of blame, both of which were explored in side stories and semi-official publications.

Elsewhere on that archive page, I note that the opening narration of the Gundam II and Gundam III movies says that "half of humanity now lives in space," which is a much smaller proportion than most of the spinoff publications would have you believe. The timeline in Tomino's original setting notes claimed that 9 billion people out of a total population of 11 billion had emigrated to space by U.C. 0050, and this claim was repeated in most subsequent publications even though it's contradicted by the actual animation.

Likewise, there's a huge discrepancy in accounts of the wartime casualties. As I noted in my timeline footnote, Gundam Century and Entertainment Bible 1 say that the colony drop killed about 2.3 billion people on Earth, but other sources such as Entertainment Bible 39 suggest figures an order of magnitude lower. Really, this would depend on how many people there were on Earth available for killing in the first place!

The figures in the book Deacon's looking at are interesting because they don't appear to match any previous account. If anything, it seems like they've tried to split the difference - here, Earth accounts for about 38% of the total pre-war population, halfway between the 50% suggested by the anime narration and the roughly 20% suggested by the low-end estimates.

-- Mark

[Destiny_Gundam]

Ah. Well, I still recall hearing a dub intro that said that both sides lost half of their respective populations. Perhaps I'm just misremembering or the dub translation was wrong.

[Wingnut]

Ah. Well, I still recall hearing a dub intro that said that both sides lost half of their respective populations. Perhaps I'm just misremembering or the dub translation was wrong.

No, you remember the english TV dub correctly. It would have to be a translation or information error.

[schwarz ritter]

Most likely translation error. Then again, I'm surprised there weren't any Zeon civilian casualties: I mean, wouldn't the Fed soldiers had like, you know, retaliated in very "nice" ways against the NotNazis after A Bao Á Qu?

[Zeis]

The only instance of anything like that I can think of is what happened to Zinnerman's family...which is weird, since I've never heard anything about Zeon being occupied after the war...

[schwarz ritter]

Ummm...actually, I would be pretty sure the Feds would implement the same plans the Allies did in Germany after WWII. Unless, of course, they were lucky enough to have a McArthur in charge, in which case I would understand why there were only a few cases such as Zinnerman's.

[toysdream]

Yeah, that was kind of weird. Aside from that throwaway reference in Gundam Unicorn, there's never been any indication that Zeon was occupied by the Federation after the war (as Japan and Germany, say, were occupied by the Allied powers after World War II). Basically, they switched in a new government, signed a treaty with the Federation, and retained their nominal independence.

Part of the reason for this was that Zeon was never technically defeated. According to sources like Gundam Century and the Data Collection series, Zeon retained enough fighting strength that the Federation wasn't confident it could actually win another major battle, so it was preferable for both sides to end the hostilities while they had the chance.

It's long been claimed that Zeon soldiers who were captured on Earth spent some time in POW camps before they were repatriated, so that part of Zinnerman's back story makes sense. The notion that the Federation Forces occupied Zeon colonies and committed postwar massacres there is a bit less orthodox.

EDIT: Here's a more detailed explanation from Data Collection 3.

The essence of the agreement was that the responsibility for the recent war was placed entirely on the Zabi family that led the Principality, and the Federation government placed no responsibility on Side 3 itself. Moreover, as a way of placating the citizens, Side 3 was allowed to continue on as the Republic of Zeon. Although there would be periodic inspections, it was also permitted to maintain its own military forces, independent from the Federation Forces.

-- Mark

[schwarz ritter]

Hmmm....damn Feddies!

So my assumption has been right, then: both sides were exhausted by A Bao Á Qu?

[toysdream]

So my assumption has been right, then: both sides were exhausted by A Bao Á Qu?

Yep. The account of this in Gundam Century seems to have been echoed by every subsequent source.

-- Mark

[schwarz ritter]

Wow. I'm actually surprised the Republic of Zeon didn't act any sooner to, umm..."reclaim their honor", as Thel Vadam would put it. I mean, they could've at least support the various Zeon remnant uprisings.

[toysdream]

Wow. I'm actually surprised the Republic of Zeon didn't act any sooner to, umm..."reclaim their honor", as Thel Vadam would put it. I mean, they could've at least support the various Zeon remnant uprisings.

Why the heck would they!? If the Zabi family ever came back to power, the first thing they'd do is string up all the Republic leaders from lampposts as filthy Federation collaborators. This is exactly why the Republic of Zeon leadership enthusiastically supported the Titans in Zeta Gundam.

-- Mark

[schwarz ritter]

Oh yes, you're right: the Republic of Zeon is a puppet, right? I forgot about that important factor...

[toysdream]

Oh yes, you're right: the Republic of Zeon is a puppet, right? I forgot about that important factor...

That's how it's widely perceived, anyway. And the fact that the Federation later handed over control of Side 3 to Haman certainly reinforces the impression that the Republic wasn't in control of its own fate.

In the Gundam Unicorn novels, the role played by the Republic leadership towards the end of the story suggests that they're starting to feel more independent-minded, and working more directly with the Principality remnants. It remains to be seen whether they'll include this subplot in the anime version, though.

-- Mark

[schwarz ritter]

I wouldn't count on it. I would like to see Hizack and Hizack Custom units animated in glorious HD, however.

[AmuroNT1]

Wow. I'm actually surprised the Republic of Zeon didn't act any sooner to, umm..."reclaim their honor", as Thel Vadam would put it. I mean, they could've at least support the various Zeon remnant uprisings.

If you accept the manga Gundam Legacy, the Zeon diehards outright despised the Republic and anyone who worked with the Federation for being "running dogs". Heck, the last four volumes focus on those diehards plotting a nuclear attack on Side 3 as revenge for their "knuckling under".

[schwarz ritter]

I'll have to give it a read. Sounds excellent piece of work.

[Brave Fencer Kirby]

I recall hashing out UC population figures during a thread way back on Gundam Evolution; the conclusion we came to was that most of the population figures were bunk, but we were able to pick out the ones that made sense to mesh together pretty well.

What we ended up doing was taking the total number of casualties during the One Week Battle as 6.5 billion from the setting notes, doubling that for the total pre-OYW population of the Earth Sphere as per the opening narration (which says that half of humanity was killed) for a total of 13 billion, evenly distributed between Earth and space (as per the opening narration of the MSG movies II and III). The population of the Sides is generally given as a billion each (except for Side 3, which has more due to consisting of closed colonies, and Side 7, which can basically be ignored). That gives us 5 billion in Sides 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6 (leaving 1.5 billion of the 6.5 billion total spacenoid population for Side 3). This matches the numbers from Gundam Century and EB1, which say that 3 billion die on Sides 1, 2, and 4, while 2.5 billion die on Earth as a result of the colony drop (the remaining 1 billion of our 6.5 billion total casualties come from Side 5 as a result of the Battle of Loum).

So we end up with 13 billion people pre-OYW. Zeon kills a billion each on Sides 1, 2, 4, and 5, and another 2.5 billion on Earth (I'd be tempted to take the oft-cited 200 million Earthnoid casualties figure from EB39 and call that direct casualties caused by the colony drop, with the remaining being from famine and other ecological disasters resulting from the impact, but I don't think that's supported anywhere). That leaves us with 4 billion people on Earth and 2.5 billion in space post-OYW, with over half the spacenoids being citizens of the Republic of Zeon.

One interesting figure comes from Quess in CCA, who off-handedly claims that there are 10 billion people living in space. Even if we take that to be the population of the entire Earth Sphere, that seems pretty ridiculous given the numbers we came up with earlier, so we dismissed it as Quess being Quess. However, in episode 5 of Gundam Unicorn, Riddhe mentions the 10 billion figure again (though IIRC he's talking about the total population of humanity, not just space), and presumably he'd know better than Quess would. So maybe it's worth taking into account as a direct figure from the animation itself, rather than relying more heavily on supplemental sources?

[toysdream]

So we end up with 13 billion people pre-OYW. Zeon kills a billion each on Sides 1, 2, 4, and 5, and another 2.5 billion on Earth (I'd be tempted to take the oft-cited 200 million Earthnoid casualties figure from EB39 and call that direct casualties caused by the colony drop, with the remaining being from famine and other ecological disasters resulting from the impact, but I don't think that's supported anywhere).

Sure it is. Gundam Century (and Entertainment Bible 1) claim that 320 million people were killed in the impact itself, and an additional 2 billion by its long-term aftereffects. There's your 2.5 billion right there.

One interesting figure comes from Quess in CCA, who off-handedly claims that there are 10 billion people living in space. Even if we take that to be the population of the entire Earth Sphere, that seems pretty ridiculous given the numbers we came up with earlier, so we dismissed it as Quess being Quess. However, in episode 5 of Gundam Unicorn, Riddhe mentions the 10 billion figure again (though IIRC he's talking about the total population of humanity, not just space), and presumably he'd know better than Quess would. So maybe it's worth taking into account as a direct figure from the animation itself, rather than relying more heavily on supplemental sources?

In episode 4 of Gundam Unicorn, Banagher mentions "10 billion people living in space". Maybe that's what you're thinking of?

No matter what the prewar population distribution looked like, the postwar distribution would be pretty different. For one thing, there were all those empty Sides to repopulate; after Zeon exterminated all the other Spacenoids, there was a lot of extra Lebensraum available. For another, the colony drop and the extended warfare on Earth did enough damage to the planet's environment that it couldn't support as many inhabitants; I recall there's some discussion of this in Tomino's Zeta novels.

In other words, it's quite likely that there would be another wave of forced emigration after the One Year War. The real question is how they got the total population numbers up so quickly! Maybe the Federation instituted a mandatory "two-child policy."

-- Mark