How many people can live on the PLANT"S ?

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Mafty
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How many people can live on the PLANT"S ?

PLANT is the entire space nation of Coordinators, but it doesn't seem as though there's that much living space on their colonies. In the UC timeline the colonies can be multiple Kilometers long (This is perhaps best illustrated in Victory Gundam's Amelia Colony) , or are fully enclosed (like Side 3). But PLANT seems to be mostly glass with small cities at the top and bottom of each Hourglass. Is the population of Coordinators smaller (which given the genetic modification, seems likely) or was this the result of the PLANT's being transformed from resource satellites to living space?
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Seto Kaiba
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Re: How many people can live on the PLANT"S ?

So... assuming the published measurements for the PLANTs are accurate in describing the PLANTs as 30km across on their longest axis and sporting two circular habitat areas 10km in diameter, your typical PLANT has a habitable area totaling approximately 157.08 square kilometers. The actual value will be less due to terrain features and the some infrastructure like the central shaft.

Your standard Island-3 O'Neill cylinder colony seen in the Universal Century should have a total surface area of about 904.78 square kilometers, but you have to subtract the endcaps from that (-50.27km^2 apiece) and then divide what's left by two since you have to consider the windows. That leaves 402.12 square kilometers. Side 3's closed type has twice that.

So yeah, the UC colonies are a lot bigger than the PLANTs in terms of livable area.

There were supposedly 120 PLANTs before things went tango-uniform, so that's about 18,850 square kilometers to live on in total... making ZAFT somewhere between Connecticut and New Jersey in actual size.

(The PLANTs are just a really, REALLY inefficient colony design...)
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Seto Kaiba
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Re: How many people can live on the PLANT"S ?

Mafty wrote: Mon Feb 08, 2021 1:52 pm Is the population of Coordinators smaller (which given the genetic modification, seems likely) or was this the result of the PLANT's being transformed from resource satellites to living space?
After reviewing the available material, I've found nothing that gives an average population for the individual PLANTs in explicit terms.

However, if we work backwards from statements made after a misaimed shot from the Earth Alliance superweapon Requiem destroyed Januarius 1, 2, 3, and 4, and wreckage from same destroyed December 7 and 8, the death toll among citizens of the PLANTs was said to exceed 1 million, we can approximate a population of around 170,000 or more in each PLANT. That would suggest the total population of the PLANTs before the wars started was somewhere around 20.4 million. (To put that number in perspective, that's about the population of Mali, or about a million less than Taiwan.)
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Mafty
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Re: How many people can live on the PLANT"S ?

It does make sense that the population would be lower, as through out the series we see that Coordinators are a minority compared to the Naturals, though I agree the PLANT design is really inefficient. Plus Gundam often has a smallish group make a large impact on the war (ie, a couple of prototype suits against a whole army). That and there's also Orb which manages to be a global powerhouse with a powerful army despite a landmass that seems far smaller than Hawaii(which begs the question of where exactly all the displaced Orb citizen's of Heliopolis went).
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Re: How many people can live on the PLANT"S ?

Seto Kaiba wrote: Mon Feb 08, 2021 10:12 pm
Mafty wrote: Mon Feb 08, 2021 1:52 pm Is the population of Coordinators smaller (which given the genetic modification, seems likely) or was this the result of the PLANT's being transformed from resource satellites to living space?
After reviewing the available material, I've found nothing that gives an average population for the individual PLANTs in explicit terms.

However, if we work backwards from statements made after a misaimed shot from the Earth Alliance superweapon Requiem destroyed Januarius 1, 2, 3, and 4, and wreckage from same destroyed December 7 and 8, the death toll among citizens of the PLANTs was said to exceed 1 million, we can approximate a population of around 170,000 or more in each PLANT. That would suggest the total population of the PLANTs before the wars started was somewhere around 20.4 million. (To put that number in perspective, that's about the population of Mali, or about a million less than Taiwan.)
I recall the J7 incident caused something like a 200~300 thousand deaths? So I usually just assume each have a pop limit of 300k.
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Re: How many people can live on the PLANT"S ?

243,721 is the exact number. Junius Seven was also an agricultural PLANT, though - I would assume that PLANTs in other cities could potentially have higher populations, but probably not by much.
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John-Luck Pickerd
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Re: How many people can live on the PLANT"S ?

Well, the "new" Gundam Seed Mechanics and World give PLANT a population of 60 million coordinators, presumably not counting the (very)small number of naturals that are parents.

at 60 million on 120 colony, each colony would, on average, have 500k population. Ofc, normal habitat colonies would have more than 500k, since agricultural colonies use up alot of space for agricultural as seen on screen. According to on of the interviews with the staff, they pretty much envisioned that one Plant colony is the equivalent of one Suginami ward, which supposedly had 500k population back in the day.

Ofc, that number would not line up with the numbers from Destiny.
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Re: How many people can live on the PLANT"S ?

John-Luck Pickerd wrote: Tue Feb 09, 2021 12:02 pm Well, the "new" Gundam Seed Mechanics and World give PLANT a population of 60 million coordinators, presumably not counting the (very)small number of naturals that are parents.
I think that number is probably excessive... with 60 million people and less than 18,850km^2 to work with, that'd be over 3,300 people per square kilometer. That's halfway to Hong Kong's population density. Definitely not something supported via the animation, which has always shown the PLANTs as spacious and comfortable accommodations with substantial natural areas and so on rather than one massive urban sprawl.

Realistically, given the footprint of some of the PLANTs we've seen, it's more like 60% of that area due to water and the elevator/structural frame of the PLANTs, which would put the PLANTs very close to Hong Kong levels of density.
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Re: How many people can live on the PLANT"S ?

Out of curiosity, I went and dug up the old Gundam Official website on the Internet Archive. The SEED glossary has some interesting info on PLANTs, but unfortunately nothing about population.
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MythSearcher
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Re: How many people can live on the PLANT"S ?

Seto Kaiba wrote: Tue Feb 09, 2021 1:20 pm I think that number is probably excessive... with 60 million people and less than 18,850km^2 to work with, that'd be over 3,300 people per square kilometer. That's halfway to Hong Kong's population density. Definitely not something supported via the animation, which has always shown the PLANTs as spacious and comfortable accommodations with substantial natural areas and so on rather than one massive urban sprawl.

Realistically, given the footprint of some of the PLANTs we've seen, it's more like 60% of that area due to water and the elevator/structural frame of the PLANTs, which would put the PLANTs very close to Hong Kong levels of density.
Ironically, that is still very comfortable compared to the UC colonies setting of 30 mil per colony.
And HK's pop density is very misleading. Over 70% of it is just mountains with no buildings and very hard to build on.(I believe they didn't include sea portions in the official area)
So having HK's po density isn't really that bad.(though same as the UC colonies, they are never shown to have that high, but they may have very high density in 30% of the areas just like HK.)
I was about to say the only problem they face will be not enough land to support farming, but then I remembered they are not allowed to produce food before CE71 anyway.(No idea what happens after the war starts)
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John-Luck Pickerd
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Re: How many people can live on the PLANT"S ?

MythSearcher wrote: Wed Feb 10, 2021 1:13 am
Seto Kaiba wrote: Tue Feb 09, 2021 1:20 pm I think that number is probably excessive... with 60 million people and less than 18,850km^2 to work with, that'd be over 3,300 people per square kilometer. That's halfway to Hong Kong's population density. Definitely not something supported via the animation, which has always shown the PLANTs as spacious and comfortable accommodations with substantial natural areas and so on rather than one massive urban sprawl.

Realistically, given the footprint of some of the PLANTs we've seen, it's more like 60% of that area due to water and the elevator/structural frame of the PLANTs, which would put the PLANTs very close to Hong Kong levels of density.
Ironically, that is still very comfortable compared to the UC colonies setting of 30 mil per colony.
And HK's pop density is very misleading. Over 70% of it is just mountains with no buildings and very hard to build on.(I believe they didn't include sea portions in the official area)
So having HK's po density isn't really that bad.(though same as the UC colonies, they are never shown to have that high, but they may have very high density in 30% of the areas just like HK.)
I was about to say the only problem they face will be not enough land to support farming, but then I remembered they are not allowed to produce food before CE71 anyway.(No idea what happens after the war starts)

I am sure they can grow some genetically engineered super crops that can make the most out of the limited surface area. Especially when they can grow giant trees to make giant bolt-action rifles for their giant robots.

But speaking of Plant interior, while the residential zones are fiarly opened aired, I recall also shots of presumably city centres that show it's multi level in construction.
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Re: How many people can live on the PLANT"S ?

John-Luck Pickerd wrote: Wed Feb 10, 2021 7:50 am I am sure they can grow some genetically engineered super crops that can make the most out of the limited surface area. Especially when they can grow giant trees to make giant bolt-action rifles for their giant robots.

But speaking of Plant interior, while the residential zones are fiarly opened aired, I recall also shots of presumably city centres that show it's multi level in construction.
Well, the problem is time.
Not allowing PLANT to grow food was a way the Earth Alliance used to exploit PLANT, so they can sell food in a very expensive price and buy superior product at a very cheap price.
The BV war broke out pretty suddenly for the coordinators, I doubt they can complete a whole production line and start growing food in such a short notice.
It is also quite dubious that their allies can suddenly provide a lot of food to them, and then there's famine all over the world.
I guess they can have some kind of preparation before hand? Like growing things that can be said as non-food but actually can be turned into food in a short period.

And Yes, they can likely hold multi-layer structures since the funnel bottoms seem to have a thicker centre.
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Re: How many people can live on the PLANT"S ?

MythSearcher wrote: Wed Feb 10, 2021 10:36 am
John-Luck Pickerd wrote: Wed Feb 10, 2021 7:50 am I am sure they can grow some genetically engineered super crops that can make the most out of the limited surface area. Especially when they can grow giant trees to make giant bolt-action rifles for their giant robots.

But speaking of Plant interior, while the residential zones are fiarly opened aired, I recall also shots of presumably city centres that show it's multi level in construction.
Well, the problem is time.
Not allowing PLANT to grow food was a way the Earth Alliance used to exploit PLANT, so they can sell food in a very expensive price and buy superior product at a very cheap price.
The BV war broke out pretty suddenly for the coordinators, I doubt they can complete a whole production line and start growing food in such a short notice.
It is also quite dubious that their allies can suddenly provide a lot of food to them, and then there's famine all over the world.
I guess they can have some kind of preparation before hand? Like growing things that can be said as non-food but actually can be turned into food in a short period.

And Yes, they can likely hold multi-layer structures since the funnel bottoms seem to have a thicker centre.
Well for what its worth, Junius Seven(and most likely 8, 9 and 10) is already producing food by the time the nuke struck, judging by the flashbacks of farms, vast fields etc. According to the old gundamofficial, the remodelling of the colony into an agricultural colony started in CE69, so optimistically, Juinius Seven would have been producing food for a few months before the war the nuke struck.

I guess they probably have stockpiles, and factories for organic material that can be quickly repurposed producing (if low quality) food.
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Re: How many people can live on the PLANT"S ?

John-Luck Pickerd wrote: Wed Feb 10, 2021 11:02 am Well for what its worth, Junius Seven(and most likely 8, 9 and 10) is already producing food by the time the nuke struck, judging by the flashbacks of farms, vast fields etc. According to the old gundamofficial, the remodelling of the colony into an agricultural colony started in CE69, so optimistically, Juinius Seven would have been producing food for a few months before the war the nuke struck.

I guess they probably have stockpiles, and factories for organic material that can be quickly repurposed producing (if low quality) food.
It makes sense that they have a certain amount of reserve, they aren't in good terms before that anyway.
The CE timeline's Earth Alliance is just that much more stupid than the UC Earth Federation.
EF is at least still doing management well, and didn't really create oppositions between its people too much.(That is why most of the sides are still on EF's side and are allowed to feel sympathy to Side 3, and all the way to UC0218, when the EF dissolved, most of the sides still allied with Earth) Yes, they took away the political rights of Spacenoids, but at least didn't divert the blame on Earthnoids so if the Spacenoids is dissatisfied, they hate EF instead of Earthnoids. They also aren't making Earthnoids hate the Spacenoids. In fact, EF isn't doing things too high profile. They exist, looks like they did almost nothing other than basic law enforcements(Almost sounded like ) At least they don't actively do things to gain hate.(They passively gained a lot by in action though)
EA exploitation of PLANT directly caused dissatisfaction from the PLANT people, and the exploitation of getting cheap high tech good quality products in turn took away jobs from their own people. Yes, they can blame it on the coordinators, but obviously the hate just builds up and sooner or later war is going to happen, and they didn't even think of it as a possibility and sooner or later the blame will definitely return to them, no, not in the way of karma, but people will know they are doing stupid things and turn to hate them.
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Re: How many people can live on the PLANT"S ?

According to the Gundam Official archive Chris linked to there are 120 PLANTS, Divided into 12 Sectors/Cities with their own specialty. Junius specialized in "Basic and applied agricultural science," ; so it was ten agricultural colonies, which probably could produce a decent amount of food even after the Bloody Valentine Tragedy. For that matter was Bloody Valentine the result of a group of fanatical EA Forces trying to stop food production?
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Re: How many people can live on the PLANT"S ?

Mafty wrote: Wed Feb 10, 2021 2:05 pm According to the Gundam Official archive Chris linked to there are 120 PLANTS, Divided into 12 Sectors/Cities with their own specialty. Junius specialized in "Basic and applied agricultural science," ; so it was ten agricultural colonies, which probably could produce a decent amount of food even after the Bloody Valentine Tragedy. For that matter was Bloody Valentine the result of a group of fanatical EA Forces trying to stop food production?
I don't recall a source explicitly stating a definitive answer regarding who ordered the nuke, or atleast none in english or made it out here in the west. I am sure some obscure-in-the-west reference book in Japan have the answer.

For what its worth, I certainly wouldn't discount this possibility. Before the nuclear attack, Plant and what will become of the Alliance have been fighting in small skirmishes since CE69. And much to the frustration of the sponsor nations that tried to stop Plant's food production, they aren't making any progress toward what they initially thought is a weak(militarily)target, and the causalities were increasing. I wouldn't it past some influential aggressive admiral(s), with Blue Cosmos whispering poison in their ears, thought that they should end this whole thing swiftly with a nuke as a very loud and clear statement.
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Re: How many people can live on the PLANT"S ?

MythSearcher wrote: Wed Feb 10, 2021 1:13 am Ironically, that is still very comfortable compared to the UC colonies setting of 30 mil per colony.
And HK's pop density is very misleading. Over 70% of it is just mountains with no buildings and very hard to build on.(I believe they didn't include sea portions in the official area)
Bear in mind, that's also true for the PLANTs if you look at their internal layout... so that's not exactly what I'd call a counterpoint. The PLANTs are about as suboptimal as it's possible to be for a space colony, though the numbers given for UC colonies are just flat impossible.


John-Luck Pickerd wrote: Wed Feb 10, 2021 4:11 pm I don't recall a source explicitly stating a definitive answer regarding who ordered the nuke, or atleast none in english or made it out here in the west. I am sure some obscure-in-the-west reference book in Japan have the answer.
Both the Hobby Japan Cosmic Era Chronology and Gundam SEED Re: lay the blame on Colonel William Sutherland, an Earth Alliance High Command staff officer who authorized the loading of nuclear weapons onto the Roosevelt and ordered them fired at Junius-7. He's noted to have been sympathetic to Blue Cosmos at the very least, and possibly an actual member of the organization (meaning the order may have indirectly come from Azrael.)
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Re: How many people can live on the PLANT"S ?

Seto Kaiba wrote: Wed Feb 10, 2021 4:50 pm Bear in mind, that's also true for the PLANTs if you look at their internal layout... so that's not exactly what I'd call a counterpoint. The PLANTs are about as suboptimal as it's possible to be for a space colony, though the numbers given for UC colonies are just flat impossible.
That is my point exactly.
In CE's sand funnel colonies pop density, you can still have 70% of free land and the living conditions won't be too bad for most of the population. (But it will still be suboptimal to downright slum for some people just like HK)

The UC numbers are flat impossible for what is shown, true. But come to think of it, we weren't shown a lot of colonies. Side 7 was unfinished and probably has a much lower population, Reah might be one of the middle class colonies with less pop as well. The slum Tem Ray was in has pretty high density.
So, I give SOME benefit of the doubt and say it is implausible, not impossible. (Maybe most of the other colonies are all sardine cans.)
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Re: How many people can live on the PLANT"S ?

Agreed it does seem as though different colonies seemed to have different population infrastructure. Londenion wasen't all that built up, neither was Core 3 for that matter. However if you look at Industrial 7 and Frontier IV ; both not only have a much bigger cityscape, but certain parts of the colony seem to consist of layered apartment complex's that could probably house alot of people(ie, where Seabook and Reese live). And that's before you get to specialized colonies like resort colonies or agricultural/ food production colonies. Also it seems like some colonies don't even have a civilian population (like Green Noa 2's Titans base).

That being said it's possible the PLANT'S also have layered areas for more population.
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