@VladVonCastein wrote:
Since there's talks about Krogan, here are some facts of krogan reproduction based on the previous ME series:
Without the genophage(or after the genophage cure): EDI mentioned in ME3, a krogan female of breeding age can produce up to 1000 fertilized eggs a year.
With a full-blown Genophage(not cured and no modifications): Mordin mentioned that the Genophage keeps checks population growth at 1 to 1000. Which basically means mathematically a female Krogan even without curing the genophage could have 1 child per year. Say if the chances improve due to the 600 year voyage, that number should go up...
Out of a 1000 year lifespan lets say 50% of it is spent as a sexually active adult, that's 500 kids per Krogan female during their lifetime. In a couple of century Krogans will outnumber not just the milky way species but eventually the angarians as well!
Eh... It makes no sense.
So basing ON THE VERY SAME assumptions You are using, human female lives 100 years, and is able to deliver about 1 child per 9 months. Out of 100 year lifespan lest say 50% of it is spent as sexually active adult, that's 67 kids during lifetime (starting to see some "issues" with Your assumptions?). On occasions there are twins, so number should be even higher... ;-D
Now, get real. Even if we assume 500 years of sexual activity for Krogans, as per EDI each female usually breeds only 1 girl in her lifetime (chances of Krogan female to give birth to 2 girls is like 1 to 2000). So it would mean that in 1000 years 1 Krogan female gives birth to 499 boys and to 1 girl. Now, let's assume that we have Krogan female A, and that she gives birth to a girl when 500 year old. The girl - or Krogan female B - will give birth to another 249 boys and 1 girl in remaining 500 years, which completes 1000 year cycle. So to summarize: from a single Krogan female we have 499+249 boys (or 748) and 2 girls in 1000 years. Please note that Krogans are warmongers, they live dangerous lives, and it is hardly probable that more than half of 748 boys survive until adulthood.
If birth rate is improved to, say, 10 per 1000, it would result in 4'990 boys and 10 girls per female. Assuming that girls are born when mother is 500, it would give those girls another 500 years to breed per 1000 year cycle. So in 1000 years we would have additional 10 * 4'990 / 2 boys and 10 * 10 girls. Which means 29'940 boys and 110 girls in total. Sounds reasonable.
If birth rate is improved to 100 per 1000 (which means it is *almost* completely cured - which is probably not the case), it would result in 49'990 boys and 100 girls per female. Assuming that girls are born when mother is 500, it would give those girls another 500 years to breed per 1000 year cycle. So in 1000 years we would have additional 100 * 49'990 / 2 boys and 100 * 100 girls. Which means 2'544'900 boys and 10'100 girls in total. That's a lot.
It gets much more interesting if Genophage is cured *completely* (which is obviously *not* the case). 1 female would give birth to something like 499'000 boys and 1'000 girls in a lifetime. Assuming those girls are born when mother is 500 years old, we will have 249'999'000 boys and 1'001'000 girls in 1000 years. Which makes more than 250 millions of Krogans from a single female. With Krogan tendencies their infighting would probably grow more intense in such a case, and thus death rate would grow as well - but it would be overwhelming, nevertheless.
Now, look at human beings. It's reasonable to assume that 1-5 kids are bred per female's lifespan. Andromeda is dangerous, so let's assume 3 kids per lifetime - which is still a lot. Those kids are usually bred between mother's age of 25-50. For easier calculations, let's assume that those are 3 kids at mother's age of 33. So, 1 female brings us 3 kids in 33 years. Let's assume that half of them are girls (which is 1 or 2 really), so in another 33 years we have another 4.5 kids (which is 3 or 6 really). Half of them are girls, so we have 6.75 more kids in next 33 years, and half of them are girls again. Etc. So to just sum it up: there should be like 1.5^(1000/33) - or 216'280 - fertile female descendants from a single woman in 1000 years. Assuming that people live up to 100 years the total number of all the living descendants of our original female would be like 404'808 males and 404'808 females at that time. Even taking into account 50% death ratio, it would mean more than 400'000 living descendants of 1 human female - which beats Krogans for sure *unless* Genophage is cured or almost cured.
BUT, let us add breeding programs, which e.g. encourage young woman to have children at 25, and to have circa 4 children as early as possible. We can also supplement our numbers with clones, in vitro, and other breeding technologies. In the result we will *easily* reach 2^(1000/25) - or a whooping number of 1.1E+12 (which is more than 1 billion for countries using long scale like most countries / more than 1 trillion for countries using short scale like US and UK ) fertile females in 1000 years. At that time total number of all living descendants OF A SINGLE WOMAN should be something like 2.1E+12 (or more than 2 billions / trillions) assuming 50% death rate and limit of 100 years of life. It *easily* beats Krogans, even with Genephage cured *completely*... ;-D
