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Colonization Fleets Begin Departing in 2012
(Macross Frontier, Episode 1)

The Post-Space War I Survivors The Super Dimension Fortress Macross animated TV Series was released in 1982 but the story was set in a near-future fictional world that began in 1999. The fictional events of the conflict between humans and the Zentradi – known as Space War I – are set in February 2009 and last until the end of the war in March 2010. In 1982 the world population was 4.610 billion people but we now know that in 2010 the population of the Earth was 6.840 billion. The horrendous final conflict of Space War I resulted in the deaths of almost all life on Earth. There is a brief mention in the official written trivia about survivors: A total of several hundred thousand [to approximately one million] survivors confirmed in the Grand Cannons [I,] III and V, the Lunar surface's Apollo Base, and the space colony clusters [bunches] This total survivor count does not include the SDF-1 Macross crew/civilian population or the Zentradi assimilated into the UNG. The SDF-1 crew is 20,000 and the onboard civilian population starts at 58,000 before being ultimately reduced to 40,000. The post-war assimilated Zentradi population are mentioned indirectly in official trivia, indicating that 100 spaceships of the Adoclass fleet (originally 1,200 ships) survived the war. Official trivia provides a personnel count for the Zentradi Bodol Main Fleet of approximately 7,500,000,000 personnel. We can subtract the crew of the Fulbtzs-Berrentzs Class Mothership (1,000,000 at most) which would leave 7,499,000,000 personnel spread across a fleet of 4,795,122 warships. This means the average zentradi ship has 1,564 crew members, which would translate to roughly 156,400 Zentradi survivors for 100 remaining warships. If we combined all these numbers, the most optimistic population count would be 1,216,400 survivors.

Population Without A Census Starting with The Super Dimension Fortress Macross: Flashback 2012 the survivors of Space War I begin an aggressive exodus of Earth in the hopes of colonizing enough worlds to ensure the survival of the human race. Large fleets of space ships - starting with the Megaroad-01 – send tens of thousands of people out into space as part of the Humanity Seeding Project. Most colonists for these emigration fleets are born from an equally pervasive program of mass cloning that rapidly rebuilds the human population (including plants and animals). This mass cloning program begins just months after the end of the war in May 2010 and will ultimately continue until 2030. The cloning programs repopulate a significant portion of the Earth and are the basis for the colonization of numerous worlds, including planet Eden. The official Macross published trivia never presents any information for the human population of Earth, Eden or the United Nations Government as a whole. The only population figures that are officially revealed are the counts for colonization fleets. However, it is possible to work with those numbers that are known to determine the minimum population that is needed to provide crew and populate these colony fleets. In so doing, such an analysis will provide an estimate of the human population.

A Numbers Game The best estimate that can be made about the number of living humans in the post-war Macross world is to ask what the UNG requires as a population to sustain the colonization diaspora conducted in the post-Space War I years. The early colonization programs started with the Megaroad fleets; each Megaroad had 80,000 colonists (not including crew and the escort fleet of Zentradi Battlecruisers and UN Spacy Battleships). The Macross Chronicle (both editions from 2008 and 2014) for some reason published a reduced figure of 25,000 colonists per Megaroad. For purposes of this article the original 80,000 colonist count trivia will be used. The Megaroad fleets began less than 4 years after the start of mass cloning in 2010. In 2014, the UNG begins regularly sending 1-2 Megaroad colony fleets of 80,000+ people annually and three such fleets have already launched by that year. In these 4 years the UNG needed to grow by 24% from 1 million to 1,240,000 just to support the colonist count of the three Megaroad fleets (no crew, no escort fleet count). Unfortunately, we have no numbers for the fleets and no growth rate for Earth, even though Earth became a major population center with a population explosion in 2011. This prompts the need for super-long-distance colonization and close-range colonization fleets (official trivia lacks any figures for these fleets). By 2014 the UNG Megaroad colonization program demands 160,000 people per year, every year, just on Megaroad colonists alone. This would be in excess of the growing population needed to sustain Earth and any other colonies (such as Eden, colonized the year before in 2013 by a close-range colony fleet). A natural growth rate starting from 1 million people would yield 10,000 people per year at a conservative growth rate of 1%. So mass cloning is yielding at minimum a 16.0% growth rate. However, not every new citizen can be attached to a colony fleet. If they were, Earth, Eden and all other established colonies would be suffering negative growth rates. So it will have to be assumed the growth rate is 17% for established colonies to remain viable. This assumption produces 170,000 people per year. In 2030, mass cloning ends, but Megaroad super-long-range colony fleets continue to depart. This means that either the "natural" growth rate must be 17% (untenable) or the population of the UNG must be so large that it can naturally sustain the colonization fleet requirements of 160,000 people per year. For a natural growth rate to both sustain colonization fleet requirements and sustain existing colonies, the population of the UNG must be no less than 10 million people by 2030. However, additional burdens arise upon on the UNG population in 2030. The first New Macross Class colony fleets begin departure in 2030, which include in excess of 1 million people per fleet departing once per year. Since mass cloning has ended and the Megaroad fleets are still ongoing, the UNG must have a population size that can sustain a "natural" growth rate to accommodate colonization fleet requirements of 1,160,000 people per year. At 1% per year, the UNG must have a population of approx 230 million people by 2030 to meet colonization fleet requirements AND sustain natural growth of existing colonies. The last major population figure that can be derived takes place in 2045. The Macross 7 animated episode Fleet of the Strongest Women saw the UNG absorb Chlore's Meltrandi fleet. The episode describes Chlore’s fleet outnumbering the Macross 7 fleet 500 to 1. In 2008, the Macross Chronicle Issue 5 published the fleet count of the 37th long-distance colonization fleet, which totaled 194 large ships and 2,689 small craft. At a 500 to 1 ratio, Chlore's Meltran fleet would be 97,000 warships and 1,344,500 combat vehicles. If the Zentradi Bodol Main Fleet was again used as a guide for fleet personnel, the 97,000 warships would hold a population of 151,708,000 Meltrandi.

The Final Frontier The animated television series Macross Frontier (released in 2008) once again featured a colony fleet that was central to the plot. This series introduced to the Macross fiction a new colony fleet type; the Island Cluster Class fleets. Although the series is set in 2059, it is in 2041 when the 25th New Macross Class emigration fleet (55th Super Long-distance emigrant fleet – Macross 25/Frontier fleet) leaves Earth. This Island Cluster Class Macross Frontier fleet has a population of 10 million people. Once again assuming a natural growth rate of 1% per year, the UNG/New UNG must have a population of approx 2.3 billion people by 2041 to meet the colony fleet requirements AND sustain all existing colonies.

Summary Now for the real noodle bake: the numbers above fail to account for: death and death rates the 156,000 Zentradi in 2010 and their population/colonization growth rates (with the exception of the NMC fleets starting in 2030 that were Zentradi, such as Macross 5) the fact that the Zentradi, unlike the humans, still clone as of 2059 (see Macross Frontier) ALL close-range colony fleets are unaccounted, such as the close-range fleet that colonized planet Eden in 2013 Megaroad, Zentradi and UN Spacy fleet crews for 16 years between 2014-2030 absorption of other, non-cultured Zentradi/Meltrandi fleets the population of Zola and the Zolan’s induction into the UNG (Macross Dynamite 7) What does this all tell us? Well, the information doesn't provide any definitive population figures. What this analysis does is prove the official numbers (80,000 for the Megaroads, 1 million for the New Macross Class) require a minimum amount of people to sustain both existing colonies and new colonization. All indications are the UNG has grown at an unimaginable rate in a ridiculously short time placing BELOW MINIMUM population numbers in the billions by 2041. Both Earth and Eden are depicted in Macross Plus and Macross Frontier as burgeoning colonies indicating sustained growth and a single colony fleet may have a sustainable population of 10 million by the 2040s. All evidence from Macross canon and official trivia indicates growth rates continue uninterrupted. If by 2041 the UNG population numbers 2.3 billion reached in 31 years from a starting base of 1 million, the next 25+ years from 2041-2067 could easily lead to a NUNG civilization population in the tens of billions.

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