What is the population of humanity in Starfield?
Freestar Collective
Given all the catastrophic events in Starfield's history, how many people are left?
This has been a topic that has intrigued me since the game first came out. I've seen threads started on it on Facebook and Reddit before, so I thought I'd delve into it here as well.
SPOILER ALERT - if you haven't played the game, please don't read further.
Lets start with a breakdown of the major events.
Earth is Lost
We learn in the main quest line that humanity had approximately 50 years to get everyone off our precious blue marble in the stars. Ever the optimist, lets assume most of the world's governments were able to mobilize the bulk of our industries to focus on ship manufacturing. According the Lore wiki page for the UC and the Story So Far section of the Starfield game page, here's a breakdown of the timeframe:
- 2150: first humans arrive on Mars; later, public learns of the pending collapse of the Earth's magnetosphere shielding the surface from the Sun's radiation
- 2156: humans arrive in Alpha Centauri (ref:
- 2159: UC forms to help govern over the mass exodus
- 2160: first of many colony ships, the Galileo, touches down on Jemison and founds New Atlantis
- 2161: New Atlantis becomes capital of UC
- 2167: Cheyenne system is settled by Solomon Coe and Akila City is established
- 2189: Solomon Coe forms Freestar Collective with Volii
- 2190: a colony ship, the Archimedes, leaves Mars carrying 346 settlers; Jinan Va'ruun among them
- 2196: Narion War begins
- 2199: last of the colony ships leave Earth
- 2203: Earth officially becomes uninhabitable
- 2230: House Va'ruun reveals itself (presumably from other colony ships that went far astray)
Yet another wrench to the above timeframe might be this potential upcoming DLC, Terran Armada.
Starting Point: Some project Earth's population to have reached 10.8 billion by the year 2150.
Other Factors or Questions to Consider:
- While grav drive was becoming available, some ships left without them like the generation ship, ECS Constant, parked above Paradiso
- Not all survivors would have had to leave Sol. Some were obviously moved to Cydonia and New Homestead (Titan).
- You have two huge shipyards established in space: Deimos above Mars (still operational) and Nova Galactic above Earth (now abandoned)
- We know almost all Earth species are gone. Seemingly no one was able to bring along their dogs and cats - much less cattle, horses, etc. or any other wildlife. I know this is something I find hard to believe - especially with some worlds seeming to have the plant life to support them.
- Logistic nightmare. It isn't just moving people. Those people moved have to have a reliable source of food and water. Presumably, some synthetic source of protein had been established in the form of Chunks (or its predecessor) at this point given their refusal to bring animals.
- Seemingly no cryogenic options to prolong the exodus window. Surely someone would of thought of this alternative to try and freeze people until such a time they could be resettled in a new, established colony. One of the POIs we see in the Starfield game is the Cryogenic Lab, but was anything like it available 150 years prior?
- This Reddit comment points out that over half a million people would have had to leave Earth every day. Clearly there's no evidence anything in that scale could occur. The largest ships we ever see hold less than 500 people. More likely there would have been much smaller ships making regular jumps between Earth and distant star systems, and some of those would have been dedicated to transporting cargo to help establish the new colonies.
- If you're making colonies on Mars and Titan, both on already uninhabitable worlds, why not build a giant one on the world currently in the process of becoming uninhabitable, Earth? All your best resources are already here on Earth.
- Would the ships with grav drives just go to the new colony and stay there (acting as a seed ship), or would they act as a ferry would and return to Earth to pick up the next load? Perhaps there was some mix of the two.
- Early grav drive ranges. In the vanilla Starfield, you tend to land on a max of 20-30 light years. Alpha Centauri is less than 5 light years away, but the earliest tests were just from Luna to Jupiter.
Humanity after Earth
Realistic rate of moving humans? Could humanity achieve an exodus of, on average, 10,000 people per day. If most ships are holding 100 people max, that's 100 ships per day moving people. Some would be seed ships leaving and never to return. Could some be part of a fleet that returned to pick up a new load of refugees?
Over a 40 year period (lets say 2159, when UC was established, to 2199 when the last colony ship left), you would have moved:
146,000,000 people or only 1.351% of humanity
Narion War
Lasting from 2196 - 2216, the fledgling UC and Freestar Collective get into a dispute over the colonies forming in the Narion system. Both groups stake a claim in the system.
It is worth noting that the timeframe puts this war as starting at least 3 years before the exodus from Earth has concluded, so you have two major factions already waging war while colony ships are still fleeing Earth. Imagine trying to evacuate an entire planet while waging a war over the star systems these people will need to call home. Resources already far too few become fewer.
Serpent's Crusade
Lasting from 2240 - 2263, House Va'ruun declares war on the rest of humanity (because it hasn't been through enough hardship already). It is said that "thousands" of people were killed by House Va'ruun agents. We don't know how many in House Va'ruun are lost, but the conflict only ends when their leader is killed.
The Colony War
Starting in 2307 with the illegal colonization of Vesta's Pride (in the Lunara system) by the Freestar Collective, this war lasted only 3 years but was significantly more devastating in its scale. You lost entire worlds like Niira and Tolliman II - both no longer supporting any meaningful settlements.
Population Now
The year is 2330.
In normal times, population growth rates vary around 1-2% per year. We're currently at the lower end of that at 0.85-0.90% growth per year (as of 2024).
Humanity has gone through 3 large-scale wars, dealt with hostile wildlife (Terrormorphs, Ashta, etc), pirates, spacers, etc. There are numerous settlements with poor living conditions (Cydonia, Hopetown, Neon) increasing morbidity rates. All the things needed for a successful colony would have been in short supply, so I'm sure food shortages and poorly planned colony locations would have killed off many early settlements.
Would there be any growth at all since the end of Earth?
On the other hand, there is evidence mankind learned how to clone people, so there's that. 😅
How badly off am I? I'm sure there's something I haven't considered here. I'd like to hear others' thoughts on this?
It's mentioned in passing that billions died and the current cities in the game are nowhere near the size as the big cities of Earth, so definitely the human population took a huge hit in those early years. Did not help that- despite the dwindled numbers, people still separated into their own groups and went in different directions to settled. With the Settled Systems spanning dozens of solar systems many light years apart, it only widen the that gap of the now diminished population. To me, most of the population died fleeing Earth and then moreso with the wars and traveling the stars to settle somewhere. I reckon there seem to be millions of humans still kicking, but since anyone can go to the far reachest of space and many tend to settle all over the place, it feels like the population is smaller. We don't get to see all the people together in a place to actually grasp the real population size. I like that the answer is rather vague, allowing for different conclusions and theories to form and technically could be right or wrong, but we will never know the exact numbers. It's all up to the players' interpretations.