Population & Birth Rates

[G]

Has anyone put together a chart of birth rates and how it will effect a population long term? There are lots of different animals and they all have different birth rates, number of years fertile, years to fertility & lifespawns..which makes this a bit of a project. Lets ignore mutant insects and assume adequate resources for maximum (we might want to reconsider this) birth.

For example: humans tend to have 1 child at a time..Pigs tend to have litters of 6-12 (My PCs litter had 34 flying pigs). In the long term, this makes a huge difference as some animals outbreed others (possibly to extinction).

Example: 2 large families, don't harp on me for accuracy. ATB2 takes place an estimated 75years after the crash or 3 generations.
Generation 1: a large family of 10 humans vs. a large family of 200-300 flying pigs
Generation 2: 50 humans (5 families*10 years of childbirth*1kid) vs. 31,250 flying pigs (125 families*10 years*25 piglets)
Generation 3: 250 humans (25 families*10 years of childbirth*1kid) vs. 3,750,000 flying pigs (15,000 families*10 years*25 piglets)

conservitive flying pig estimate: G1:100 pigs, G2:5000 G3: 25,000 (100x the human population)
High flying pig estimate: G1: 300, G2: 45,000(30x10x150) G3: 6,750,000 (humans are an endangered species, lets put them in a museum)

The book says Cardania doesn't have an airforce, I say Cardania will have an airforce when pigs fly

[Pleasure] Bunnies give birth once a month (continuously!) to 5-8 young. After 75 years, imagine a billion Pleasure bunnies with AK47's.

Turtles do not breed every year, rather every 2-4 years. Imagine if they were intelligent and protected their eggs.
-A female hawksbill turtle lays an average of 4 clutches of eggs each breeding season. Each clutch of eggs contains an average of 150 eggs. =600 hatchlings
-A female green turtle lays an average of 4 clutches of eggs each breeding season. Each clutch of eggs contains an average of 110 eggs. =440 hatchlings
-A female leatherback turtle lays an average of 7 clutches of eggs each breeding season. Each clutch of eggs contains an average of 85 eggs. =595 hatchlings
With 25 years to maturity..assuming a fertile period a decade (?) G1max: 3000, G2: 4.5Mil G3: 6.75Billion...Ninja Turtles!

[Rali]

Rule #1: This is a game set in a fictional world.

That aside, it's always interesting to contemplate and debate "What if" AtB actually happened.

Initially I make the argument that due to the mutations, these mutant animals no longer give birth to numerous young. Be it something in the genetics or that over the years they no longer need to, and now give birth more along the lines of humanity. After all, feral animals need to give birth to large litters due to the high mortality rate and predation.

I'd also argue that you can't go with a flat "generation" scale since the length of a generation would change as conditions improve following the Big Death. Initially, food would be scare and competition would be fierce, so fewer mutant animals are going to survive and those that do probably won't for long, so these early mutant animals would probably still give birth to litters to increase the chance of survival. Later on, the intelligent mutant animals would most likely congregate together to increase their chances for survival against predators, but now they have to worry about the food supply. Large litters are going to be more of a burden on the community, thus that aspect would quickly fall away (or drive them to cannibalism). How? Maybe the genetics that control the size of litters changes to produce fewer offspring, or maybe those "families" that can't control their procreation starve to death or are driven out of the community and die off in the wilderness/wastelands.

Still, the biggest stopgaps in population spikes are radiation, disease, mutant beasties, and other intelligent animals(and humans) trying to survive. The lack of pharmaceuticals, doctors and hospitals in the early years would mean that the mortality rate of humans and mutant animals is going to be very high. Small colonies of survivors will be ill equipped to fend off mutant beasts and raiders, who themselves are looking to survive. As those surviving communities grew in size the and quality of life improved, these mutant animals would find less of a strain on their survival and would finally produce no more than three offspring in a litter or drop to one. Those in rural areas, or with a lower quality of life, may still find the stresses necessitating larger litters to ensure survival, but that too would most likely be shed over time.


Still, remember, it's just a game and putting to much though into it can take a lot of the fun out. As with anything fictional, it's best to incorporate only that with the plot needs to sustain itself. Anything more will just choke it to death. Believe me, I've had plenty of ideas KIA because I stuffed so much exposition into them that the players got bored, lost interest, or became so distracted in some minute detail I added in as flavor that it derailed the whole thing.

Keep it simple.

[G]

I thought of another example. A Shifter mouse could shift into a turtle, mate with the turtle, which would lay eggs (its reproductive method does not change), then the shifter mouse's genetics override the turtles. The eggs hatch into shifter mice! If you wanted to increase the shifter mouse population or have a BIG family you can quickly do so.