Current Population of Mega City One...?

[worldshown]

Sin City's infection did not spread to MC1, however, in Dredd's words it killed eight or nine hundred thousand. It's not clear how many were MC1 citizens or how many of these were Sin City staff.

Also, 2% population growth is a bit steep for a developed country. Current population growth in the US is 0.894% (CIA Worldbook 2007)

Plus, there's the Anderson story where all the juves were led out into the Cursed Earth. 20% of the US population is under 14, so if we lose, say, half of those, 10% of 400 million is another 40 million gone.

[worldshown]

420 million was from 'Bob's Law'. Judge Barrett says the Sector Relocation Allowance will cost ¢42 billion. At 100 credits each.

So much has happened since then to render that figure useless.

[SamuelAWilkinson]

Pardon the impertinence for trampling all over your space-maths, guv'nors, but isn't there a population count in the little box what introduces this week's stories in the inside cover of the prog?


If not, there should be. In a BSG-style, accurate to the man, updating every week manner.

[Funt Solo]

All I was really saying (in my head, at any rate) is that the figure "400 million" is probably fairly good.

We could argue our way up or down from that by a hundred million or more without having any facts to base our assumptions on, and both still be right, or wrong, and in equal measure.

---
Alan Grant is obsessed with city-shattering events that every other Dredd writer completely ignores - the children all getting taken away, the Sisters of Death causing a city-wide plague and mass destruction - and now a whole sector of sentient blocks sitting in the cursed earth being guarded by a Kong robot having driven a path of destruction through the entire city.

I just don't see any of these events as meaning anything - it's like they happen in an alternate Dredd universe.

[mogzilla]

how many judges are there?

[Funt Solo]

Thanks, Fegbarr - you're quite right - it says "home to 400 million citizens".

Case closed.

I enjoyed it while it lasted.

[TordelBack]

I'm not a huge fan of recent Grant, but I do rather like the idea of the satellite city of sentient blocks guarded by Krong.. it's suitably insane.    

[Funt Solo]

Aye - it's not like I hate all his ideas - but they just don't seem real, because you read the weekly and they're having no effect on the rest of the city - even though, often, they're city-shattering events.

I know cross-overs are frowned upon, but does that mean we have to live with ignore-overs instead?

[IndigoPrime]

I don't know the answer to that, although I suspect hundreds of thousands. However, anyone remember that old annual story that had a meeting of ALL of the Judges of MC-1, in a fairly small room (and where a whole bunch of them got shot)? Funny to see how little a handle the comic had on the sheer scale of Dredd back in the old days!

[mogzilla]

i think it would be nice for tharg to fill us in as after every disaster were they are seriously undermanned i never notice.

[Buttonman]

In a Daily Star Dredd where he kicked ass, a judge says 'Who needs the other 59,000 of us?' - so the number of Judges at that point was 59,001. A strange figure but maybe they thought 'Who needs the other 59,999 of us' would look daft in a speech bubble.

[Funt Solo]

In The Pit (prog 970) the full compliment of judges in Sector House 301 is given as 300.

305 sectors (from Bob's Law, prog 355) gives us a (very rough) approximation of 91,500 judges.

[Funt Solo]

If we round that up a bit (y'know, because of the Academy of Law, Circuit Judges, Iso-Wardens, that sort of thing) to 100,000 (and ignore the fact that some sectors will be 'dust zones and so on, that would make it 8000 cits per Judge.

[Ignatzmonster]

Don't forget the nukes in Total War. Had to have knocked off a measly 50 million or so.

Ignatzmonster: friend of the accountant.

[Wils]

approximation of 91,500 judges

That's a pretty good rise in numbers from the grand total of 5 judges that Mega-City 1 had as seen in the 1978 annual.