Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Related How many people on New Krypton?

Folks,

I don't think we were ever told how many people were living on New Krypton. Am I wrong? Is there someplace it gives some sort of number?

I'm looking at minimum viable colony size. I want to structure things so the colony, which can only be a few years old as Zara and Clark are close in age, is too small and needs more people to survive.

All the fan fic I ever see has wars and sees it as Clark's duty to help New Krypton and its people.

I think if Clark did end up on New Krypton he'd quickly see that the colony is too small to survive.

And the way New Krypton is hanging on to an obsolete primitive social structure is just one more example of its inability to survive.

So a well traveled Earth raised Lord Kal El is unlikely to sit back and be bound by rules that doomed the old Krypton and are helping kill the few surviving Kryptonians.


Thanks

The only number I recall is when Krypton first blew up...(oh, it's from from BGDF)

JD

I've just checked the script... and come back to the thread to find that Shadow has beaten me to the answer! Just so you know, though, I came up with the same number (it's on page six).

The number of colonists is one of the things I didn't like about the whole New Krypton arc. The number always struck me as being ridiculously low... especially since the NKers seemed far more interested in fighting each other than working out how to survive! Plus, why would Clark think it worth leaving Earth with its billions of people for such a small number of NKers? And how many of that thousand were on the ship that came to Earth, rather than getting on with life on their rock?

If you write a story about the planet having too few people to be viable, I'd be really interested to see the result. This seems like a realistic scenario -- or as realistic as anything could be in fantasy-land, anyway!

Chris

just a thought on how you might bump up the 'thousand or more'.

NK was a very traditional society - an aristocracy, birth marriages, hereditary rulers, etc.

In many traditional earth cultures (e.g. England) it was customary to refer to population in terms of the number of "households" rather than the number of individuals. "Household" meant 'extended family plus servants living within the household. So if Zara was using the term that way you could turn that 1000 into 10, 000 or so,

Another possibility - in traditional, hierarchical social systems, many individuals who we would count "in" weren't counted in because they weren't considered to be fully "human". e.g. peasants in medieval Europe, slaves in the original American Constitution, women in practically every Earth culture until the 20th century. So you could assume that Zara, an aristocrat, could mean '1000 or more *'aristocratic* families, reflecting her social bias.
(OT - trying to recall how many were part of the "Social Register" in 19th century New York , or was it Boston?)

All these 'creative' accounting suggestions still end up with a small population though. Nevertheless, given a harsh environment it would be enough to ensure survival unless they were attacked by a superior military force.

Also, given NK's superior technology - think of the cloning possibilities (Replicants!)

c.

Also bear in mind Kryptons mastery of the life sciences. In the modern more dystopian Krypton they had eliminated all diseases and were virtually immortals, hence they felt little urge to procreate and expand. If you simply can combine DNA and create life in vitro their race can be ten in one generation and a billion in the next..

Because they are his people? whom he apparently has hereditary obligations to?

Plus, he was pretty much guilt-tripped into it. How could Clark, with the conscience he has, really resist any plea for help to save lives? I don't think the number would make any difference to him at all. One or a million - it's all the same to Superman.

Carol's ideas for extending those numbers are good ones. Very logical and I can certainly see Zara (and other NK'ers) having the bias to exclude whole swathes of population. <g> Should work very well, if you wanted to use them.

LabRat

Yes, Carol's idea sounds very reasonable considering the view we got of NKers. Particularly of Ching when he was played by Jon T. in the first two episodes. Nothing but duty mattered to him. He even obviously looked at Kal-El as being substandard by his upbring on earth. So I could see him not counting any body not of the royals as being part of the population. They were simply support personnel.

Assume we make it 5,000 or stretch it somehow to 10,000. Either case, no problem.


I wasn't thinking about genetic viability. In fact the genetic issue had not occurred to me.

I was looking at technological viability.

Even 10,000 people is just too few to fill the niches needed to keep a technological culture alive.

Much of the knowledge of Krypton must have been lost, regardless of how well recorded it was.

In the middle and late 20th century many people were employed to interpret American product manuals for non native speakers of English. the writers of such manuals took many bits of background knowledge for granted.

Most written instructional material takes some basic knowledge for granted.

It happens everywhere, little bits of knowledge that require some other bit to be able to form a proper question.

Years ago I came in to work one day to find the staff and managers fighting with a jammed lock. They were going to drill it out because after two hours the locksmith had not been able to get it to unlock.

As part of patent safety the door was KEPT locked electricly. Remove the power and the "solid" latch the bolt was in pops back into a hole. Took two seconds to pop the circuit breaker and open the "jammed" door.


The ONLY way New Krypton could survive is with a vast influx of skilled folks.

So a Clark that ends up as "Lord Kal El", ruling this group, the same Clark that we know is widely read and well traveled, is going to see this in next to no time.

I don't think Clark Kent is going to let "Traditions" and "The way we've always done things" stop him.

A society so lacking in population and skills is not going to be able to afford an idle nobility.

Their "battles" and "wars" are simply folks rearranging deck chairs and staterooms on the Titanic.

Clark being Clark will want to help and given any sort of power he WILL help.

No doubt they would have some difficulty preserving their entire heritage, but you discount Kryptonian AI advancement. For example one of the more interesting threats to Superman is the Eradicator, a device whose sole purpose it is to preserve Kryptonian racial purity and culture.
It has immense powers and the capability on it’s own to recreate Krypton which it has tried to do with Earth, turning our sun into a red dwarf terra(or rather krypto)forming the surface and repopulating the planet using Superman as a template.
So obviously if you have access to AI of this scope that actually can teach or imprint every aspect of the culture on the individual it becomes rather difficult to loose essential information. Given that these people were colonists they should have been amply supplied with the resources and skill sets they needed.

And L&C:s Kryptonians are telepaths besides.

Of course it’s up to you but from a practical point of view I see no reason why they couldn’t prosper on a small population base, then again Ching indicates that their living conditions are harsh, even compared to human standards.

All that technology and no door chimes on the royal bed chamber, or any way to lock the darn door.

Interesting topic. I agree that when Zara mentioned her thousand, she was talking about households/nobility. I would say that that those people attached to each house would total more like 50-100, making the initial New Krypton population more like 50,000-100,000. Even in medieval times, a noble house would have the population of a small village to support it (farmers, ferriers, tailors, cooks, seamstresses, blacksmith, cooper, etc.) Why wouldn't the New Kryptonians have the equivilent for their society?

To quote Arawn re: Kryptonian AI: Both of these are good and viable points. The only other thing I would add is that the New Kryptonians had interactions with other alien nations. I don't remember the specifics, but remember that Nor hired an alien assassin to take Kal-El out prior to his arrival on earth. That indicates to me that the NKians had extensive interactions with other worlds. They lived on a barren rock, but perhaps they controlled a very valuable mineral. Over the 30 years Clark's been on earth, they could have maintained or even grown in their technological knowledge through trade.

BJ

I just ignore it completely. The L&C universe doesn't show us anything more advanced than the Globe.

All the advanced AIs are in the comics, movies and Smallvile, not L&C.

Nope, no AIs, no imprinting.

But that is beside the point it isn't just loss of knowledge, it is a LACK of people to fill the roles.

Even if you could imprint all the knowledge into someone that someone has only so much time. They couold only fill so many roles and that is not even starting on the question of aptitude.

Very good point. So the New Kryptonians might become like many of the immigrant populations in the USA.

Might be something to have Clark explore in his search to help the New Kryptonians survive.

Well, you do have Clark’s ship that was able to navigate to earth, unless Jor-El was able to compute everything with omniscience, it’s AI had to be able to make some rather advanced decisions. And you have the transport Ching and Zarah used: “imagine an entry and you find one” The glasses of liquid that simply appear, seemingly at Zarah’s mental command etc.


Not necessarily, In L&C the kryptonians seem like a strange mix of primitivism and advancement, so I there isn’t any canon I think you will ignore.
But there are many Science fiction visions were people doesn’t need to use or understand their tools, the tools themselves are smart enough to anticipate their needs. Like in say ASIMOV robot stories where the AI takes the power because it realizes they it is far more suited to rule humanity then humanity itself. In Stark Trek you have the replicator technology that allows you to turn your garbish into a steak, or a sofa, or whatever, no one needs to do any real work or understand the process anymore then we understands why the lightbulb shines when we flip a switch.

This is why Star Trek has entire novels featuring Engineers fixing things?

Sorry but you've just described EXACTLY what I want. A New Krypton where they are living off the tech of their forebearers.

All tech dies.

Such a people are like those who live of capital instead of interest.

It is only a matter of time, be it months, years, decades or century.

So Clark will see this decay and work to reverse it.

Good questions. Up there with why fuse technology is lost in the 23 century. Or why they simply just send mr Data and bunch of holograms on deep space exploration so they don’t have to “reroute power from life-support” all the time. :p

But clearly if the there is one technology that mustn’t be lost it's replication. Hence the engineers. Also all that really is left for humans to do is pushing back the frontiers of science or art, the mundane problems isn’t something that is an issue for these people.

No reason to be sorry. And Kryptonians living on the tech of their ancestors is very much a feature in Byrne’s dystopian vision of Krypton. (The eradicator is an ancient device for example).

An interesting idea.

In your story, you'd have to develop a plausible reason for the failure of the NK's to have kept their skills. This is only about about 30 years down the line. So how'd it happen?

Unless the first thing they did when deciding to leave NK was to decide to leave the mechanics behind and only take the engineers.

Also, Clark is not particularly a gadget guy, let alone a rocket scientist - so he may not be the best guy for the job. Given what we saw in the show, Jimmy would be better. Plus if you throw in a reversal of the 'Earth sun makes a Superman' theory, Jimmy would develop super powers and so be an even bigger bargain.

But if they do take Clark the story could turn into a lot of fun as he bumbles around.

The other thing to explain in your story: how come, if it's all old K stuff, the tech was still operating so well 30 down the line ?- I thought stuff all broke down every 5 years, or sooner.

c.

From the series it clearly has not happen yet. But Clark is going to be "Lord Kal El" and he is going to be in a position to see the early stages of decay.

Example:
The last time your cellphone broke was it repaired or replaced? In the USA most of the time it is simply replaced.

Suppose there were a limited number of cellphone and no ability to make new ones. If you have a population of 10,000 of whom only 1,000 use cellphones and a stock of 30,000 cellphones the supply might seem endless.

But it is still limited. If the number of cellphone users increase the time till your supply is gone becomes much shorter.

Your normal gadget guy is useless in these circumstances. Ask him about parts to repair a gadget and he'll tell where to get the best price but ask him to MAKE his own parts and he can't.

If your computer's cpu is burned out but there is no place to purchase a new cpu the computer is toast.

Maybe they took both. You still need a chemist, metallurgist, and so on and so forth

Of course, you can always take the tack where there was a little time to plan the colony and the decision was made to knowingly go more primitive (as happened on Earth while building colonies.) Bring along all the information needed to build a technological society but the reality is the colony is functionally horse-and-buggy and they know it may take generations to get back their technology, which is reserved for the hospitals and defense. (which after 30 years is breaking down and they still aren't to a point they can be replaced.)

In this scenario, the guilds in charge of redeveloping the tech may actually want to keep it out of the hands of the population as a control mechanism.

stuffy historical reply now.

The British banned the export of technology (blueprints, etc) to the colonies (Mercantilist laws) but it failed - the techies of the day had the blueprints in their heads. (the mind's eye) So the British (and European) industrial revolutions got transported, regardless of bans, and even further developed by the colonists.

Your true gadget guy (and i was using the term tongue-in-cheek:) is a very creative right-brained being. (think MacGyver ) Also, I didn't mean to suggest that gadget guys weren't to be found in other fields like chemistry, etc. Guess I should stop using the term <g>

My husband once told me that when he designs a circuit he sees the whole thing running in his mind - he pictures it. He lets it run, trouble shooting it, and then when he's set to go with it, he has to do the grunt work - get it on paper for the non-visual types (and the patent office)

anyway - some interesting issues in your premise about tech decay as well as social decay, and whether or not 'works with words for a living' Kent could be the messiah.

Bernie Klein maybe, and I'll still argue that Jimmy has huge potential.

c.