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The latest installment of Drogan's "Messages Drifting On the Static" brought back to mind a question I started thinking about when I first heard the plans for I19 and beyond.
As I understand it, the three little islands of Praetoria are pretty much it for the civilized world, right?  Maybe a couple hundred thousand people at the most, and the rest of the world is Devouring Earth and a few survivors here and there?  Is that correct?
If it is, than I have serious concerns about Cole's sanity.  He's planning to mount an invasion of a world with a population of eight thousand million plus, with the same proportion of supers among them as seen in his own world with the entire planet's resources available to them, using what amounts to the inhabitants of a refugee camp and what they can get their hands on?  How does he expect to win?  How does he expect to survive the first counterattack?
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
I'd gotten the impression that there were several thousand million still in the world as a whole, perhaps even up to a few billion (current here-and-now is something north of 6 billion, I think?).  Admittedly there's not a hell of a lot of canon documentation, but I'd have a hard time imagining a city such as Nova Praetoria without a world population well past the subsistence level.
The DE and Hamidon waged a terrible war on the earth, and most places outside the surviving cities are dangerous wilds -- I think of it as being something like the American Frontier era in terms of danger, but high-tech.  This is feasible because the DE are lots more dangerous than your average bear, thus raising the bar for survival a bit.
In terms of super ratios, Cole probably has the advantage.  After all, on Primal Earth super registration is voluntary; in Praetoria, it's mandatory.  And so on.
But I think the basic premise is that Cole came to power because people were scared of the Hamidon and DE, and not because they'd been depopulated so harshly.

--sofaspud
--"Listening to your kid is the audio equivalent of a Salvador Dali painting, Spud." --OpMegs
For 'Messages', I've been working with a few theorys that I've found at least *some* canon lore for:

All of Primal's *Major* cities outside of North America still exist in one form or another. (I believe there's a contact somewhere in IC that talks about Tokyo)

Marauder's defense of the Midwest left a few cities still operational to one degree or another. (Glorien Jr. is in fact from Kansas City, Missouri)

Since Hamidon started in North America, *most* of the country has been reduced to wilderness, outside of Praetoria (Cole's Light against the Dark) and Marauder's legacy.

There is an airstrip in Neutropolis, and a badge to go along with it that talks about flying supplies in and out of Praetoria.

Other than that though, there is a paucity of information on the rest of the world Praetoria exists in.

CrimsonKMR

Bob Schroeck Wrote:If it is, than I have serious concerns about Cole's sanity.  He's planning to mount an invasion of a world with a population of eight thousand million plus, with the same proportion of supers among them as seen in his own world with the entire planet's resources available to them, using what amounts to the inhabitants of a refugee camp and what they can get their hands on?  How does he expect to win?  How does he expect to survive the first counterattack?
Unless its to the point where Cole has no other options. Invade or be Damned?
There is no coincidence, only necessity....
- Clow Reed
I got the impression that Praetoria still has a population of at least a billion or two. There's references made to the Imperial Defense Forces fighting across the world in various remaining DE hotspots, to say nothing of nations that may have told Cole to go to hell. It was noted that a lot of nukes were thrown at Hamidons armies, for example. What makes them so dangerous is the fact that, not even counting Powers Division, the IDF are well trained and experienced, not to mention things like the War Walkers and Warworks. Primal Earth, meanwhile, is rather divided, with lots of nations, terrorist groups, would be world conquerers and the like to make a coordinated defense difficult. Not to mention we still haven't seen just how well Earths militarizes have recovered from the Rikti War.

That said though... Portal Corp and Longbow completely misread what they were seeing with Praetoria originally, seeing it as evil!CoH. Who's to say that Praetoria hasn't made a similar mistake?
Well, we also know that the East Coast of North America is probably depopulated. It's mentioned either in a badge text or in dialogue in Neutropolis that the power plants used to supply the full needs of the East Coast for energy, but are barely tapped these days.

But yeah, the Praetorial implies that all the player toons are brought into Praetoria from "outside", so there must be some other bastions of civilization.

Okay, it's less insane-seeming, but I still have my doubts about his military planning.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
Well, there are cracks beginning to appear in Praetorian society. The resistence, the syndicate, the destroyers, seers escaping, ghouls becoming more agressive, dirty little secrets making the news... Cole needs to remind people why he's Emperor. What better then a new outside threat?