Population Issues,
I'm going to go ahead and start with the population issue and the fact it is apparently being linked to how powerful a faction is, population at least in this setting does not equal power. The number of developed individual star systems you control with enough bodies to justify industry do. Even then the buildup limitation rules tied to this are selectively enforced and mostly at the thoughts and opinions of
@Wes at any given time (IE Nepleslia has the RP to justify its present holdings but its player population wouldn't allow it). If the faction population where a factor the Gartegens would laugh at us all and slaughter us.
Now you say I'm trying to be stronger then Yamatai by having a larger population so lets look at what Yamatai is, which is for all intents and purposes a god faction attempting to play a regular faction. They have indestructible materials, unlimited easy to access free energy, the ability to convert energy directly into matter, and above all they can create nekos and fully educated mature human-like gynoids (Minkans) on demand. They are post scarcity and literally only have money to make trading with other factions easier (or to use it as an economic weapon). Yamatai could more then likely manufacture billions of souls and build up each of its colony worlds to the level of Helka-Alpha in a period of a few years if they wanted too. But they don't need to and said number isn't a factor in their power.
Now the question of why do I want that number? Because population is one of the factors that determines (unless your completely automated) the level of infrastructure and buildup in any given setting element and I want to portray Helka Alpha as a highly developed colonial star system with humans on every rock. I want a diverse and rich setting element portraying all walks of Pact life from the humble space colonist tending his gas mining satellites over a Jovian world to the rich merchant in a city on the surface of some garden world and Helka-Alpha is it. That number is what I figure I need and I'm not going to budge from it, especially because its already been approved via the faction cover page. Lastly the Ersetu have a similar population count... so why is this an issue now that I've submitted something or have you had another PM convo with Frost I can't see?
In all this is what this factions assets are as of May 5th's faction page approval,
A population of 15,929,436,240.
6 Hospitable Planets
2 Habitable Planets
9 Atmospheric Terrestrials
3 Airless Terrestrials
2 Gas Giants
2 Ice Giants
And 7 Asteroid belts.
Its already been approved and this is just the fine details work, in this case creating a trinary star system with three varying levels of development, using Eve's security levels Alpha is Highsec.
