Advanced civilizations with small populations...

[Prior Master]

Well, the WRAITH are one reason for the small populations, but logically if you wanted to advance to such a high level of tech. as the Lantians then it would only be possible with a small population. Applying it to a global population scale would be impossible - it would be like getting all 6 billion of us to dance in time with one another to the Macarena!

You just need some sort of brain interface device that can take complete control of the body to accomplish that. A hive-minded race like the Borg should have no problem getting inhabitants on several different planets to dance in time with one another - assuming they have instantaneous communications.

[The Stig]

The Wraith are responsible for the Pegasus population problem and as for the milky way i can only think of the goauld and perhaps they moved people off the planet as slaves. Its a really long longshot but thats because i cannot honestly thinkl of a decent answer.

[CarsonsKitty]

the other thing that baffles me is this... why do they all live *near* the stargate on planets frequented by the Wraith? surely makes more sense to live far away in a secretive jungle like existance? ie blending in with surroundings... hidden dwellings etc?

Maybe that's why we don't meet entire civilisations, we only meet the dumber ones near the gate?

[PG15]

Well, they also use the gate to travel and trade.

[Spimman]

I don't find it odd in any SG-A civilizations because the Wraith culled them, but in SG-1 it is odd. Even a non-advanced world of humans would be in the million range one would expect.

[RubberJesus]

That always has seemed odd to me, even the civilizations with relatively similar technology to our own like langara or tegalus only seemed to occupy an entire continent, I guess maybe it's because the MW humans were transplanted and didn't evolve on their own planets, but humans with technology more advanced than us like the tollan do seem to have extremely small populations, I guarantee you when our technology is at their level our population will be in the trillions and be extended over several solar systems, but if we had level tech we would have wiped out the goa'uld long ago and probably carved out a good chunk of the galaxy for ourselves if not the whole thing, maybe we're just more aggressive by nature than other humans throughout the universe.

[Alteran of Atlantis]

It always seems all advanced civilizations have low populations. The Wraith should not have been able to defeat the Ancients, and there should not have been more of them. With how long the Ancients have been around, they should have been able to overwhalm the Wraith with their numbers, not the other way around. I'd expect there to be trillions or even quadrillions of them, not just millions as it seems to be portrayed in the show.

[PG15]

The thing is, that presumes that their birth rate surpasses their death rate.

It's certainly not a certainty. In fact, it's backwards for a few countries here on Earth.

I can't believe I just used "here on Earth" as a qualifier for "countries".

[Pandora's_Box]

Let me rephrase the question:

Has anyone found it odd or interesting the number of times Stargate used a race which had a relatively advanced level of technology with a population that was unexpectedly small by comparison?

Well, there are a couple things to take into consideration here. One is the definition of 'civilisation' that you're using. I don't think you're using the term correctly...or at least you weren't initially in your first question.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to be referring to the people of Earth as one civilisation which isn't actually the case. Humanity on Earth is divided up into many civilisations.

Another thing to consider is exactly how developed these civilisations you're talking about actually are. Are they comparable to us? They may recognise machines and not be scared of them, but my dog used to be scared of the vacuum cleaner when she was a puppy and now she's not because she's gotten used to it. So do they understand the technology and can they replicate it or not?

Another is agriculture. Have they developed their agricultural systems to an advanced point or are they where we (I am referring to the Western civilisation) were 200 years ago? Are they limited by their environment? Maybe we here on Earth got lucky with our planet and the majority of other planets aren't as rich in natural resources as we are. Maybe other planets can't sustain life the way our can.

And then there's the fact that an advanced civilisation does not generate as many offspring as a less advanced civilisation. The reason being very simple; children (and then later as adults) came in handy when there was much work to be done. Not only that, but the lack of contraception and the uncertainty of the survival of an individual out of infancy or even childhood leads people to procreate more than is "necessary".

Then, of course, if you're talking about Pegaus there are the Wraith. Which is a pretty self-explanatory reason for why the populations are small.

[ggf31416]

Large populations make advanced civilizations more likely to happen. A large population means higher specialization of work and economies of scale, producing more. Also creates needs that were less important before, causing advances in science to satisfy them (e.g. why do you need to develop advanced maths if you never use a number higher than 1000?). If the proportion of brillant people is constant, more people means a higher number of brillant people to do the research.
As the cost of each research is divided between more people, what was too costly becomes inexpensive. For example the Manhattan project employed 130000 persons and cost 24 billons in 2008 dollars. For a 1 millon persons civilization that's 13% of its population and $24000 per person. For a 200 millons persons civillization that becomes 0.065 % and $120 per person.
More scientifics means more advances and each advance in science speed up other advances.

The problem is when the population exceed the number that the ecosystem can support or there are large differences in the distribution of wealth, like it's happening in some parts of earth. The children don't receive good alimentation and education. However a planet like Earth should be able to support 1 or 2 billons with the help of technology without any problem.