At the end of Dark Ascension it's stated that humanity is on the edge of extinction because with Avacyn's wards weakened they lost their protection against all the many things preying on them. When she was freed from the Helvault, Avacyn was essentially a demigod because humanity has been almost destroyed. Well, by the time Shadows rolled around not only is the human population still decimated, not only are they still being preyed upon by all the various geists, ghouls, skaabs, vampires, werewolves, and horrors the plane has to offer, now the angels are attacking them too. With Avacyn turned on humanity it stands to reason her wards have stopped working completely so humanity has nothing at all to fight with.
And now they're dealing with Eldrazi too. How many humans can possibly be left on the plane? Have they dropped past the point of no return?
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Well, the only thing I can say for certain, is the Innistrad of the original block had a population of at least two million. Planeswalkers are roughly one in a million. There were two living ones from that generation, Arlinn and Tibalt.
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At the end of Dark Ascension it's stated that humanity is on the edge of extinction because with Avacyn's wards weakened they lost their protection against all the many things preying on them.
What's strange is that this seems to contradict everything we know about Avacyn's history. Sorin is at least several thousand years old and Avacyn is only about 1000. How did humanity survive for millennia before Avacyn if a few months without her sends them toward oblivion?
At the end of Dark Ascension it's stated that humanity is on the edge of extinction because with Avacyn's wards weakened they lost their protection against all the many things preying on them.
What's strange is that this seems to contradict everything we know about Avacyn's history. Sorin is at least several thousand years old and Avacyn is only about 1000. How did humanity survive for millennia before Avacyn if a few months without her sends them toward oblivion?
The pre-Avacyn humans used other forms of magic, like pyromancy and druidism, to fight against the darkness. However, Avacyn was such an effective force that once she was created, everyone abandoned these old ways and turned to her. When the wards stopped working, nobody knew how to use magic that didn't rely on Avacyn, and didn't start relearning it until the end of Dark Ascension.
Well, the only thing I can say for certain, is the Innistrad of the original block had a population of at least two million. Planeswalkers are roughly one in a million. There were two living ones from that generation, Arlinn and Tibalt.
There was actually a third planeswalker from Innistrad, Vronos, who Garruk killed after Avacyn sent him to bring Garruk back so she could try curing his curse.
Well, the only thing I can say for certain, is the Innistrad of the original block had a population of at least two million. Planeswalkers are roughly one in a million. There were two living ones from that generation, Arlinn and Tibalt.
There was actually a third planeswalker from Innistrad, Vronos, who Garruk killed after Avacyn sent him to bring Garruk back so she could try curing his curse.
Right. Forgot about him, since he doesn't have a card. Make that three million then.
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That's not how "one in X" works, like, at all. It's just an average. There's one Mythic Rare per 8 packs, but if I tell you I opened 3 mythics from the packs I bought yesterday, that doesn't necessarily mean I bought 24 packs. I could have bought anywhere from 1 to 40+. The only thing that the number of Innistradian Planeswalker tells us is that the population of Innistrad is at least 3.
Also the actual figure we got for planeswalkers was "One in a million people have a spark." The vast majority of sparks never ignite, which would make planeswalkers even rarer then one in a million. But that number is much more a rule of thumb, and the real answer is "A planeswalker is as rare as the story needs it." So every plane, no matter how big, will have a handful of planeswalkers. Which is why there aren't hundreds of planeswalkers on say, Ravnica or Zendikar, despite them being many times larger (And in Ravnica's case, more densly populated) then Innistrad.
Also I believe that Sorin made Avacyn a (relativly) short time after vampires actually became a thing on Innistrad, because if he hadn't, then humanity -would- have become extinct. Possibly before vampires, humanity was just holding out. Then the creation of vampires tipped the balance, which is why Avacyn was needed.
Well, the only thing I can say for certain, is the Innistrad of the original block had a population of at least two million. Planeswalkers are roughly one in a million. There were two living ones from that generation, Arlinn and Tibalt.
There was actually a third planeswalker from Innistrad, Vronos, who Garruk killed after Avacyn sent him to bring Garruk back so she could try curing his curse.
Right. Forgot about him, since he doesn't have a card. Make that three million then.
As others said that wouldn't really mean much for determining the population of Innistrad. Even if we could use it that way it wouldn't mean much as far as the pure human population goes either. Werewolves and Vampires would count toward that total.
And I don't really see how humanity will survive. Even if they had other means of fighting back before Avacyn I don't see it meaning much, they've got too much stacked against them.
Not to mention the fact that no small percentage of the surviving humans have now been warped into Eldrazi and are killing the others. I really don't see how humanity can bounce back after this. Even if Sigarda becomes the new Avacyn like people are speculating, the population may well have dropped below replacement levels. Certainly at below the point of having a stable gene pool.
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I don't really see Sigarda being able to pick up where Avacyn left off. Avacyn was bolstered by ancient Planeswalker powers, Sigarda isn't getting that. Short of a good chunk of the monsters deciding to be less predatory I don't see them bouncing back. Eldrazi are already against everyone that isn't an Eldrazi, so maybe they'll be spread out more. But it just doesn't seem realistically plausible. Maybe the next time they come back to Innistrad they'll work out a system that can keep the monsters in check more.
At the end of Dark Ascension it's stated that humanity is on the edge of extinction because with Avacyn's wards weakened they lost their protection against all the many things preying on them.
What's strange is that this seems to contradict everything we know about Avacyn's history. Sorin is at least several thousand years old and Avacyn is only about 1000. How did humanity survive for millennia before Avacyn if a few months without her sends them toward oblivion?
To be fair, Sorin's always believed the biggest threat were the vampires I think which are probably younger than most other evils like necromancy, and it's probably a safe assumption skaaberen are probably relatively a newer threat as well. I forget how old vampirism is said to be on Innistrad, though. I also think things were exaggerated for the sake of drama as well. I doubt humanity was LITERALLY about to go extinct, but that's an inevitable result if things on Innistrad are allowed to develop naturally. The way the story is developed in Magic, though, a "slow" (it probably would be relatively quick geologically speaking) burn out of humanity is a lot less exciting-sounding than "humanity is on the brink".
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They didn't care that he was the savior of Fort Keff, the great hunter of Ondu, the champion of Kabira. To them, he was just another piece of flesh, a thing with life to be drained away.
That's not how "one in X" works, like, at all. It's just an average. There's one Mythic Rare per 8 packs, but if I tell you I opened 3 mythics from the packs I bought yesterday, that doesn't necessarily mean I bought 24 packs. I could have bought anywhere from 1 to 40+. The only thing that the number of Innistradian Planeswalker tells us is that the population of Innistrad is at least 3.
You got any better ideas? I'm using the tools available to me to do the best I can. Yes, I know how statistics and averages work. The distribution of planeswalkers almost certainly follows a bell curve. There are some planes where nobody has a spark, and there are planes where everyone has the spark. Thinking Innistrad, or Ravnica, or Theros are special for some random reason is pointless, and doesn't do anything constructive. Unless it's otherwise noted, I will assume the planes we visit are average. Feel free to do otherwise if you find it necessary.
Also the actual figure we got for planeswalkers was "One in a million people have a spark." The vast majority of sparks never ignite, which would make planeswalkers even rarer then one in a million. But that number is much more a rule of thumb, and the real answer is "A planeswalker is as rare as the story needs it." So every plane, no matter how big, will have a handful of planeswalkers. Which is why there aren't hundreds of planeswalkers on say, Ravnica or Zendikar, despite them being many times larger (And in Ravnica's case, more densly populated) then Innistrad.
A small qualifier:
Yes, I am aware that most sparks never ignite. However, this is Innistrad we are talking about here. World of eternal horrors. It's a pretty safe bet to assume that chances of an Innistradi igniting are significantly higher than elsewhere.
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I think this is how humanity's survival could play out:
Spoiler regarding vampires
We know that Olivia dies, we can reasonably assume Edgar Markov died in Nahiri's attack on Markov Manor. This leaves Runo as the only know surviving head of a bloodline. If he dies as a result of Emrakul, then they could explain it as having severely weakened the vampires as a whole.
Arlinn and her pack could be enough to hold off the feral werewolves, and indeed it's possible that many of the werewolves in other packs could well seek her out so they can learn to control themselves.
That means that Sigarda and any other angels left, along with most humans would be left mostly facing off only against the demons/devils, zombies and giests.
They would likely need to consolidate into a smaller, more easily defensible area, but a rough sorr of balance night be possible.
You got any better ideas? I'm using the tools available to me to do the best I can. Yes, I know how statistics and averages work. The distribution of planeswalkers almost certainly follows a bell curve. There are some planes where nobody has a spark, and there are planes where everyone has the spark.
Knowing only that the number of walkers on a plane is a discrete non-negative value the most reasonable distribution is the Poisson rather than a Gaussian. We don't have enough information to much much use of that fact, though.
So lets say Innistrad has 3 million people on it and that means "on average" it will produce 3 walkers. That would give us the following
0 - 0.05
1 - 0.15
2 - 0.22
3 - 0.22
4 - 0.17
5 - 0.10
6 - 0.05
(It goes off to infinity but if we truncate the distribution at 3 million it doesn't change the rounding on those probabilities.)
Going in the reverse (from number of walkers to population size) is rather more difficult though obviously it will give us the result of 3 million being the most likely number.
The humans of Innistrad are not weak; its just that everything around them is so hilariously OP. The people will turn to their own methods of protection, such as a better understanding of the moon, greater use of 'pagan' rituals to assist them, and the fact that as several people mentioned above, the terrors of the night are severely weakened as well.
In Dark Ascension, Avacyn went missing and all the demons and monsters started pigging out on humans. In SOI and EMN, it seems that Avacyn and Emrakul are killing/consuming everything, human and monsters alike. It's conceivable that after Eldritch Moon, humans could even be in a better relative position vs. the various monsters than they were before original Innistrad block, if Avacyn and Emrakul took more of a toll on the monsters than the humans. We don't have adequate information to conclude either way.
According to this there are only two howlpacks left as well. Combined with the fact that the vampires are severely weakened, I think there will be less threats to humanity once the Eldrazi threat is dealt with. Only the Stromkirk bloodline (afaik) will not be severely weakened by the end of this whole thing. Avacyn and co. almost entirely destroyed the Falkenrath bloodline, and what is left are only a bunch of literally bloodthirsty savages. Nahiri also severely damaged the Markov bloodline, and what is left is going to war with the Voldaren bloodline. Only the Stromkirks are going to be leaving this set with little losses (as far as we know right now).
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According to this there are only two howlpacks left as well. Combined with the fact that the vampires are severely weakened, I think there will be less threats to humanity once the Eldrazi threat is dealt with. Only the Stromkirk bloodline (afaik) will not be severely weakened by the end of this whole thing. Avacyn and co. almost entirely destroyed the Falkenrath bloodline, and what is left are only a bunch of literally bloodthirsty savages. Nahiri also severely damaged the Markov bloodline, and what is left is going to war with the Voldaren bloodline. Only the Stromkirks are going to be leaving this set with little losses (as far as we know right now).
Interestingly, the only two Stromkirk vampires in SOI that have been spoiled so far are aligned with Emrakul's brood, so maybe the Stromkirks have largely succumbed to the Eldrazi.
Well, the only thing I can say for certain, is the Innistrad of the original block had a population of at least two million. Planeswalkers are roughly one in a million. There were two living ones from that generation, Arlinn and Tibalt.
Innistrad has a significantly higher rate of sparks igniting due to the constant danger. That has been stated elsewhere, although I can't remember where right this second. It's definitely worth noting, although it's not unreasonable to guesstimate a few million, it's not definite.
Also I believe that Sorin made Avacyn a (relativly) short time after vampires actually became a thing on Innistrad, because if he hadn't, then humanity -would- have become extinct. Possibly before vampires, humanity was just holding out. Then the creation of vampires tipped the balance, which is why Avacyn was needed.
Sorin is a Vampire and from Innistrad, so the vampire threat is as old as him. Possibly a few decades older. It started with his Grandfather trying to find a way to survive a famine.
I think one of the stories mentions the skaabs and zombies were actually something the people used originally to protect against other monsters. As Avacyn become powerful enough to protect the population then those who did this work were looked more down upon. Also Avacyn killed another major Angel at some point so that could have been helping to keep things balanced before as well.
I do feel that MTG just dumped a pile of hot trash on their most popular world with this set though. Destroyed the theme of the world and killed off some beings that people had interest in knowing more about.
Well, the only thing I can say for certain, is the Innistrad of the original block had a population of at least two million. Planeswalkers are roughly one in a million. There were two living ones from that generation, Arlinn and Tibalt.
Innistrad has a significantly higher rate of sparks igniting due to the constant danger. That has been stated elsewhere, although I can't remember where right this second. It's definitely worth noting, although it's not unreasonable to guesstimate a few million, it's not definite.
This is the only reason I used this estimation with Innistrad. I didn't know we had official confirmation at one point, but considering the fact that Innistrad is Innistrad, the only not to ignite is to cloister yourself in the back room of a silver-lined cellar for your entire life.
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It should be noted that being in danger does not nessecarily mean the spark ignites. It's different for every individual. Plus, if you live in constant fear, wouldn't that mean that you get used to it to an extent, thus counter-acting the higher spark ignition frequency?
On the subject of surviving it sounds like the geists may be taking a more active role in helping people survive, which makes sense. Maybe it's not just the White ones but Blue as well. I know that they used to help but it sounded a bit more on and off than the focus in Eldritch Moon.
Kind of wish Mikaeus had returned as a geist thinking on it, I liked him.
Instead of using planeswalker numbers to determine population, a better idea would be to use something that's not story-dependant. We know that Innistrad (At least, the part of the plane we have seen so far. IIRC it was said before that the plane is actually bigger) is just a little larger then France. Medieval France had a population in the range of about 5 million inhabitants during the early-mid middle ages, which seems like the best fitting time period for me.
Now all that would be left is to try and determine the population density compared to historical France and we'll have a rough number.
From what i remenber In Dark Ascencion the humans of Inistrad become to migrate to the capitals. Like people from Galvony Goes to Thraben, people from Nephalia going to the Port, from Kessign to Lumberholt, etc... There was a Lost capital in Kessing, and some small Cities that where abandoned. Also there are lots of small Cities. Hanweir If it Had 1200 inhabitants it was much... One of the first URs from SOI ( the one With Alana and her pal (don't remenber her name) tracker) the town (a small to average in size) must have less than 300 people living in it.
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And now they're dealing with Eldrazi too. How many humans can possibly be left on the plane? Have they dropped past the point of no return?
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"You say 'learn from history,' but that does not mean 'learn the same bull***** the people in history learned alongside phrenology and alchemy.'" - The Blinking Spirit
What's strange is that this seems to contradict everything we know about Avacyn's history. Sorin is at least several thousand years old and Avacyn is only about 1000. How did humanity survive for millennia before Avacyn if a few months without her sends them toward oblivion?
The pre-Avacyn humans used other forms of magic, like pyromancy and druidism, to fight against the darkness. However, Avacyn was such an effective force that once she was created, everyone abandoned these old ways and turned to her. When the wards stopped working, nobody knew how to use magic that didn't rely on Avacyn, and didn't start relearning it until the end of Dark Ascension.
There was actually a third planeswalker from Innistrad, Vronos, who Garruk killed after Avacyn sent him to bring Garruk back so she could try curing his curse.
Right. Forgot about him, since he doesn't have a card. Make that three million then.
"You say 'learn from history,' but that does not mean 'learn the same bull***** the people in history learned alongside phrenology and alchemy.'" - The Blinking Spirit
Also the actual figure we got for planeswalkers was "One in a million people have a spark." The vast majority of sparks never ignite, which would make planeswalkers even rarer then one in a million. But that number is much more a rule of thumb, and the real answer is "A planeswalker is as rare as the story needs it." So every plane, no matter how big, will have a handful of planeswalkers. Which is why there aren't hundreds of planeswalkers on say, Ravnica or Zendikar, despite them being many times larger (And in Ravnica's case, more densly populated) then Innistrad.
Also I believe that Sorin made Avacyn a (relativly) short time after vampires actually became a thing on Innistrad, because if he hadn't, then humanity -would- have become extinct. Possibly before vampires, humanity was just holding out. Then the creation of vampires tipped the balance, which is why Avacyn was needed.
As others said that wouldn't really mean much for determining the population of Innistrad. Even if we could use it that way it wouldn't mean much as far as the pure human population goes either. Werewolves and Vampires would count toward that total.
And I don't really see how humanity will survive. Even if they had other means of fighting back before Avacyn I don't see it meaning much, they've got too much stacked against them.
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To be fair, Sorin's always believed the biggest threat were the vampires I think which are probably younger than most other evils like necromancy, and it's probably a safe assumption skaaberen are probably relatively a newer threat as well. I forget how old vampirism is said to be on Innistrad, though. I also think things were exaggerated for the sake of drama as well. I doubt humanity was LITERALLY about to go extinct, but that's an inevitable result if things on Innistrad are allowed to develop naturally. The way the story is developed in Magic, though, a "slow" (it probably would be relatively quick geologically speaking) burn out of humanity is a lot less exciting-sounding than "humanity is on the brink".
But the people behind the barrier knew.
You got any better ideas? I'm using the tools available to me to do the best I can. Yes, I know how statistics and averages work. The distribution of planeswalkers almost certainly follows a bell curve. There are some planes where nobody has a spark, and there are planes where everyone has the spark. Thinking Innistrad, or Ravnica, or Theros are special for some random reason is pointless, and doesn't do anything constructive. Unless it's otherwise noted, I will assume the planes we visit are average. Feel free to do otherwise if you find it necessary.
A small qualifier:
Yes, I am aware that most sparks never ignite. However, this is Innistrad we are talking about here. World of eternal horrors. It's a pretty safe bet to assume that chances of an Innistradi igniting are significantly higher than elsewhere.
"You say 'learn from history,' but that does not mean 'learn the same bull***** the people in history learned alongside phrenology and alchemy.'" - The Blinking Spirit
Spoiler regarding vampires
That means that Sigarda and any other angels left, along with most humans would be left mostly facing off only against the demons/devils, zombies and giests.
They would likely need to consolidate into a smaller, more easily defensible area, but a rough sorr of balance night be possible.
ETA: spoiler tag, whoops
Knowing only that the number of walkers on a plane is a discrete non-negative value the most reasonable distribution is the Poisson rather than a Gaussian. We don't have enough information to much much use of that fact, though.
So lets say Innistrad has 3 million people on it and that means "on average" it will produce 3 walkers. That would give us the following
(It goes off to infinity but if we truncate the distribution at 3 million it doesn't change the rounding on those probabilities.)
Going in the reverse (from number of walkers to population size) is rather more difficult though obviously it will give us the result of 3 million being the most likely number.
According to this there are only two howlpacks left as well. Combined with the fact that the vampires are severely weakened, I think there will be less threats to humanity once the Eldrazi threat is dealt with. Only the Stromkirk bloodline (afaik) will not be severely weakened by the end of this whole thing. Avacyn and co. almost entirely destroyed the Falkenrath bloodline, and what is left are only a bunch of literally bloodthirsty savages. Nahiri also severely damaged the Markov bloodline, and what is left is going to war with the Voldaren bloodline. Only the Stromkirks are going to be leaving this set with little losses (as far as we know right now).
Interestingly, the only two Stromkirk vampires in SOI that have been spoiled so far are aligned with Emrakul's brood, so maybe the Stromkirks have largely succumbed to the Eldrazi.
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Sorin is a Vampire and from Innistrad, so the vampire threat is as old as him. Possibly a few decades older. It started with his Grandfather trying to find a way to survive a famine.
I think one of the stories mentions the skaabs and zombies were actually something the people used originally to protect against other monsters. As Avacyn become powerful enough to protect the population then those who did this work were looked more down upon. Also Avacyn killed another major Angel at some point so that could have been helping to keep things balanced before as well.
I do feel that MTG just dumped a pile of hot trash on their most popular world with this set though. Destroyed the theme of the world and killed off some beings that people had interest in knowing more about.
This is the only reason I used this estimation with Innistrad. I didn't know we had official confirmation at one point, but considering the fact that Innistrad is Innistrad, the only not to ignite is to cloister yourself in the back room of a silver-lined cellar for your entire life.
"You say 'learn from history,' but that does not mean 'learn the same bull***** the people in history learned alongside phrenology and alchemy.'" - The Blinking Spirit
Kind of wish Mikaeus had returned as a geist thinking on it, I liked him.
Now all that would be left is to try and determine the population density compared to historical France and we'll have a rough number.