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ningjingde ren
Joined: 28 May 2006
Posts: 327
Location: UK
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 Posted: Tue Nov 24, 2009 11:55 am Post subject: |
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An issue raised by Diary of a Companion is how many companions there are in the verse ... hundreds, thousands, millions? Just how common/rare are they? And how many training houses are there?
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Lemming
Joined: 20 Jun 2006
Posts: 267
Location: Banbury, UK
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| Posted: Tue Nov 24, 2009 2:06 pm Post subject: |
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| ningjingde ren wrote: | | An issue raised by Diary of a Companion is how many companions there are in the verse ... hundreds, thousands, millions? Just how common/rare are they? And how many training houses are there? |
Hmmm....that's a very interesting question. That Companions are well established and well respected in most places is beyond doubt. I suspect that most worlds establihed for more than a few generations and a population over a certain lower limit would have a Training House, though these would almost certainly be more numerous in the Core worlds, with the Companion's Guild headquarters located on Sinhon.
Inara's training house was pretty far out for Serenity to have reached there so quickly, so we know there are at least some Houses on the Rim (I'm not sure if the exact world/moon is established in canon)
To estimate actual numbers, we'd have to some pretty serious guestimating and speculating.
Verse population: 50 billion, 40 of which are concentrated in The Core (source: Official Map, census data 2520, so extended canon, but a reasonable starting point) If we speculate that maybe one in 10,000 have what it takes for training to be a Companion and that say 1 in 10 actually complete training and go on the become full Companions, that still gives a potential number of companions (based on just the Core population) of around 4 million - so, not that common, but a big powerful organisation. I suspect it's actually somewhet lower than that, but almost certainly in the 100s of thousands, quite possibly over a million.
On the other hand, that's based on just one set of assumptions and figures. Diary of a Companion on The Signal possibly suggests that even quite small population moons may have training houses, which implies a much larger number of Companions - which ties in with the undoubted wealth and influence of The Guild (not Felicia's 
What do you think?
Nick
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ironbandit
Joined: 03 Dec 2007
Posts: 242
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| Posted: Tue Nov 24, 2009 3:29 pm Post subject: |
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Good speculations, backed up with canon research, as always, Nick!
I'd have to concur that the primary training houses would still be inside the core planetary arcs, but they could also be located on planets or moons that are located centrally between population centers on the rim. After all, the commutes involved in getting from the core out to the rim would be onerous, but the fees charged for their services would put them out of reach for all but the most affluent of clients.
I'd also imagine that the cost of living index would be significantly higher in the core. Companion fees might likely be altered for the economies where the client resides. We'd really have to dig to find out what Atherton paid and what Boss Higgins paid in order to say with any certainty. |
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ningjingde ren
Joined: 28 May 2006
Posts: 327
Location: UK
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| Posted: Mon Nov 30, 2009 1:33 pm Post subject: |
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I was motivated here also by a Chinese friend who, visiting the UK, assumed there were about 5 million aristocrats here. It seems that fame makes members of a group seem disproportionately numerous. Since everyone in the 'verse seems to know about Companions, maybe they are rarer than we'd think.
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