Aurora Population Growth Rates

[Garfunkel]

Gal Civ tried to explain it by saying that these new people aren't all new births, but rather undocumented/unproductive/non-taxpaying people now becoming part of your state. Think peasants coming to the cities to find work.

Considering how abstracted the civilian economy and the job market is, that's the best explanation as it fits best with everything else that's going on.

You could also explain it with the fact that the ratio of male to female is 1:7

Yikes! I'm not sure whether that would be a dream or a nightmare! 

[alex_brunius]

My rationilization for this early growth spike always was that it came from smaller scale private settling and luckseekers from undocummented/unofficial sources.

Think 50 ton private heaps of scrap spaceships housing a single family that are below the scale worth moddling in Aurora.

[Vandermeer]

I once had a game where I needed to completely evacuate Sol for some other planet fortress haven to avoid a spoiler invasion exodus. I had only a small colony of 120k population which regrew the empire surprisingly quickly, so I ended up doing the math, documented here. (Spoilers: These poor women were drained, wrung out, put on performance enhancer supplements and probably still traveled back in time to fill the quota)