Why is the population of Earth so big?

 Hi All, 

By 2121, the population of the  Earth sphere of influence across 3 galaxies  (as distinct from Lunar and Jupiter humans) is over 100 trillion: 

Human : 80 trillion

Sszoorg: 20 trillion 

Holograms of Hardlight composition  : 1.66  trillion

AI & Androids  : 3.75 trillion  

Alien/Extra Terrestrial : 120 billion

The reason for such a high population figure is three fold ; 

1) After world war three, the population of Earth halved, both as a consequence of the war itself and its aftermath in the Northern Hemisphere of a nuclear winter and nuclear summer as the depleted ozone layer gave Europe, Russia and Canada a climate akin to the tropics, but led to cancerous deaths and mass starvation. When the world government was created and after the 'discovery' of the Sszoorg and native Martians, the planet began to recover creating a massive baby boom between 1976 and 1996. Even well into the 22nd century, humans, especially those of the Northern Hemisphere have much larger families averaging 6.6 children per family as a result of the psychological shock of those years. Like wise the Szoorg  maintain high birthrates, but started from a much smaller base.

2)  The Szsoorg ' Artificial  Cloaca'  was invented by them to increase their birth rate at a quicker pace, it is basically a machine which combines the male sperm and female ova to create their eggs, which are then incubated until hatched. The Cloaca was modified for human use and became known as the 'exo-womb',  except it was initially only available for wealthy women who were 'too posh to push' and who didn't want the scar marks of a caesarean, but today they are widely used by middle class women who freeze and store their eggs and wait until they have an established career before having a family, which is possible because the average life expectancy is now 120 (a middle class woman  statistically can  live 30 years  more than their working class counterparts, who tend to have children at a younger age, and live longer than any other group, aside from the 1%  elite , but don't tell Guardian readers that one as they would have kittens).

3) Exo-Wombs Mark II are similar to their Mark I counterparts, but have a small nano Quantum Portal attached to them. In the event of an unwanted pregnancy rather than abort the baby, the foetus is transferred to the exo-womb via portal and born as any other exo-womb baby.

4) The Growth embryos and Exo-Wombs Mark III- the most controversial. This technology grows an embryo into an adult within 12 months. Initially used by the military to compensate for war shortages, they are now used by companies wherein recruitment for specific roles is difficult and more importantly used as a population boost  for space colonisation . It is actually cheaper for companies to do this than build high cost and high maintenance androids and AI. They are controversial because of issues around corporate slavery and exploitation, however, by 2088 full civil and political rights were confirmed  by the supreme court and written into law by  the 62nd Federal Parliament. 

5) The Emancipated Slaves of  Niagara Falls , Garissa and Olympic. These three are names of colonial ships  which crashed in the unknown regions space, circa 1999. The remains were discovered by a hostile species which we call the Minotaurs because of their resemblance to the creature of Greek mythology. These creatures enslaved the survivors of these three ships, using the technologies and  exo-womb Mark III to create and perpetuate a mass slave population and expand into space . That was until 2109, when they began raiding  Earth outposts and colonies, further  border conflicts began later that year and a full blown war was under way by 2110. In  2111 operation 'Moses'  was undertaken , which saw the mass liberation and exodus of  the  human slaves from the Minotaur Empire, effectively doubling the population of Earth's sphere of influence overnight. 

All of the above helped to fuel the colonisation of systems and planets and the total Earth sphere of influence spread over 3 galaxies is 139,972 systems, 1.3 million planets, 23,455,045 moons and billions of asteroid, orbitals, habitats and space stations.