Fans of Alternity

It comes back to how many wizards there are in England. Are there enough for "loads" to be dying of these things without everybody being in a total panic about it? That's not how I picture it, but we don't really have enough info to know for sure.

I think it's definitely true about the transfigured food. All the causes of death except FTT are directly the result of nutrient deficiencies.

I really wonder what the death tolls of the camps have been. What is the new population of England after 10 years under Voldemort? How long until none of this is a problem, because the Muggles have all died? And would that actually make Wizarding society run more smoothly?

But if that's the case, why not just kick the Muggles out of the UK. What is the purpose of keeping them around?

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FTT is often caused by nutritional deficiencies, too. Even if the mother is nursing, if *she* is malnourished, that would affect her milk.

They need the Muggles - they do all the physical labor and farming and such. Also, as we all know, wizards need them genetically, too.

A muggle-rein Britain would die.

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they do all the physical labor and farming and such

I don't know about this. I do subscribe to the hypothesis that the Wizarding world was heavily reliant on Muggles before Voldemort took over, but there's no reason that Wizards *can't* grow their own food. It might be inconvenient and they might dislike it, but if they were at the point of having no other reliable ways to get food, I think they'd adapt rather than starve. Same with physical labor. They may have been using Muggles for that, but if that support system were gone, I think they'd fill it with something - house elf labor or their own labor - once things got bad enough. People are pretty good at surviving, and these people would have all the resources of England available to them. I don't think it would be comfortable, but I think it could be done.

The genetic point is perhaps a real they'd-die-without-this type need (though I think again it depends on how big the Wizard population is), but this hardly matters since they're not actually using the genetic resources available to them. Cross-breeding is very strictly prohibited.

Are the Muggles working in these camps, or just living there? Do we know? I mean, there are some Muggles working for Sally-Anne's foster family, and I can see how those would be important to the economy. But the camps have felt, from the discussion, like basically more mouths to feed, and more Wizard labor diverted to provide the personnel to manage them.

It still doesn't all make sense in my head. Unless perhaps if they do more labor than I'm imagining, and if there is a good reason why that labor *can't* be done by house elves or by repurposing the labor of the camp guards.

Or if there's an additional consideration I'm missing. I can imagine Voldemort didn't kill them overtly because it would be harder to get the rest of the Wizarding population to sit idly by while that happened. But in that case, why not kick them outside the borders?

Maybe the answer has something to do with Carrow's pigeon experiments?

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How big do you think the wizarding population can be? It's authorial canon that there is only ONE wizarding school in Britain. Harry's year had all of 40 students in it. Even if you hypothesize that his year was unusually small - a distinct possibility given that it was conceived during the first war - and that not everyone goes to Hogwarts (also a true possibility, since Draco said he could have gone to Durmstrang, and it's possible that some kids were educated at home, for whatever reason), it still says that the wizarding population has to be fairly low.

The school was built to house a thousand students. That averages to 142 students per year - that's still not a huge number. It doesn't seem that wizards run to large families - the Weasleys are unusual enough to make jokes about - so we can argue replacement rate of 2 children/family. That's a grand total of 500 families of four - 2000 all told. Given how detrimental it would be to NOT attend Hogwarts just for social and economic reasons, there can't be many who can go who don't. Let's make it 200. Plus there would be singles and older and younger families without kids at Hogwarts. I'm going to be generous and triple the number, more or less. 6000 more. 8,000 wizards. Maybe 10,000. A small enough number to live virtually undetected within the greater British population, but probably not enough to be totally self-sustaining if doing it all on their own.

And they are suffering for it - they can't get enough food (Britain hasn't been self-sufficient for food in over a century.) Everyone is malnourished except for the people like the Marvolos and Malfoys. And the wizards do not have the knowledge to run factories or do non-magical engineering - these are not things they learn or are going to learn because it's "muggle".

Meanwhile - I am still wondering about the rest of the world. It's been ten years. Why haven't they noticed that Britain, for all intents and purposes, has ceased to exist? How much energy does it cost for the Death Eaters to maintain a Somebody Else's Problem field?

However much it is, I can't imagine it would have survived 60 million people suddenly leaving, all of whom telling the same wild story about magic users taking over - there is absolutely no way they could all be obliviated. Voldemort would have to keep them or kill them. And, again - 60 million people are a bit much to kill, even by magic.

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Your population estimate seems reasonable to me, although I vaguely remember at some point

lapin_agile put forward a theory that a lot of wizarding children were trained through direct apprenticeship or specialty magical agricultural schools that might not have been big or prestigious enough to count as a wizarding school for purposes of the Tri-wizard Tournament. But I'm comfortable with 8-10 thousand.

Still, my mind keeps going to hunter/gatherer type tribes and small early societies. The world wasn't always as connected as it is now. What's the difference between these 10,000 people and a basically-independent town of 10,000 in Medieval-ish times when trade wasn't advanced enough to rely on for anything but rare or luxury items? Or am I wrong that this was at one time the case?

HA! You know, I'd been assuming that the rest of the world knew what was going on, and just weren't able to do anything about it. Certainly the wizarding world is well-aware of what has happened. But it makes sense that Muggles are totally oblivious, and that does answer my question of why the Muggles can't be allowed to leave.

It does still leave me thinking that Voldemort's plan with them is that they'll eventually die off, slowly enough that it won't spur all his citizens into a big moral uprising, but quickly enough that in a couple generations he won't need to worry about them.

Unless they're just having massive numbers of babies in the camps. Which they might, because I doubt they have any form of birth control available to them. Hm.

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Hogwarts serves a purpose that specialized schools of agriculture (and where would these farms be? Britain is pretty densely populated these days) might not - it's not just where the kids go for supervised general magical training and indoctrination, it's also where they will pick up *all* their future contacts, including marriage. If your kid doesn't go to Hogwarts, they will not meet most of the people their own age, since outside of Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade, the wizarding world is pretty spread out. And therefore, they will be at serious disadvantages for social and economic reasons.

And, again, the wizarding population is really too small to be self-supporting, and it's probably shrinking, too.

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the wizarding population is really too small to be self-supporting

Maybe you can explain to me what makes you certain about this. It's not that I disagree - I simply don't know enough to be sure either way, and a group of 10,000 people sustaining themselves seems at least plausible to me. So I am curious what additional information you're drawing on.

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I'm thinking about several things. In this case - most of the wizarding world is not trained in food production, just like the rest of the modern world. Food and textile production, even in a technological/magical world, is labor intensive. If you go for automation, the factories and so on need maintenance and supply. If you have an agriculture based society (and since the Protectorate seems to be cut off from the rest of the world, it needs MUST be an agriculture based society or they would have no food at all. As I said, Britain is not and has not been self-sufficient since the Victorian age), you have to spend time and labor on that production - time and labor you can't use for anything else.

There's also the genetic component. Purebloods have to be highly inbred already, since the population is so small. And it's going to get smaller and more inbred - aren't they talking about sterilizing muggleborns? I seem to remember that, although I'm not sure. And Muggles are clearly out of the question. If the Lord Protector has his way, this will be the last generation of halfbloods (like himself.) If they have no Muggles to work the land, they will not be able to even send the children to school. They will need them for farming.

Yes, there were times that Great Britain probably had a very small population like that. They were not wizards. They were nomads. And the country was conquered very easily.

Meanwhile, the poor nutrition and the diseases (the talk of epidemics is terrifying - the camps are going to be breeding grounds and ripe for it, and it will spread to the wizarding world, too) are going to take their toll.

Seriously, just wait another generation - even if Harry doesn't wise up, join the Order and get rid of Voldemort, with Draco at his side - and the European wizards could just walk in. Or maybe just a few years - this place is a nightmare for all concerned.

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longstrider.livejournal.com

The last time we brought up population numbers we were told not to think about them too hard.

"A couple of the other players and I had a discussion regarding this very subject a few weeks ago.

We came up with some fantastical ideas and then at the end of the day decided that if hand waving was good enough for JKR, it was good enough for us.

So maybe try not to think about it too much?" (source (http://community.livejournal.com/alt_fen/14274.html?thread=151746#t151746))

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Did you notice this (http://alt-sirius.livejournal.com/11368.html?thread=50792#t50792) in the comments to the same post?

I suspect I know who that is...

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wordsworthy.livejournal.com

Why, who do you think it is?

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He's a potions expert. And we're missing a certain potions expert in this game.

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wordsworthy.livejournal.com

Oh! Oh, I see.

Except . . . why would Snape have spent the last ten years (presumably) in a Muggleborn camp?

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Hiding from Voldemort.

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In other news, secret letter from the twins! (http://alt-molly.livejournal.com/6071.html)

I bet we're about to find out what's happened to Terry, once Molly connects the pickle juice to the blank letter.

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qwerty88.livejournal.com

Ok, I asked Google, and wasn't able to find out how to make pickle juice work as invisible ink. (Apparently lemon juice is heat, which Molly says she already tried.)

I hate waiting to find out what they wrote.

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frozen-jelly.livejournal.com

My theory- its the Marauders Map!

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That makes a *lot* of sense. It fits with the twins' reaction. And they have been working at activating the Marauder's Map for some time now, without success (as far as I know).

Really weird if they accidentally sent it, though. Did they mean to send a coded message and get the two blank parchments mixed up? Or did they mean to send the Map somewhere but it accidentally ended up in the wrong place? I can't think of a third plausible explanation, outside of sleepwalking or something else totally out of the blue.

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*smirks* Keep watching! This storyline has been in play for quite awhile now, although running rather unobtrusively under the radar. More clues are coming in the upcoming weeks!

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This storyline has been in play for quite awhile now, although running rather unobtrusively under the radar.

That's my favorite kind!

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Here's a tip:

Try putting together a list of all the weird or puzzling things the twins have done.

How do you think they add up?

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And what do you think they want?

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Okay, no more hints. But I'll give it some thought.

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frozen-jelly.livejournal.com

I really want them to work the map, because then they will be able to find Boot!

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longstrider.livejournal.com

I find it absolutely fascination where they are sticking with real world verisimilitude and where they are hand waving. (Population numbers and vitamin deficiencies jumping to mind immediately.

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alt_moderator

We've actually gotten a bit clearer on those things recently. So I guess you all will just have to wait and see what comes clear over time and what remains hand waving. (Sorry to throw yet another wrench into the works!) None of us like leaving hand waving in, but sometimes JKR's stated canon universe just doesn't work, and we do want to stick to canon for our starting point. So we're constantly trying to figure out how to de-hand-wave things, if we possibly can.

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