Craftworld Eldar Population

[eldargal]

Always re-read you codices:

I can't believe I missed this in the DE codex, page 20:

Sensing the end, a portion of the Eldar race combine and modify their spaceships into Craftworlds, gigantic living vessals able to accomodate an entire planet's population. One by one they begin to escape the corruption that plagued their empire. Hundreds of Craftworlds sail into the sea of stars in search of the relative safety of the untramelled void.

Obviously we have no idea what the population of an Eldar world was, but know the total was in the trillions. Even if we assume just one billion per Craftworld and only one hundred Craftworlds survive to M41 that would still be 100bn ignoring the fact they have grown by tens or hundreds of times in size. I can't find my second edition codex where I believe it mentions the tens/hundred fold increase to cite it.

Even if we took a ten fold increase that would be one thousand billion Eldar.

So, lots of Eldar. Obviously the figures are estimates, but conservative ones. We know for sure atleast thirty Craftworlds survive. Even if they started with one billion and ended with a tenfold increase that would still be 300bn Craftworlders.

You could argue that 'entire planet's population could mean a relatively sparsely populated colony, but much of the Eldar fluff states the empire was centred on a unknown number Crone worlds and the population was in the trillions.