The potential chaos caused by krogan breeding out of control should the genophage be cured is a topic that comes fairly often on Mass Effect fan sites. Most people who express alarm regarding it are simply wrong. First off, as you correctly point out, Magpie, there's little reason to think the krogan women wouldn't use family planning. The krogan women would want families, yes, but surely they would want manageable-sized ones. Beyond that, there's little, if any, reason to think the krogan birthrate would remain at 1,000 a year. That admittedly astronomical figure (provided by EDI) is what *fertile* krogan woman were managing PRIOR to Mass Effect 3's cure-the-genophage mission. But remember that only a tiny fraction of krogan women -- the low single digits -- are fertile at all, again thanks to the genophage. So it's on that teeny, tiny fraction of the entire krogan population to sustian and propagate the whole rest of the species. So those krogan women adapted and managed a birthrate that high to counteract the effect of the genophage. In other words, the genophage wasn't created because their birthrate was already *that* high. It grew that high BECAUSE of the genophage. The krogan had to have enough children to survive, after all. Science teaches us that birth rates are a function of what a species needs to survive and what the environment it is in can sustain. It's a balancing act and birthrates are NEVER set in stone. They flucuate based on those factors. Once all krogan women can have children and none of them need to have 1,000 children a year just to ensure that the species doesn't go extinct, they won't do that anymore because it won't be necessary. Humans in western countries had large families at the beginning of the 20th Century after the industrial revolution made things a lot cheaper. Famiy sizes fell during the Great Depression and World War II because resources were being rationed. After the war was over and the economy rebounded, the mid-20th Century "baby boom" happened because people could again afford larger families. The birth rate has declined in recent decades largely because people are so prosperous they don't need large families. Why, yes, I've debated this on Reddit! How did you guess?
The potential chaos caused by krogan breeding out of control should the genophage be cured is a topic that comes fairly often on Mass Effect fan sites. Most people who express alarm regarding it are simply wrong. First off, as you correctly point out, Magpie, there's little reason to think the krogan women wouldn't use family planning. The krogan women would want families, yes, but surely they would want manageable-sized ones.
Beyond that, there's little, if any, reason to think the krogan birthrate would remain at 1,000 a year. That admittedly astronomical figure (provided by EDI) is what *fertile* krogan woman were managing PRIOR to Mass Effect 3's cure-the-genophage mission. But remember that only a tiny fraction of krogan women -- the low single digits -- are fertile at all, again thanks to the genophage. So it's on that teeny, tiny fraction of the entire krogan population to sustian and propagate the whole rest of the species. So those krogan women adapted and managed a birthrate that high to counteract the effect of the genophage. In other words, the genophage wasn't created because their birthrate was already *that* high. It grew that high BECAUSE of the genophage. The krogan had to have enough children to survive, after all.
Science teaches us that birth rates are a function of what a species needs to survive and what the environment it is in can sustain. It's a balancing act and birthrates are NEVER set in stone. They flucuate based on those factors. Once all krogan women can have children and none of them need to have 1,000 children a year just to ensure that the species doesn't go extinct, they won't do that anymore because it won't be necessary.
Humans in western countries had large families at the beginning of the 20th Century after the industrial revolution made things a lot cheaper. Famiy sizes fell during the Great Depression and World War II because resources were being rationed. After the war was over and the economy rebounded, the mid-20th Century "baby boom" happened because people could again afford larger families. The birth rate has declined in recent decades largely because people are so prosperous they don't need large families.
Why, yes, I've debated this on Reddit! How did you guess?