Census Office Apologizes After ‘Small Rounding Error’ Causes Population Undercount By Trillions
The Galactic Fact Office (GtFO) has issued a formal apology after it emerged their census department grossly underestimated galactic population figures by a margin of several trillion.
The mistake surfaced following a recent update of census systems, with officials discovering that each planetary ‘pop’, the unit long used as the standard metric for demographic tracking, had been mistakenly undercounted.
“We had always operated on the assumption that one pop equaled, like, maybe a billion citizens,” GtFO representative Zarnax told a Galactic Community Committee today. “Turns out we just missed about two zeros off. Classic mistake.”
The revision means that worlds such as Hyperion Prime, previously thought to have 80 pops, is now home to upwards of 8,000 pops. However, the exact implications of this is unclear at present.
“It’s difficult because despite using our most powerful statistical tools, we’re still unable to calculate what one pop represented to begin with,” Zarnax continued. “All we know is there’s now significantly more of them, and they’re all somehow unemployed and demanding consumer goods.”
The miscount has also triggered uncertainty on galactic markets, with the Space Exchange Index (SExI) down either 300 or 30,000 points, depending on what your interpretation of a singular ‘point’ equals.
