Headcanon on how to make Anhur's population numbers believable

[u/Kretoma]

Anhur had many names in different species languages. The Eagle Nebula (human name) had always been a stopover, and this largely hindered its settlement despite the cluster being surveyed during the Rachni Wars. The first intelligent species to set food here in the last ten thousand years were the rachni, but almost none of their former habitation remain. The first other sapiens setting foot here were krogan, though salarian military intelligence knew of it soon after their surveys of the core rachni stronghold of Korlus. The Council forces had firm control of the gateway Imir system since the third battle of Kahje, but continued rachni infestation of most garden worlds only changed when krogan ground offensives descended on the clusters planets. Most planets were hit hard by the combined warfare of fission weapons and orbital bombardments. Korlus especially was devastated by countless wrecks of ships of the space engagements taking place in the gateway system. Anhur in the distant Imir system was only lightly populated by rachni, and the planets “cleanup-operation” only caused moderate damage. The whole cluster was overlooked during the rebuilding centuries after the wars, as the damages to the biospheres was deemed too severe. Piracy was common, and several military facilities were constructed by the Salarian Union at ideal discharge positions. Influx of colonists into the cluster (mostly krogan) only started at the eve of the Krogan Rebellions. Here, salarian military intelligence allowed the council militaries to strike the krogan first and disabled all their spacefaring capabilities in the cluster. The krogan on Korlus (then named Krada) were isolated and immediately began infighting. When the turians, after deploying the genophange a decade in advance, came, the krogan who were left here, surrendered, and emigrated, leaving Krada. Only when the Terminus-Council relations were cemented, did the cluster became a center of activity. Now, the gateway system’s scrapyard made a commandment out of the misery, and several of Korlus’ criminal bands, most of them stacked with krogan, turians and batarians met up to “found a colony” in 1771. After a decade, they had at least agreed on a name – Korlus. The gangs, who had overseen many territories across the surface, became semi-official governments, but the planet would never formally unify, always remaining a loose confederation of polities that more often had armed conflicts to settle their disputes. Still, the profits to gain on Korlus were theoretically significant, if one could stabilize their holdings enough to actually develop the industry required to gut starships. Over the centuries, the situation cooled significantly. The wealthiest polities hired mercenary bands and outcompeted the others. In turn, the mercenary companies themselves were awarded or took territories of their own, becoming another actor on the planet. With Korlus’ rising industrial development and influx of people, supply of the planet became a stressful concern. Several farming colonies on garden-words inside the cluster were settled in the eagle Nebula around the 2000s, and the mercenary bands were more needed than ever before to protect trade against the countless outlaws that populated the cluster. Most of those colonies faced similar problems of disunity as the cluster’s unofficial capital world. When humans reached the Eagle Nebula, they found many cut-throat operations of industry and farming, weighted down by tariffs and mercenary band dominance. The human-founded blue suns soon began to carve up some lands for themselves, but they were a minor player, only having been established five years ago. Several human billionaires had far greater ambitions of their own. They hired Eclipse mercenaries and established several corporate fiefdoms on a largely batarian populated planet, lobbying for human immigration for the farming business. The humans consolidated their power on the planet, they established a federated government system between mercenary holdings, slaveholders, and corporations rivaling the largest polities inside the cluster. Human population influx was great, and in just 10 years almost 2 million of the crafty primates moved to the planet. They still remained a tiny minority, though a powerful one, as the billionaires (now with several trillionaires) had remained unified in their political goals. With the influx of other humans (and other species) towards the now prospering Anhur this changed rapidly. The system formally had had a stable population around 190 million inhabitants for decades, and in 2175 this had increased to 215 million, most new immigrants settling in the human dominated federal subjects, but the economic prosperity affected the whole planet. In 2176, the planets different polities finally banded together, forming a federal goverment, while renaming the planet Anhur (as well as most of the Amun system), to combat the different competing batarian naming conventions that hindered development. At first, the natives welcomed the newcomers, glad about the stability and wealth they had brought to the planet, that now became a system-state in most states. However, a decade into prospery had changed the planets dynamics, and now a consortium of corporations and corrupt politicians, fearing batarian economic competition due to their custom of legal slavery,passed a resolution that abolished the minimum wage -- effectively relegalizing slavery on a human-dominated world, now without exceptions in all lands and jurisdictions. Opponents of the motion quickly turned to activism and violence. A civil war erupted, as one side sought to end slavery throughout the system and another, primarily batarian faction called the Na'hesit sought to keep the slaves they had. The Anhur Rebellions raged from 2176 to 2178. The Na'hesit, due to their long settlement, had a significant advantage in ships, labor, and weapons, forcing the Anhur militias to hire mercenary companies to even the odds. In the end, the abolitionists won out, though at the cost of much of their infrastructure. Though Anhur today still has significant natural wealth, it is economically depressed, save for the reconstruction industry.