Survivor count

The number of surviving Colonial citizens and military in the fleet was provided at intervals throughout the first season on a whiteboard on Colonial One, and in one instance spoken aloud in dialogue. In the second season, this number appears in the opening credits of every episode (sometimes jokingly referred to as the "Countdown to Extinction"), and displays limited omniscience, updating itself to reflect the deaths on Kobol early in that season. This page collects the figures available thus far, cross-referenced with date information from Re-Imagined Series Timeline.

Graph

All dates past Day 51 are estimates.

Data

Day 6

• 33
  • 50,298 - initial estimate.
  • 49,998 - after revising count downward by 300.
  • 49,317 - after second revision downward (cut scene, DVD)
  • 47,972 - after destruction of the Olympic Carrier.
  • 47,973 - one birth on the Rising Star.

Day 10

• Water
  • 47,958

Day 15

• You Can't Go Home Again
  • 47,958 - has not been updated to reflect the deaths of 13 pilots in "Act of Contrition"

Day 25

• Flesh and Bone
  • 47,954 - after deaths of a marine and three crew in "Litmus", discovery of Ellen Tigh one week prior to "Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down", and the disappearance of Shelly Godfrey in "Six Degrees of Separation". Aaron Doral (Scorpia Traveler copy) was apparently not included among the fleet's population. The events of "Act of Contrition" have (still) not been accounted for.

Day 28

• Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down
  • 47,905 - given by Dr. Gaius Baltar, possibly excluding himself and Sharon Valerii. Unusually large reduction for a 3-day period.

Day 48

• Colonial Day
  • 47,898 - immediately after Valance's death. Includes four viper pilots killed in "The Hand of God".

Day 50

• Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part I
  • 47,897

Day 51

• Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part II
  • 47,887 - ten-person crew of Raptor 3.
• Scattered
  • 47,875 - Galactica Boomer was probably removed after her assassination attempt. Probably includes the death of Karma in KLG pt. I, since the on-screen total appears to include deaths on Kobol.
• Valley of Darkness
  • 47,874 - Tarn
• Fragged
  • 47,862 - Flyboy, Socinus, others in Cylon boarding action.

Day 54 (est.)

• Resistance
  • 47,861 - Crashdown

Day 60 (est.)

• The Farm
  • 47,857 - Four civillians onboard the Gideon.

Dates Unknown

• Home, Part I
  • 47,858 - Return of Helo, who was presumed dead. Caprica Valerii is not included in the count.
• Home, Part II
  • 47,855 - Death of Elosha and a Laura Roslin faction Redshirt.
• Final Cut
  • 47,853 - Death of Meier and unnamed Tom Zarek henchman in "Home, Part II".

Day 86 (est.)

• Flight of the Phoenix
  • 47,853 - No change since "Final Cut".

Date Unknown

• Pegasus
  • 49,605 - After the return of the battlestar Pegasus, a dramatic increase of 1,752 over the previous count.
• Resurrection Ship, Part I
  • 49,604 - Death of Alistair Thorne.
• Resurrection Ship, Part II
  • 49,604 - No change since "Resurrection Ship, Part I".

Day 189

• Epiphanies
  • 49,598 - Deaths of Admiral Helena Cain and an unnamed marine guard on Pegasus. The remaining casualty count of four is conspicuously low given the scope of the battle depicted in the previous episode.

Date Unknown

• Black Market
  • 49,597 - Death of at least one person in an attack on Daru Mozu. Based on dialogue, the attack took the lives of the bomber and at least two civillians. This may have been offset by a birth in between the two episodes.
• Scar
  • 49,593 - Deaths of Commander Jack Fisk, Fisk's assasin, Phelan, and one of four pilots killed by Scar, presumably "Beano".
• Sacrifice
  • 49,590 - Deaths of three remaining pilots killed by Scar: Reilly, Brent "BB" Baxton, and Joseph "Jo-Jo" Clark.
• The Captain's Hand
  • 49,584 - Deaths of Sesha Abinell, Vinson, Page, Chu, and two unnamed marines, and Billy Keikeya.
  • 49,579 - Deaths of "Buster", "Shark", the two-man crew of Raptor 314, and Commander Barry Garner (seen near the end on the white board).
• Downloaded
  • 49,579 - confirms closing count from 'Captain's Hand'.

Analysis

• The loss of the Olympic Carrier was catastrophic compared to any subsequent events to befall the fleet. Clearly no ship has been lost off-screen since that episode, and if any ship is destroyed, it will be quite noticeable. The total fleet count remains as it was at the start of the series (about 40 ships according to the Mini-Series, about 75 according to "The Farm").
• Since the end of "33", the fleet's population has been dying off at a fairly steady rate of approximately 2.1 persons per day. At this rate, the fleet will be completely depopulated in 62 years. If the show's failure to supply concrete dates continues during the remainder of the second season, perhaps the "half-life" of the fleet's population can be used to "carbon date" future episodes.
• First season survivor counts are available from the whiteboard aboard Colonial One. Second season survivor counts are included in the opening titles, as well as the whiteboard.
• In "The Captain's Hand" (roughly in the region of Day 250-60), Dr. Baltar estimated that (factoring in the arrival of Pegasus), given the survivor count's current rate of decline, never increasing, the human race will simply go extinct in 18 years. Of course, they would run out of enough people to fully crew their ships and defend them from the Cylons some time before this point. According to Baltar's rate figure, that means that the survivor count would decrease at a rate of roughly 7.5 people a day.