A question about military manpower vs population

[Starhawk]

Hey all this is an actual literal post don't worry I'm NOT screwing with you here

Anyway I have a few questions I'd like to have answered before I continue writing my story because it is a question I find very important.

On the subject of military manpower vs population size and planetary resources. I am going to break this down into several sub-subjects as follows:
Universe (which sci-fi verse)
Size of Stated nation/empire
Estimated or Stated size of population
Size of Military or at least assumed size
Question for you guys.

Universe: Star Wars
Nation: Galactic Empire size (a thousand thousand worlds)

Estimated Populace: Several trillion sentients

Size of Military (est.): Several hundred thousand starships, tens of thousands of star destroyers, 4 SSDs, 2 Eclipse class, 1 shadow clas SSD. Tens of millions of soldiers.

Summery: Okay now aparently the bulk of the Imperial Armed Forces are Human, however we are talking about a galaxy of trillions of sentient beings, now excluding the "grown" ranks of stormtroopers we know that there is a regular army, and even more massive fleet.
Question: How could the galactic Empire EVER have held it's self together as it apparently is a Humans only club and humans would be dramatically outnumbered, take into account that the Imperial Military is apparently always stretched thin even fighting such a tiny foe as the rebellion.
Question 2: Is the Imperial Military too small to begin with or is it too big for reason?

Universe 2: Honor Harrington
Nation: Star Kingdom of Manticore (Size 3 planets+ several small outposts)

Estimated Size of Population: 10 billion between Manticore, Gryphon and Sphynx

Size of Military: 2,000 capital ships at it's height including over 200 SDs with crews of 6,000 to 6,200, plus the fortresses that the navy has established which have about 2 million people spread across them.

Question: The constant complaint of the Royal Manticoran armed forces is a shortage of Manpower, isn't this a bit blown out of proportion considering the Royal Military includes females in it's drafts? I mean a population of 10 billion with a military population of about 20 million and still complaining about manpower shortages? Wouldn't it simply be a matter of building the ships and guns then training the people? I think a population of 10 billion could easily put about 400 million men and women in uniform without dramatically effecting their economy.


Universe 3: Star Trek
Nation: UFP (size 150 planets)

Estimated Population: Maybe 4 trillion

Estimated Military Size: LOL none! they have the "starfleet" which is not military. But anyway aparently they have about 70,000+ starships and no ground forces except in wartime where they create a temporary Star Fleet marine Corps.

Summery: Okay the federation is by and far one of the SMALLEST nations out of any Sci-Fi universe yet during the dominion war we hear projected casualties number 900 BILLION not MILLION, but BILLION!
Okay now assuming 150 worlds with an average population of 2 billion we get a grand total population of about 300 BILLION now assuming most of the Fed worlds number more like 10 billion we still only have about 1.5 trillion people which means just about what 90% of the entire Federation population should be obliterated during the war.

Question: The Starfleet apparently has billions of people yet only tens of thousands of ships, does this make sense for the small number (galacticly speaking) of worlds within the Federation?

Universe 4: Andromeda
Nation: All Systems Commonwealth (Size 1,500,000 worlds)

Estimated Population: Stated about about 9 trillion

Military size: 150,000 warships divided into 10 sector fleets with additional support ships such as haulers, engineering ships, repair ships, crew transports, non warships.
We know that the Nitechean fleet at Hephestus was 10,000 ships with a total manpower of 1,000,000 now dylan states they had over ten times as many ships and a hundred times as many men this puts the High Guard manpower at 100,000,000 personnel of a great many species, and this excludes the Home Guard fleets and Militias.

Question: For a population of 9 trillion, isn't a military of 100,000,000 spread over 6 galaxies and several "non-combatant" occupations a little small? Considering the High Guard was actually apparently smaller then the estimated size of the Federation Starfleet and protecting a vastly larger territory?


Universe 5: Warhammer 40k
Nation: Imperium of Man (1,000,000 worlds)

Estimated Population: quadrillion (considering a single hive world has a population of about a trillion or more and there are several hundred hive worlds within the empire)

Military size: Estimated Fleet size is stated at tens of thousands of capital ships, I read several estimates that place the number at about 50,000 capital warships spread throughout the five battle fleets.
Now the ground forces of the empire is where it gets complex so here's a small breakdown:

Imperial Guard: Several billion soldiers mainly male

Space Marines: 999 chapters of roughly 1,000 marines each plus the Crusade chapter which has about 3,000 marines for a rough marine count at just over 100,000.

Sisters of Battle: Again about 100,000

Planetary Defense Forces: This is actually BIGGER then the Imperial Guard.

Question: Is the Warhammer universe' military just a little over the top or would this be a realistic possibility to have UNTOLD BILLIONS of soldiers, so many in fact that only 3 or 4 people in the entire universe knows the exact number considering the nature of the Warhammer universe and the bloodthirsty nature of the Empire?


Universe 6: Icaran Universe
Nation: Icaran Star Empire (Size 358 planets)

Population: 303.9 Billion (258 billion humans (est.))

Size of Military:
176 SD (1,073,600)
20 DN (106,000)
4 Minesweepers (2,000)
1 Super Monitor (10,100)
6 Troop ships (600 crew+ 24,000 regimental soldiers)
6 repair ships (6,000 crew)
5 Flag Monitors (75,000)
6 Raiders (SuperMonitor) (66,000)
6 LC raiders (9,300)
10 Construction Ships (50,000)
59 Shipyards/Combat Bases (1,475,000)
Total Ships: 240- 62 other support craft such as population transports miners and warpers
Total Manpower: 2,897,600

State Security: About 2,000,000
Planetary Defense Forces: Let's say 10,000,000
Total Fighting Population: 14,897,600 (all human)

Question: Is this military-v-population thing worth mentioning as a "major trait" of the Icaran Empire or would it be a rather small/normal sized military for an Empire with Icara's nature/size

Overall Question: How big is too big or on the flipside how small is to small for sci-fi military's and empires? Please post on your opinions