Could it even be done, in time to bring them up to a viable number, on this harsh, brutal and inhospitable world?
"So they simply kept dumping criminals onto this inhospitable world?"
This is an inhospitable world run by a fool on a satellite, providing a service to the empire that it does not need.
You see, originally we were intelligent creatures, well adapted to this inhospitable world.
Who would want to know what was down on the surface of such an inhospitable world, much less go down to it.
It was an inhospitable and foreboding world we had landed on.
They were designed to provide emergency oxygen in case the shuttle was ever forced to land on an inhospitable world.
Trying to make an inhospitable world more like home.
A small area of breathable atmosphere on a world so inhospitable otherwise?
In a world increasingly inhospitable to refugees, clear priorities need to be set.