Just wanted to get an idea of the relative sizes and capabilities of the two combatants. Looking at the published list of universes, their distances between each other and the distances provided from Hell's Gate to their respective capitals; we get some solid estimates of the number of universes each side has.
Data points given: Hell's Gate to Sharona is 48,000 miles. Hell's gate to Arcana is approximately 100,000 miles. The average distances between universes along the known Arcana chain is 2,200 miles, the Sharona chain averages 1,206 miles and the average for the known universes around Hell's Gate is 1,641. Also, of the 16 universes around Hell's Gate there are 2 with 3 portals and one cluster of 7. We have yet to be told of a universe with 1 portal. Text suggests that Sharona has only one portal but that is not confirmed.
Talented Sharonans are 20% of their total population. Gifted Arcanans occur at a significantly less frequent rate.
Assumptions: The average across all universes for distance between portals is 1,641 miles. The average number of 3 portal universes is 1 for every 8. Assumes both arcana and Sharona have 1 portal each. Gifted occurrence is between 25%-75% the rate of Talented for Sharona.
Using this as a base to speculate, we can easily conclude that Arcana has in excess of 50 universe chains and 750 universes while Sharona has approximately 10 chains and 120-150 universes. In terms of territory Arcana is 5 times larger than Sharona. A significant portion of those 750 or so universes would be at the ends of the 50 chains. Estimate about 150 - 200 of those Arcanan universes are newly discovered. That leaves about 550 universes that have been discovered long enough to be populated. Sharona on the other hand has had a bottleneck that delayed the last 10 universes. Their base population centers around Sharona feed a smaller number of universes. Based on the relative territory Arcana is at most 5 times as heavily populated. Odds are that the population difference is smaller than 5 times. The low end is slightly more than 3 times the Sharonan population if the average distance between Arcanan universes is 2,200 miles between ports. Also, depending on how productive the Arcanan agriculture sector is the population growth rates could be very different. Considering the Mythalan dependence on labor to sustain their society, one must conclude there are portions of Arcanan economy that are heavily dependent on labor.
So the Arcanan population is between 30-50 billion people with the percentage of Gifted at between 5%-15% or between 1.5 billion and 7.5 billion Gifted. Sharona has 10 billion people and 2 billion Talented. Since at most Arcana won't have more Gifted than Sharona has total population and Arcana's economy is heavily based on the Gift, it is doubtful that arcana can produce more than Sharona. Every Sharonan can have his productivity expanded by steam power, whereas only the sufficiently Gifted can take advantage of arcane energy. Between that and the evidence suggesting portions of the Arcanan economy are heavily labor dependent and we can conclude on thing, Sharona has a higher potential economic capacity than Arcana.
Add to that the emphasis in the Arcanan economy on biological systems and we can conclude that many of the Arcanan production systems are relatively long cycled. Their reproduction and training takes a long time to mature and making changes to those systems might well be slow. The actual spellware might be easier to develop but those are usable by relatively few people. All in all Sharona has what appears to be long term advantages.
