Where do all those new Avatars come from?

Question

In MtA there is a specific passage stating that all humans have Avatars, even if they are only sleeping. Once a person dies, their Avatar seeks out a new one to reincarnate into. However, I have trouble understanding where do the Avatars for all the new people come from, since we have a steady population rise and it kind of troubles me, that between the 18th and 21st centuries the number of Avatars "in action" increased sixfold. On the other hand, there are some examples of Avatars that reincarnate almost instantly, so it's a bit hard for me to believe that it would take so much time for others. Would that mean that there is somewhere an inexhaustible source of new Avatars? I was under an impression that they were all created in an event prior to the beginning of history, as shattered facets of a Pure being. There is also no word on Avatars dividing or reproducing as far as I remember.

Could you please clear that for me?

Answer 1

Any answer is going to be handwavey, as I do not recall that ever being covered in the books. One could summarize that the initial allotment of avatars was well above the seven billion that would be currently required. Without such a pool of avatars, where would the avatar for the second human come from, let alone the seven billionth?

Let's not forget that in the World of Darkness, the numbers do not always make sense. For example, they even called themselves out on it in Wraith, where building anything in the underworld would require more souls than have ever or will ever have lived, yet these things have been built.

Let us also not forget that the WoD fluf is contradictory. What exactly was Rasputin?

Answer 2

Besides the legendary initial shattering of the One primal essence (Revised, page 40), the existence of the Shattered Avatar merit at least hints that they can be broken down further and even shared by other people. If only 6.5% of those ever born are currently alive, that leaves plenty of Avatars waiting to get reborn.