Man, it's like you don't even read my posts. There we have AT outright saying you could advance in Saiyan society by getting stronger. Establishing societal status by your power level as a baby with no chance for change is downright absurd. AT further went on to say Bardock would not be able to get out of low-classdom, because, and stay with me here, he didn't have the potential to do so. Don't you see Krillin had to get his power awakened by The Grand Elder to get past 1770? And don't you see it being mentioned that Frieza's elites are all mutants? That's because Power Levels aren't unlimited. Unless you're an anomaly, you'll never get past certain numbers.
As for Saiyans getting destroyed in combat: watch the Bardock special. it happens. Saiyans generally like taking on strong opponents and will actively seek them out, so it's downright ridiculous to say they didn't. It's a warrior society. Further, the ability to create artificial moon is an ability only Elites have, as Vegeta said when he used the technique.
And the list of power levels was for your own benefit. It shouldn't be hard to put two and two together with it. Nappa spent his entire life on a planet 10x Earth's gravity, yet in the space of months Goku completely eclipsed him in power. This is because Goku, unlike Nappa (and Raditz), is special.
Another thing, you think Vegeta was born with a power level of 18,000? That's downright ridiculous. Vegeta was trained, much like Frieza was trained (by his father, who was the only one that got dirt on him), except they both had phenomenal potential, which is why their respective power levels got that high. Vegeta did not say "I was born more powerful than him" in regards to his father. No, he said "I surpassed him when I was a child."
Roshi's lesson was more reassurance than anything. Goku, as a Saiyan, would always want to fight stronger people, which means he'd always be training. All Roshi actually did was actually show Goku there were people out there still stronger than him.
Finally, you need a certain level of power to get to Super Saiyan (regardless of what Episode of Bardock shows), in addition to having "a tranquil heart awakened by fury." Goku's power level when he achieved Super Saiyan was 3 million, and before that he'd gotten pissed a whole bunch of times but never became one. That right there shows that the Saiyan race at large never had the power to become Super Saiyans because generally, Saiyans capped out at (much) less than 10,000.
Please, I implore you, before you reply actually fact check. And no, it isn't flame bait or meant to be insulting. I just don't wanna go out finding links and reading chapters, just to have it outright ignored by a guy arguing from his heart.
edited 26th Jun '14 10:47:20 AM by Cruherrx
"If you weren't so crazy I'd think you were insane."Like he said, though, it would still defeat the entire moral of the series.
"It's liberating, realizing you never need to be competent." — Ultimatepheer
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I thought you were replying to Rob, and I was about to say that was totally uncalled for. So let me catch up here. I wasn't going to argue that Goku got better training than most Saiyans did. The original 'thing' was that someone said Goku and Vegeta are reflective of their species, and since you only argued with one point on the matter, there didn't seem a need to argue back. Exhibit A:
Nappa, Vegeta, Raditz and every other Saiyan spent far longer on Planet Vegeta, which has comparable gravity, yet all of them except Vegeta were FAR weaker than Goku after just a little while under those conditions.
and do not in any way point to the rest of their race being that gifted. Do not forget that Saiyan society placed battle power above all else, so it's only natural you would be pushed harder in that culture than the Earth culture we see.
This is what I'm going to defend, since I don't know what you're arguing about now.
I'll re-word this and say "the same forms" instead of "the same power".
This is apples and oranges. While most Saiyans weren't able to gain strength at the same rate as Goku and Vegeta did, or their children for that matter, the forms that the two of them were able to attain represent what the Saiyan race was potentially capable of. They reflect what a Saiyan can potentially achieve, though perhaps not at the same pace.
edited 26th Jun '14 12:48:12 PM by FOFD
That's another good point. Vegeta got 3 Zenkai boosts on Namek and that shot his power level up into the millions. In fact, just 1 Zenkai boost made him more than a match for Zarbon. It's downright ridiculous to think that Saiyans putting themselves in considerably more danger than Vegeta (power levels of under 2000 going on dangerous missions, as opposed to Vegeta with his power level of 18,000 doing the same) wouldn't come out stronger if every Saiyan had potential on par with Goku and Vegeta.
Yeah, I mean, it's not like I do point-by-point analyses broken into sections by quoteblocks or something.
For the benefit of everyone following along with the discussion, here is the quote being referred to:
This rank is determined by an innate latent battle power, but naturally, if their battle power rises greatly afterward, they can be promoted.
Toriyama states that if their battle power rises greatly after infancy, a Saiyan can be promoted, he says there are only 10 mid-class warriors, and only King Vegeta and Prince Vegeta comprise the elites. You are correct that he says Bardock can't get out of low-class but incorrect in assuming the rationale behind it. Toriyama says nothing about Bardock's potential were he to buckle down and train his body like Goku and Vegeta do.
"Bardock is in the upper ranks of low-class, but can't become mid-class" is a reflection on his power level as it exists today, not an absolute assertion that no matter what he does, he would never be able to achieve a power greater than what he has now.
You are correct that establishing status from infancy is absurd, but that's still how they do it. Vegeta tells us as much.
No, Krillin did not require Guru to reach his power level on Namek. Guru draws out a person's hidden potential. He doesn't bestow any special new power to the person who receives his power-up, he just brings out what they were already capable of achieving on their own. He's a shortcut, unlocking potential that already existed within them.
In point of fact, I actually brought up the matter of Frieza's men being mutants in my response, so it is fairly clear that I did not miss it. It was part of my point: that the villains rely on natural power, rather than hard work and training, which is one of the main themes.
I've never said Power Levels are unlimited. What I have said is that Saiyans appear to have incredible potential in their capability for becoming stronger, as evident by Goku and Vegeta, who are never, at any point in the series, suggested to be anomalies.
I have also said that the Saiyans possess an inherent biological capacity for becoming powerful enough to challenge the gods themselves.
That capacity is called Super Saiyan. The Super Saiyan transformation applies a 50x power boost to a Saiyan's base form. For an example, Bardock, as a Super Saiyan, would have had a power level of around 500,000; small potatoes to Frieza, but enough to annihilate everyone else in his empire in short order. At Super Saiyan 2, his power would increase to 1,000,000, and then 4,000,000 at Super Saiyan 3. A low-class Saiyan who unlocks a standard transformation available to all of his race can vastly outpace all of the mutants in the galaxy, short of Frieza himself.
This multiplier is what made the difference between "very, very strong" and "universe-shattering strong", and it exists in the potential of every living Saiyan. Goku and Vegeta never surpassed Frieza in their base forms; it was the power level multiplier brought on by the Super Saiyan transformation that made them powerful enough to shock and awe the Supreme Kai, and to defeat Majin Buu.
For another example, when Krillin fought Recoome on Planet Namek, he had a power level of 13,000 because of having his hidden potential drawn out by Guru. If he could become a Super Saiyan, he would attain a power level of 650,000, surpassing Frieza's first form. By the time the battle with Frieza comes about, Krillin has somehow risen to 75,000, putting a Super Saiyan Krillin at 3,750,000 - more powerful than Goku.
That multiplier is insane, and that's only level 1. Super Saiyan 3 Krillin during the battle with Frieza would have a power level of 30,000,000. Like Goku and Vegeta, Krillin is never even remotely suggested to be a genetic anomaly, but his power level of 75,000 pretty much blows every Saiyan that ever lived on Planet Vegeta out of the water, and it was all there in his natural potential.
People in Dragon Ball Z may not have unlimited potential, no, but they do have the potential for some pretty insane power growth that only gets more psychotic when you add on an ingrained, biological 50-400x Multiplier inherent in an entire species.
I'm sure some of them did. You're right, Saiyans do get destroyed in combat in the Bardock special, when Dodoria kills them all and nobody but Bardock gets a zenkai from it.
The conditions of a zenkai require a Saiyan to recover from near-death. Just losing a fight isn't good enough, you have to be beaten within an inch of your life, then survive and recover. That is a slim margin where "Got trashed pretty badly, but prevailed" isn't good enough and "Died" is too far the other direction. For a warrior race, losing a fight that hard wouldn't often result in coming back for more, because that requires an enemy knowingly sparing your life after you tried to commit genocide on their planet.
Not everyone is as merciful as Goku.
"Putting two and two together" isn't a canon source, it's pure fanon. I can look at Krillin's growth from 13,000 to 75,000 between Recoome and Frieza and assert that clearly, he mastered the Kaioken and was using Kaioken x5 during the battle with Frieza, but that isn't canon, that's just a random assumption I'm making based on the power level differences.
Inventing your own reasons for why the characters grew is not a source.
As for Goku's training on King Kai's planet, Nappa wasn't chasing Gregory for months. Goku wasn't just kicking back and chilling in 10x Earth's Gravity, he was being power-trained by King Kai. The story gives us this reason for why Goku grew so substantially, and asserting any other reason is pure and utter fanwank.
Fair enough. A Saiyan's power would have to grow as they got older, but that still doesn't imply that Vegeta was trained, especially considering his utter disdain for the concept when he meets Goku. At least, not to the extent that Goku and later Vegeta would go on to do. One zenkai, one, brought Vegeta from 18,000 to 24,000. Another zenkai would take him to 30,000, and the next jumps him straight up to 250,000.
You might say that Vegeta gets anomalous zenkais too, but again, that is never even suggested in the source material. Krillin's power level increased nearly 6x between Recoome and Frieza with no explanation; Toriyama was never particularly consistent in his power gains.
[[quoteblock]]Finally, you need a certain level of power to get to Super Saiyan (regardless of what Episode of Bardock shows), in addition to having "a tranquil heart awakened by fury." Goku's power level when he achieved Super Saiyan was 3 million, and before that he'd gotten pissed a whole bunch of times but never became one. That right there shows that the Saiyan race at large never had the power to become Super Saiyans because generally, Saiyans capped out at (much) less than 10, 000.
Generally, Saiyans didn't do the Training from Hell that Goku and Vegeta did. By the time Goku arrived on Namek with his 90,000 Power Level, he was power-training in a Gravity Chamber that far surpassed Planet Vegeta. Then a zenkai took him up to 3,000,000. Did King Vegeta ever train in 10x Planet Vegeta's gravity - 100x greater than Planet Earth's - like the Gravity Chamber goes to?
Saiyans capped out at less than 10,000, but as I've said repeatedly, the series treats Goku and Vegeta's Training from Hell like something that is unique to Earth rather than something that is unique to those specific characters and their impressive, awesome genes.
Besides, Goten became a Super Saiyan with a power level below 130.
edited 26th Jun '14 3:28:31 PM by TobiasDrake
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Anybody who watched/read Dragon Ball knows that. Fucking Yamcha started off weaker than 22nd Tournament Tien (yes, start of Z Yamcha is still like 3 arcs behind everyone else) but he goes up to above Raditz after a SINGLE year or so of training with Kami. That's about a 10x increase.
What the fuck was Goku during his THREE YEARS of training with Kami when he didn't even double his power level?
edited 26th Jun '14 4:35:24 PM by Nikkolas
Freeza being 1,000 times stronger than his second-in-command leading to people having power level jumps in the millions is consistent?
I mean, come on dude. Let's track Vegeta's zenkai power ups. He went from 18,000 to 24,000 after getting ROYALLY destroyed on Earth. Then Zarbon nearly kills him so he goes to somewhere in the 30,000 range I believe after that. He's still weaker than the Ginyu's. After THAT beating he is around Captain Ginyu level at best. His power nap gets him to around base Freeza so 500,000.
So we've had a jump of a few thousand then tens of thousands then a couple hundred thousand.
Finally we get to his zenkai from Krillin which was MILLIONS.
edited 26th Jun '14 8:02:37 PM by Nikkolas
When Saiyans are close to Super Saiyan, the zenkai boosts increase exponentially and then disappear altogether after the form has been achieved. Ignoring the Saiyans, we see that for people to gain massive increases in power, there are transformations, mutations, and magic involved.
"If you weren't so crazy I'd think you were insane."Hell, even KRILLIN got a zenkai from 13,000 to 75,000 after taking a Senzu Bean to recover from Recoome demolishing him, and he doesn't even GET zenkais.
Piccolo had a power level of either 1,220 or 3,500 when he fought Nappa, depending on the source. Then he traveled to King Kai's planet and its previously established 10x gravity, and spent the entire time meditating. Afterwhich, he fused with Nail, power level 42,000.
This pushed his power level beyond 1,000,000.
edited 26th Jun '14 9:24:02 PM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Cool. And I'm not even into futbol.
"More than the sum of its parts" is one thing, but nearly 29x the sum of its parts?
So, when a Namekian fusion happens, it's more than half of a permanent, easily repeatable Super Saiyan boost?
Forget spamming zenkai, Piccolo should have just absorbed a couple more Namekians. That shit's crazy.
edited 27th Jun '14 8:28:45 AM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.

Um.... what white text?
One Strip! One Strip!