Krillin vs the Death Star

[Flickerdart]

The Death Star is a powerful terror weapon, capable of demolishing planets with a single shot from its superlaser. It is protected by a mass of TIE fighters, 15,000 Turbolaser batteries, 768 tractor beams, and energy shields. It is 160 km wide, crewed by 1.2 million people, including 342,953 Imperial Navy and Army soldiers and 25,984 Stormtroopers. The Death Star is capable of hyper- and regular-space travel. It has one weakness - an exhaust port that allows access to its reactor. A well-placed torpedo can blow up the entire thing.

Krillin is a human that has been killed by every villain in Dragonball Z. However, he is inhumanly tough due to his training and high energy level, and possesses Senzu Beans that allow him to heal. Krillin can fly, has incredible strength and speed (faster than the human eye), and can use ki-based energy attacks. His most notable abilities are Solar Flare, which blinds and disorients his foes, and Destructo Disc, which has been shown to deal major damage to even planet-buster enemies like Frieza and Buu despite taking some time to charge and being difficult to aim.

While exploring the universe, Krillin happens upon the Death Star. There is no Rebellion, and none of the Z-warriors can assist him. It's just Krillin against the Death Star! Let's assume that Krillin is flying in a Sayan space pod, but can breathe in space for a limited time if it gets blown up. He begins far enough away that the Death Star has time to scramble its TIE fighters and arm its turbolaser batteries. Can he make it close enough to the station and stay there long enough to destroy it, or will he be blown out of the sky by hella lasers?

Scenario 1: No force sensitives.

Scenario 2: Darth Vader and the Emperor are present. Darth Vader is flying his TIE Advanced, and the Emperor is waiting in front of the reactor core.

[Traab]

Right away I think we can say the death star itself is at a disadvantage. Its anti fighter ability sucks, outside of its tie fighters. Thats the whole reason the rebels won the first time. I dont think the tie fighters can kill him, though I may be wrong. So the real question is, can they destroy his ship, and can the death star survive whatever damage he can dish out until he runs out of air? Aaaand, now im picturing him breaking into the death star running willy nilly all over the place blasting holes in stuff while stormtroopers futilely try to stop him. Leaving darth vadar and the emperor the only ones with weapons likely to hurt him.

[Lentrax]

Scenario One: Krillin Dies. He gets killed over and over by TIEs, then he gets blown up by the Superlaser. He'll take out quite a few TIEs before this happens, kill a legion of spacetroopers, and amaze the Empire that a non Force user can do damage this high. But in the end he will die.

Scenario Two: Krillin Dies much sooner.

With the Force, Vader chokes him dead, then they bring him to the Emperor where he is killed over and over by Force lightning.

[Red Fel]

Here's the thing. For Krillin to win in this scenario, he would have to be able to breathe in space. That's the whole shebang.

In theory, he could attempt to board the Death Star in his pod. But while the Star's anti-fighter weaponry is rubbish, its entrance defenses are excellent; he would have to disembark his pod, blow a hole in the side, and climb in, without somehow being immediately sucked back into the vacuum of space to die.

If, in theory, Krillin could breathe in space, I'd give the victory to Krillin. He has a demonstrated ability to take on multiple fighters from multiple angles, in three dimensions (i.e. airborne) at once, including energy weapons (i.e. ki blasts), and still win. So he could handle a swarm of TIE Fighters, which are fast but weak. He has powerful attacks, particularly the kienzan (which only failed once, to my recollection, and only in the anime, because the writers wanted to show just how ridiculously overpowered Cell was), which would allow him to attack with incredible power and precision from range. In theory, assuming the famous ventilation shaft was a straight line, he could fire a ki blast directly into the core whilst easily dodging anti-spacecraft fire.

If he couldn't, it pretty much all depends on him boarding the Death Star. He's good, but he couldn't step out of his pod, fire a single blast to end the fight, then climb back in. Vegeta can fire planet-killing blasts; it's not clear that Krillin could destroy a that's-no-moon. So he'd have to get onboard. Saiyajin pods lack weapons, however, so he would have to leave the pod to board - a serious risk. If, in theory, he could board the Death Star, your proposed Scenario 1 (no Force sensitives) is a cakewalk. Stormtroopers are total mooks compared with the Strongest Human; he wouldn't even break a sweat fighting past them.

As for Scenario 2, Krillin has a demonstrated vulnerability to telekinesis. (See Guldo, Freeza, the latter of whom levitated and exploded him.) And despite being the Strongest Human, he still has the human need to breathe, and a vulnerable human windpipe. A well-placed Force Choke would end Krillin soundly. That said, some evidence suggests that Force Choke requires some degree of concentration; it's questionable whether Vader could use it in the heat of battle. And if Krillin got the jump on Vader, it would be a quick game over. Vader is tough, but slow, and ultimately much of his power comes from his cybernetics; Krillin has beaten robots, androids, and cyborgs before. Even his swordsmanship, while still good, is slower than any fighter from Z; Vader couldn't hit Krillin with the light saber to literally save his life. I'd give a Vader vs. Krillin fight to the Krillmaster.

Krillin vs. Emperor is even easier. Krillin has absolute mobility, thanks to flight and high speed, as contrasted with the decrepit, slow-moving Emperor, whose major asset is his manipulation and Force Lightning. You think Krillin can't tank an energy blast to the face? I'd give that one to Krillin, hands-down.

All this is contingent, of course, upon Krillin's ability to successfully board the Death Star. Barring that, he dies in the cold void of space.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Krillin finds the shaft he needs to fire an energy beam down to vaporize the Death Star, his attack is blocked by the ray shielding, and he's tragically fried to death by said ray shields while trying to get inside their protection.

This is assuming ray shielding works against Ki attacks, otherwise he probably wins. And the whole scenario assumes he can breathe in space for Long Enough.

[Kato]

Krillin has just one formidable enemy here: the vacuum of space. Assuming he even remotely kept up with the other Z warriors, his ki blasts at full strength should be able to take the not-moon.

If his pod gets blown up, which is hard to guess because we never saw those in a space battle, he should be able to rush at the DS if he can breathe "for a short time ". He's still pretty fast, though I'll admit cosmic distances are huge. Blowing a hole in the station should be easy, getting back to breathable atmosphere is harder. If he manages this no army of troopers can stop him.

Vader might proof slightly challenging but not much. Even if he chokes him, Krillin can still move and either pummel him or kiss blast him until he runs out of air. Of course this implies a) Vader is even able to choke someone physically far stronger and b) Vader not being able to choke and paralyze someone at the same time.

But yeah, I feel krillin doesn't fare too badly here. He might lose but he should win more often than not.

[Keltest]

Krillin has just one formidable enemy here: the vacuum of space. Assuming he even remotely kept up with the other Z warriors, his ki blasts at full strength should be able to take the not-moon.

If his pod gets blown up, which is hard to guess because we never saw those in a space battle, he should be able to rush at the DS if he can breathe "for a short time ". He's still pretty fast, though I'll admit cosmic distances are huge. Blowing a hole in the station should be easy, getting back to breathable atmosphere is harder. If he manages this no army of troopers can stop him.

Vader might proof slightly challenging but not much. Even if he chokes him, Krillin can still move and either pummel him or kiss blast him until he runs out of air. Of course this implies a) Vader is even able to choke someone physically far stronger and b) Vader not being able to choke and paralyze someone at the same time.

But yeah, I feel krillin doesn't fare too badly here. He might lose but he should win more often than not.

Point of order. Attempting to fight while being choked would almost certainly just make him pass out faster. You need a lot of air for that kind of exertion. Its also rather distracting being choked, so he may or may not even be able to muster the focus to fight back.

Darth Vader also has a reach advantage against any of Krillin's physical attacks due to his lightsaber. If Krillin holds still for any amount of time, Vader is just going to walk up to him and dismember him.

Finally, Darth Vader, like all force users, is precognitive. He knows where Krillin will be before he even starts to move. That seriously hinders his speed advantage (especially if he is suffocating) because Vader can just start moving first.

Also, if the Emperor is in the room, he can just put on a light show with force lightning, and Krillin will stare at it, politely waiting for the Emperor to take his turn, possibly wondering about the level of power he has. Meanwhile, Vader or somebody will sneak up behind him and kill him. The amount that DBZ characters know about tactics could collectively fill a thimble.

[Friv]

Honestly, I think that Krillin can get onboard the Death Star pretty easily in this scenario. If a mysterious space pod of unknown origin shows up near the Empire's greatest weapon, they are 100% going to tractor beam it into a hangar bay to find out what's up. They did with the Millenium Falcon, after all.

Once he's onboard, Krillin will be a wrecking ball. The only person who might be able to deal with him is Darth Vader, but telekinesis on humans has always been a bit wobbly in the Star Wars universe. And if Krillin launches his "disc of energy that can cut through literally anything", the question becomes "can you use the Force to deflect pure ki attacks, and can you do it fast enough to not be taken down to size".

Ki and the Force are pretty similar, so maybe you can! If so, the real question is how quickly Vader realizes that his traditional tactics are worthless and switches to something that can handle Krillin. If he does, he'll win. If not, he will be out and Krillin will be unstoppable.

[Flickerdart]

On feats: It would have been very easy for Vader to reach out with the Force and throttle Luke and the other X-wing pilots when they were making their attack run on the trench. He did not do this, and instead chose to use his TIE fighter's lasers. This leads me to believe that he can't Force Choke Krillin from some arbitrary distance.

[Keltest]

On feats: It would have been very easy for Vader to reach out with the Force and throttle Luke and the other X-wing pilots when they were making their attack run on the trench. He did not do this, and instead chose to use his TIE fighter's lasers. This leads me to believe that he can't Force Choke Krillin from some arbitrary distance.

He force choked an officer through a video feed once. I suspect the visual is significantly more important than the distance.

[tensai_oni]

This is ridiculously one sided as far as vs threads go. The difference in power, not just stated in-character through power level readings but also actually shown on screen, is just too huge.

Even during the early Frieza arc, fights in DBZ took place at speeds that normal human beings can barely perceive, less about react to. The whole fleet and garrison of the Death Star is fodder, it won't even inconvenience Krillin or slow him down. People (normal people) with guns or star fighters weren't a threat for DBZ characters, ever. Raditz is effortlessly catching bullets out of the air at power level 1200. Vegeta was destroying planets at 18000. Once his power was awoken by the Guru, Krillin's power level is 75 thousand. In Cell and Buu arcs, it stands at about 600k - more than Frieza's first form, and Frieza was basically a walking, human-sized Death Star to begin with.

The argument that Vader could force choke Krillin or pinch his brain nerve or something doesn't hold water. It won't work for the same reason Frieza lifted Krillin and blew him up, but didn't do the same to Goku: this type of posturing serves (both out of character and in character) as means to show how overpowered you are compared to the other guy. Frieza didn't blow up Goku and Vader never tried to force choke an actually challenging opponent (even non-lethally, when fighting his son for example) because that works only on people over whom you have the upper hand and can afford to be intimidating over practical. If you don't have the upper hand, it won't work. And Vader definitely doesn't have the upper hand here.

The argument that the Emperor would zap Krillin is laughable. The baldy would fly behind his back and cave Palpatine's skull in less than a second.

The only issue here is whether Krillin manages to hold his breath and survive in vacuum long enough afterwards. But even then, this isn't asking if the Death Star wins. This is asking whether he survives after winning or not.

[Flickerdart]

Krillin can't, to my knowledge, outrun a spacecraft, or fire attacks at interplanetary ranges. It seems that over 7000 TIE fighters should be able to overpower him - he can dodge the fire from one, but he can't really fight back unless they come close.

[tensai_oni]

What interplanetary ranges? Space combat in Star Wars is based on oldschool dogfighting where you have a visual on your target, which means spitting distances. And a Tie Fighter goes at 1200 kmh, roughly the speed of sound. Pretty fast, but nothing unusual for DBZ characters.

[Kyberwulf]

Yeah I think this is pretty one sided.
The power levels are so vastly different here. This is yet another case of people over estimating the power of the force. I mean a straight up vs match, Krillian would would win hands down.

However, if you actually use Krillian, with his personality intact. I don't know if he would win. I admit I haven't seen everything to do with Dragonball. Krillin never struct me as some who just flies around and attacks bases and whatnot willy nilly. I don't think he would try to destroy the base. He would show up and then run away. As far as I know. Even if forced to fight, I don't think he would kill anyone. Maybe someone else can tell me, has Krillin ever killed anyone before?

[russdm]

Shouldn't this really be Krillin vs Doctor Doom?

I don't think you can really call this a vs considering that DBZ is known for the crazy power of it's main cast (It's pretty standard for fist fights to cause the blast effects of what appear to be nukes going off on a regular basis), so how you would consider the Death Star an equal challenge is surprising.

DBZ after all has the scene where the mains actually accidentally break a power recording device despite trying to not punch it that hard. And then they survive scenarios that would have killed Vader even with his plot shields.

You would have to seriously de-power the DBZ to even barely start to give the Death Star, either 1 or 2 a chance, and then they still fail for a while.

[Anteros]

If Roshi can blow up the moon, Krillin who is something like 20,000 X stronger than Roshi can blow up the death star. It's really not even close. The most the death star could hope for would be to damage Krillin's pod so he suffocates in space after he dusts them.

[russdm]

If Roshi can blow up the moon,

I seem to recall Piccolo also blowing up the moon. Blowing up the moon is treated as being no big deal.

[tensai_oni]

Maybe someone else can tell me, has Krillin ever killed anyone before?

Several Saibamen (which are monsters that may not be truly sapient so not sure if they count) and at least one of Frieza's henchmen (who definitely count). He was also more than willing to kill Vegeta who was defeated and helpless at that point so it's not that Krillin is a pacifist who tries to avoid conflict or bloodshed.

[Sapphire Guard]

No idea who Krillin is, but if he can take the rest of the Death Star singlehanded, then the Emperor and DV are irrelevant.

Exhaust port also irrelevant, as you have to look at the plans to know its there.

But if he can choke in space, it's just a matter of the TIES (or planet destroying laser) just puncturing his pod and flying away.

[JeenLeen]

What interplanetary ranges? Space combat in Star Wars is based on oldschool dogfighting where you have a visual on your target, which means spitting distances. And a Tie Fighter goes at 1200 kmh, roughly the speed of sound. Pretty fast, but nothing unusual for DBZ characters.

Good point. If breathing and damage from the vacuum of space is not an issue, then he probably could just outfight TIE fighters by flying around and blasting or punching them. I don't see anything to indicate that DBZ characters need to be on a planet to fly, so he can fly outside his pod and fight TIE fighters.
I haven't watched the shows in a long time, but Krillin eventually moves so fast he blinks in and out of visibility (faster than light?), doesn't he? If so, moving faster than the speed of sound should be a cakewalk.

On the concept of breathing and damage from space: with the superhuman levels of endurance he has shown, do we have any reason to believe he couldn't just hold his breathe long enough to survive without suffering unconsciousness due to lack of suffocation? Likewise, whatever damage being in the vacuum of space would likely be mitigated simply by his being so tough. At least, it seems reasonable to me that if he can soak blasts that would destroy mountains*, he can survive those extreme circumstances for a while.

*I don't remember such from the show, but he isn't directly killed by single blasts when fighting some big bad guys, and those guys could easily destroy mountains if not planets, so it seems a reasonable extrapolation.

[McNum]

Now I want to see Krillin get into a beam struggle with a Kamehameha vs. the Death Star Superlaser. And that's not even all that outrageous. He could beat that.

The Dragon Ball crew have been planet killer level since before the Namek saga. If Krillin wanted to, he could blow up the Earth. This match is wonderfully lopsided, I mean, initially I thought it was Krillin in a fistfight with the Death Star itself. That'd be a sporting fight. If he gets on board, and I can't really see any reason the Empire would not tractor in something as harmless looking as a Saiyan pod, then it's over. He's just too fast and too powerful for anyone to deal with.

[Lord Raziere]

Vacuum of space? hahahahaha.....

Krillin can just blow up the Death star from the planet he is on. Kamehameha it from where he is standing, watch it blow up like a fireworks show, then go about his day without a sweat. Maybe brag about it to Yamcha or Tien. DBZ characters don't need to go into the vacuum of space to blow up your planet, they just need to see it.

Though if we're REALLY doing the vacuum thing, Krillin can just wish to become one of the Freeza race on the Dragon Balls beforehand and thus breathe in space anyways. That is assuming he doesn't just wish for complete immortality.

[Mato]

but can breathe in space for a limited time if it gets blown up.
Scenario 1: Easy win. Even if you look at the arguments purposed he doesn't, they all claim Krillin dies because he can't breath in space and the rules of the fight (and real life) doesn't mean Krillin auto loses for a shuttle rupture. Also it doesn't matter, as we seen with the Millennial Falcon who just happened to show up in what I can only imagine to be the first of a stead stream of ships that'd be arriving to Alderaan their first reaction is to tow it in instead of gunning it down.

Scenario 2: The scenario is directly dependent how what imaginary powers you give Vader that he doesn't have. Like predicting the future and choosing to gun down the space pod instead of not having the foresight to leave the message "shot all escape pods" or "hey shoot that ship before Ben shows up". Vader's only real power in this area is to choke you every time you remind him he can't do anything like that.

The average human can easily hold their breath for a minute or two, trained can go as long as six, and as early as the Saiyen Saga Krillin has lived in a world where one heart beat (apox 1/2~2 seconds) is enough to turn an entire battle around. You can't choke him to death fast enough for it to even be a thing. An actual point that wouldn't be a waste of text would be that Vader can block lasers with a lightsaber. So it'd come down to can Vader remove enough limbs or would Killian accidentally Kamehameha him and the Death Star away. And I'm in for the latter, because I think nukes have a statistical win advantage over the number of times I'd assume a perfect lucky hit was successfully pulled of.

[Prime32]

Eh, Dragonball power levels are screwy enough that I'm not entirely convinced Krillin can blow up a planet, or even a moon, despite all logic saying he should be able to do that with his little finger by now.

I do think his ability to hide his energy would be a major asset though, since it would prevent Vader and Palpatine from noticing him. In Super he even learns how to hide his energy while fighting (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifmC1stSKmg), meaning he can evade Sith and guards/sensors at the same time. Conversely, Solar Flare is likely to do more harm than good against those two, since fighting while blinded is part of basic Jedi training.

His Kienzan could deal massive damage to the Death Star's reactors and trigger an explosion, but we've seen some incredibly durable metals/technology in Dragonball so it's conceivable for it to fail. In particular, narrative logic suggests that Vader can deflect/destroy Kienzans with his lightsaber (and possibly even bypass Krillin's ki defences).

Now, assuming Krillin can only destroy the Death Star via sabotage rather than just firing a Kamehameha at it from outside, would he even know where to go? He might need to bring Bulma along so she can figure out its weak points, which would make his mission significantly more complicated.

[Frozen_Feet]

Krillin wins. He doesn't even have to destroy anything. Once he gets inside the Death Star, it's easy for him to terrify everyone into submission. And he will get in. DBZ podships are tiny, single-person vehicles with no armaments to speak of. By Star Wars standards, they are a non-threat. The standard practice is to tow those in with a tractor beam and capture the pilot.

And that's the problem: nothing in the Star Wars universe is really made to deal with 5" baldy who can fly, force open blast doors with his bare hands or cut mountains in half with energy projections. Not even Palpatine or Vader, they are so badly outclassed in the speed department that it isn't funny.

This fight ends with Krillin sipping Pina Coladas on the Emperor's throne, with Moff Tarkin and all Death Star staff being his willing manservants, because what else are they supposed to do about the indestructible man-god who single-handedly outpowers their fighter fleet?

[Emperor Ing]

Krillin wins. He doesn't even have to destroy anything. Once he gets inside the Death Star, it's easy for him to terrify everyone into submission. And he will get in. DBZ podships are tiny, single-person vehicles with no armaments to speak of. By Star Wars standards, they are a non-threat. The standard practice is to tow those in with a tractor beam and capture the pilot.

And that's the problem: nothing in the Star Wars universe is really made to deal with 5" baldy who can fly, force open blast doors with his bare hands or cut mountains in half with energy projections. Not even Palpatine or Vader, they are so badly outclassed in the speed department that it isn't funny.

This fight ends with Krillin sipping Pina Coladas on the Emperor's throne, with Moff Tarkin and all Death Star staff being his willing manservants, because what else are they supposed to do about the indestructible man-god who single-handedly outpowers the entire Imperial fleet?

QFT, but with a minor change. Though by the end of Z, Krillin's probably strong enough to destroy planets on his own. If anything, the Death Star is a redundancy and the Galactic Empire of Krillin opts to have it converted into condos around Coruscant.

[Phobia]

I think Krillin could destroy the Death Star just fine from standing on the surface of Endor.

[Lethologica]

I think Krillin could destroy the Death Star just fine from standing on the surface of Endor.
Yeah--starting him out in the space pod is practically a handicap, as it gives him a failure condition.

[GloatingSwine]

I seem to recall Piccolo also blowing up the moon. Blowing up the moon is treated as being no big deal.

Yeah, but Krillin dying is also no big deal in DBZ at this point. Krillin dies like Stormtroopers miss.

[Lord Raziere]

Yeah, but Krillin dying is also no big deal in DBZ at this point. Krillin dies like Stormtroopers miss.

.....he survived both the Saiyan saga and the entire Android and Cell Sagas......heck he made it through most of the Namek, Ginyu and freeza Sagas, until Freeza killed him at the last minute. It was a very big deal then. it caused Super Saiyans to be a thing at all.

the other two times Krillin died in DBZ was from getting turned to stone, and getting turned into candy.

we should really remember that most of the things that the Z-Fighters face are incredibly exceptional foes that have advantages that likely 99.999999% of the universe don't even think possible. Freeza is an exceptional being among people with high PL's. every fighter after that is even more exceptional and unique. I doubt there is a second Cell in all of existence, or any being comparable to Buu at least until the Majin race is made canon.

Basically any foe above Freeza is kind of a ridiculous anomaly to outdo a galactic emperor who is already a ridiculous anomaly. Normal combat is probably closer to what happens when Z-Fighters duke it out with minions or something, and Krillin held his own there just fine even in Battle of Gods.

[GloatingSwine]

Pointing out that someone has only died three times is not exactly denting my point. People are not surprised when Krillin dies, he's died and come back so many times he's an honorary X-Man at this point.

[Lord Raziere]

Pointing out that someone has only died three times is not exactly denting my point. People are not surprised when Krillin dies, he's died and come back so many times he's an honorary X-Man at this point.

And? That doesn't matter to the discussion at hand. Its not as anyone who ISN'T an anomaly of ridiculous proportions could do any better. No matter how many times he has died, he is still a guy who blow up the planet and defeat anyone who isn't a complete one-in-a-million hax regenerator/Beerus/super saiyan.

Your making your judgement of him unfairly based upon the most ridiculous exceptions in all of Dragon Ball Z. the Death Star ain't anywhere close to that. Its like saying Hercule has more of a chance, because he never died. Thats just ridiculous, because Hercule is definitely weaker than Krillin, and would not be able to blow up the death Star. Also Goku and Vegeta have died twice. if we're measuring competence like that, then Goku and Vegeta are one death away from being just as incompetent.

[The Glyphstone]

If 'verse thematics are going to get involved (which doesn't sound necessary, but it's being discussed anyways), then the question is why Krillin gets killed. He sounds pretty weak compared to the main cast, so he's not being Worfed to show how badass the new antagonist is (even if Cell did no-sell* his Finishing Move for that purpose). Are his deaths meant to also be inconsequential or even comedic in-universe, a la Kenny McCormick? Is he the team 'morality pet' that the villain casually murders to show how evil and heartless they are, or to inspire his friends to power up even further by his sacrifice?

*Or should that be no-Cell?:smalltongue:

[GloatingSwine]

If 'verse thematics are going to get involved (which doesn't sound necessary, but it's being discussed anyways), then the question is why Krillin gets killed. He sounds pretty weak compared to the main cast, so he's not being Worfed to show how badass the new antagonist is (even if Cell did no-sell* his Finishing Move for that purpose). Are his deaths meant to also be inconsequential or even comedic in-universe, a la Kenny McCormick? Is he the team 'morality pet' that the villain casually murders to show how evil and heartless they are, or to inspire his friends to power up even further by his sacrifice?

*Or should that be no-Cell?:smalltongue:

He's the scrappy underdog with a lot of heart.

It just sometimes doesn't work for him.

(Also every time he dies he gets killed more than the last. He's up to "gets turned into chocolate and eaten", which is getting pretty esoteric, not counting "was on a planet when it exploded" becuase that got undone by time manipulation shenanigans)

[The Glyphstone]

He's the scrappy underdog with a lot of heart.

It just sometimes doesn't work for him.

(Also every time he dies he gets killed more than the last. He's up to "gets turned into chocolate and eaten", which is getting pretty esoteric, not counting "was on a planet when it exploded" becuase that got undone by time manipulation shenanigans)

He's probably in good shape here then, unless the Death Star can somehow hit him with the main gun by blind chance/luck. Taking the direct full force of a planet-cracking superlaser sounds about right for an appropriate death (unless tanking planetbuster punches is just an average Tuesday for him, but it sounds like he relies more on agility to dodge hits), but the odds of doing so are approximately nil.

In any other circumstance, he's definitely not the underdog.

[Red Fel]

If 'verse thematics are going to get involved (which doesn't sound necessary, but it's being discussed anyways), then the question is why Krillin gets killed. He sounds pretty weak compared to the main cast, so he's not being Worfed to show how badass the new antagonist is (even if Cell did no-sell* his Finishing Move for that purpose). Are his deaths meant to also be inconsequential or even comedic in-universe, a la Kenny McCormick? Is he the team 'morality pet' that the villain casually murders to show how evil and heartless they are, or to inspire his friends to power up even further by his sacrifice?

*Or should that be no-Cell?:smalltongue:

It's not just to Worf him, although that is part of it - he's the strongest of the humans in the cast. Still no match for the Saiyajins or Nameks (Namekians? Namekjin? How do we pluralize that?), but undoubtedly the strongest among the expendable human fodder. So, yes, it's in part to Worf him.

And it's in part to rustle Goku's jimmies. That's why they killed Krillin the first time, back when Dragon Ball was still the whimsical tale of a super-strong kid fighting inept dog ninjas, fascist mercenary armies, alien demon demigods, and a terrifying rabbit man. (For reference, it was tongue-inflicted brain damage that was a lot less sexy than it sounds.) That's why they killed him the second time, triggering one of the most obnoxious and ubiquitous tropes in shounen history. (Total corporeal explosion, precisely as sexy as it sounds.) That's always why they kill him. Krillin is Goku's first, best friend, other than Bulma, and there's no way Vegeta is letting anybody kill her, so it's got to be baldy.

[Lemmy]

When Vegeta first came to Earth, he was already capable of destroying a planet with little effort... By the end of the Freeza saga, Krillin was considerably more powerful than Vegeta was during the sayan saga. Not to mention his "Destructo Disk" technique was so overpowered, it managed to wound Freeza, who was FAR more powerful than Krillin at the time.

I'm betting on Krillin.

Dying three times isn't much when you face enemies capable of destroying the solar system with a wink. Goku himself died twice. Krillin dies a little more often because he doesn't have the super-sayan cheat code but still chooses to be on the front-lines all the time!

[Lord Raziere]

Also if we count Freeza's Golden form destruction of Earth along with Super Buu kiling everyone on Earth, everyone on Earth has died at least twice.

aside from Hercule. if we count Golden Freeza before rewind Hercule has died only once.

Krillin is not special in dying multiple times, he just has the curse of remembering it and not being a saiyan, who don't seem to mind the experience.

[golentan]

At the beginning of Z, Piccolo (who is at that point much stronger than Krillin but much weaker than Krillin will become post training and Unlock Potential-ing) is able to blow up the earth's moon (deciding it is an easier fight than a ki-empowered child on a rampage), without preparation time. Vegeta at this point is similarly a Planet Killer. If krillin decides the death star is a threat, there is no reason that he should be unable to similarly trash the death star. His in universe power level hits at least 75,000 in a universe where a power level of 5 is standard human ability and 10 is sufficient to crush boulders barehanded and shrug off atomatic weapon fire without injury or consequence. And while power levels are not an adequate depiction of combat ability by themselves, he can shrug off bullets, blaster fire, and move faster than the mundane human eye can track on the ground or in flight.

As for defending himself, tie fighters have to close to dog fighting range, and Krillin is the inventor of the Scattershot, Destructo Disc (both singly and in barrage form), Solar Flare, and create afterimages of himself, and can sense energy sources which do not yet share a planet with him.

The power scale in DBZ is so ridiculous that comparing it in vs matchups except against similarly overpowered opponents is ridiculous. The Empire spent decades and god knows how much blood and treasure building a superweapon space station to duplicate what is a basic villain power from Z onwards in the dragonball universe.

Krillin dies a lot in Dragon Ball because as strong as he is, he is outmatched by aliens who gain power from being defeated without upper limit and artificial beings created to specifically kill the former, and he sticks around because he has been able to buy his allies time, improve himself, save lives, and deal with weaker opponents to help his friends. And he does. Krillin does not die when going solo, he dies when he gets caught between his duty to his friends and an impossible, insurmountable power gap (usually narratively to enrage his best bud Goku into jumping that last hurdle to close it).

[Aotrs Commander]

Krillin dies a lot in Dragon Ball because as strong as he is, he is outmatched by aliens who gain power from being defeated without upper limit and artificial beings created to specifically kill the former, and he sticks around because he has been able to buy his allies time, improve himself, save lives, and deal with weaker opponents to help his friends. And he does. Krillin does not die when going solo, he dies when he gets caught between his duty to his friends and an impossible, insurmountable power gap (usually narratively to enrage his best bud Goku into jumping that last hurdle to close it).

Because Krillen is awesome.



Especially in Dragonball Z abridged.

[tonberrian]

So the reality is if Krillin dies to the Death Star, it's only to set up Goku getting a new power up and smashing it himself.

[Douglas]

So the reality is if Krillin dies to the Death Star, it's only to set up Goku getting a new power up and smashing it himself.
But Goku is already many times powerful enough to do the job - I think there are scenes where other members of the main cast express serious concern that Goku is going to destroy the planet as an accidental side effect of powering up. If he actually takes deliberate action to do it, blowing up the Death Star with a single energy blast would be downright trivial.

[Lord Raziere]

But Goku is already many times powerful enough to do the job - I think there are scenes where other members of the main cast express serious concern that Goku is going to destroy the planet as an accidental side effect of powering up. If he actually takes deliberate action to do it, blowing up the Death Star with a single energy blast would be downright trivial.

Yeah at current DB Super levels of power, the concern is more "Goku could accidentally destroy the Universe". as a side effect of him fighting. We're long past planets in danger of being destroyed.

[lord_khaine]

Especially in Dragonball Z abridged.

QUACK! :smalltongue:

[thorgrim29]

Isn't Tien human, and stronger than Krillin? He was in the Cell saga at least. He does have a third eye but I don't remember anything about him being a demon or an alien so he would seem to be a human with a weird mutation.

[Rynjin]

Isn't Tien human, and stronger than Krillin? He was in the Cell saga at least. He does have a third eye but I don't remember anything about him being a demon or an alien so he would seem to be a human with a weird mutation.

It arguably goes back and forth between Krillin and Tien, but the gap is not large in either case. By the Buu saga it's definitely Tien, since Krillin had given up training by that point and was starting to slip (to the point that in a current episode of Super he was actually damaged by a bullet, his wife made fun of him for it, and so he's back to training).

In the next Super arc I wouldn't be surprised if he was back above Tien's level because he seems to have gotten some major power up episode before last.

Even then Buu Saga Krillin is well past planet buster levels of power, and the Kienzan multiplies his destructive power by an unknown (but enormous) amount. It being "hard to aim" is bullhonkey, he's managed to hit people waaaaaaaaaay faster than him, and grievously damage them to boot. The only person who's successfully DODGED the Kienzan completely is Nappa...the first guy he ever attempted to use the technique on. Frieza was hit (and lost his tail), Cell was hit (specifically so he could no-sell it and show off HOW crazy strong he is), and he straight up BISECTS Kid Buu, a villain orders of magnitude stronger and more powerful than him (and Cell, for that matter). Any creature of similar power to Kid Buu (like Super Saiyan 2 Vegeta for instance) but lacking his regeneration (i.e. everything in the universe so far aside from Buu and Cell) would have died.

Krillin gets way too little credit. The reason he gets punked so often is BECAUSE he's so powerful. Krillin is the ****ing BENCHMARK in Dragonball beside which a threat is measured. It's a twofold system. They measure raw power in "X Friezas" the same way "Giga Hitlers" are used as a measure of evil and overall threat level (not the same thing. For example. Fat Majin Buu is actually STRONGER than Super Buu and Kid Buu, but less dangerous due to temperament) by "How much does Krillin contribute in this fight and how bad is he Worfed?"

Coupled with the fact that Super seems to be going with "Anybody sufficiently powerful enough can breathe or at least survive) in space" (Pan, who is a quarter-Saiyan INFANT can breathe in space apparently, and keep in mind that Saiyans cannot naturally breathe in space themselves) and there is no way Krillin can lose this fight.

Blasters are like the buzzing of flies to him. Frieza soldiers have blasters, as do many civilized races in the DB universe. They are never a threat to any worthwhile villain or protagonist. Lightsabers? Potentially deadly...though doubtful. If Cell can no-Cell a Kienzan (what is basically a lightsaber in the form of a circular saw...and can slice mountains in half without difficulty during the Saiyan saga while lightsabers have a bit of difficulty burning through a steel door), Krillin can likely no-sell a lightsaber.

That leaves the Force. Lightning is lolworthy to Krillin. Force Choke or telekinesis? Potentially a threat, but the chances of any Force user A.) Being fast enough to actually land it on him (Guldo, DBZ's resident "Weird psychic thing", could stop time, Vader needs to step up his game) and B.) Being able to hold it long enough for him to choke to death without somehow Krillin murdering them with a combination of fisticuffs with more power packed behind them than artillery fire (and technique to boot, Krillin is a martial artist, not just a brawler) and energy beams that put the Death Star's own to shame.

I don't normally fan wank DBZ but this match-up isn't even close. Dragonball characters are on a whole other level (I'd call straight Dragon Ball child/teenage Krillin a match in a straight fight with Vader) to most series', and you need something as ludicrously overpowered to challenge them.

Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann/Super Galaxy Dai Gurren is a space vessel that could beat Krillin, not the Death Star.


Pointing out that someone has only died three times is not exactly denting my point. People are not surprised when Krillin dies, he's died and come back so many times he's an honorary X-Man at this point.

The best part about death in Dragon Ball's wacky universe? It doesn't matter. No, not because of the Dragon Balls. It doesn't matter because the afterlife is literally a PLACE. Not a separate dimension, it is just a place in an out of the corner part of the galaxy. You can literally fly a spaceship to Otherworld (or teleport there like Goku does, or presumably any Yardrati or anyone else who knew it) and casually visit Hell to beat up literal Hitler.

Any of the Z-Fighters that wanted to (and didn't mind pissing off King Yemma) could fly away from Otherworld and go wherever they wanted assuming they can hold their breath long enough or can procure a craft.

King Kai/North Kai has been dead since the Cell saga (something like 8, 9 years at this point in the canon) and it hasn't impacted his life at all except the other Kais laugh at his halo when he visits them (in different galaxies).

[Kato]

The best part about death in Dragon Ball's wacky universe? It doesn't matter. No, not because of the Dragon Balls. It doesn't matter because the afterlife is literally a PLACE. Not a separate dimension, it is just a place in an out of the corner part of the galaxy. You can literally fly a spaceship to Otherworld (or teleport there like Goku does, or presumably any Yardrati or anyone else who knew it) and casually visit Hell to beat up literal Hitler.

Any of the Z-Fighters that wanted to (and didn't mind pissing off King Yemma) could fly away from Otherworld and go wherever they wanted assuming they can hold their breath long enough or can procure a craft.

That is mostly not supported by the actions in the show. Yes, Goku can freely teleport to the world of the kais / the afterlife/ wherever with instant transmission but the reverse is not true. King Kai might not be bothered by being dead, but we have not seen anyone leave the afterlife while dead without Baba's help. "Dimension " might not be the right word, "realm" would likely be better, but it's not just a corner of the universe you can run from if you're dead. At least except for that one movie, nobody ever just escaped from there. And Goku when dead doesn't just teleport out.

[Lord Raziere]

Any of the Z-Fighters that wanted to (and didn't mind pissing off King Yemma) could fly away from Otherworld and go wherever they wanted assuming they can hold their breath long enough or can procure a craft.

King Kai/North Kai has been dead since the Cell saga (something like 8, 9 years at this point in the canon) and it hasn't impacted his life at all except the other Kais laugh at his halo when he visits them (in different galaxies).

My only quibble with this is that you seem to need a special form of energy to come back from the dead without Dragon Balls, which only Fortune Teller Baba seems be able to utilize to bring people back, and even then only for one day, which Goku expended by going Super-saiyan 3 in the Buu Saga. Or Elder kai's strange technique where he sacrificed his own life to bring back Goku's without the Dragon Balls. So its a bit more complicated than that. It does mean that the Wish Dragons are probably just using a currently undiscovered method of bringing people back to life in the Dragon Ball universe that one could replicate though.

That and Spirit World probably =/= normal universe. though one does note that when Vegeta first fused with Goku, Vegitto was NOT dead or half-dead, but completely alive, so.....take that as you will.

Point is, I doubt its that simple. Otherwise the Dragon Balls would be pointless for bringing people back from the dead. and I do think the afterlife is another dimension.....Hell seems to have a ground. Its just that Goku knows where to teleport.

[Rynjin]

Beerus and Whis just flying there suggests otherwise (it's pretty explicitly stated they're just flying really fast and not dimension hopping or teleported). And I'm like 90% sure Jaco parked his space ship on King Kai's planet once in his own series. Roughly as sure that when Piccolo was brought back to life in the Namek saga he remained on King Kai's planet. Edit: Yep on Piccolo for sure.

It doesn't make resurrection pointless at all either, since nobody really knows WHERE Otherworld is and very few races can breathe in space anyway. Even less can fly at speeds enough to matter on a cosmic scale. Joe Schmoe is staying dead regardless unless somebody busts him out.

Kind of beside the point regardless, but I think there's just as much evidence either way, and Dragon Ball runs on comedy so even one-shot gags have a canonical weight to them.

The take-away is this: Dragonball cosmology is WEIRD. Which makes sense given the Chinese mythology it's loosely, loosely x1000 based on.

[Chen]

He force choked an officer through a video feed once. I suspect the visual is significantly more important than the distance.

I'm not even sure that seeing them is necessary. There are a couple of Wookieepedia examples (though in the Legends universe) of people force choking even without direct line of sight.

[Red Fel]

QUACK! :smalltongue:

Krillin ships Daisy Johnson and Natasha Romanoff. It's canon.


That is mostly not supported by the actions in the show. Yes, Goku can freely teleport to the world of the kais / the afterlife/ wherever with instant transmission but the reverse is not true. King Kai might not be bothered by being dead, but we have not seen anyone leave the afterlife while dead without Baba's help. "Dimension " might not be the right word, "realm" would likely be better, but it's not just a corner of the universe you can run from if you're dead. At least except for that one movie, nobody ever just escaped from there. And Goku when dead doesn't just teleport out.

Important qualifier: if you're dead. It's basically established that a living person, with enough power, can more or less come and go as one pleases; a dead character can go there, but as stated, returning requires something extra.

Also, with respect to Krillin vs. Tien, I don't know that it's ever canonically established, but in the non-canon chapter of Dragon Ball: Raging Blast, "The Top Earthling Tournament (http://dragonball.wikia.com/wiki/The_Top_Earthling_Tournament)," Krillin does defeat Tien for the title.

Also not established in canon, but explained in the Daizenshuu books, is that Tien is descended from a three-eyed alien race, so he's not technically an earthling. This also lets him use some unique techniques, such as the Four Witches Technique (where he grows extra arms), which is something most characters can't do. (Goku is able to counter it with the Eight Arms Technique, but that involves moving your arms so fast it seems like you have more, not actually growing more.) So that would raise the question of whether he counts as human for the "Strongest Human" title.

Even so, while I'll readily concede that his physical prowess is probably more significant than Krillin's, and his Kikoho is highly effective (go ask Semi-Perfect Cell), Krillin's ki mastery - plus the fact that he trained with Goku - would put him just a smidge ahead in my books. Plus the fact that he actually fought more or less all of the major baddies in Z. Where was Tien on Namek, huh? Krillin was impaled on a freaking alien horn and lived to tell about it. (Thanks to Dende.)

That said, I think we're really underestimating Krillin's canonically-established weakness to telekinesis. True, if he gets the drop on Vader, it's a straight-up curb-stomp; but if Vader can grab him in a force choke, I don't recall ever seeing evidence that Krillin could break free of a telekinetic grip.

[khadgar567]

actualy krilin vs dead star big chance that krilin wins and gifts the whole thing to bulma as birthday present
reasons
storm troopers cant legitimately hit him unless some ridiculously slim cosmic event happens and one of them luck out( like both universes with all planets align in specific form that happens one a universe born)
there is enough tech in both universe that krilin can fix himself non stop while wooping imperal ass like no tomorow
third and final reason lets say every thing goes bad their in 99% or more chance that goku can warp and destroy it without sweat the moment krilin says this planet is dangerous to earth

[Red Fel]

actualy krilin vs dead star big chance that krilin wins and gifts the whole thing to bulma as birthday present

18. He gives it to 18.

You don't give something that impressive to a woman who is not your wife. You give that planet-busting cannon to your beautiful blonde goddess and mother of your sweet child.

And then, when she laughs and points out that she doesn't need a planet-busting cannon, because she, and everybody she knows, can do just as well without a cannon, then you can offer that juicy bit of galactic space-tech to your friend the mad scientist.

Who is married to Space Genghis Khan.

And what happens thereafter is entirely predictable.

[Aotrs Commander]

18. He gives it to 18.

You don't give something that impressive to a woman who is not your wife. You give that planet-busting cannon to your beautiful blonde goddess and mother of your sweet child.

And then, when she laughs and points out that she doesn't need a planet-busting cannon, because she, and everybody she knows, can do just as well without a cannon, then you can offer that juicy bit of galactic space-tech to your friend the mad scientist.

Who is married to Space Genghis Khan.

And what happens thereafter is entirely predictable.

He gives it to Trunks on the basis a) the Saiyan Prince needs no baubles and b) he thinks Trunks needs bigger balls and that's the only way he'll get them?

Wait, no, that's DBZA!Vegeta.

...

Or is it...?

[RedSand]

That said, I think we're really underestimating Krillin's canonically-established weakness to telekinesis. True, if he gets the drop on Vader, it's a straight-up curb-stomp; but if Vader can grab him in a force choke, I don't recall ever seeing evidence that Krillin could break free of a telekinetic grip.

Darth Vader could probably get Krillin in a choke during a fair fight(during fights, Z-fighters have a bad tendency of standing around waiting for Akira Toriyama to get ahead of the animators), but would it do him any good? Krilllin and company regularly survive getting kicked into boulders-they're obviously able to take way more punishment than is humanly feasible. Can Vader summon up enough force to actually crush Krillin's windpipe? Because if he can't, one basic ki blast should be enough to break his concentration if not kill him.

[Douglas]

Krilllin and company regularly survive getting kicked into boulders
To clarify: kicked into boulders with enough force to shatter the boulders.

[Rynjin]

That said, I think we're really underestimating Krillin's canonically-established weakness to telekinesis. True, if he gets the drop on Vader, it's a straight-up curb-stomp; but if Vader can grab him in a force choke, I don't recall ever seeing evidence that Krillin could break free of a telekinetic grip.

I'm unclear where the "canonically established weakness" is, myself. Vulnerability, perhaps, since he's not IMMUNE. But the only people to use telekinetic powers on him were people roughly within his power range or way, way stronger. That's like saying "Cell has a Ki blast weakness" because he was done in by a Kamehameha.

Telekinesis just exerts force over an area at range. If the force exerted is greater than the subject can exert to move, then they are held in place. Guldo "cheats" this a little bit by PARALYZING them and then just lifting their helpless bodies and chucking rocks at them. Even then, he hucks rocks and trees (uprooting and then sharpening them in a matter off seconds) with more ease than what is usually shown as being casually tossed by a Force user. There is every possibility that Guldo is a more powerful telekinetic than Vader.

It's also worth noting that Krillin at that point did still have a slight range of movement while paralyzed (and full range of motion while lifted by Frieza, it just didn't help).

[Anteros]

To clarify: kicked into boulders with enough force to shatter the boulders.

Lately it's more like kicked into mountain ranges with enough force to shatter the mountain range.

[Traab]

Lately it's more like kicked into mountain ranges with enough force to shatter the mountain range.

After all, getting blasted into boulders and surviving was pre time skip naruto levels of toughness. And I dont think even the biggest naruto fanboy would legit try to claim that it was on dbz levels of toughness and power. Here is the big hit in the lee/garra fight. (https://youtu.be/a_RTWlCHBxw?t=35m38s) You can see garra gets embedded in the thick stone floor and is able to finish the battle even after getting ping ponged around by someone so fast only the high end ninja can even see it happening. And here is kabuto taking narutos very first rasengan and surviving. (https://youtu.be/i6Be9ObHjbU?t=1m45s) I will admit kabuto is a bit of a special case with his healing ability, but still, just look at the power there. He digs a trench close to a football field in length and craters a massive boulder with the impact. Once again, this is all pre timeskip before the naruto crew become roughly 1000x stronger.

[Lemmy]

To be fair.... Anime boulders are probably made of styrofoam.

[Manga Shoggoth]

I'm not even sure that seeing them is necessary. There are a couple of Wookieepedia examples (though in the Legends universe) of people force choking even without direct line of sight.

Plus in the original film you had Luke blocking attacks from a drone while blindfolded at the start of the film, and firing torpedoes down a vent that he couldn't see while flying an X-Wing at high speed at the end. Hitting things you are not able to see is what the force appears to be for.

Relative speed and visibility does not seem to be an issue to the Force.

[Lord Raziere]

18. He gives it to 18.

You don't give something that impressive to a woman who is not your wife. You give that planet-busting cannon to your beautiful blonde goddess and mother of your sweet child.

And then, when she laughs and points out that she doesn't need a planet-busting cannon, because she, and everybody she knows, can do just as well without a cannon, then you can offer that juicy bit of galactic space-tech to your friend the mad scientist.

Who is married to Space Genghis Khan.

And what happens thereafter is entirely predictable.

Abridged!Vegeta: are you trying to seduce MY Queen of my new Saiyan race!?
Abridged!Krillin: NO!! I just thought that she could minimize it to into some power armor everyone can use or something.
Abridged!Vegeta: Oh yeah, like I'd believe that. You give her a CANNON, because you think my Bulma just LOVES cannons like some sort of b-
Abridged!Krillin: She seems to love yours-
*Vegeta punches Krillin*
*Krillin Owned Count goes up 1*

[Traab]

Plus in the original film you had Luke blocking attacks from a drone while blindfolded at the start of the film, and firing torpedoes down a vent that he couldn't see while flying an X-Wing at high speed at the end. Hitting things you are not able to see is what the force appears to be for.

Relative speed and visibility does not seem to be an issue to the Force.

The drone thing was using force precognition to let him predict where an attack was coming from. Its basically spidey sense. It wont help vader launch a sneak attack from several rooms away, but it will warn him of an incoming destructo disc or mach 12 fist heading for his face plate. I suppose theoretically it could be used that way, but we never see it used in a fight like that in the films, and its pretty clear it takes concentration on lukes part. Though too be fair he IS new at this. I dont think we have ever seen someone use the force on someone or something NOT in los.

[Flickerdart]

Plus in the original film you had Luke blocking attacks from a drone while blindfolded at the start of the film, and firing torpedoes down a vent that he couldn't see while flying an X-Wing at high speed at the end. Hitting things you are not able to see is what the force appears to be for.

Relative speed and visibility does not seem to be an issue to the Force.

So why didn't Vader just choke Luke from the comfort of the Death Star?

[golentan]

The drone thing was using force precognition to let him predict where an attack was coming from. Its basically spidey sense. It wont help vader launch a sneak attack from several rooms away, but it will warn him of an incoming destructo disc or mach 12 fist heading for his face plate. I suppose theoretically it could be used that way, but we never see it used in a fight like that in the films, and its pretty clear it takes concentration on lukes part. Though too be fair he IS new at this. I dont think we have ever seen someone use the force on someone or something NOT in los.

Plus, as demonstrated by a couple jedi in the Order 66 montage... Force Precog doesn't necessarily show you a way to avoid dying if you can't do something to keep up, it might just let you see your death coming an extra few seconds out.

Kinda a horrifying thought, that.

[Traab]

Plus, as demonstrated by a couple jedi in the Order 66 montage... Force Precog doesn't necessarily show you a way to avoid dying if you can't do something to keep up, it might just let you see your death coming an extra few seconds out.

Kinda a horrifying thought, that.

Yep yep. A few anime worked with that principle as well. Sasuke from naruto for example, got to watch his own ass get kicked while fighting lee pre chunin exams. Lee, the ultra eyebrowed lunatic basically mocked the crap out of him, "It doesnt matter if your eyes are good enough to see it, if your body is too slow to react." Also, in bleach that mad scientist mayuri basically poisoned a bad guy so every instant felt like an eternity so he could experience being stabbed by a sword over the course of centuries and be utterly unable to do anything about it. Full scale I have no mouth yet I must scream territory.

[Manga Shoggoth]

So why didn't Vader just choke Luke from the comfort of the Death Star?

Why should he? Vader uses choke as an up-front and personal terror tactic (both with rebels and his own side).

When trying to shoot to Luke in the trench, Vader has problems because "the force is strong with this one".

Aside from anything else, Vader knows that Luke is his son ('though we don't know when he finds out). This is a plot point in the second film, and the third film is about trying to turn Luke to the Dark Side.

(I get the impression that the Force is played up a lot in the later films. In the first three the effects are mostly fairly local to the person (with the exception of the destruction of Alderaan and Luke's visions).)

[russdm]

I thought that the thread had previously established that is no contest, and there was no situation in which anything from DBZ could lose out to anything that wasn't DBZ.

I think there should a requirement that maybe not use DBZ for future vs threads. Like you can't have Doctor Doom challenge anyone, that you can't have DBZ challenge anyone.

[zimmerwald1915]

I thought that the thread had previously established that is no contest, and there was no situation in which anything from DBZ could lose out to anything that wasn't DBZ.
I thought that was Warhammer 40K in sci-fi versus threads?

[Flickerdart]

Why should he? Vader uses choke as an up-front and personal terror tactic (both with rebels and his own side).

Because it's much faster and easier than running down individual rebels on his dinky TIE? Imagine how much terror he could cause among the squadron when pilots suddenly go silent before the TIEs even started shooting.

[golentan]

I thought that the thread had previously established that is no contest, and there was no situation in which anything from DBZ could lose out to anything that wasn't DBZ.

I think there should a requirement that maybe not use DBZ for future vs threads. Like you can't have Doctor Doom challenge anyone, that you can't have DBZ challenge anyone.

DBZ can lose to non-DBZ things. They just have to be either very powerful or take the fight ways which don't play to DBZ's strengths/bypass them.

Saitama and Bioweapons spring to mind.

[Douglas]

Saitama and Bioweapons spring to mind.
Saitama vs Goku, I honestly have no idea who would win.

One thing's for certain, though: Saitama would get excited about finally having an opponent who doesn't go down in a single normal (non-serious) punch.

[Rynjin]

Saitama can't fly.

[Douglas]

Saitama can't fly.
Maybe not, but he sure can jump, and his strength, durability, and speed have not yet shown any upper limits.

[tonberrian]

Saitama can't fly.

In Super we see Goku get blasted into mountain ranges and shattering them into boulders and we're supposed to believe that hurts him.

Saitama demolishes a mountain range into dust with the backdraft of an attack that he held back on to give Genos a chance to survive.

Saitama certainly plays in the same ballpark as DBZ, and the difference between flying and jumping good aren't enough to make him auto-lose.

[golentan]

Saitama can't fly.

He jumps off the moon so hard and so accurately he lands 5 feet from his foe half a second later and breaks the moon as collateral damage.

Lack of Flying is not necessarily a handicap in this fight, and I doubt that Goku is the sort to ragequit the fight by blowing up the planet and teleporting elsewhere.

[Starwulf]

Beerus and Whis just flying there suggests otherwise (it's pretty explicitly stated they're just flying really fast and not dimension hopping or teleported). And I'm like 90% sure Jaco parked his space ship on King Kai's planet once in his own series. Roughly as sure that when Piccolo was brought back to life in the Namek saga he remained on King Kai's planet. Edit: Yep on Piccolo for sure.

It doesn't make resurrection pointless at all either, since nobody really knows WHERE Otherworld is and very few races can breathe in space anyway. Even less can fly at speeds enough to matter on a cosmic scale. Joe Schmoe is staying dead regardless unless somebody busts him out.

Kind of beside the point regardless, but I think there's just as much evidence either way, and Dragon Ball runs on comedy so even one-shot gags have a canonical weight to them.

The take-away is this: Dragonball cosmology is WEIRD. Which makes sense given the Chinese mythology it's loosely, loosely x1000 based on.

Beerus/Whis never "flew" to Otherworld. They flew to King Kai's planet, and judging by the rest of your statement, it seems as though you consider King Kai's planet as part of otherworld, which really is not the case at all. It might be somewhat nearby, but it's not the same. Goku had to run for a week or whatever on Dragon Snake road to get to King Kai's planet for his training, and even after that training it still took him several hours of traversing it to get back so he could easily get back to earth after being revived and fight Vegeta/Nappa, which indicates it is a considerable distance.

Also, even if Beerus/Whis could just fly to Otherworld, that doesn't say anything, they are literal gods, just like the Kai's. I imagine flying into an off-set dimension is as casual for them as driving to the store is for you and I. Heck, Whis is a priest or whatever of Zeno the Multiverse King. If anyone would have easy access to the afterlife, I'd think it would be Whis & Beerus.

[TeChameleon]

DBZ occupies an odd place in the 'Squash Spectrum'- basically, it concentrates the sort of destructive power normally reserved for high-end sci-fi super spaceships into a roughly average-sized humanoid. There are universes where the Z Fighters could be squished like bugs, they just aren't typically the best-known ones. Lensmen could most likely take 'em- even Goku at his most ridiculous isn't likely to fare too well against an FTL anti-matter planet to the face. Schlock Mercenary's bigger ships might be able to take them- they're able to use gravity manipulation to compress matter into neutronium, and to perform that manipulation with enough precision to puppet dozens or hundreds of unwilling people while allowing others in their immediate vicinity to move around freely, so there's at least a chance that they could smoosh the collective Z Fighters into an infintesimal ball of unpleasant gooey paste. Although I'm not as familiar with it, the Culture could likely muster enough firepower to take DBZ's various characters out. On the fantasy end of things, a lot of the sorcerors from the Belgariad/Mallorean could take out the DBZ characters... especially Belgarion, since he very nearly rearranged the stars by accident after he got the Orb. Pretty much any of the characters from the Wheel of Time who can use Balefire could completely ruin the Z Fighters' day. And so on and so forth. And yeah, Saitama could take 'em. That's the whole point of Saitama.

Oh, and a lot of the mid-tier-and-above superhero characters would have at least a decent chance against the Z Fighters- Green Lantern, Silver Surfer, Cable (sometimes...), Superman, Wonder Woman, the Flash, Wolverine (not logically, and not in any way that's likely to make sense if you stop to think about it, but just because Wolverine), Batman (ditto), Phoenix, Magneto, and so on and so forth.

That being said, yeah, Krillin vs. the Death Star would just be funny. Honestly, part of me would expect him to casually take it over... about twenty minutes before the end of Star Wars: A New Hope. Cue explosion and +1 on the Krillin Owned counter :smalltongue:

[Jothki]

If we assume that Krillin is capable of surviving in space for a reasonable period of time, then Vader choking him would be completely pointless.

[Keltest]

If we assume that Krillin is capable of surviving in space for a reasonable period of time, then Vader choking him would be completely pointless.

Suffocation is actually pretty low on the list of ways space has of killing people. Its still a thing that would happen, but the depressurization or radiation would probably get somebody first.

[Lord Raziere]

DBZ occupies an odd place in the 'Squash Spectrum'- basically, it concentrates the sort of destructive power normally reserved for high-end sci-fi super spaceships into a roughly average-sized humanoid. There are universes where the Z Fighters could be squished like bugs, they just aren't typically the best-known ones. Lensmen could most likely take 'em- even Goku at his most ridiculous isn't likely to fare too well against an FTL anti-matter planet to the face. Schlock Mercenary's bigger ships might be able to take them- they're able to use gravity manipulation to compress matter into neutronium, and to perform that manipulation with enough precision to puppet dozens or hundreds of unwilling people while allowing others in their immediate vicinity to move around freely, so there's at least a chance that they could smoosh the collective Z Fighters into an infintesimal ball of unpleasant gooey paste. Although I'm not as familiar with it, the Culture could likely muster enough firepower to take DBZ's various characters out. On the fantasy end of things, a lot of the sorcerors from the Belgariad/Mallorean could take out the DBZ characters... especially Belgarion, since he very nearly rearranged the stars by accident after he got the Orb. Pretty much any of the characters from the Wheel of Time who can use Balefire could completely ruin the Z Fighters' day. And so on and so forth. And yeah, Saitama could take 'em. That's the whole point of Saitama.

Oh, and a lot of the mid-tier-and-above superhero characters would have at least a decent chance against the Z Fighters- Green Lantern, Silver Surfer, Cable (sometimes...), Superman, Wonder Woman, the Flash, Wolverine (not logically, and not in any way that's likely to make sense if you stop to think about it, but just because Wolverine), Batman (ditto), Phoenix, Magneto, and so on and so forth.

That being said, yeah, Krillin vs. the Death Star would just be funny. Honestly, part of me would expect him to casually take it over... about twenty minutes before the end of Star Wars: A New Hope. Cue explosion and +1 on the Krillin Owned counter :smalltongue:

Yes, but then you get into Beerus destroying the universe if he gets angry enough. sure, Superman, or any godly character like him could probably survive, but I doubt the Culture or any sci-fi galactic civilization has a plan for the end of literally the entire universe.

and above that is Zen'o, who destroys multiple universes over trivial things that slightly displease him. both of them are kind of friends with the Z-Fighters.

If all else fails, Goku could look at these invaders and just press the literal "Call Zen'o" button and watch the god of everything end them in one blow, along with the rest of reality. Hopefully Bulma has invented another time machine by then, because thats the only way anyone is escaping Zen'os attack.

[Keltest]

Yes, but then you get into Beerus destroying the universe if he gets angry enough. sure, Superman, or any godly character like him could probably survive, but I doubt the Culture or any sci-fi galactic civilization has a plan for the end of literally the entire universe.

and above that is Zen'o, who destroys multiple universes over trivial things that slightly displease him. both of them are kind of friends with the Z-Fighters.

If all else fails, Goku could look at these invaders and just press the literal "Call Zen'o" button and watch the god of everything end them in one blow, along with the rest of reality. Hopefully Bulma has invented another time machine by then, because thats the only way anyone is escaping Zen'os attack.

Do you really think Goku would ever deliberately have somebody else fight his battle for him?

[Lord Raziere]

Do you really think Goku would ever deliberately have somebody else fight his battle for him?

Did he follow that logic against Zamasu's cloud form? He fired one beam at it and it had no effect, when he faced countless foes before that that were similarly unaffected.

No, he called Zeno, and Zeno destroyed reality. He didn't realize what he would do, but he did know that it WAS a threat too big for him to handle. One of the perks of NOT being the strongest guy in the universe is that you know there is always someone better. He has humility other shonen heroes don't.

And Goku has a long history of asking other more powerful beings to bail him out. Mostly Shenron.

[Traab]

I really wouldnt include belgarion or any of those folks seeing as how they are human, with human reaction times. Yeah sure, technically they have the destructive power to do it, but by the time belgarion tells the orb to do something, his molecules are in various corners of the universe from an attack that obliterated him so thoroughly you would think goku broke the unmaking law of their universe. Same for rand and crew. Not gods, cant react that fast.

[tonberrian]

Goku is perfectly willing to let an attack hit him first. And a balefire beamstruggle would be over real quick, and not in Goku's favor. Belgarath deemed it necessary to tell Belgarion not to literally make time, presumably because Belgarion could without knowing the how and why that would be bad. If push comes to shove, however, he can. Probably better than Hit, too.

[Lord Raziere]

Eeeh.....Balefire is a time thing and time things kind of starts bringing in people like Future Trunks to let the Z-Fighters know about the problem. and Future Trunks is as of Zamasu, is on the same level as Goku AND is a pragmatist to boot. Future Trunks won't mess around. His response to Majin Buu is to kill Babidi before the plan can even get off the ground. Mostly because Future Trunks is the one person in Dragon Ball who actually gets the full extent of how dangerous his world is, how fragile a good life is, and how it could all get so easily ruined and destroyed.

[tonberrian]

Eeeh.....Balefire is a time thing and time things kind of starts bringing in people like Future Trunks to let the Z-Fighters know about the problem. and Future Trunks is as of Zamasu, is on the same level as Goku AND is a pragmatist to boot. Future Trunks won't mess around. His response to Majin Buu is to kill Babidi before the plan can even get off the ground. Mostly because Future Trunks is the one person in Dragon Ball who actually gets the full extent of how dangerous his world is, how fragile a good life is, and how it could all get so easily ruined and destroyed.

I'd argue that balefire basically requires the Supreme Kai of Time to intervene and stitch together a new timeline. Simple time travel alone wouldn't solve being erased from time pre-emptively, and thoroughly enough that the Dragonballs wouldn't work. And Rand could probably Balefire enough to kill Goku before he killed Kid Buu.

This only works once, and only on Goku (and possibly Super's Vegeta), but it could happen.

Balefire is bull****.

[Traab]

Goku is perfectly willing to let an attack hit him first. And a balefire beamstruggle would be over real quick, and not in Goku's favor. Belgarath deemed it necessary to tell Belgarion not to literally make time, presumably because Belgarion could without knowing the how and why that would be bad. If push comes to shove, however, he can. Probably better than Hit, too.

Im pretty sure belgarion wouldnt out of a reasonable fear of destroying the universe through paradox. And once again, by the time he gathers his will and speaks the word, he has been dead for a second and a half. As for balefire, you might have a point there, though I would expect him to dodge if he sees his beamspam utterly ignored and erased as the balefire flies towards him. And that assumes rands first attack will be balefire and not literally anything else that would have minimal effect on goku at all. At which point goku goes, "Well thats boring" and finger flicks rand into the nearest mountain. Remember that goku is on par with the freaking creator and the dark one, as he is capable of destroying the entire universe by punching too hard. Rand meanwhile needed 700,000 pages worth of story and 50 named friends to make him able to fight in the end. I dont think he has that kind of setup time to fight goku.

[tonberrian]

Im pretty sure belgarion wouldnt out of a reasonable fear of destroying the universe through paradox. And once again, by the time he gathers his will and speaks the word, he has been dead for a second and a half. As for balefire, you might have a point there, though I would expect him to dodge if he sees his beamspam utterly ignored and erased as the balefire flies towards him. And that assumes rands first attack will be balefire and not literally anything else that would have minimal effect on goku at all. At which point goku goes, "Well thats boring" and finger flicks rand into the nearest mountain. Remember that goku is on par with the freaking creator and the dark one, as he is capable of destroying the entire universe by punching too hard. Rand meanwhile needed 700,000 pages worth of story and 50 named friends to make him able to fight in the end. I dont think he has that kind of setup time to fight goku.

If this was Vegeta I'd agree with you. Goku is a moron. He'll tell someone to use their best attack, and he'll play on their level until they do. And Goku won't kill anyone until they kill one of his friends.

[Anteros]

Saitama vs Goku, I honestly have no idea who would win.

One thing's for certain, though: Saitama would get excited about finally having an opponent who doesn't go down in a single normal (non-serious) punch.

Goku is literally a universe buster. Like, he has to intentionally focus his ki to not destroy the entire universe with the shockwaves when he punches things. Saitama might have no shown upper limits, but he's also never shown even a trillionth of Goku's power.


In Super we see Goku get blasted into mountain ranges and shattering them into boulders and we're supposed to believe that hurts him.

Saitama demolishes a mountain range into dust with the backdraft of an attack that he held back on to give Genos a chance to survive.

Saitama certainly plays in the same ballpark as DBZ, and the difference between flying and jumping good aren't enough to make him auto-lose.

You're supposed to believe the punch/blast hurt him, not the boulder.


Goku is perfectly willing to let an attack hit him first. And a balefire beamstruggle would be over real quick, and not in Goku's favor. Belgarath deemed it necessary to tell Belgarion not to literally make time, presumably because Belgarion could without knowing the how and why that would be bad. If push comes to shove, however, he can. Probably better than Hit, too.

Balefire can't even destroy sufficiently tough things in its own setting. I really doubt it would kill Goku unless his guard was completely down. Really, these examples are just silly. There are plenty of fictional characters who could beat the DBZ cast...but these examples are low-power chumps compared to the DBZ setting.

[khadgar567]

We might have the first thing saitama loses becouse he hits guku and guku laıghs then he shoots f you beam known as kamehameha to saitama and gg baldie you are so truly dead that you never return to life

[Manga Shoggoth]

Because it's much faster and easier than running down individual rebels on his dinky TIE? Imagine how much terror he could cause among the squadron when pilots suddenly go silent before the TIEs even started shooting.

I'm not saying that if he could do it, it wouldn't be without tactical merit, but if you have accurate telenekisis (which is essentially what this is - Vader even lifts someone while doing it at one point in the first film) with very long range then I'd start by detonating the rebel ammo dumps or making the reactors of the capital ships go critical...

My point is that you will tend to use a tool or skill in a certian way. Toolwise, if I am putting a screw into something, I use a screwdriver (and drill and rawplug as required). If I am banging in a nail I use a hammer. I don't use a hammer* for screws or a screwdriver for nails. It is possible to do either, but it is not how the tools are designed and it doesn't work very well.

Granted, the Force is a little more flexible (or ill-defined...). There are occasions in fiction where people work out unusual uses of existing abilities, but that's generally made as a major plot point. This isn't happening here as far as I can see.

EDIT: For the specific example: I'm not aware of a force choke that does not have line of sight in some way (even if via a viewscreen) to start the choke. Perhaps you just can't see to grab the throat in a dogfight, especially where you are both moving rapidly.



* - I managed to reach my mid-30's before I discovered that there actually was one case where you would actually use a hammer to put in screws.

[Flickerdart]

* - I managed to reach my mid-30's before I discovered that there actually was one case where you would actually use a hammer to put in screws.

Hit it once into drywall, then switch to the screwdriver. Saves a lot of fiddling.

[TeChameleon]

Goku is literally a universe buster. Like, he has to intentionally focus his ki to not destroy the entire universe with the shockwaves when he punches things. Saitama might have no shown upper limits, but he's also never shown even a trillionth of Goku's power.
*shrug*

Saitama vs. basically anyone is like WoD Cain vs. anyone. The Caped Baldy is another one, like He-Man, who has a strength score of 'Yes'. His opponent is pretty much irrelevant, as the narrative structure of the universe means that they'll be exploding into gore after getting punched. That's just how it works with him.

And frankly, Goku's power levels are all over the map. Toriyama isn't particularly interested in keeping the physics even marginally accurate, or even character strength levels all that consistent (really, Goku struggling with ten ton weights post-Namek Saga? Despite being shown to shove or even toss boulders that weighed many times that while still in training under Master Roshi at the age of twelve?!?). And don't even get me started on what they can and can't dodge (Abridged!Piccolo: "DOOOOOOOODGE!"), since the consistency there is pretty much zero.

Then again, I'm one of those weirdoes that think that Dragonball was better than DBZ, or at the very least rather more fun. Because really, one of the contestants in the World Martial Arts tournament being a wolfman (man-wolf?) that was pissed off at Roshi for blowing up the moon in the previous tournament (because he got stuck in one form) is comedy gold.

... and why would the Culture need an anti-universe-ending strategy against Goku? It's not like he runs around blowing up the universe on purpose...

And yes, Goku could speedblitz Belgarion, but why would he? It's not like it's something he makes a habit of doing...

Finally, for a character who could completely ruin Goku... Bugs Bunny. 'Toon full immortality, high-end humour-based reality warping, and basically being a trickster god with long ears would render ki pretty meaningless.

[Lord Raziere]

... and why would the Culture need an anti-universe-ending strategy against Goku? It's not like he runs around blowing up the universe on purpose...

And yes, Goku could speedblitz Belgarion, but why would he? It's not like it's something he makes a habit of doing...

Finally, for a character who could completely ruin Goku... Bugs Bunny. 'Toon full immortality, high-end humour-based reality warping, and basically being a trickster god with long ears would render ki pretty meaningless.

The Culture is about the size of a galaxy, if Goku can take out the universe, but hasn't actually made a trained attack for that, then him destroying a galaxy and accidentally taking out the rest of Creation with it is not out of the question. Especially since Beerus has been known to do similar things. Galaxy-spanning civilizations potentially being taken out by ki-fighters is old news at DB Super levels of power. I wouldn't be surprised if Beerus has taken out a few Culture-like civilizations in his time as the God of Destruction.

Maybe, if your bringing toon nonsense into it, then Goku can call Arale, who is just as cartoonish and unstoppable. That is assuming he doesn't call Beerus, who can demonstrably defeat gag characters in one hit. Because Beerus straight up destroyed Dr. Slumps' archnemesis's ghost. if you think Goku or the DB universe is any stranger to cartoon shenanigans, you need to read Dr. Slump my friend.

[Coidzor]

What interplanetary ranges? Space combat in Star Wars is based on oldschool dogfighting where you have a visual on your target, which means spitting distances. And a Tie Fighter goes at 1200 kmh, roughly the speed of sound. Pretty fast, but nothing unusual for DBZ characters.

If you want to see how DBZ characters do against things that fly at jet speeds, there's always Nappa's Best. Day. Ever (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6lhrFigabA).


Good point. If breathing and damage from the vacuum of space is not an issue, then he probably could just outfight TIE fighters by flying around and blasting or punching them. I don't see anything to indicate that DBZ characters need to be on a planet to fly, so he can fly outside his pod and fight TIE fighters.

The Bardock special shows a number of Frieza's soldiers and Bardock, the protagonist of that special, flying in space near a planet. Or possibly in the very highest reaches of the upper atmosphere.


Normal combat is probably closer to what happens when Z-Fighters duke it out with minions or something, and Krillin held his own there just fine even in Battle of Gods.

And that was after he'd been slacking for a while and had become weaker.


If 'verse thematics are going to get involved (which doesn't sound necessary, but it's being discussed anyways), then the question is why Krillin gets killed. He sounds pretty weak compared to the main cast, so he's not being Worfed to show how badass the new antagonist is (even if Cell did no-sell* his Finishing Move for that purpose). Are his deaths meant to also be inconsequential or even comedic in-universe, a la Kenny McCormick? Is he the team 'morality pet' that the villain casually murders to show how evil and heartless they are, or to inspire his friends to power up even further by his sacrifice?

*Or should that be no-Cell?:smalltongue:

His first death was as a kid and it was to show how serious King Piccolo was and also give Goku a personal stake in avenging his fellow student and best friend.

His second death was to underscore that they'd just failed to kill the most powerful being in the galaxy/universe(as far as they knew) with the most powerful attack that existed at the time. Also to push Goku over the edge into being well and fully angry enough to transform into a Super Saiyan to get the power boost necessary to show Freeza what-for.

IIRC, his third death was to show how trivial very strong fighters like the non-Super Saiyan 2+ Z-Warriors were to Majin Buu and possibly to get him out of the way for when the entire population of Earth gets genocided so he can be brought back along with the planet and more importantly, is out of the way of the Goku and Vegeta and sometimes Gohan and/or Hercule show that was going on.


Plus in the original film you had Luke blocking attacks from a drone while blindfolded at the start of the film, and firing torpedoes down a vent that he couldn't see while flying an X-Wing at high speed at the end. Hitting things you are not able to see is what the force appears to be for.

Relative speed and visibility does not seem to be an issue to the Force.

Relative speed is definitely an issue. It's just lessened to a certain extent depending upon what that difference in speed is and the period of time the precognition works for and what's going on. The drone was explicitly for training Luke, a complete neophyte, after all,

The speeds at which Krillin can fly or run are definitely issues for anyone in the Star Wars Universe. Precognition doesn't help you dodge attacks from all directions which are coming in so fast they're effectively simultaneous, unless it's an AoE and you can actually get out of the AoE beforehand and the generator of the AoE can't just compensate for your changed position.


Suffocation is actually pretty low on the list of ways space has of killing people. Its still a thing that would happen, but the depressurization or radiation would probably get somebody first.

I'm going to go with "not Krillin" on that one, given what he's able to do to protect himself with his ki and the baseline way DBZ characters operate in space. The issue has always been breathing in space, which seems to get handwaved as necessary depending upon how long they're out there and how far from a planet they are.


The Culture is about the size of a galaxy, if Goku can take out the universe, but hasn't actually made a trained attack for that, then him destroying a galaxy and accidentally taking out the rest of Creation with it is not out of the question. Especially since Beerus has been known to do similar things. Galaxy-spanning civilizations potentially being taken out by ki-fighters is old news at DB Super levels of power. I wouldn't be surprised if Beerus has taken out a few Culture-like civilizations in his time as the God of Destruction.

Maybe, if your bringing toon nonsense into it, then Goku can call Arale, who is just as cartoonish and unstoppable. That is assuming he doesn't call Beerus, who can demonstrably defeat gag characters in one hit. Because Beerus straight up destroyed Dr. Slumps' archnemesis's ghost. if you think Goku or the DB universe is any stranger to cartoon shenanigans, you need to read Dr. Slump my friend.

I imagine Beerus would have taken some out because they annoyed him by attempting diplomacy when they realized he existed by seeing him at work.

As far as I can tell, the Culture would probably have the brains to just leave Goku's corner of the universe alone, since while they do seem to exist to engulf all other forms of life into their milieu, they also have the ability to show restraint and mark parts of the universe as ones to be left alone for very long periods of time.

[khadgar567]

As krilin can survive in vacuum if we count super as canon and trunks and goten are weaker then him he can survive prety long while casualy wrecking imperial fleet

[Manga Shoggoth]

Relative speed is definitely an issue. It's just lessened to a certain extent depending upon what that difference in speed is and the period of time the precognition works for and what's going on. The drone was explicitly for training Luke, a complete neophyte, after all,

I'd agree, but there is a huge leap between the start of the film (Luke and the Drone, which was relatively slow and Luke only did one deflection of the attack) to the end of the film (Luke in an X-wing flying at full speed and trying to hit a tiny exhaust port).

Luke was still a complete neophyte at the end of the film, yet he pulls off a feat that should be of enormous difficulty if relative speed is an issue.

The force (at least in the first three films, and I freely admit that I gave up on the films after the fourth) seems to be more based on belief in ability rather than purely training or difficulty of task. Yoda makes two comments on this:


On Luke saying that he will try a task: "Do, or not do. There is no try."

On levitating Luke's X-Wing out of the swamp:

Luke: "I don't believe it!"

Yoda: "That is why you fail."



The speeds at which Krillin can fly or run are definitely issues for anyone in the Star Wars Universe. Precognition doesn't help you dodge attacks from all directions which are coming in so fast they're effectively simultaneous, unless it's an AoE and you can actually get out of the AoE beforehand and the generator of the AoE can't just compensate for your changed position.

Oh, I quite agree that if it comes to direct combat then the stormtroopers are completely stuffed, and Vader or the Emperor (or both) would have a challenge on thier hands.

If I remember my tournaments correctly, Goku's third tournament had Tienshin performing a move that split his body 4 ways (shishin, I think), giving four simultaneous attacks, so there's room for that sort of manoever even without the high speed attacks.

But simply quoting scale isn't necessarly of value. There's a world of difference between a Death Star (highly enclosed, lots of corridors) and an open space, which is where most of the highly powered DragonBall combats seem to tale place (I can only think of one exception - The Fatal Toilet - but my information is largely from the Manga).

For example, I wouldn't think it unreasonable for precognition to give you a timing for someone coming down a corridor at any speed in time to flood the corridor with Force Lightening. Of course, they have to know that someone is coming ahead of time, so unless they have some sort of vision of the future (demonstrated, but badly handled by Luke in the second film) they could still be caught on the hop.

[Traab]

And yes, Goku could speedblitz Belgarion, but why would he? It's not like it's something he makes a habit of doing...

Thats the thing though, belgarion is bog standard human as far as physical abilities go. If goku is told he is facing someone known as the godslayer, do you really think he is going to jog towards his opponent at 5 mph? He may not go all out, but when you are goku, even holding back 99% of your strength you are still capable of casually obliterating buildings with your fist faster than normal humans can react. Remember Hercule Satan? The guy is way stronger than belgarion physically, most likely could kick his ass in a straight up fight without magic, and he is an utter joke in the dbz universe power wise.

Also, something to keep in mind. While belgarion does (or did) have the orb which has the power to create new constellations and heal the world etc etc etc. He never ever USED the damn thing for anything impressive on a dbz level. So there is that issue to worry about. Honestly, if you want to take an eddings character and put him against goku, use sparhawk at his peak. When he discovered he was basically the child of blue rose and able to use its full power to fight on par with gods. At least he earned his victory with strength of arms, belgarion was protected by literal in universe plot armor to make his god battle an even fight, since that was less about winning a duel and more about making a choice.

Plus compare the two. Belgarion got like, a year or two of random training in how to swing a sword and how to use his magic. Sparhawk spent his entire life being trained in magic and martial skill, rising up to become the greatest knight of the acknowledged strongest branch of the church knights. His entire life was mastering his worlds combat skills. When it comes to regular magic, belgarion has an advantage in that he doesnt need complicated spells and gestures, but we also see that sparhawk has a direct line of mental communication to the goddess who grants him his spells and she really really likes him. Being seen letting him cut a lot of corners when needed. So the gap isnt AS huge as it could be, but is still there. But its at high level magic where it swings back. Belgarion has to try and make the orb, which is semi sentient and has a child like mind, understand precisely what he wants it to do. Meanwhile sparhawk actually IS the power of a world creating magical force, so it becomes his own will and the word type scenario.

Straight up melee duel sparhawk wins
Sword and sorcery I give the edge to belgarion
World altering level combat sparhawk wins.

[Coidzor]

I'd agree, but there is a huge leap between the start of the film (Luke and the Drone, which was relatively slow and Luke only did one deflection of the attack) to the end of the film (Luke in an X-wing flying at full speed and trying to hit a tiny exhaust port).

Luke was still a complete neophyte at the end of the film, yet he pulls off a feat that should be of enormous difficulty if relative speed is an issue.

You're comparing apples and hand grenades with that one. There's a world of difference between using the force to aim for what is essentially a single target when in his frame of reference, he's the one moving, not the target and using the force to predict and react to the attacks of someone who is so fast that it doesn't matter if you see the attack coming, because you cannot physically react to it without responding so far in advance that you change the future and they attack a different way instead.


Oh, I quite agree that if it comes to direct combat then the stormtroopers are completely stuffed, and Vader or the Emperor (or both) would have a challenge on thier hands.

If I remember my tournaments correctly, Goku's third tournament had Tienshin performing a move that split his body 4 ways (shishin, I think), giving four simultaneous attacks, so there's room for that sort of manoever even without the high speed attacks.

But simply quoting scale isn't necessarly of value. There's a world of difference between a Death Star (highly enclosed, lots of corridors) and an open space, which is where most of the highly powered DragonBall combats seem to tale place (I can only think of one exception - The Fatal Toilet - but my information is largely from the Manga).

For example, I wouldn't think it unreasonable for precognition to give you a timing for someone coming down a corridor at any speed in time to flood the corridor with Force Lightening. Of course, they have to know that someone is coming ahead of time, so unless they have some sort of vision of the future (demonstrated, but badly handled by Luke in the second film) they could still be caught on the hop.

There's plenty of spaces that are open enough for some maneuvering and even outright flight. In a narrow corridor, yes, some of his advantages are lost.

He's still literally fast and strong enough to deliver a single barehanded chop and break off vader's lightsaber arm before Vader can react.

As for flooding corridors with Force Lightning, you'd need to provide a citation for that, unless you mean just firing down a corridor for an entirely unknown range with an effect that may or may not be strong enough to give Krillin pause or that might just result in him doing the DBZ thing and beam struggling with your force lightning slinger.

Given Krillin's power, beam struggling with him isn't a safe bet.

[TeChameleon]

*Lots of fun Eddings stuff*

Honestly, I mostly just went with Belgarion because as far as I know, the Belgariad/Malloreon are the better known of Eddings' series (well, that and the aforementioned accidentally-rearranging-constellations thing).

Hrm... and just as a random aside, as far as Saitama vs. Goku goes, there is one feat that Saitama has that Goku's never matched (to the best of my knowledge)- assuming that the psychic-octopus-thingy (Geryuganshoop..?) wasn't simply exaggerating, Saitama has wandered around under blackhole-level gravity without the slightest indication of strain. Goku's never been exposed to anything remotely close to that, so... yeah. All other things being equal, Saitama has at least one major-league durability feat that means he can (casually) survive things that would turn Goku into a thinly-spread smear of random quarks. That being said, I probably should have just left this particular matchup at 'Saitama is, at heart, just as much of a gag character as Bugs Bunny, so him vs. Goku really isn't a fair or reasonable matchup'.

And I know that Goku's met Arale (during the Red Ribbon Army saga, he and General Blue ended up in Dr. Slump's world/corner of the world). But whether or not Beerus could destroy Bugs Bunny (permanently, at least) starts to get into the question of 'whose metaphysics/narrative structure are in control of the fight', which renders the whole thing pretty moot. I mean, what would happen if Beerus fired one of his 'absolute destruction' thingies at Matter-Eater Lad? It would be a conflict of absolutes; could Beerus' 'destroy anything' overcome Matter-Eater Lad's 'eat anything'? Or if Beerus ended up against Brit from Image Comics; Brit is invincible. Full stop, no qualifications. So what happens when Beerus tries to destroy him?

[Traab]

The thing about captain baldy is, the real reason its useless to use him in a vs match isnt so much the fact that he is a parody character, though it is connected to that, its that we have never seen him hit a limit, hard or soft to his abilities. It makes it really tough to say, "He can do this, but the other guy can do that." Because while its true, we havent yet seen one punch surpass that level of feats, we also havent seen any sign he couldnt should he need to.

[Lord Raziere]

And I know that Goku's met Arale (during the Red Ribbon Army saga, he and General Blue ended up in Dr. Slump's world/corner of the world). But whether or not Beerus could destroy Bugs Bunny (permanently, at least) starts to get into the question of 'whose metaphysics/narrative structure are in control of the fight', which renders the whole thing pretty moot. I mean, what would happen if Beerus fired one of his 'absolute destruction' thingies at Matter-Eater Lad? It would be a conflict of absolutes; could Beerus' 'destroy anything' overcome Matter-Eater Lad's 'eat anything'? Or if Beerus ended up against Brit from Image Comics; Brit is invincible. Full stop, no qualifications. So what happens when Beerus tries to destroy him?

Its not a question of which franchise has which meta-narrative structure.

Both Dragon Ball and Looney Tunes have demonstrated the same gag character meta-narrative structure and that most of the time, this overwrites the normal ki fighting. Beerus however, while in an episode of nothing BUT gags and cartoon meta-narrative, permanently killed a gag character in one hit with his Destruction God powers with no effort, no ki blasts, just poke, says the word "Destroy" and the person is gone. The same poke that destroyed Present Zamasu. So most of the time, gag overwrites the serious fighting, but Beerus overwrites the gags.

Beerus doesn't NEED to fight to destroy someone forever. He commands the powers of Destruction, and the universe obeys. Even against gag characters. He doesn't need to fire anything at Matter-Eater Lad, just poke him in the head, say "Destroy" and Matter Eater Lad is GONE.

As for invincible people.....well technically, Future Zamasu was still immortal when he was the Zamasu Plague-Cloud of Doom. Future Zeno destroyed him along with that entire timeline....so....its possible Zeno could destroy Brit. He wouldn't even care if the rest of reality went with Brit as well.

honestly, its not even a question of Goku anymore, because he isn't the strongest person in Dragon Ball. Zeno and the Gods of Destruction are where all the hax are now.

[Callos_DeTerran]

Isn't Tien human, and stronger than Krillin? He was in the Cell saga at least. He does have a third eye but I don't remember anything about him being a demon or an alien so he would seem to be a human with a weird mutation.

Depends when you compare them, doesn't it?

During the the Saiyan saga? Toss up but probably Tien. Frieza saga? Krillin, all the way. After that? Tien and its not even close.


18. He gives it to 18.

You don't give something that impressive to a woman who is not your wife. You give that planet-busting cannon to your beautiful blonde goddess and mother of your sweet child.

And then, when she laughs and points out that she doesn't need a planet-busting cannon, because she, and everybody she knows, can do just as well without a cannon, then you can offer that juicy bit of galactic space-tech to your friend the mad scientist.

Who is married to Space Genghis Khan.

And what happens thereafter is entirely predictable.

This is the best reply in the history of ever.


He gives it to Trunks on the basis a) the Saiyan Prince needs no baubles and b) he thinks Trunks needs bigger balls and that's the only way he'll get them?

Wait, no, that's DBZA!Vegeta.

...

Or is it...?

Well you aren't wrong...

....on the first part anyway. Canon Vegeta probably wouldn't think the second.

...and this is ancillary because it doesn't really make a difference (this is so in the bag for Krillin barring a direct hit by the Death Star), but I do not think Krillin CAN destroy a planet. Could have swore that Toriyama said you couldn't blow up a planet with sheer power (unless it was butt-tons of power aka the Final Flash), you had to KNOW how to blow a planet up. Vegeta, in the Saiyan Saga, actually can't blow up planets...the whole thing with the bug people was filler that Toriyama didn't okay and regrets was included in the show because...well..it created the impression that any strong character could blow up a planet.

Like I said, this actually doesn't change anything, this is still Krillin's fight to lose but it does mean there will be a roughly intact Death Star that has merely been left uninhabited by the end of this fight. At which point see Red Fel's post.

Could someone clarify that though? Cause I know Krillin never gets more powerful than Frieza during the Frieda saga, so I really doubt Krillin reaches the point he could 'power through' destroying a full on planet without a proper technique...which he may know, Krillin is a technique guy. He literally developed a technique that gives him a chance to OHKO an opponent who takes a direct hit by it unless they vastly, vastly outclass him (or are Kid Buu, but Buu's whole thing is he's basically pink bubblegum...doesn't matter if you hurt him cause he just comes back together...he doesn't really NEED defense so he doesn't have any)

[khadgar567]

for super era frieza mooks to show they are even more powerless then heros side kick who for long time didnt even try to train to keep his form due all major treats are basicly toys to goku or vegita so he applies to job so he can pay the bills for peacefull future of his family

[Knaight]

I thought that the thread had previously established that is no contest, and there was no situation in which anything from DBZ could lose out to anything that wasn't DBZ.

I think there should a requirement that maybe not use DBZ for future vs threads. Like you can't have Doctor Doom challenge anyone, that you can't have DBZ challenge anyone.

I wouldn't go that far. While I'll admit to being less familiar with DBZ than most anyone else here (I've picked up some by osmosis but never actually watched it), it started out as a retelling of Journey to the West and went up from there. It's rooted in old stories about powerful god like figures. Star Wars is much more grounded, at its heart a story about a handful of characters in a resistance movement which is then made bigger by being put in space and extended over a huge number of planets. That Star Wars specifically doesn't operate at DBZ power levels is to be expected. It doesn't mean that nothing else will. To use a hypothetical example, making something like Dragonball using The Epic of Gilgamesh as the inspiration instead of Journey to the West would probably accomplish it just fine. Using a non-hypothetical example, there's stuff like The Chronicles of Amber, Lensman, and TTGL.


After all, getting blasted into boulders and surviving was pre time skip naruto levels of toughness. And I dont think even the biggest naruto fanboy would legit try to claim that it was on dbz levels of toughness and power.
While you're probably right, the underlying assumption here - that fans of a series are dedicated to the characters in the series being more powerful than the characters in other series - is just bizarre. I'm not saying that it's in any way wrong for the fan bases in question, just that the whole mentality makes basically no sense.

[Anteros]

It makes perfect sense really. It's tribalism. We root for "our guy" and want them to be the best. It's the same basic reason we get so invested in things like spectator sports despite the outcomes having no real impact. Humans are weird sometimes.

[OctoberRaven]

Scenario 1: Krillin wins all day. Ejects from his ship, Destructo Disk in the thermal exhaust port (remember, he can control where it goes) and flies to the nearest thing with air. Also the scenario says the Z-fighters can't help but doesn't say they don't exist, so Krillin can probably be rezzed anyway.

Scenario 2: Vader guns him down. The plot is not strong enough for Krillin now that actual Jedi are in play.

Scenario 2, Alternate Ending: Krillin thinks he's still in a shonen anime and goes after Vader. Ironically, this plays out as it always does in DBZ, with Krillian getting curbstomped.

[Knaight]

It makes perfect sense really. It's tribalism. We root for "our guy" and want them to be the best. It's the same basic reason we get so invested in things like spectator sports despite the outcomes having no real impact. Humans are weird sometimes.

Getting to "the best" makes sense. Fanbases arguing that their preferred stories are objectively better written than other fanbases preferred stories makes a lot of sense. Fanbases arguing that the characters in their preferred stories are more interesting, better developed, better written, so on and so forth makes sense. It's the conflation of "the best" and "the most powerful" which gets into the bizarre category.

To use an anime example specifically, while I shy away from the term "fan" I like Seirei no Moribito and consider it to be a good work. I'll be more than willing to argue that the characters in it are substantially more interesting and better written than the characters in lots of other anime works. A versus thread featuring the handful of characters who could fit in one though? Why should liking the series translate to arguing that they'd win fights? Most of the time they probably wouldn't.

[Keltest]

Question: why would Krillin ever aim for a seemingly irrelevant exhaust port? The only reason the rebels knew to aim there is because they had blueprints that told them, quite specifically, that it would kill the death star.

[Lemmy]

Question: why would Krillin ever aim for a seemingly irrelevant exhaust port? The only reason the rebels knew to aim there is because they had blueprints that told them, quite specifically, that it would kill the death star.
He wouldn't even need to. Seriously, by the time the time of the Freeza saga, pretty much every character is powerful enough to destroy a planet! During the sayan saga, Vegeta aims his special attack downwards specifically so that Goku can't evade the attack because doing so would mean the destruction of Earth.

DBZ hasn't been my favorite anime in decades, and I honestly think Super is a pretty bad show with a few good points... But I can't deny the fact that the DBZ plays on a tier of power most characters from other franchises simply cannot compete.

[Red Fel]

Question: why would Krillin ever aim for a seemingly irrelevant exhaust port? The only reason the rebels knew to aim there is because they had blueprints that told them, quite specifically, that it would kill the death star.

Follow-up: Why should Krillin aim for a seemingly irrelevant exhaust port? The Rebels go after it because they use space lasers and torpedoes that can only deal surface damage; they would need to somehow hit the core in order to damage it. But blasts in DBZ can burst through ships, end to end; assuming Krillin is sufficiently powerful, he could simply shoot the Death Star, fire some kind of drilling blast straight into the core, and blow the whole thing sky-high.

Additionally, in response to the argument that not everyone can blow up a planet even with force, that's no moon. The Death Star is an artificial construct. More accurately, it's an artificial construct with a built-in design flaw engineered expressly to trigger total destruction. That already makes it substantially more destructible than a planet. Even assuming that Krillin couldn't kill a planet, he might still be able to blow up an incredibly large space station.

That said, we have a movie illustration for that, too. Let's review: robotic villain commands a moon-sized mechanical terror that destroys planets. Yes, Krillin was in that movie, and it took the combined powers of Goku and Vegeta to overload the Big Gete Star. (This creates some oddity, since it took their combined power to destroy one Metal Cooler, yet somehow their combined power could then destroy an army of them plus the Big Gete Star, but whatever.) Now, Krillin didn't, to my recollection, attack the BGS directly. Assuming, however, that it had a power level, and that the power level of the Metal Coolers was less than that of the BGS which created them, we can infer that Krillin was weaker than a Metal Cooler, and thus substantially weaker than the BGS, and unable to defeat it.

So, if we're willing to rely on only-sort-of-canon, we have a more direct comparison to the Death Star, and it does not bode in Krillin's favor.

[Lemmy]

Follow-up: Why should Krillin aim for a seemingly irrelevant exhaust port? The Rebels go after it because they use space lasers and torpedoes that can only deal surface damage; they would need to somehow hit the core in order to damage it. But blasts in DBZ can burst through ships, end to end; assuming Krillin is sufficiently powerful, he could simply shoot the Death Star, fire some kind of drilling blast straight into the core, and blow the whole thing sky-high.

Additionally, in response to the argument that not everyone can blow up a planet even with force, that's no moon. The Death Star is an artificial construct. More accurately, it's an artificial construct with a built-in design flaw engineered expressly to trigger total destruction. That already makes it substantially more destructible than a planet. Even assuming that Krillin couldn't kill a planet, he might still be able to blow up an incredibly large space station.

That said, we have a movie illustration for that, too. Let's review: robotic villain commands a moon-sized mechanical terror that destroys planets. Yes, Krillin was in that movie, and it took the combined powers of Goku and Vegeta to overload the Big Gete Star. (This creates some oddity, since it took their combined power to destroy one Metal Cooler, yet somehow their combined power could then destroy an army of them plus the Big Gete Star, but whatever.) Now, Krillin didn't, to my recollection, attack the BGS directly. Assuming, however, that it had a power level, and that the power level of the Metal Coolers was less than that of the BGS which created them, we can infer that Krillin was weaker than a Metal Cooler, and thus substantially weaker than the BGS, and unable to defeat it.

So, if we're willing to rely on only-sort-of-canon, we have a more direct comparison to the Death Star, and it does not bode in Krillin's favor.Are the movies even canon, though? I'm leaning towards "No". I can't remember anything that happens in them being ever mentioned in the series... Most of them don't even fit with the manga's chronology.

Now, what is definitely canon is Piccolo destroying Earth's moon with barely any effort at a time when his power level as little more than 2000 (at best).

[Keltest]

Are the movies even canon, though? I'm leaning towards "No". I can't remember anything that happens in them being ever mentioned in the series... Most of them don't even fit with the manga's chronology.

Now, what is definitely canon is Piccolo destroying Earth's moon with barely any effort at a time when his power level as little more than 2000 (at best).

Honestly, I think that goes back to more "rocks in the Dragon Ball Universe are made of Styrofoam" theory than it says about relative power levels. Physics are applied pretty inconsistently (IE somebody hitting a boulder/mountain/large objects with enough force to shatter it/them, and then just stopping on the other side).

[Rynjin]

The Big Gete Star allowed me to cheat death, how can this BE is significantly weirder and probably more powerful than the Death Star. It has the ability to create a clone army of robotic minions that are each powerful enough to destroy a planet without breaking much of a sweat.

It's also less a space station and more a computer chip that absorbed stuff and became a big lumpy mass of metal and stuff.

But yeah, most importantly it's not canon. The canonicity of some of the movies is questionable (the first Cooler movie and first Broly movie probably are), but most of the sequels and way out there ones (like the one with Hirudegarn) are definitely not.

[Knaight]

Additionally, in response to the argument that not everyone can blow up a planet even with force, that's no moon. The Death Star is an artificial construct. More accurately, it's an artificial construct with a built-in design flaw engineered expressly to trigger total destruction. That already makes it substantially more destructible than a planet. Even assuming that Krillin couldn't kill a planet, he might still be able to blow up an incredibly large space station.

This is the least of the things that makes it more destructible. For instance, the Death Star has huge amounts of open space, it's clearly not massive enough for gravitational crushing into a smaller denser ball to be an issue (whereas planets generally do this, as do moons, as do reasonably large asteroids), it's held together by the actual material strength of its components, which as previously mentioned make up only part of the space in it, and it has all sorts of volatile high energy stuff in it that can be easily blown up.

[Mato]

Question: why would Krillin ever aim for a seemingly irrelevant exhaust port?I have no idea, in his prime he could simply destroy it from the surface of Alderaan even as it fired at him.

Also we're talking about Krillin here, he actually has a set of brains to go with his brawn. He is a formally an educated monk and training with Master Roshi included math and literature. He is an active Japanese-style cop, and he has been shown to exploit his opponent's weaknesses whenever he could. Such as tricking Goku, using porn to beat/bribe Roshi, pressure point attacks, and he is the inventor of the energy disc technique which was expressly designed to kill opponents far strong than he is and in Super he shows off his bankai and he compresses his power-leaking aura around him self for a power boost. He has lived a life facing opponents far superior to him but unlike Goku who wants to face everyone at 110%, Krillin is not above trying to blindside you with his murderous techniques.

[Lemmy]

But yeah, most importantly it's not canon. The canonicity of some of the movies is questionable (the first Cooler movie and first Broly movie probably are), but most of the sequels and way out there ones (like the one with Hirudegarn) are definitely not.I'd say they fall into "not-canon until Toriyama decides otherwise".

Let's take Cooler... When did he invade Earth? Gohan still has the same appearance (including short hair) that he had in the Freeza saga, but at the same time, Cooler can't have arrived before Freeza and King Cold because Goku wasn't on Earth at the time. Additionally, he would probably have known about his brother's mechanization, but he makes no mention of it (or his father's death). Besides, no one ever mentions Cooler at any point in the show.

Every DBZ movie has similar issues.

[Rynjin]

I think he fits pretty neatly into the 3 years of training before the Androids show up. Same way Broly is in that week between the Cell Games announcement and the tournament happening (and Super has all but confirmed Broly as canon. Unfortunately.).

[Traab]

Getting to "the best" makes sense. Fanbases arguing that their preferred stories are objectively better written than other fanbases preferred stories makes a lot of sense. Fanbases arguing that the characters in their preferred stories are more interesting, better developed, better written, so on and so forth makes sense. It's the conflation of "the best" and "the most powerful" which gets into the bizarre category.

To use an anime example specifically, while I shy away from the term "fan" I like Seirei no Moribito and consider it to be a good work. I'll be more than willing to argue that the characters in it are substantially more interesting and better written than the characters in lots of other anime works. A versus thread featuring the handful of characters who could fit in one though? Why should liking the series translate to arguing that they'd win fights? Most of the time they probably wouldn't.

It happens in literally every versus thread, unless the power gap is just absurd. Everyone fights to proclaim their favorite is the best/strongest/most deadly. Especially when talking about series that revolve around getting stronger and winning fights. You see it in comics as well as books, as well as movies as well as anime. If you have a preference, you are going to try to find something that suggests they could win. Even here early on people were trying to find a way to "prove" that vader or the emperor could crush krillin, or at least win the fight. My point was just that even the most fervent fan of naruto would have to admit that yeah, dbz is just in an entirely different realm of power unless you start bringing in all sorts of shenanigans like cherry picking a specific point where the guy you want fighting naruto was at his weakest and blah blah blah.

[Knaight]

It happens in literally every versus thread, unless the power gap is just absurd. Everyone fights to proclaim their favorite is the best/strongest/most deadly. Especially when talking about series that revolve around getting stronger and winning fights. You see it in comics as well as books, as well as movies as well as anime. If you have a preference, you are going to try to find something that suggests they could win. Even here early on people were trying to find a way to "prove" that vader or the emperor could crush krillin, or at least win the fight. My point was just that even the most fervent fan of naruto would have to admit that yeah, dbz is just in an entirely different realm of power unless you start bringing in all sorts of shenanigans like cherry picking a specific point where the guy you want fighting naruto was at his weakest and blah blah blah.

I'm not saying that you're wrong; I'm saying that the phenomenon is bizarre. Between the two series I'd argue that Star Wars is vastly better, and that Krillin has this fight in the bag (particularly the post-boarding Vader/Emperor fights). These aren't in any way contradictory statements. Similarly, among Star Wars movies I personally liked Rogue One the best; that doesn't mean that the cast of Rogue One would do well in a fight against the high powered characters of just about every other movie.

[Anteros]

I'm not saying that you're wrong; I'm saying that the phenomenon is bizarre. Between the two series I'd argue that Star Wars is vastly better, and that Krillin has this fight in the bag (particularly the post-boarding Vader/Emperor fights). These aren't in any way contradictory statements. Similarly, among Star Wars movies I personally liked Rogue One the best; that doesn't mean that the cast of Rogue One would do well in a fight against the high powered characters of just about every other movie.

Who cares? People enjoy what they enjoy. We're already debating a fictional super powered bald midget in a fight against a fictional planet destroying moon. The entire exercise is silly and pointless. What's one more layer of silliness on top?

Besides, you may as well accept it because the internet isn't going to change just because you point out they aren't making sense.

[Lemmy]

I think he fits pretty neatly into the 3 years of training before the Androids show up. Same way Broly is in that week between the Cell Games announcement and the tournament happening (and Super has all but confirmed Broly as canon. Unfortunately.).
So... Did Gohan not age in that time? Did Cooler simply forget about his father? Did Goku forget how to go super-sayan and only remembered at the end of the movie, even though he could already transform at will by the time he returned to Earth? In DBS, when Goku and Krillin are fighting visions of past opponents in the cave where Krillin regains his fighting spirit, did the two of them just forget about Cooler and Brolly (just like they did all the time, since they don't mention those two at any point in the manga and anime), even though they bothered to remember Nappa?

Now, maybe Toriyama decided to make some movies canon, but that will mean adding several plot holes to the story.

(Admittedly, I don't remember the details of the Brolly movie, since it kinda bad... But doesn't it start with the Z-warriors casually having a picnic? That doesn't seem to fit "we have one week to prepare for battle against the most powerful entity we've ever seen" mentality...)

[Coidzor]

IIRC the Movies and GT are all alternate timelines or some other wibbly-wobbly meta-narrativity.

I know I'm not rating Krillin more highly than Vader because I like DBZ and dislike Star Wars, because I like both, as crazy and mutually contradictory as that may sound. Well, except for large chunks of the Prequels and the art style they went with for the animated series because it still seems really weird to me. And various segments of Dragonball, like the misuse and abuse of Goku's kids as characters as well as the tendency to make women completely irrelevant except for Bulma.

[Seppl]

It happens in literally every versus thread, unless the power gap is just absurd. Everyone fights to proclaim their favorite is the best/strongest/most deadly.Nah, I am just having fun arguing for the underdog or pointing out unconventional approaches. I bet a lot of other people have the same motivation.

[Mato]

But yeah, most importantly it's not canon. The canonicity of some of the movies is questionable (the first Cooler movie and first Broly movie probably are), but most of the sequels and way out there ones (like the one with Hirudegarn) are definitely not.They are all part of the series canon, what they are not part of is the main series continuity.

GT is, and still is, part of the main series continuity as well and is official canon. Despite the mistranslating of "gaiden" and the incorrect claim that spinoffs are not part of the main continuity or even several people at Kanzenshuu claiming Toriyama only worked on the examples given. GT is officially part of things and Toriyama is on record saying he continued to give them story advice.

With regards to the anime’s new series, Dragon Ball GT, how involved are you?
Just a little bit. I’ll check the stories that come up from Toei Animation, and give them a little bit of advice. Also, I’ve drawn just a few characters and illustrations. But it’s interesting! It feels like, “Ah, so they could do it this way”. I think everyone at Toei Animation really racked their brains. Good work. To think they’d make Goku little. With this story, I might even be able to continue the manga serialization again… though I have absolutely no intention of drawing it. (laughs)Which makes it as close to canon as BoG/ResF/Super are.

[Anteros]

They are all part of the series canon, what they are not part of is the main series continuity.

GT is, and still is, part of the main series continuity as well and is official canon. Despite the mistranslating of "gaiden" and the incorrect claim that spinoffs are not part of the main continuity or even several people at Kanzenshuu claiming Toriyama only worked on the examples given. GT is officially part of things and Toriyama is on record saying he continued to give them story advice.
Which makes it as close to canon as BoG/ResF/Super are.

No. Absolutely not. He's creating entire plot lines and arcs for Super. It's far more involved than just being generally aware and giving advice. Toei might have a lot of freedom on individual episodes, but the overarching plot and story is directly from Toriyama, which is far more than you can say for GT where he was barely involved at all.


For GT, all I did was just come up with the title, design the initial main cast and some of the machines, and also do a few images.

You might like it more, and want it to be canon, but ultimately it's Toriyama's series and his story will be the "official" canon. He even went as far as to confirm BoG as officially canon over GT after it premiered, so you can be sure that Super is far closer to his vision than GT.

[OracleofWuffing]

I know of both series mostly from on-and-off watching, parodies, and fan discussion, so maybe I shouldn't be pressing this, but I still honestly kind of want to know the answer. On the point of Krillin being able to just blow up the Death Star if he was just on a planet instead of in a space ship, because similar things have been done to various moons in his universe: Can that be done if he can't see the Death Star from the Planet on which he stands?

I've been thinking that the Alderan/ites/onians/earthicans certainly would have noticed if a not-a-moon-sized space station was being constructed in their line of sight, so I'm kind of working off an assumption that the Death Star could be far enough away that it wouldn't be visible to the unaided humanoid eye. And all the lunar/planetary busters I'm aware of in Dragon Ball Z were done- astronomically speaking- at point blank range of the target. Then, on the other hand, I don't think there's been an explicit call out to the range or duration of ki attacks, so maybe there's a whole bunch of energy discs still flying out in open outer space from when Krillin was practicing or missed, so maybe it could? Does this eventually turn into an "infinite monkeys writing Shakespeare" type thing?

[The Glyphstone]

Point to note, the Death Star wasn't built in Alderann's orbit. It's a mobile space station with engines and a hyperdrive.

[Lord Raziere]

I know of both series mostly from on-and-off watching, parodies, and fan discussion, so maybe I shouldn't be pressing this, but I still honestly kind of want to know the answer. On the point of Krillin being able to just blow up the Death Star if he was just on a planet instead of in a space ship, because similar things have been done to various moons in his universe: Can that be done if he can't see the Death Star from the Planet on which he stands?

I've been thinking that the Alderan/ites/onians/earthicans certainly would have noticed if a not-a-moon-sized space station was being constructed in their line of sight, so I'm kind of working off an assumption that the Death Star could be far enough away that it wouldn't be visible to the unaided humanoid eye. And all the lunar/planetary busters I'm aware of in Dragon Ball Z were done- astronomically speaking- at point blank range of the target. Then, on the other hand, I don't think there's been an explicit call out to the range or duration of ki attacks, so maybe there's a whole bunch of energy discs still flying out in open outer space from when Krillin was practicing or missed, so maybe it could? Does this eventually turn into an "infinite monkeys writing Shakespeare" type thing?

For some reason the Death Star waited until they could see Yavin IV itself rather than just try to blow up the gas giant it orbits. Which either means that for some reason the Death Star is powerful to blow up a planet but not shoot through a gas giant or blow up a gas giant.

That was, astronomically speaking, also point blank range.

as for Ki attacks range.....well.....there is evidence in Vegeta's Final Flash: the animation clearly shows the attack flying off into space far away from Earth for quite the range. Assuming physics and that ki blasts are basically plasma, there is no reason why the attacks wouldn't go on forever until it hit something, though Vegeta's Final Flash might be an exception. It IS one of the most over the top attacks ever.

At the same time, there are things like Goku being able to sense ki from across the galaxy or even the universe and use that to teleport straight to the place across those vast distances, so you MIGHT be able to aim astronomical distances distances if you can sense the target? Problem is, the Death Star is a machine so it doesn't count as something you can sense like with Androids, but if Force users count as ki-users (and jedi and martial artists are very similar in concept and have roots in the same wuxia traditions, The Force is very much a western interpretation of Ki). then Krillin can simply sense where Vader is and launch a planet-destroying Kamehameha at him.

[golentan]

For some reason the Death Star waited until they could see Yavin IV itself rather than just try to blow up the gas giant it orbits. Which either means that for some reason the Death Star is powerful to blow up a planet but not shoot through a gas giant or blow up a gas giant.

That was, astronomically speaking, also point blank range.

as for Ki attacks range.....well.....there is evidence in Vegeta's Final Flash: the animation clearly shows the attack flying off into space far away from Earth for quite the range. Assuming physics and that ki blasts are basically plasma, there is no reason why the attacks wouldn't go on forever until it hit something, though Vegeta's Final Flash might be an exception. It IS one of the most over the top attacks ever.

At the same time, there are things like Goku being able to sense ki from across the galaxy or even the universe and use that to teleport straight to the place across those vast distances, so you MIGHT be able to aim astronomical distances distances if you can sense the target? Problem is, the Death Star is a machine so it doesn't count as something you can sense like with Androids, but if Force users count as ki-users (and jedi and martial artists are very similar in concept and have roots in the same wuxia traditions, The Force is very much a western interpretation of Ki). then Krillin can simply sense where Vader is and launch a planet-destroying Kamehameha at him.

I believe the official explanation for Not Blowing Up The Gas Giant is that they have a 24 hour recharge time on the main laser and believed it was safer to orbit Yavin to reach the moon rather than blow it up and float there dealing with attacks.

On the other hand, if star wars gravity works like real world gravity, the ability to smear a gas giant into an instant nebula would do SERIOUS damage to the moons (tidal effects alone...), especially if the gas were superheated. You don't have to physically destroy the body of a world to make its surface devoid of life.

[Rynjin]

At the same time, there are things like Goku being able to sense ki from across the galaxy or even the universe and use that to teleport straight to the place across those vast distances, so you MIGHT be able to aim astronomical distances distances if you can sense the target? Problem is, the Death Star is a machine so it doesn't count as something you can sense like with Androids, but if Force users count as ki-users (and jedi and martial artists are very similar in concept and have roots in the same wuxia traditions, The Force is very much a western interpretation of Ki). then Krillin can simply sense where Vader is and launch a planet-destroying Kamehameha at him.

Hell, even a vague lock could probably do it. The Death Star is pretty big, and given that one of Krillin's specialties is the "Scatter Kamehameha" (one that can bend and split into multiple other beams to act as kind of a Ki shotgun), he could probably devastate the station only knowing its general location.

Krillin has a pretty impressive array of moves when compared to pretty much anyone in the series besides Piccolo (who makes up cool moves he only ever uses once as his main hobby).

[Kato]

Hell, even a vague lock could probably do it. The Death Star is pretty big, and given that one of Krillin's specialties is the "Scatter Kamehameha" (one that can bend and split into multiple other beams to act as kind of a Ki shotgun), he could probably devastate the station only knowing its general location.

Krillin has a pretty impressive array of moves when compared to pretty much anyone in the series besides Piccolo (who makes up cool moves he only ever uses once as his main hobby).

Really? I can't think of krillin doing that once... :smallconfused:

But yeah, Picollo might be the most versatile fighter... "Clothes beam! "

[Lord Raziere]

But yeah, Picollo might be the most versatile fighter... "Clothes beam! "

The clothes beam is actually just a narrow use of a technique called "Matter Materialization". It does exactly what you'd think it does: create matter. There seems to be no specific limitations to this technique.

No, we do not know why more people don't learn it, or why it isn't used along with things like telekinesis (which DO exist in Dragon Ball) to create more varied fighting styles than punching or ki blasts.

[TeChameleon]

'Assuming physics' is a dangerous assumption in Dragonball, since the series is still, at heart, one in which you can ride to the moon in an incredibly brief time on a stretching (power) pole and suffer no ill effects from vacuum exposure, the ruler of the planet is an only slightly anthropomorphized Schnauzer, you can actually go to school to learn shapeshifting techniques (even if you're an anthro pig in a Mao outfit, apparently), and Roshi actually hasn't been slapped with so many sexual harassment suits that he's left living under a bridge in a cardboard box. It's just got a thin veneer of science fiction smeared unevenly over the top of all that.


The clothes beam is actually just a narrow use of a technique called "Matter Materialization". It does exactly what you'd think it does: create matter. There seems to be no specific limitations to this technique.

No, we do not know why more people don't learn it, or why it isn't used along with things like telekinesis (which DO exist in Dragon Ball) to create more varied fighting styles than punching or ki blasts.

... ebbeh? Seriously? That's basically a win button against any opponent that needs to breathe!

Step 1: Materialize water around opponent's head.
Step 2: Hold it there via telekinesis.
Step 3: ????
Step 4: Profit! (also unconsciousness and/or death)

I mean, sure, some enemies could blast it away with a ki blast, but they'd run a respectable risk of atomising their own head...

[Lord Raziere]

... ebbeh? Seriously? That's basically a win button against any opponent that needs to breathe!

Step 1: Materialize water around opponent's head.
Step 2: Hold it there via telekinesis.
Step 3: ????
Step 4: Profit! (also unconsciousness and/or death)

I mean, sure, some enemies could blast it away with a ki blast, but they'd run a respectable risk of atomising their own head...

Too bad, Freeza, Cell and Majin Buu don't need to breathe. Freeza can breathe in a vacuum, Cell has Freeza's DNA and Buu is an demonic eldritch abomination of pure goo and magic. While Vegeta and Goku wouldn't use it against each other or their foes because Saiyan Battle-Lust. Beerus wouldn't use it, he has a far more efficient and certain method of destroying his foes in one hit, and doesn't need to breathe in space either because he is a god. Hit wouldn't use it, he can stop time and kill you with a single strike, why bother choking you out? Gohan is too much of a pacifist/True Hero to do it. Future Trunks or Tien (Tien used to train under assassins) are probably pragmatists enough, but he doesn't have access to the right kind of training. Krillin, Yamcha and so on are either retired or don't have access to that training either.

The only two people I can really think who actually have the capability of doing this if I recall correctly are Piccolo and the Kais. The Kais are too Cautious Prequel Jedi to do it. Piccolo is perhaps the only one with the means to come up with that and the motive to seek out unusual techniques to win given his tactical mind and the constantly growing threat nature of the enemies that could threaten Earth, but lately he has basically become Pan's Actual Grandfather in addition to his previous role of Gohan's Actual Dad, so he is probably too distracted by Actually Having A Life to work on it, and by now probably too influenced by Gohan.

Meaning the only person who'd most likely come up with that tactic and use it is, like Vegeta, softened by living on Earth and learned the value of family and comrades, so their training isn't as sharp or the most important thing in his life anymore. Piccolo has far more important things to worry about these days.

Sure Freeza would use it- he did try to drown Goku- but he never came up with the idea of using telekinesis on water in his fight with Goku and doesn't know how to conjure matter. Cell has Saiyan DNA and therefore wouldn't use it due to Saiyan Battle-Lust and Majin Buu.....well given that he is magic, he could it, but he is completely childish, foolish and probably not the sharpest tool in the shed, so he wouldn't go for something so boring- his methods of killing people are generally far more creative and........horrifying.

Meaning,there was just never an opportunity to develop it, especially given that most fighters in Dragon Ball don't seem to see these techniques as combat techniques at all, just utility stuff they use for making this or that happen.

[Rynjin]

The clothes beam is actually just a narrow use of a technique called "Matter Materialization". It does exactly what you'd think it does: create matter. There seems to be no specific limitations to this technique.

No, we do not know why more people don't learn it, or why it isn't used along with things like telekinesis (which DO exist in Dragon Ball) to create more varied fighting styles than punching or ki blasts.

More people don't learn it because it's magic, not Ki manipulation (and yes, there's a distinction in Dragonball). It's a variant of the same magic the Dragon Clan Namekians use to materialize Dragon Balls, but more limited because the Warrior Clan aren't meant to be magic users, primarily.

[Mato]

No. Absolutely not.

Just a little bit. I’ll check the stories that come up from Toei Animation, and give them a little bit of advice.

For GT, all I did was just come up with the title, design the initial main cast and some of the machines, and also do a few images.
You might like it more, and want it to be canon,I bet you consider your self the ultimate American fanboi because you ignore Japan's take on canoncy and pick and choose your author quotes as you like so you can dismiss a story arc you don't like. :smallwink:

Anyway, I don't like GT as much as you assume I do. I try to hold it to the same standards dragonball (which you probably exclusively know as Z), it's films, and the now included Super have all set forth and in general consider them all a poorly written mess. But "fancred" arguments that I'm sure you'll always proclaim you're a godsend in aside, the fact is neither Super's episodes or manga are written by Toriyama. Instead Toyotaro creates the storyboard (http://otakukart.com/animeblog/2016/10/29/toyotaro-talks-akira-toriyamas-involvement-dragon-ball-super/), and once a month Toriyama offers some input on the major details, Toyotaro assures us he pays attention and makes all the changes he mentions, then Toyotarou & Toei's production team fill in the remaining details and end up with a large difference in their depictions proving how vague those notes really are.

Toei has a three decade long history of over hyping Toriyama's involvement with just about everything. Like when they claimed GT was created and overseen by Toriyama. You spent the last twenty years digging for any and all evidence to claim other wise and look at the evidence you collected. But fool you once shame on them, fool you twice through...

[OracleofWuffing]

Thanks for clarifying things- like I said, I was sketchy on both sides. So, basically, the people on the planet blown up by the death star could see it, but nobody either looked outside or just didn't panic about it until the laser was upon them. Yeah, I'll side with team Krillin on this now. Not for anything in Krillin's repertoire, but because apparently the average Star Wars citizen isn't even sharp enough to breathe without wearing their plot armor. :smalltongue:


At the same time, there are things like Goku being able to sense ki from across the galaxy or even the universe and use that to teleport straight to the place across those vast distances, so you MIGHT be able to aim astronomical distances distances if you can sense the target? Problem is, the Death Star is a machine so it doesn't count as something you can sense like with Androids, but if Force users count as ki-users (and jedi and martial artists are very similar in concept and have roots in the same wuxia traditions, The Force is very much a western interpretation of Ki). then Krillin can simply sense where Vader is and launch a planet-destroying Kamehameha at him.
I was thinking about the play between Ki and the Force, mostly trying to untangle the advantage in speed Krillin would have against the Empire's finest. But the thing that snagged me up to prevent me from talking about it was, well, Videl. I mean, Gohan taught her to fly, right? If we assume a rough approximation between Ki and the Force, Videl is way too old to become a jedi unless she's the third... Fourth? Incarnation of a golden age of balance in the Force. And while I'm sure she's a strong character in her own right, the fact that her name didn't come up during the Krillin vs Tien discussion probably means she's not all that special in a power comparison. So, either the connection is loose enough that it just wouldn't matter, or it's just not there. Also, something something midichlorians.

[golentan]

Thanks for clarifying things- like I said, I was sketchy on both sides. So, basically, the people on the planet blown up by the death star could see it, but nobody either looked outside or just didn't panic about it until the laser was upon them. Yeah, I'll side with team Krillin on this now. Not for anything in Krillin's repertoire, but because apparently the average Star Wars citizen isn't even sharp enough to breathe without wearing their plot armor. :smalltongue:

There's a difference between being aware and afraid and having time to act on it.

I would not be at all surprised if the Death Star's standard operating procedure involved jamming communications. And frankly, if I told you "there is an H-Bomb headed for your location, you have 1 hour to get to minimum safe distance, bomb shelters are insufficient to protect you" would you have an evacuation plan, bearing in mind that pretty much everyone else in your city/town will be panicking (I figure the "emergency evacuation traffic jam" probably is a fair comparison to everyone making a break for it trying to cram on too few starships).

[Rynjin]

Videl isn't a contender for the strongest person on earth, in either category. As a Ki using human she pales compared to everyone else, as a non-Ki using human she was well behind Satan, Chi Chi, and even Bulma in terms of power level.

She was a pretty fast learner (Gohan taught her to fly in what, a month? Less? Been awhile since I watched the Buu saga all the way through), but didn't keep up with the intense training necessary to match the likes of Krillin or Tien. Which is sad, because she probably could have managed it. Toriyama just likes to make all his female characters "settle down".

At least 18's out of retirement.

[Coidzor]

I was thinking about the play between Ki and the Force, mostly trying to untangle the advantage in speed Krillin would have against the Empire's finest. But the thing that snagged me up to prevent me from talking about it was, well, Videl. I mean, Gohan taught her to fly, right? If we assume a rough approximation between Ki and the Force, Videl is way too old to become a jedi unless she's the third... Fourth? Incarnation of a golden age of balance in the Force. And while I'm sure she's a strong character in her own right, the fact that her name didn't come up during the Krillin vs Tien discussion probably means she's not all that special in a power comparison. So, either the connection is loose enough that it just wouldn't matter, or it's just not there. Also, something something midichlorians.

Flight is mostly a matter of knowing the technique after you have the ability to tap into your ki. IIRC, theoretically even a baseline, average human with a mere power level of 5 could technically learn how to fly if they could tap into their ki and be taught the technique(though generally in so doing they'd increase their power level.

Videl was probably in the top 10 or top 20 strongest humans who didn't have access to ki or cyborg modifications before she started training with Gohan.

Hercule Satan himself, for not having access to ki abilities, is actually really strong for a human.

Age is ultimately irrelevant to learning to use force powers or ki. However, there is some similarity where being particularly set in one's ways or stubborn can get in the way of learning to do both, as, IIRC, was shown the one time anyone tried to teach Hercule how to Ki.

[Douglas]

the one time anyone tried to teach Hercule how to Ki.
I don't remember that ever happening, just him cluelessly improvising trying to learn how to fly after seeing Videl fly and accepting it wasn't "a trick". His attempt consisted of having a device fling him upwards and hoping that a miracle would happen, essentially.

I haven't watched Super, though, so if anyone tried to teach him in that I wouldn't know.

[Lord Raziere]

I was thinking about the play between Ki and the Force, mostly trying to untangle the advantage in speed Krillin would have against the Empire's finest. But the thing that snagged me up to prevent me from talking about it was, well, Videl. I mean, Gohan taught her to fly, right? If we assume a rough approximation between Ki and the Force, Videl is way too old to become a jedi unless she's the third... Fourth? Incarnation of a golden age of balance in the Force. And while I'm sure she's a strong character in her own right, the fact that her name didn't come up during the Krillin vs Tien discussion probably means she's not all that special in a power comparison. So, either the connection is loose enough that it just wouldn't matter, or it's just not there. Also, something something midichlorians.

Not that literal a connection. Ki and The Force are similar conceptually because ki is basically the life force of everything, its not separate from the universe or an exception to any rules about it, but inextricably connected and in harmony with it. To train in ki doesn't require any specialness. The point is that everyone can learn, everyone can do it if they specialize in doing so. It also has Yin and Yang, the two sides of ki that balance each other out, both of which are equally important even if some styles emphasize methods of one over the other.

The Force is different in that its a westernized version of ki. Its still has the connecting all life, the martial arts training and instinctual mysticism of sensing things mentally aspects, but whats different is:

-you have to be born with Force affinity to even use it at all. This "wizardizes" The Force and thus unfortunately creates a lot of weird inconsistencies. The first of which being if all life in the universe has The Force and can't live without it, why do you have to specially born to use it? Shouldn't everyone have a connection and be able to use it?

-Instead of Yin-Yang, it has good and evil. Lucas really messed up here. The entire point of yin and Yang is that they are both aspects of all creation and the universe couldn't exist without one or the other. there is no conflict between Yin and Yang in Ki because they're supposed to be different facets on the same energy sustaining the universe. instead we have the Light and Dark Sides of the Force, where only the Dark Side is an imbalance of anything. Problem is, this implies that the Dark Side is equal to the Light Side in some way. That the Dark Side is just as part of the universe as the Light Side is. Problem is while we see the effects of this in the Sith, its never really consistent if the Dark Side corrupts normal people as well or how it does so. Or why this cosmic conflict matters all that much considering that only a few select people are actually affected by the Force's influence in such a way.

Furthermore we can see how this further messes up the Jedi Order itself. They are supposed to be laser-sword wielding psychic martial arts paladins of awesome, but instead we get a stagnant overly cautious order of sages so concerned about restraint and controlling themselves that they don't act decisively in helping to solve anything about the Republic. Problem is, this should be a form of imbalance. A undesirable state of being and since the Dark Side is the only state of imbalance in the universe, they Jedi Council SHOULD be on the Dark Side because The Light side, the GOOD side, should be DOING things to help people instead of sitting in their meditative chairs and going "The Dark Side is rising in a vague manner. Lets do absolutely nothing about it and keep thinking endlessly."

This wouldn't be problem of course if The Force retained the aspect of yin and yang- it would just mean that while the Sith would be too Yang imbalanced with their passion and emotions, the Jedi would be too Yin-imbalanced with their lack of emotion or ability to feel and thus empathize and thus care what goes on beyond the walls of their monasteries. Thus it would make more sense for the heroes to be a balance, why heroes who can wield the Force are so rare- because such a balance to actually be a good person while wielding such incredible power is rare indeed- as well as provide a good reason why the Jedi fell and why heroic Force-Users who actually do things aren't corrupted and so on.

Instead we get a weird thing where all Jedi have to be in control and overly cautious about their actions.....except for the heroic protagonist Jedi who feels emotions and learns to wield the Force correctly somehow without any instruction whatsoever, when wielding The Force without instruction supposedly is dangerous and leads to the Dark Side, yet its always a lone protag with no training up against a guy who got trained in the Dark Side by some evil master that they got corrupted by. The Jedi end up looking Yin-corrupted without the explanation for why they aren't being awesome and heroic like the protagonist and thus their portrayal falls down.

-Finally The Force's final change is that most of the Force-Wielders are either Jedi or Sith with little middle ground or room for variation, sure there is expanded universe but we all know that ever since Disney wiped that board clean, it doesn't really count anymore. With Ki you have room for tons of martial philosophies and development of different techniques, ways of fighting, living and so on because Yin and Yang are not in conflict and thus you can develop techniques that are a mix of both, you can learn completely different philosophies and ways of fighting without the fear of corruption, yet the same time, so much more room for antagonists who take a philosophy too far, who are imbalanced in different ways, thus potentially allowing for more than just the same tired conflict of Jedi and Sith for all eternity.

So yes, conceptually they are similar, but all The Force really has going for it is its simplicity that is designed to appeal to Western minds by erasing the advantages and good parts about Ki and replacing it with stock wizard aspects and black-and-white morality. In practice, Ki is just all-around superior because anyone can learn it, you can learn far more varied techniques and styles, and there is no danger of being corrupted unless you specifically go for specific dangerous forbidden techniques that people keep secret....and all of that is not including the specific Dragon Ball variation where you can destroy planets with it.

[Benthesquid]

To be fair, Force-Users are already being fleshed out beyond Jedi and Sith in the new Canon. We haven't seen enough of the Knights of Ren to really say much about them, but the whole fact that they're an order of Knights as opposed to a master and a/secretly several apprentice/s and don't seem to take Darth names suggest that they're not operating under the same rules as the Sith.

Meanwhile, the Guardians of the Whills seem to have something else going on, although I'm still not entirely clear if Chirrut Îmwe was supposed to actually be a Force Sensitive or just a theoretically mundane Blind Master type.

[OracleofWuffing]

There's a difference between being aware and afraid and having time to act on it.

I would not be at all surprised if the Death Star's standard operating procedure involved jamming communications. And frankly, if I told you "there is an H-Bomb headed for your location, you have 1 hour to get to minimum safe distance, bomb shelters are insufficient to protect you" would you have an evacuation plan, bearing in mind that pretty much everyone else in your city/town will be panicking (I figure the "emergency evacuation traffic jam" probably is a fair comparison to everyone making a break for it trying to cram on too few starships).
Nah, wouldn't be much panic here. You'd have to explain further that the H-Bomb is a bad thing. Then they'd set up lawn chairs to watch it. Then you'd have to explain that they were not safe. Then they'd start chilling beer next to the lawn chairs and ask you to stop interrupting their sportsball broadcasts. Not much happens here, we just have corn. Don't see much of a traffic jam happening, and if all else fails, I can throw a stone and find someone that bought a truck exclusively for offroad driving, ask them if I can drive it somewhere. Yeah, Krillin would definitely be capable of killing us if he wanted. :smalltongue:

This is in a universe where a dude has his own space ship that he parks at a restaurant to have the dilithium crystals in his flux capacitor realigned or whatever. You don't need communications of any kind for one person to look at your planet's new moon and think something screwy is gonna happen and feel like leaving for no reason, and the spherical nature of planets means there's less traffic as you leave the planet. Unless this one was surrounded by invisible satellites that weren't talked about. Yes, that doesn't mean everyone should have survived, heck, doesn't even mean a majority of people should have survived, but certainly some Captain McCrazyPants would be dancing upon the vaporized corpses of the planet and laughing that he was right that a planet getting a moon for no known reason would not work out well for the planet.


Age is ultimately irrelevant to learning to use force powers or ki. However, there is some similarity where being particularly set in one's ways or stubborn can get in the way of learning to do both, as, IIRC, was shown the one time anyone tried to teach Hercule how to Ki.
I understand "He's too old" has been used at least twice as an excuse to avoid training people of comparable or younger age as Videl to use the force. I mean, I get it's supposed to be used as a measurement to how open you'll be to learning the force in hindsight from the kings of misleading statements, but as far as I know the rule is age, not personality.


Not that literal a connection. Ki and The Force are similar conceptually because ki is basically the life force of everything, its not separate from the universe or an exception to any rules about it, but inextricably connected and in harmony with it. To train in ki doesn't require any specialness. The point is that everyone can learn, everyone can do it if they specialize in doing so. It also has Yin and Yang, the two sides of ki that balance each other out, both of which are equally important even if some styles emphasize methods of one over the other.

[Lots of other good stuff here, no seriously, I can tell this stuff's had a bit of thought behind it, just that there's no sense in requoting the entire thing so soon.]

So yes, conceptually they are similar, but all The Force really has going for it is its simplicity that is designed to appeal to Western minds by erasing the advantages and good parts about Ki and replacing it with stock wizard aspects and black-and-white morality. In practice, Ki is just all-around superior because anyone can learn it, you can learn far more varied techniques and styles, and there is no danger of being corrupted unless you specifically go for specific dangerous forbidden techniques that people keep secret....and all of that is not including the specific Dragon Ball variation where you can destroy planets with it.
If you want to talk about a connection, how about focusing on their similarities instead of their differences? Yes, they're both the everything that makes something anything in their own universes, but that's about it. I guess maybe lightning is kind of like generic ki energy attack #3,462, but that's Dragonball Z's bread and butter where it's practically exclusively an evil trick for the evilest of evil evils in Star Wars. Jedi use their knowledge of the Force to wield multicolored electric swords in real time, where Dragonball's ki users engage in fisticuffs at speeds that probably approach C if physics ever remained constant. Jedi are known for using their control of magical life essence so make the weak-willed act and believe in arbitrary ways, while the majority of Dragonball's ki users would fall under "weak willed" or "easily manipulated."

If we just run off of, "they're both based off of the thing their respective universe runs off of, so they must be similar," we run into some pretty silly implications. Like using the Force to sense Digimon, because they're just code that their universe runs off of. Or sensing Captain Planet because he's runs off of the planet. Or sensing Elmo because he's singing the alphabet. Which now that I've typed that, is kind of cool, but I think is contrary to the nature Jedi are supposed to have. And now I want a Sesame Street and Dragon Ball Z crossover.

[golentan]

Nah, wouldn't be much panic here. You'd have to explain further that the H-Bomb is a bad thing. Then they'd set up lawn chairs to watch it. Then you'd have to explain that they were not safe. Then they'd start chilling beer next to the lawn chairs and ask you to stop interrupting their sportsball broadcasts. Not much happens here, we just have corn. Don't see much of a traffic jam happening, and if all else fails, I can throw a stone and find someone that bought a truck exclusively for offroad driving, ask them if I can drive it somewhere. Yeah, Krillin would definitely be capable of killing us if he wanted. :smalltongue:

This is in a universe where a dude has his own space ship that he parks at a restaurant to have the dilithium crystals in his flux capacitor realigned or whatever. You don't need communications of any kind for one person to look at your planet's new moon and think something screwy is gonna happen and feel like leaving for no reason, and the spherical nature of planets means there's less traffic as you leave the planet. Unless this one was surrounded by invisible satellites that weren't talked about. Yes, that doesn't mean everyone should have survived, heck, doesn't even mean a majority of people should have survived, but certainly some Captain McCrazyPants would be dancing upon the vaporized corpses of the planet and laughing that he was right that a planet getting a moon for no known reason would not work out well for the planet.

Okay, lemme tell you how this goes for most people on Alderaan.

You're a fairly typical alderaanian. Couple of kids, a mortgage, hovercar in the garage. You pay attention to the news, you've heard rumors that the royal family are not in good with the larger Galactic Government. You may have heard rumors that they're working with the rebellion, or that Princess Organa has been arrested. Then, one day, you're out and about and everyone goes... quiet. You look up, and see this... thing. It's obviously manmade, and painted in imperial gunmetal grey.

You have a sinking feeling. Your homeworld is about to be occupied at best, and made an example of at worst. You don't know when the sword will fall, it could be in 5 minutes or in a few days. You have a couple of options. You can shelter in place, or you can try to run for it.

The people who shelter, hoping that the thing is a carrier for an occupation force and it's safer to not be on the streets, are not idiots. The death star is not a public knowledge thing when used against Alderaan. It's perfectly reasonable to hope to wait it out. Those people all die.

Those who try to run are in for a nightmarish several minutes. Space port traffic control showed that station is launching thousands of fighters, any attempt to run is going to be past a blockade. People who were on board a ship when the Death Star arrived might wait for refugees, or might try to pull up their boarding ramps and run-run-run as fast as they can. Anyone who's not physically on a ship is in trouble. They have to drop everything, and scramble to find their loved ones. Traffic chokes the cities, even medium sized towns fall into gridlock. Most people don't own space ships, most people probably don't know people who own space ships, same as most people in america don't own airplanes even though they've traveled on them. The spaceports are the center of the havoc, with everyone trying to cram onto any ship that will take them, and riots breaking out because there isn't enough space for everyone. The authorities might be trying to preserve order, in which case they're probably shooting adults who get too pushy and prioritizing children. Oooor they might be afraid that they'll be disappeared in a purge for working with the government, and trying to get on the ships themselves, in which case it's probably just a lethal free for all.

Alderaan is a world of 2 billion people. If they have a hundred thousand star ships on the planet which can hold an average of 20 people each with crowding, something which seems reasonable for the Star Wars universe, they can save one in 1000 people if they do everything perfectly and fleeing ships are not shot down by imperial pilots, but these are not ideal situations. The death star only needs about 5 seconds from when the order is given to destroy the planet, and nobody on the planet knows for sure what's coming or when. If people are lucky, maybe a thousand ships will take off before interceptors close the blockade, condemning anyone who has not already fled to death when Tarkin gives the order. Everyone else's best option basically is hoping that communications have not been jammed by the imperial forces, and calling up loved ones to tearfully tell them they love them.

You, as a typical alderaanian, are going to die. You can do nothing to meaningfully help avoid dying in this situation. Your family are going to die, your pets, your loved ones, your jerk boss, everyone you know. Knowing that you are likely to die does nothing to help you not die.

[Lord Raziere]

If you want to talk about a connection, how about focusing on their similarities instead of their differences? Yes, they're both the everything that makes something anything in their own universes, but that's about it. I guess maybe lightning is kind of like generic ki energy attack #3,462, but that's Dragonball Z's bread and butter where it's practically exclusively an evil trick for the evilest of evil evils in Star Wars. Jedi use their knowledge of the Force to wield multicolored electric swords in real time, where Dragonball's ki users engage in fisticuffs at speeds that probably approach C if physics ever remained constant. Jedi are known for using their control of magical life essence so make the weak-willed act and believe in arbitrary ways, while the majority of Dragonball's ki users would fall under "weak willed" or "easily manipulated."

If we just run off of, "they're both based off of the thing their respective universe runs off of, so they must be similar," we run into some pretty silly implications. Like using the Force to sense Digimon, because they're just code that their universe runs off of. Or sensing Captain Planet because he's runs off of the planet. Or sensing Elmo because he's singing the alphabet. Which now that I've typed that, is kind of cool, but I think is contrary to the nature Jedi are supposed to have. And now I want a Sesame Street and Dragon Ball Z crossover.

Oh my.....:smallannoyed:

I saying they are conceptually similar, because they both derive from mythological/cultural belief of ki. Your using completely the wrong logic and generalizing this way too far.

I'm not saying this general "runs off the general thing" thing your talking about, I'm talking about how they both derive from the Chinese conception of Qi/Chi/Ki, a cultural/mythical concept that has been written about for thousands of years, and how Lucas took it and completely messed it up in the creation of Star Wars.

It has nothing to do with the franchises you list, and everything to do how Ki and the Force conceptually similar because they are from the same tradition, inspired by the SAME MYTH of martial arts and the people that wield them, inspired by the same conventions of wuxia and quite specific metaphysics and how Lucas in his creation of The Force from these traditions, westernized it with beliefs of black and white morality, wizardizing it and generally simplifying it for Star Wars. A specific comparison of two modern things drawing from the same source and comparing it to shows that DO NOT draw from the same source. Because code, nor elmo singing nor captain planet draw their sources from the ancient traditions that inspired both Dragon Ball's version of Ki and The Force.

Honestly its like walking in on a discussion where someone is talking about dnd magic vs. harry potter magic about their source of arcane magic tradition and bringing up Avatar the Last Airbender's bending and thinking its equivalent to both, it betrays one's ignorance about the discussion and what the point the person was trying to make.

[Flickerdart]

From what I understand, the reason Jedi only wanted to teach young kids was that so they could correctly indoctrinate them into their blue-balls philosophy. Anakin was dangerous to teach because he had already lived and learned in the real world, driven by emotion, and that emotion eroded the foundation of the Jedi teachings. The power of the Force is a huge responsibility, and someone who wasn't raised from nearly birth to wield it is likely to go off the deep end like Anakin did.

[GloatingSwine]

For some reason the Death Star waited until they could see Yavin IV itself rather than just try to blow up the gas giant it orbits. Which either means that for some reason the Death Star is powerful to blow up a planet but not shoot through a gas giant or blow up a gas giant.

Gas giants have significant mass, so a weapon that can blow up a small rocky planet might take several shots to do the same to a gas giant (and their cores are solid anyway due to the pressure), by which time all the rebels have run away. Driving around the planet was likely quicker.

[Rynjin]

From what I understand, the reason Jedi only wanted to teach young kids was that so they could correctly indoctrinate them into their blue-balls philosophy. Anakin was dangerous to teach because he had already lived and learned in the real world, driven by emotion, and that emotion eroded the foundation of the Jedi teachings. The power of the Force is a huge responsibility, and someone who wasn't raised from nearly birth to wield it is likely to go off the deep end like Anakin did.

A very good argument could be made that the great high holy blue-balls philosophy is what drove Anakin off the deep end in the first place. When everyone from all sides is telling you love is evil, when you start feeling like you love someone it's going to feel like you're doing an evil thing. Dark thoughts and loving thoughts become intermingled and at the end of the day are indistinguishable because your order are too afraid of their own emotions to tell the difference between happiness and fear or love and hate because you have been TAUGHT to fear happiness and hate love. Because those emotions lead to the Dark side.

When in reality it's very nearly a tautology. Emotions lead to the Dark Side because you teach that they lead to the Dark Side because emotions lead to the Dark Side because...

[Anteros]

From what I understand, the reason Jedi only wanted to teach young kids was that so they could correctly indoctrinate them into their blue-balls philosophy. Anakin was dangerous to teach because he had already lived and learned in the real world, driven by emotion, and that emotion eroded the foundation of the Jedi teachings. The power of the Force is a huge responsibility, and someone who wasn't raised from nearly birth to wield it is likely to go off the deep end like Anakin did.

To be fair, if their beliefs weren't so completely bonkers it might not be so hard to get people to stick to them. Anakin's initial fall was at least as much due to Jedi stubbornness and stupidity as any other reason.

[Lord Raziere]

@ Anteros and Rynjin: Which is y'know, another reason why the Star Wars version of Ki is screwed up. Sure it takes discipline to be a martial artist and fire kamehamehas so that you don't destroy yourself everything around you accidentally, but it also takes passion and determination to succeed. The whole point is a wholeness and healthiness of all your traits, a holistic well-roundedness so that your both strong yet disciplined, controlled yet passionate, battle-ready yet kind, confident in your abilities yet humble. The whole point is not any one trait being desirable above all others but the traits of yourself working as a coherent whole to be greater than the sum of their parts.

I mean getting back to the whole Krillin Vs. Death Star thing? Krillin has a healthy relationship with Android 18. He could simply call Darth Vader and be all like "Oh hey, guess what, both your Jedi orders teach you stupid philosophies, I have a wife, a kid, and I still fire kamehamehas that can destroy planets without being corrupted. How about you come down here and learn from a REAL martial artist?" and be completely right.

[Keltest]

@ Anteros and Rynjin: Which is y'know, another reason why the Star Wars version of Ki is screwed up. Sure it takes discipline to be a martial artist and fire kamehamehas so that you don't destroy yourself everything around you accidentally, but it also takes passion and determination to succeed. The whole point is a wholeness and healthiness of all your traits, a holistic well-roundedness so that your both strong yet disciplined, controlled yet passionate, battle-ready yet kind, confident in your abilities yet humble. The whole point is not any one trait being desirable above all others but the traits of yourself working as a coherent whole to be greater than the sum of their parts.

I mean getting back to the whole Krillin Vs. Death Star thing? Krillin has a healthy relationship with Android 18. He could simply call Darth Vader and be all like "Oh hey, guess what, both your Jedi orders teach you stupid philosophies, I have a wife, a kid, and I still fire kamehamehas that can destroy planets without being corrupted. How about you come down here and learn from a REAL martial artist?" and be completely right.

Heres the thing. Both the Jedi and the Sith are explicitly undone by their rigid adherence to flawed philosophies in the face of internal threats. The movies recognize that neither the Jedi nor the Sith are actually correct in their interpretation of the Force, and while the Jedi probably have it closer, their rejection of all emotions leaves them utterly unequipped to help Anakin through his multiple crises, and caught completely off guard by the idea that he might have rejected their teachings in favor of a philosophy that appeals better to him.

Likewise, the Sith are flat out self destructive, encouraging betrayal and usurpation of power and generally acting like idiots begging to be killed.

[OracleofWuffing]

Okay, lemme tell you how this goes for most people on Alderaan.
If you believe that the scenario you've presented is relevant to the discussion and accurate to the events in Star Wars? Then I'm gonna double down on my original premise regarding Krillin's victory. No, make that triple down. They saw a new moon appear, then were invisibly blockaded by the Empire, and nobody was scared until the moment the laser hit? Gridlock with 100,000 spaceships on a planet that hosts 2,000,000,000 people? And now somehow the Death Star carries more ships than Alderaan would have in a smaller amount of space in order to provide a blockade, but doesn't itself suffer from the same gridlock? Yeah, they might've been killed by the Death Star, but they were already dead long before that.


Oh my.....:smallannoyed:

I saying they are conceptually similar, because they both derive from mythological/cultural belief of ki. Your using completely the wrong logic and generalizing this way too far.

I'm not saying this general "runs off the general thing" thing your talking about, I'm talking about how they both derive from the Chinese conception of Qi/Chi/Ki, a cultural/mythical concept that has been written about for thousands of years, and how Lucas took it and completely messed it up in the creation of Star Wars.

It has nothing to do with the franchises you list, and everything to do how Ki and the Force conceptually similar because they are from the same tradition, inspired by the SAME MYTH of martial arts and the people that wield them, inspired by the same conventions of wuxia and quite specific metaphysics and how Lucas in his creation of The Force from these traditions, westernized it with beliefs of black and white morality, wizardizing it and generally simplifying it for Star Wars. A specific comparison of two modern things drawing from the same source and comparing it to shows that DO NOT draw from the same source. Because code, nor elmo singing nor captain planet draw their sources from the ancient traditions that inspired both Dragon Ball's version of Ki and The Force.

Honestly its like walking in on a discussion where someone is talking about dnd magic vs. harry potter magic about their source of arcane magic tradition and bringing up Avatar the Last Airbender's bending and thinking its equivalent to both, it betrays one's ignorance about the discussion and what the point the person was trying to make.
First thing's first, I want to clarify that I did not mean any offense in my previous post, and apologize if anything did come off that way.

It was your point to consider that Force users could be considered Dragon Ball Z Ki users due to their common inspiration. But since introducing that point, you've only talked at length about how the Force has diverged from Ki. It does not follow to introduce a point relying on how things share one thing in common, only to discuss how they are not common. Sure, they both came from a seed, but one grew into a venus flytrap and the other grew into a pumpkin- I don't think they're gonna have the same nutrients. It's like saying that Mario is a hedgehog like Sonic, because they were both inspired by the sidescrolling gameplay of Pitfall, except Mario doesn't collect rings, can't hurt things with the spines growing out of his back, and breathes underwater (sometimes). I just don't understand how the supporting information goes back to the statement.

It sounds that you believe it is tangent to your premise, but I still feel that the implications I presented are still applicable. If the ability to trace inspiration to a common ancestor is all it takes to consider something a Dragonball Z ki user, then it is merely a thought exercise for all of those subjects and more to also be considered Dragonball Z ki users.

Also because it's been stuck in my head all day:
"Citizens of Sesame Street! Lend me your strength!"
"Look everyone! Goku is making a circle!"
"It round like big cookie!"
"No! Don't!"
"Om nom nom nom nom!"

[golentan]

Of course krillin wins, but you are dramatically and insultingly missing the point. There is a massive difference between a mobile military base which has had time for mission briefings scrambling fighters, and attempting to evacuate a civilian population of 2 billion people on short warning. The fact that you're mocking the intelligence of people for failing to have a 5 minute plan to flee a planet with their loved ones is about the most myopic thing I've read all week, and if you've been reading the same things I have that should be saying a lot.

[Aotrs Commander]

Worth noting that if a) the Empire already controlled Alderaanian space (which they did) and if it happened within a few minutes of them exiting hyperspace (which it may or may not have done), most of the Alderaanians would have died without ever even knowing what killed them*.

(Which did actually happen in the old EU; Tycho Chelu was literally on the vid-phone to his family when they were killed.)

All it really would have taken to screw the Alderaanians up was the Imps summaraily closing down all the spaceports because they have the authority to do so and not make any annoucements and een te people that actually saw the Death Star wouldn't have known what was going to happen (ir was after all, unthinkable that a planet-buster even existed) aside from a sense of worry.

If the Imp plan was to kill as many people as possibe of course, to make Vader's point, just dropping out of Hyperspace in firing range (with no convenient gas giant in the way) would have only taken minutes, not time enough even for the wisest and most prepared survivor nut to make it to his secret space-vehcile and the run the pre-flight checks. (And Alderaan was supposed to be a planet full of near-pacificists anyway.)



*If the Death Star showed up on the night side as well, when most folk would be asleep or indoors so very few might even have seen it in the sky. Plus, I don't know how far out the Death Star was - would it even hsve been visible to the naked eye as anything other than a bright star? You'd probably have to be me to be able to ask some of the Alderaanians after the fact to get an answer though...!

[Lemmy]

*If the Death Star showed up on the night side as well, when most folk would be asleep or indoors so very few might even have seen it in the sky. Plus, I don't know how far out the Death Star was - would it even hsve been visible to the naked eye as anything other than a bright star? You'd probably have to be me to be able to ask some of the Alderaanians after the fact to get an answer though...!I don't think "at night" is applicable when talking about a planet-wide assault... :smallamused:

[golentan]

I don't think "at night" is applicable when talking about a planet-wide assault... :smallamused:

It is to the half of the world that's sleeping.

[digiman619]

Heres the thing. Both the Jedi and the Sith are explicitly undone by their rigid adherence to flawed philosophies in the face of internal threats. The movies recognize that neither the Jedi nor the Sith are actually correct in their interpretation of the Force, and while the Jedi probably have it closer, their rejection of all emotions leaves them utterly unequipped to help Anakin through his multiple crises, and caught completely off guard by the idea that he might have rejected their teachings in favor of a philosophy that appeals better to him.

Likewise, the Sith are flat out self destructive, encouraging betrayal and usurpation of power and generally acting like idiots begging to be killed.

Ironically, they both fail because they have an incomplete picture of the Force; by only venerating one aspect of it, they don't fully understand it. That's why the ancient Jeedai (as in millennia before the Republic, back before the Yuuzang Vong were thrown out of known space (and in the old expanded universe, obviously)) venerated both sides, seeking a balance between the forces in their own beings. I have a theory as to why this changed and the eventual consequences of that, but I think I'll start a new thread about that rather than derail this one.

[Aotrs Commander]

I don't think "at night" is applicable when talking about a planet-wide assault... :smallamused:

I said "night side" not "at night". Something can only be visible to one hemisphere at once. That's... just how physics works. Alderaan, was, to my knowledge, a primarily human planet and humans still (in the majority) sleep at local night. Thus approaching from the night side would ensure the maximum number of people would be currently asleep, or at least not wandering around where they might see something.

For the awake people on the other hemisphere, there would literally be nothing to see. Especially if warnings were suppressed - assuming that there were any non-imperials even in a position to issue any.



And from context, it seems extremel unlikely the Death Star would have showed up and given Alderaan any warning anyway. A well-travel hyperspace route to a planet under your control with no conveniant gas giant to get in the way... The rebels at Yavin only had time to do something because they were expecting it and because the gas giant bought them time.

I would think it quite likely the Death Star would have only needed to show up for a few minutes before blowing the planet up. (If for no other reason then why would you want to do any other way than that. Terror was kinda the whole point.)

[Coidzor]

Of course krillin wins, but you are dramatically and insultingly missing the point. There is a massive difference between a mobile military base which has had time for mission briefings scrambling fighters, and attempting to evacuate a civilian population of 2 billion people on short warning. The fact that you're mocking the intelligence of people for failing to have a 5 minute plan to flee a planet with their loved ones is about the most myopic thing I've read all week, and if you've been reading the same things I have that should be saying a lot.

Yeah, the only setting where a five-minute plan to evacuate an entire planet makes sense is the new Star Trek continuity (https://youtu.be/4N15J4ibej8?t=1m42s), and then only if they thought to have enough rigs to do that sort of thing.

IIRC, not even The Culture, a setting deliberately created to be the most overpowered Sci-Fi setting ever, can evacuate an entire planetary population with no notice.


It is to the half of the world that's sleeping.

OTOH, a planetary sensor grid never sleeps and should always have people monitoring it, especially with the quality of droid slaves available.

And the Imperials openly seizing control of the space ports and sensor grid, while showing a fittingly delightful disregard for slaughtering their own troops, wouldn't really go along with the whole "no forewarning" part, because the Imperials taking over the local planet like that would be weird and noteworthy and tell people that something bad was going to happen.

Plus, we know from the movies that they don't do that thanks to Rogue One and this handsome criminal (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Ponda_Baba), who you should all recognize.

[Rynjin]

Plus, we know from the movies that they don't do that thanks to Rogue One and this handsome criminal (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Ponda_Baba), who you should all recognize.

Wait you're telling me this Robot Chicken sketch (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qc6zfoxlJU) is canon

What a world we live in.

[OracleofWuffing]

Of course krillin wins, but you are dramatically and insultingly missing the point. There is a massive difference between a mobile military base which has had time for mission briefings scrambling fighters, and attempting to evacuate a civilian population of 2 billion people on short warning.
:smallconfused: I have never made the claim that I expect two billion people to be evacuated. I expect people that fare space to know that planets do not grow new moons, and that a planet quickly growing a new moon is probably not going to turn out well for the planet. Out of the 2 billion people in question, which have some vague common understanding of space faring... It's strongly implied from the information you're giving me that not a single one of them meets that expectation. I understand they can't all be spacefarers, and there's probably a child or two in there that would make no sense to expect is a space farer, but either there's a whole subuniverse on how cool and common new magical orbs that float in the sky are, or something's gone wrong.

And the only sky orbs I'm aware of that anyone talks about in Star Wars are on the desert planet, which probably aren't moons or space stations, so that just leaves me the one option.


The fact that you're mocking the intelligence of people for failing to have a 5 minute plan to flee a planet with their loved ones is about the most myopic thing I've read all week, and if you've been reading the same things I have that should be saying a lot.
Yeah! I know! Who the heck really runs a $0.99 week-long sale on a pack of gum that's regularly priced $1.00!? I mean I know it works, but it's still ridiculous!


If the Imp plan was to kill as many people as possibe of course, to make Vader's point, just dropping out of Hyperspace in firing range (with no convenient gas giant in the way) would have only taken minutes, not time enough even for the wisest and most prepared survivor nut to make it to his secret space-vehcile and the run the pre-flight checks. (And Alderaan was supposed to be a planet full of near-pacificists anyway.)
I don't think the wisest and most prepared survivor nut would run pre-flight checks, and I also think you need more experience with talking to even amateur survivor nuts- or nuts in general- if you think minutes aren't enough time to do something crazy stupid. That's at least one thing I won't miss from my old job...


Plus, I don't know how far out the Death Star was - would it even hsve been visible to the naked eye as anything other than a bright star? You'd probably have to be me to be able to ask some of the Alderaanians after the fact to get an answer though...!
That's kind of one of the points I came in on- more or less could the Death Star be far enough away that Krillin couldn't hit it from not seeing it, but still close enough to destroy Krillin (and/or the planet upon which he stands). There was a response already that the Death Star laser was fired at- astronomically speaking- point blank range. That range being a term I coined for how the farthest DBZ moon/planet destroying attack was from DBZ's Earth to its moon. I don't know what the exact distance between those two bodies is, but I think that falls into the wobbly area of "It's probably like real life, except when they go there," so I've just been going off an approximate distance of that.

[Coidzor]

Wait you're telling me this Robot Chicken sketch (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qc6zfoxlJU) is canon

What a world we live in.

Hm? No, he wasn't an architect.

[Rynjin]

I meant the "his friend trolled him by claiming he disliked Luke" part.

[khadgar567]

You know krilin make a funny jedi being yoda sized human fireing hand beams that make imperial scientists weep jealousy. Dude is in the bottom of Dbz food chain and can destroy planets with no sweat and we are still talking about how broken jedi and sith are

[Seerow]

You krilin make a funny jedi being yoda sized human fireing hand beams that make imperial scientists weep jealousy. Dude is in bottom of Dbz food chain and can destroy planets with no sweat and we are still talking about how broken jedi and sith are

The power to destroy planets is insignificant next to the power of the Force.

[khadgar567]

The power to destroy planets is insignificant next to the power of the Force.
give me one canon sith lord or jedi who can destroy a planet with out any tech assist just for stack odds to star wars side you can use swtor content to on your research.

[Mystic Muse]

give me one canon sith lord or jedi who can destroy a planet with out any tech assist just for stack odds to star wars side you can use swtor content to on your research.

Darth Nihilus then.

[Lemmy]

Darth Nihilus then.
He was quite overpowered... But was he really capable of destroying a planet?

[Keltest]

He was quite overpowered... But was he really capable of destroying a planet?

Yes. Explicitly, even. he destroyed the homeworld of the Miraluka with a vast majority of the jedi on it, as well as most of the species. He ate all the life on it through the force. The exact state it was left in was not elaborated on, but many characters use the word "destroy" to describe what he did.

[Mystic Muse]

Yes. Explicitly, even. he destroyed the homeworld of the Miraluka with a vast majority of the jedi on it, as well as most of the species. He ate all the life on it through the force. The exact state it was left in was not elaborated on, but many characters use the word "destroy" to describe what he did.

Yup, exactly this. The actual rock might be intact (it never specifies, I don't think), but he devoured every bit of life on it.

[Lemmy]

Yes. Explicitly, even. he destroyed the homeworld of the Miraluka with a vast majority of the jedi on it, as well as most of the species. He ate all the life on it through the force. The exact state it was left in was not elaborated on, but many characters use the word "destroy" to describe what he did.
Ah, so he didn't destroy the actual planet, he "only" killed everything in it.

[Keltest]

Ah, so he didn't destroy the actual planet, he "only" killed everything in it.

Unless you define "destroy" as "shattered into pieces so hard gravity stopped working".

[Rynjin]

Unless you define "destroy" as "shattered into pieces so hard gravity stopped working".

DB characters CAN do this thing.

[Keltest]

DB characters CAN do this thing.

Dragonball already has an on again off again relationship with physics to begin with.

[tonberrian]

I'm more and more convinced that planets, and indeed entire universes, are extraordinarily fragile in Dragon Ball.

[Frozen_Feet]

Unless you define "destroy" as "shattered into pieces so hard gravity stopped working".


DB characters CAN do this thing.

I thought that was sort of the point? Killing everything on a planet (something DBZ characters are able to do just as well; it's explicitly noted as a danger of failed Genkidama) takes much less energy than annihilating the planet.

Though I don't think the "without tech" clause for force users is sensible. The Empire was founded and the Death Star built in no small part because of Palpatine's ability to predict the future. That I feel is the spirit behind Vader's remark; the Force, tying all living things together, can be used to manipulate things on a galactic scale. Compared to that, the power to destroy one measly planet is indeed quite insignificant.

[Keltest]

I'm more and more convinced that planets, and indeed entire universes, are extraordinarily fragile in Dragon Ball.

Indeed, one wonders if the dragon balls weren't originally conceived of as a training tool, to fix all those hapless planets accidentally destroyed by young martial artists first learning how to use their powers.

[digiman619]

You know krilin make a funny jedi being yoda sized human fireing hand beams that make imperial scientists weep jealousy. Dude is in the bottom of Dbz food chain and can destroy planets with no sweat and we are still talking about how broken jedi and sith are


The power to destroy planets is insignificant next to the power of the Force.
https://media.giphy.com/media/uVP9uBjJbQaFW/giphy.gif

[Rynjin]

Indeed, one wonders if the dragon balls weren't originally conceived of as a training tool, to fix all those hapless planets accidentally destroyed by young martial artists first learning how to use their powers.

Unlikely. The Dragon Balls were created by the Namekians, and they're largely pacifistic. Despite having a Warrior clan, I don't know if any of them ever saw action before Frieza arrived on the planet.

Plus planets require quite a bit of juice and deliberate effort to destroy, I'm not sure where "fragile" comes in. Every canon instance of a planet being destroyed in teh series comes from either A.) A blast that drills to the core of the planet (Frieza on Namek, Golden Frieza on Earth) or B.) A blast large enough to engulf the entire planet (Frieza on Vegeta (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLwVKYS-iSs)).

[Lord Raziere]

The power to destroy planets is insignificant next to the power of the Force.

I'll believe it when I see it. There have been no canonical feats or stated capabilities that exceed planetary destruction. Personally, it just sounded to me like the last two Sith being egotistical about being the last two force users in the galaxy, which given that they are Sith, is not an implausible thing for them to be, they tend to think they're the center of everything, especially these two given they are the ones who actually succeeded in the Sith's plans in over what, thousands of years?

[Felyndiira]

The power to destroy planets is insignificant next to the power of the Force.

This is a thought-terminating cliche, and also irrelevant. The Death Star is just a hunk of medal in space with a huge laser beam and two darkside force users inside it that can do some telekinetic, mental, and lightning attacks. It's not "the force", nor does it contain this theoretical perfected force being that embodies the full power of the force (whatever that is).

[Coidzor]

give me one canon sith lord or jedi who can destroy a planet with out any tech assist just for stack odds to star wars side you can use swtor content to on your research.

If we go back to that sort of source, we have the very credible argument that the Force is doing something somewhere between directly puppeteering and (not-so) subtly manipulating all sentient life in the galaxy.

It gets janky.

[Flickerdart]

If we go back to that sort of source, we have the very credible argument that the Force is doing something somewhere between directly puppeteering and (not-so) subtly manipulating all sentient life in the galaxy.

It gets janky.

It's not called the Force for nothing.

[Keltest]

If we go back to that sort of source, we have the very credible argument that the Force is doing something somewhere between directly puppeteering and (not-so) subtly manipulating all sentient life in the galaxy.

It gets janky.

Heres a fun game. Go to your Star Wars media of choice, and replace "the force" with "the plot".

May the plot be with you.

The plot is strong with this one.

Plot Lightning.

plot choke.

The power to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the plot.

[Lord Raziere]

If we go back to that sort of source, we have the very credible argument that the Force is doing something somewhere between directly puppeteering and (not-so) subtly manipulating all sentient life in the galaxy.

It gets janky.

Ok.

So its in some way manipulating all sentient things ever, in some fate/destiny/providence sort of matter that is inherently unknowable and ineffable, with no clear delineation between the acts of the characters and the Force's actions, and no clear goal for why.

1. How does this possibly make The Force relevant to this discussion? Krillin is not from the Star Wars universe and therefore not manipulated by The Force. While The Death Star is a machine and therefore not a living being.

2. Palpatine and Vader are, but given the two times they BUILT this stupid super-weapon it got blown up soon after, it seems The Force HATES the Death Star by manipulating things so that the underdog rebels always succeed in blowing it up. Give The Force a Krillin, who is far more powerful than the Rebel Alliance and the Death Star is gone faster than you can say "The Force Is With Him."

3. Just because The Force is that powerful, doesn't mean that Jedi involved have enough power over it to exert influence to defeat Krillin. If they could do that, the Rebel Alliance would not be a threat at all. Heck they wouldn't NEED The Death Star if they could exert that much influence over the universe, because The death star is a tool of fear, to control the worlds under their thumb and make them unwilling to fight back against them, if Sideous could exert enough control over The Force to influence things on planetary scales, he'd just manipulate everyone to be loyal to him through it! Mass Planetary Force Suggestion, boom, Death Star is obsolete. Except no he can't, therefore that is why he has it.

Meaning not only is The Force not relevant to the discussion to begin with, but has evidence to support it siding with Krillin and making him win faster so that the planet and LIFE destroying super weapon is gone if it is in fact, relevant.

[Friv]

It was a joke, Lord Raziere.

[Lord Raziere]

It was a joke, Lord Raziere.

I apologize.

The more subtle the joke on the internet, the more likely it is to be taken completely seriously. It should be a theory or something.

[golentan]

I apologize.

The more subtle the joke on the internet, the more likely it is to be taken completely seriously. It should be a theory or something.

I realize this is a joke, but I still want to share Poe's Law. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law)