Is it really possible for beginning of DB Goku to only be (at a BP of) 10?

[FoolsGil]

No, because he took an axe to the head and survived.

[Gog]

No, because he took an axe to the head and survived.

But it was stated that he wouldn't survive a point blank shotgun.

So his powerlevel is most likely 20

[dbgtFO]

It's because Toriyama is conservative about his power placements of characters and he doesn't sit there with a calculator and actually realizes that the numbers should be much higher to correspond with their feats as Speedster shows.
Just like Roshi and Piccolo destroying the moon with power levels barely 100 times of an average earthling, Goku being only twice as strong as strong as one is pretty damn unbelieveable.. for us older guys, who have a better idea of just how big the gaps are in real life.
For kids though, it most likely is not a problem at all and is quite a bit easier to understand, than incredibly large numbers.

In universe, because of Toriyama's conservatism the DB universe(or at least in the manga as the anime give them crazy feats)tend to come off as rather weak compared to what they should be in real life and I really wouldn't have anything against Salagirs interpretation that the moon is just a tiny circular rock floating 200 meters above the Earth(yes I know AT said it is the same distance away as in real life).
I could even go full joke mode and say it does not really take that much to destroy stuff in the DB world as compared to real life and the difference between breaking rocks and destroying the moon really is only 50 times.
It's fiction after all

[TheUltimateNinja]

King Kai, Tenshinhan and the narrator all simply use the word power rather than power level when referring to the Kaioken's boost. And Frieza says he's only using 50% of his power, also referring to power level, yet Goku understands exactly what he means.

The narrator used the term battle power. As for the others, during the late Freeza arc, sure enough by that point in the story the narrative used the term ‘power’ to mean ‘battle power’ aka ‘scouter power level’ and simply our heroes could translate these units in their minds in the same way Freeza and the other aliens were conveniently made to understand and speak the Earth’s language. Even Porunga in chapter 329 learned to understand and speak ‘English’ and accept wishes in ‘English’ despite having previously established that you need to speak with him in Namekian.

Things happening for the sake of plot convenience doesn't automatically make them irrelevant to the plot. At that time Toriyama was clearly simply intending to create a numerical representation of power, hence why everyone seemed to possess an intuitive understanding of battle powers without any prior exposure. There's no indication that the characters suddenly switched over to a different method of measuring power than they used earlier. I don't recall if it's in the manga, but I believe whatever language the characters speak is referred to as the universal language, therefore it's probable that some alien came to Earth a long time ago and spread this language, perhaps Popo or one of the previous guardians did this. And along with increasing his power they could have just made Porunga more convenient to use for the heroes if they were ever in an emergency.

[Speedster]

And along with increasing his power they could have just made Porunga more convenient to use for the heroes if they were ever in an emergency.

No, they hadn’t changed anything on Porunga by this point. That happened much later, in the Buu arc. Chapter 329 is still at the very end of the Freeza arc, just 130 days after the fight of Goku with Freeza - Dragonballs were inert stones in the meantime. Heck Porunga still needed to be spoken in Namekian by Dende initially, yet immediately afterwards Bulma was directly talking to him in ‘English’ no problem.

Things happening for the sake of plot convenience doesn't automatically make them irrelevant to the plot. At that time Toriyama was clearly simply intending to create a numerical representation of power, hence why everyone seemed to possess an intuitive understanding of battle powers without any prior exposure. There's no indication that the characters suddenly switched over to a different method of measuring power than they used earlier.

I don't recall if it's in the manga, but I believe whatever language the characters speak is referred to as the universal language, therefore it's probable that some alien came to Earth a long time ago and spread this language, perhaps Popo or one of the previous guardians did this.

OK, if you are going to be rolling up headcanons like this then what stops Kaio simply teaching Goku and Tenshihan how to perceive increases in the battle power system? I think things are really simple. Toriyama in both the language and power level cases opted for narrative convenience and switched everyone 'somehow' into a common system. As such the word ‘power’ was now meaning ‘battle power’ despite in the earlier parts of the series having a different meaning. It is that simple really.

Also speaking of meaning of the word 'power', in the Super Exciting Guide, in pages 44-59, in the training section displaying Goku’s improvement since he were a kid, the word ‘power’ is used in the non-battle-power way. SEG gives performance charts with 4 fighting capabilities in focus: Power, Speed, Stamina and Ki. And Goku’s improvement in the ‘power’ category is completely different from his improvement in ‘battle powers’ terms. In particular by the Buu arc Goku improved by 50 stars in ‘power’, 39 stars in speed, 51 stars in stamina and 69 stars in Ki. Also the manga itself in the Buu arc, introduced a wholly different scale than the scouter battle powers, the kili scale. In that scale you can destroy a planet with 300, Yakkon is 800 and SSJ1 Goku is 3000. Does any of these scale in the same way as the scouter battle powers?

[Tsufuru]

you can all post paragraphs but the truth is , Toriyama simply cant work with numbers.

krillin was running around with a 40 kg shell on his back as if it was nothing in dragonball , 3 years later he was shocked asked goku how the hell he even moves with 20kg shoes.
Even freaking tien was cought by surprise when he tryed to lift his shirt , he struggled.
like really?

happened in the manga btw.
i wouldnt use any number for a character's power , speed or strength.

[TheUltimateNinja]

And along with increasing his power they could have just made Porunga more convenient to use for the heroes if they were ever in an emergency.

No, they hadn’t changed anything on Porunga by this point. That happened much later, in the Buu arc. Chapter 329 is still at the very end of the Freeza arc, just 130 days after the fight of Goku with Freeza - Dragonballs were inert stones in the meantime. Heck Porunga still needed to be spoken in Namekian by Dende initially, yet immediately afterwards Bulma was directly talking to him in ‘English’ no problem.

Things happening for the sake of plot convenience doesn't automatically make them irrelevant to the plot. At that time Toriyama was clearly simply intending to create a numerical representation of power, hence why everyone seemed to possess an intuitive understanding of battle powers without any prior exposure. There's no indication that the characters suddenly switched over to a different method of measuring power than they used earlier.

I don't recall if it's in the manga, but I believe whatever language the characters speak is referred to as the universal language, therefore it's probable that some alien came to Earth a long time ago and spread this language, perhaps Popo or one of the previous guardians did this.

OK, if you are going to be rolling up headcanons like this then what stops Kaio simply teaching Goku and Tenshihan how to perceive increases in the battle power system? I think things are really simple. Toriyama in both the language and power level cases opted for narrative convenience and switched everyone 'somehow' into a common system. As such the word ‘power’ was now meaning ‘battle power’ despite in the earlier parts of the series having a different meaning. It is that simple really.

Also speaking of meaning of the word 'power', in the Super Exciting Guide, in pages 44-59, in the training section displaying Goku’s improvement since he were a kid, the word ‘power’ is used in the non-battle-power way. SEG gives performance charts with 4 fighting capabilities in focus: Power, Speed, Stamina and Ki. And Goku’s improvement in the ‘power’ category is completely different from his improvement in ‘battle powers’ terms. In particular by the Buu arc Goku improved by 50 stars in ‘power’, 39 stars in speed, 51 stars in stamina and 69 stars in Ki. Also the manga itself in the Buu arc, introduced a wholly different scale than the scouter battle powers, the kili scale. In that scale you can destroy a planet with 300, Yakkon is 800 and SSJ1 Goku is 3000. Does any of these scale in the same way as the scouter battle powers?

I disagree, but this argument is taking much too long so I'll concede. Regardless, power levels are to some extent linear, Saiyan Arc Vegeta was around 18,000 and was capable of blowing up the Earth, the Solar System possesses ~333,000x the mass of the Earth, thus it would require a power level of approximately 6,000,000,000 to destroy and that's right around the level Super Perfect Cell should be, though I personally place him higher. I'm sure Toriyama didn't think it through to that extent and it's a mere coincidence things worked out this way, but the fact remains that the power gap between Vegeta and Cell fits the power gap between what it takes to blow up a small planet and what it takes to blow up a medium-sized solar system.

[Speedster]

Regardless, power levels are to some extent linear, Saiyan Arc Vegeta was around 18,000 and was capable of blowing up the Earth, the Solar System possesses ~333,000x the mass of the Earth, thus it would require a power level of approximately 6,000,000,000 to destroy and that's right around the level Super Perfect Cell should be, though I personally place him higher. I'm sure Toriyama didn't think it through to that extent and it's a mere coincidence things worked out this way, but the fact remains that the power gap between Vegeta and Cell fits the power gap between what it takes to blow up a small planet and what it takes to blow up a medium-sized solar system.

This is not how it really works, however. The (minimum) required energy to destroy a celestial object is given by its gravitational binding energy which actually is proportional to the square of its mass. To destroy the sun you need a minimum of 6.8710^41 Joules. This is over 3 billion times bigger than the energy you need to destroy the earth (2x10^32 Joules).

Also there is the Genki Dama comparison. 50% final form Freeza was able to tank a Genki Damma that was at least 100x bigger in diameter than the one against Vegeta. This is a direct comparison by the way made by the characters in chapter 315. Kurirn says it is over 50 meters while Gohan showed that the one against Vegeta was about half a metre by opening his hands. Assuming the Genki Dama had the same energy density as before (if anything it should had had a bigger one) this means that the Genki Dama against 50% Freeza contained at least 1 million times more energy than the one against Vegeta. Even if we lowball Vegeta down to a power level of 6 thousand (as it was after he created the artificial moon and got some beating from KKx3/4 Goku) and even if we say that Freeza was injured as much by the Genki Dama as Vegeta (which he wasn’t as Freeza still had a lot more power left) that means that an increase in power level of 10 thousand (from 6K to 60M) results to an increase in durability of at least 1 million times. Which again throws any linearity completely out of the window.

[TheUltimateNinja]

Regardless, power levels are to some extent linear, Saiyan Arc Vegeta was around 18,000 and was capable of blowing up the Earth, the Solar System possesses ~333,000x the mass of the Earth, thus it would require a power level of approximately 6,000,000,000 to destroy and that's right around the level Super Perfect Cell should be, though I personally place him higher. I'm sure Toriyama didn't think it through to that extent and it's a mere coincidence things worked out this way, but the fact remains that the power gap between Vegeta and Cell fits the power gap between what it takes to blow up a small planet and what it takes to blow up a medium-sized solar system.

This is not how it really works, however. The (minimum) required energy to destroy a celestial object is given by its gravitational binding energy which actually is proportional to the square of its mass. To destroy the sun you need a minimum of 6.8710^41 Joules. This is over 3 billion times bigger than the energy you need to destroy the earth (2x10^32 Joules).

Also there is the Genki Dama comparison. 50% final form Freeza was able to tank a Genki Damma that was at least 100x bigger in diameter than the one against Vegeta. This is a direct comparison by the way made by the characters in chapter 315. Kurirn says it is over 50 meters while Gohan showed that the one against Vegeta was about half a metre by opening his hands. Assuming the Genki Dama had the same energy density as before (if anything it should had had a bigger one) this means that the Genki Dama against 50% Freeza contained at least 1 million times more energy than the one against Vegeta. Even if we lowball Vegeta down to a power level of 6 thousand (as it was after he created the artificial moon and got some beating from KKx3/4 Goku) and even if we say that Freeza was injured as much by the Genki Dama as Vegeta (which he wasn’t as Freeza still had a lot more power left) that means that an increase in power level of 10 thousand (from 6K to 60M) results to an increase in durability of at least 1 million times. Which again throws any linearity completely out of the window.

That's assuming ki blasts bust things by forcing their atoms apart rather than simply destroying them, DB doesn't really follow the law of conservation of mass and energy. It'd be pretty bizarre if ki attacks could be translated to actual energy anyway.

[DBZAOTA482]

Mercenary tao died by a standard grenade , while Red Ribbon saga goku tanked rocket launchers to the face , power levels mean nothing.

It clearly wasn't a standard grenade... especially when Tao though it could kill Goku when Dodompa couldn't.

Anyways, I agree 10 is too low for BoDB Goku. His abilities far exceeds any human's in real-life and considering 5 is apparently a benchmark for the average human he should have a way higher BP. 20 should be good.

[Speedster]

That's assuming ki blasts bust things by forcing their atoms apart rather than simply destroying them

Ki blasts were shown to possess momentum, density and kinetic energy. There is no reason to believe that the physics governing their collision effects would require special physics. Goku’s Kamehameha on the car in chapter 15 proves exactly that.

DB doesn't really follow the law of conservation of mass and energy.

Well if you are going to ignore physics and claim that fundamental axioms don't apply then how can you even know how much the Earth’s or the Sun’s masses in Dragonball are to begin with? Basically what you do is this: You are cherry picking results from the real physics that suit you, ignoring their derivation process and then mixing them up with your made-up ‘Dragonball physics’ in order to claim an instance of feats' linearity between Vegeta’s power level of 18,000 in the Saiyan arc and your very own made-up power level of Cell of 6 billion! And by the way, as far as supplementary resources go Cooler is stated to have a power level of 470 million, LSSJ Broly a power level of 1.3 billion and SSJ Gogeta 2.5 billion.

It'd be pretty bizarre if ki attacks could be translated to actual energy anyway.

I can't see what is bizarre in quantifying the actual energy required for a certain feat. What makes it more bizarre than calculating a character's speed in km/hr for example?

[TheUltimateNinja]

That's assuming ki blasts bust things by forcing their atoms apart rather than simply destroying them

Ki blasts were shown to possess momentum, density and kinetic energy. There is no reason to believe that the physics governing their collision effects would require special physics. Goku’s Kamehameha on the car in chapter 15 proves exactly that.

DB doesn't really follow the law of conservation of mass and energy.

Well if you are going to ignore physics and claim that fundamental axioms don't apply then how can you even know how much the Earth’s or the Sun’s masses in Dragonball are to begin with? Basically what you do is this: You are cherry picking results from the real physics that suit you, ignoring their derivation process and then mixing them up with your made-up ‘Dragonball physics’ in order to claim an instance of feats' linearity between Vegeta’s power level of 18,000 in the Saiyan arc and your very own made-up power level of Cell of 6 billion! And by the way, as far as supplementary resources go Cooler is stated to have a power level of 470 million, LSSJ Broly a power level of 1.3 billion and SSJ Gogeta 2.5 billion.

It'd be pretty bizarre if ki attacks could be translated to actual energy anyway.

I can't see what is bizarre in quantifying the actual energy required for a certain feat. What makes it more bizarre than calculating a character's speed in km/hr for example?

In real life energy doesn't appear and disappear out of nowhere, it does in DB. In the latter half of DBZ characters casually throw around planet-busting ki blasts that ultimately disappear with little effect, this certainly wouldn't occur in real life.

Also, the effects of ki can be focused in Dragon Ball, every character stronger than Saiyan Arc Vegeta has planet+ durability, yet they can still be damaged by ki blasts, this suggests that the power of said ki blasts is well over what would be necessary to destroy a planet, yet they barely cause any damage beyond the area they hit, this also shows that ki is completely different from real life energy.

There's some inconsistency with this as sometimes characters still fear blowing the planet up in the Cell Arc, but this can be attributed to them being unable to fully control their ki at max power.

Supplementary resources aren't infallible either, they must be ignored if they contradict the information we have. None of those numbers make sense. Broly being only 3x stronger than Cooler is completely retarded, and SSJ Gogeta not even being 2x Broly is similarly nonsensical. Also, if Cooler was at 470 million there's no way BoG Base Goku would end up weaker than Frieza, but let's ignore that for now.

For the 3x gap between Cooler and Broly to work, you'd have to fit the entire period from the 3 year gap to the Cell games within said 3x gap, and considering FPSSJ Goku is confirmed to be over 2x Grade 2 Vegeta, you'd have to fit all the power gaps between SSJ Goku (Androids Arc) - Grade 2 Vegeta in a less than 1.5x gap.

And for the ~1.8x gap between Broly and SSJ Gogeta to work, you'd have to fit everyone from FP Cell to SSJ3 Goku in a 1.8x gap, and considering SSJ3 is stated to be 4x SSJ2 this is also impossible.

[Rubens]

Alright guys, remember that this discussion is whether the battle power of 10 for Goku in the beggining is possible or not, it's not about power scaling.

Now, as soon as a reconnected with Dragon Ball and became familiar with battle powers, I decided it was best to dismiss the numbers outside the manga and anime, simply because when you put all of them together it just makes no sense - and personally, I find wrong to just pick the numbers that appear to fit and/or trying to make them fit. I don't judge whoever does that, but I don't do it for the sake of consistency and because I hate to feel strapped by those numbers.

The farmer's "powerlevel" was just the show how weak a regular human is, so I find ridiculous when some people say "farmers are strong" (I apologize because I don't mean to offend, it's just how I feel about it). If Raditz just happened to run across some random fighter during training and measure his power as 5, it would be believable for Goku to start off with 10. But that's not the case, so I don't believe Goku is just 10.

Here's what leads me to think Goku is above 10:
- he was trained by his adoptive grandfather Son Gohan (Goku is seen, in fillers - I think, I'm not 100% sure here - dragging bricks and rocks while crawling as a baby);
- Goku effortlessly beat characters such as the Bear Bandit and Yamcha (once his stomach was full), who is much stronger than the latter, who in turn is much stronger than a farmer;
- assuming Gohan's power was above 100 and if you work with the x10 oozaru multiplier, 10 wouldn't probably be enough to squash the old man;
- Goku was capable of incredible feats such lifting cars and pulling boulders of the ground (having twice a farmer's strength would make it improbable), but I'll give the benefit of the doubt here;
- when Goku and Krillin were starting to train with Muten Roshi, the master tested their speed (I know speed isn't the same as the total battle power, but it's a relevant contribution): Krillin took 10.8 seconds, Goku 8.5 and Kame sennin 5.6. I understand the speed features aren't consistent but the point here is to understand to difference between characters: Goku is stronger than Krillin and Roshi is much stronger than both. Let's say, at best, Goku was half of Muten Roshi's speed and, therefore, less than half the master's power; would it make sense for Roshi to be around... let's say 40 or 50? Nah.

Considering all of these (and probably other factors that escaped my mind), my personal estimation would be for Goku's power to be more than 20 and less than 40. Finally, no, I doesn't seem possible to me for Goku to have a battle power of 10.

[Speedster]

There are 18 distinct power tiers in DB that range from 5 to 416 and then there are 18 tiers thereafter that go up to first form Freeza who is 530K. Here’s from Herms’ list.[spoiler]1: Rabbit Gang thugs, Shu, Mai, Upa, White, Farmer with Shotgun
2: Kuririn (Training Arc), Ran-Fan, "mean" Lunch, Bear Bandit, Pteranodon, Black, Yellow, various random TB contestants (give or take a tier)
3: Yamcha (DB Hunt), Chi-Chi (DB Hunt), Bruce Lee-lookalike, Dracula Man, Silver, Man-Wolf, Piano, Dende, Mister Satan
4: Goku (DB Hunt), Yamcha (21st TB/RR), Bacterian, Oorin Temple's #1, Invisible Man, Murasaki, Dende (potential unlocked), Videl
5: Giran
6. Kuririn (21st TB/RR), Pan-Poot, Skeleton Robot
7: Namu, Blue, Gyumao, Bora, Pilaf Robot, Metallic, King Castle Guard (trust me), Yamu, Spopovitch
8: Jackie Chun (21st TB), Goku (21st TB), Kame-sennin (DB Hunt), Chiaotzu (22nd TB), Chapa (22nd TB), the Mummy, Battle Jacket, Buyon, Cymbal
9: Kuririn (22nd TB), Yamcha (22nd TB), Tsuru-sennin, Devil Man, Yajirobe, Chapa (23rd TB)
10: Grandpa Gohan, Tao Pai Pai, Oozaru Goku (DB Hunt), Android No.8, Chi-Chi (23rd TB)
11: Goku (post-Karin), Jackie Chun (22nd TB), Tambourine, Chiaotzu (23rd TB), Yajirobe (23rd TB)
12: Goku (22nd TB/Piccolo arc), Tenshinhan (22nd TB), Karin
13: Drum, Mutaito, Cyborg Tao Pai Pai
14: old Piccolo Daimao, Kuririn (23rd TB), Yamcha (23rd TB)
15: Goku (post-Super God Water), young Piccolo Daimao, Oozaru Goku (21st TB)
16: Mister Popo, Tenshinhan (23rd TB)
17: God of Earth, Shen
18: Goku (23rd TB/vs. Raditz), Piccolo (23rd TB/vs. Raditz)

-----

19: Gohan (Saiyan arc, sitting in spaceship), Gohan (vs. Saibaimen), Freeza's reconnaissance team
20: Raditz, Saibaimen, Gohan (vs. Raditz, angry), Chiaotzu (Saiyan arc), Yajirobe (Saiyan arc), Appule
21: Kuririn (Saiyan/Namek arc), Tenshinhan (Saiyan arc), Yamcha (Saiyan arc), Enma Daio, Gohan (Namek arc)
22: Gohan (Saiyan arc Masenko), Piccolo (Saiyan arc), Kaio, Namekian trio
23: Nappa, Oozaru Gohan (vs. Piccolo)
24: Goku (Saiyan arc)
25: Gohan (vs. Gurd), Kuririn (vs. Gurd), Gurd (vs. Gohan and Kuririn)
26: KKx2 Goku (Saiyan arc), Oozaru Gohan (vs. Vegeta)
27: Vegeta (Saiyan arc), Kewi
28: Dodoria, Zarbon
29: Vegeta (vs. Kewi/Dodoria/Zarbon), KKx3 Goku (Saiyan arc), Goku-Ginyu
30: Vegeta (vs. Zarbon Round II/Recoom), Zarbon (transformed), KKx4 Goku (Saiyan arc), Gohan (vs. Goku-Ginyu), Kuririn (vs. Goku-Ginyu)
31: Recoom, Jheese, Burta, Nail
32: Goku (Namek arc), Vegeta (vs. Jheese), Kuririn (vs. Freeza)
33: Ginyu, Oozaru Vegeta
34: KK Goku (Namek arc), Yamcha (Android/Cell/Boo arc)
35: Vegeta (vs. 1st~2nd form Freeza), Kuririn (Android/Cell/Boo arc), Tenshinhan (Android/Cell/Boo arc)
36: First-Form Freeza, Gohan (vs. 2nd-form Freeza)[/spoiler]
So the early parts of the series have an 100fold range (5-500) to fit as many distinct power tiers that Z fits in a 1000fold range (500-500K). So from that alone the percentile power level differences in DB have to be smaller than in Z - in particular a 2x difference in power levels in DB is equivalent to about a 3x difference in Z. That's the difference between Radditz and Goku at the start of Z.

[dario03]

My theory is that the scouters can read ki but not how well the holder of the ki can use said ki. So Farmer with shotgun might be a 5 but only have access to a very small fraction of the power. Goku had a higher amount of ki and more access to ki. This is also how I figure Roshi can destroy the moon with a power level of only ~139 (though I still don't like that when looked at seriously).

[dbgtFO]

My theory is that the scouters can read ki but not how well the holder of the ki can use said ki. So Farmer with shotgun might be a 5 but only have access to a very small fraction of the power. Goku had a higher amount of ki and more access to ki. This is also how I figure Roshi can destroy the moon with a power level of only ~139 (though I still don't like that when looked at seriously).

Yeah, that's how I always rationalized it in-universe. We don't expect the farmer to be capable of actually using the ki he has, so his output is effectively much lower than Goku's.