If Goku Was the Only Super Saiyan

[Acid_Reign]

How would the rest of the series play out, in your mind? How would it affect the outcome of the post-Freeza battles? Would the other Saiyans lag behind and become background, like the human characters? Or would they somehow find a way to level with Gokū’s strength? (In other words, would SS just be something that affords an increase in power in addition to what Gokū has at the time of the transformation, or would it be a fixed state that no regular Saiyan could hope to compete with?) And how would the other characters react to it? Please share your thoughts.

[Usingnero]

I'd imagine that if Goku was the only one, that getting into that state would remain a challenge instead of eventual instinct. That way all the characters could still have the chance to remain on level, but if something like that was the case, then more then likely the decisive blow would always more then likely revolve around Goku going SSJ at the end. Thats how I see it anyway.

[Chuquita]

I think it would make ssj vastly more difficult for Goku. It'd probably be like kaio-ken, only more dangerous because of how off-kilter it'd throw his emotions (like he'd have trouble remaining calm) and it'd probably be a last-ditch technique that he'd only use if there was absolutely no other way out.


I also think he'd have trouble powering down out of ssj form because of the sort of rage it would pump his body full of.
Knocking him out would probably drop him back to normal form if he couldn't relax enough to power down out of it or run out of energy on his own though.

[mAcChaos]

I think it would make ssj vastly more difficult for Goku. It'd probably be like kaio-ken, only more dangerous because of how off-kilter it'd throw his emotions (like he'd have trouble remaining calm) and it'd probably be a last-ditch technique that he'd only use if there was absolutely no other way out.


I also think he'd have trouble powering down out of ssj form because of the sort of rage it would pump his body full of.
Knocking him out would probably drop him back to normal form if he couldn't relax enough to power down out of it or run out of energy on his own though.

Why do you think the amount of SSJs would cause that?

[Chuquita]

I think it would make ssj vastly more difficult for Goku. It'd probably be like kaio-ken, only more dangerous because of how off-kilter it'd throw his emotions (like he'd have trouble remaining calm) and it'd probably be a last-ditch technique that he'd only use if there was absolutely no other way out.


I also think he'd have trouble powering down out of ssj form because of the sort of rage it would pump his body full of.
Knocking him out would probably drop him back to normal form if he couldn't relax enough to power down out of it or run out of energy on his own though.

Why do you think the amount of SSJs would cause that?

I'm sorry I don't understand what you mean by the amount? Do you mean what I said about the rage? If so, I said that because I think in order to allow the others to--story wise--keep up with Goku as the only super saiyajin you couldn't let him spam the power up or become overly used to it even as a "basic" form ala the way Goku learned how to do that in the room of spirit and time.


By him being overcome with rage--which is shown briefly during the short angry remark he yells almost uncharactersically at Gohan telling him to hurry and leave with Piccolo after he becomes a ssj--it makes the form more volatile.


If you mean in terms of ssj form; I don't know if ssj2 or ssj3 would ever have come about if they kept Goku as the only one because there wouldn't be much of a need. (Well, maybe for ssj2, but not 3).


EDIT: Or do you mean the amount of people who can reach ssj? If so, like Vegeta remarks while training with Trunks in the gravity room before the Tenkaichi Budoukai; having everyone become a ssj kinda cheapens the awesomeness and the legend of it. I mean, its still cool; but any dangers that may have accompanied the form are kind of brushed aside once its shown an 8 year old can do it.

[Super Ghost Kamikaze]

I'd definitely have it become something of a crutch for Goku....

...the form comes with power, but at the terrible price of losing his "humanity". That is, the innocence and restraint of his Earth upbringing as contrasted against his violent and brutal origins.

The form would become, really, something that Goku is afraid of ever unleashing again. And there would have to be a scene or two in which he has to make a difficult choice regarding whether or not he should keep holding back...or watch his friends suffer.

It might have lead to a deeper character progression, actually.

[Chuquita]

I'd definitely have it become something of a crutch for Goku....

...the form comes with power, but at the terrible price of losing his "humanity". That is, the innocence and restraint of his Earth upbringing as contrasted against his violent and brutal origins.

The form would become, really, something that Goku is afraid of ever unleashing again. And there would have to be a scene or two in which he has to make a difficult choice regarding whether or not he should keep holding back...or watch his friends suffer.

It might have lead to a deeper character progression, actually.

That does sound like it would've been really awesome.

I imagine Vegeta would be pressuring Goku to put it to greater use while Goku would be uneasy about doing so; then upon unleashing it against whatever foe they were battling; the drastic alterations in Goku's personality while in ssj form would actually frighten Vegeta, Gohan, Kuririn, and the others.

[Rocketman]

I like the above ideas, but push it farther. Like the Oozaru transformation, but without the tail weakness and even the possibility of control.

Biggest reason for that is to prevent any following sagas from being "oh, Goku will just go SSJ at the end and defeat the enemy". If Goku gets pushed far enough to unleash the Super Saiyan, he might defeat the enemy...or he might slaughter his friends in animalistic bloodlust... or he might kill the enemy and then turn on his friends in the unending rage of the Super Saiyan.

This would need rewriting of the Freeza fight, of course. Goku exhibits way too much control once he ascends.


I would probably disable Goku's Kaioken, too. Say it aggravates that impulse to let the Super Saiyan out. That'd let him stay even with Piccolo and Vegeta.

[LeprikanGT]

If Goku was the only super saiyan; evryone would have died in the android saga. Vegeta would have killed #19 and they two would eventually take everyone one out.

Pretty much the history of trunks future.

[TheGreatness25]

If Goku was the only Super Saiyan, the story would be focused so that not every villain was eons above other supporting characters like Vegeta and Gohan. That plus the series would be short. That or boring. I mean DBZ and GT have been accused of going overboard, but you just gotta one-up the previous stuff or else there's no challenge.

[Super Ghost Kamikaze]

If Goku was the only Super Saiyan, the story would be focused so that not every villain was eons above other supporting characters like Vegeta and Gohan. That plus the series would be short. That or boring. I mean DBZ and GT have been accused of going overboard, but you just gotta one-up the previous stuff or else there's no challenge.

So, you didn't watch any Dragon Ball before the Z portion?

I mean.

I think they "upped the ante" plenty of times without transformations. =p

[TheGreatness25]

Yeah with unlocking power or training or whatever. But come on. Once Goku turned Super Saiyan, it became a TOTALLY different playing field because that transformation is multiplying his already huge power over and over again, thus leaving every other character in the dust. If nobody else could transform, then truly, might as well not have any other characters but Goku. Because if Goku can't beat someone, then the rest might as well not even try.

[Super Ghost Kamikaze]

Yeah with unlocking power or training or whatever. But come on. Once Goku turned Super Saiyan, it became a TOTALLY different playing field because that transformation is multiplying his already huge power over and over again, thus leaving every other character in the dust. If nobody else could transform, then truly, might as well not have any other characters but Goku. Because if Goku can't beat someone, then the rest might as well not even try.

Several times, characters got stronger than Super Saiyan Goku.

The Kami/Piccolo fusion is one example.

And again, Vegeta and the other Saiyans would be as strong as "base" Goku, and Goku would not WANT to unleash a wrathful, hateful Super Saiyan. Were he the only one, and it were not a natural thing to do, i would be the Hyde to his Jekyll.

[mAcChaos]

That whole "dark super side" of Goku sounds neat, but it's also been done to death. Naruto, Trigun, Inuyasha, Yu Yu Hakusho, Bleach, even Street Fighter, etc., etc., all do that already.

Besides, it would seem out of character for Goku to not be able to master it, considering he always puts his all into mastering whatever technique he's using and he's always done it before.

[Super Ghost Kamikaze]

That whole "dark super side" of Goku sounds neat, but it's also been done to death. Naruto, Trigun, Inuyasha, Yu Yu Hakusho, Bleach, even Street Fighter, etc., etc., all do that already.

Besides, it would seem out of character for Goku to not be able to master it, considering he always puts his all into mastering whatever technique he's using and he's always done it before.

The problem with that is that this isn't a "technique". If you JUST analyzed Super Saiyan from the Frieza saga.

As of that moment, it is a transformation, triggered completely by his hatred, vengefulness, and bloodlust.

As far as the idea of it as a "controllable" technique, it could very easily be tweaked from the point of the Frieza fight.

Also, I wouldn't say that any of those are the same, with Trigun being the CLOSEST to what has been described.

[Kendamu]

I like all the ideas I've seen so far. If it were to be done without having to re-write the Freeza fight, though, I would take into account that he stayed in that state for a mere five minutes.

I would treat that as if it were an extreme case that he stayed that way for so long. After that, he'd have trouble getting to that point and sustaining it. It would start off being purely an anger thing and working forward from there throughout the series.

With stronger villains in the future, it would become something more like what it was used for in Super DBZ. While it did give a distinct advantage, it only did so for a short period of time and the advantage wasn't enough to make the other characters useless in battle.

Essentially, I would really push the angle of the strain Goku and Gohan did away with when they came up with Full-Power Super Saiyan.

Over the course of the series, it would be like this:

- Goku has trouble transforming and sustaining it pre-Cell. Its all about anger.

- By the Cell Game, Goku can transform at will, but its a short-term thing that resembles when Vegeta killed #19.

- By the time he faces off against Buu for the first time, instead of showing off Super Saiyan 3, he shows off how he now has complete control over the Super Saiyan form (FPSSj, like after he and Gohan got out of the RoSaT). To keep things even, he doesn't show the fully-controlled version off during the fight against Vegeta and during the first Buu encounter he's forced to use the one resembling what Vegeta did when he killed #19. That's how his lifespan is shortened (instead of by using SSj3).

The catch being, however, that the more control he has over it the less overall power it gives him to his advantage. So, if he were to go all-out, he would have to use the "lowest" level (which is harder to control). This means that he'd have to fight more strategically with less of a power advantage.

Of course, I think that with an SSj that works that way and with how powerful the other Saiyans get throughout the series, I think that I'd let a few others experience it as well. However, it would be pretty rare and would be a little different for each of them.

- Gohan, still being counted on for his power-ups when he goes berserk (which still count for more than when Goku goes SSj), fights Cell after Goku can no longer do it. Upon #16's death Gohan experiences SSj but it's more like a powered-up version of his berserk power-up rather than an actual fighting form. He'd experience it once more when Goku dies and that time he uses a Kamehameha to defeat Cell. After this, Gohan never experiences SSj again but gets his Chou power-up (equal to FPSSj) in the Buu Saga.

- Vegeta experiences it for a mere moment when Trunks dies, but his blind rage causes him a strategic flaw that makes him get KOed by Cell. Vowing never to fight again until he hears of Goku's return, Vegeta never experiences it again until Babidi gets ahold of him. That's when he assumes a form similar to what Goku's been showing (not the rage, but not FPSSj) except he doesn't have to strain himself to keep it. Babidi's magic sustains it for him. He eventually rejects this once he realizes that he isn't controlling the form himself. He does, however, finally learn it as Vegetto and keeps it after the Potara Fusion is broken (thus, keeping Goku and Vegeta as rivals).

- Future Trunks never gets SSj, but he has the rage power-ups just like Gohan.

- Kid Trunks and Kid Goten never experience SSj, but they have the rage power-up. They can turn SSj as Gotenks, but it shortens their time as Gotenks as they have to strain to keep it. While un-fused, neither have enough power to transform. As teens, they would have the potential to do so (like Gohan) but they don't put their hearts into training like their fathers do and one would assume that they never achieve it seperately.

So, essentially, the more raw power there is when you transform the less time you have to use SSj and the less strategic you are about using it due to blind rage. The more controlled you are, the less power you get from it but the power you do get still creates a distinct advantage.



Wow, that was way too long-winded.

[Rocketman]

That whole "dark super side" of Goku sounds neat, but it's also been done to death. Naruto, Trigun, Inuyasha, Yu Yu Hakusho, Bleach, even Street Fighter, etc., etc., all do that already.

I'm pretty sure all of those came after Super Saiyan.

[Captain Awesome]

I'm thinking the exact opposite, I think the cliché "fight against his dark side" would be way too angsty for Dragonball, I'm all for a little more depth to Super Saiya-jin, but the majority of what people are suggesting, wouldn't fit in the Dragonworld at all.

I like the idea of Super Saiya-jin coming at a price, but Goku wrestling with his darker half is really just kind of depressing, not to mention highly unoriginal.

[Son Wukong]

The first time I saw movie 5 I thought Goku couldn't go SSJ and then all of a sudden he sees wounded animals, his friends and his son half dead and WHAM, he goes SSJ. Al I couldn't think was ''Sooo...why didn't he went SSJ in the first place?''. So I guess they used the concept of ''transforming only when it is REALLY necessary and being able to sustain it for a short time'' in this movie and it would be more of the same if they would have decided to use it in the tv series.
If not they would just think of something crazy to surpass the SSJ without turning SSJ. Like the release of an awesome power that has been dorment inside someone due to being lazy a.k.a. Ultimate Gohan.

[Tanooki Kuribo]

If Goku was the only Super Saiyan in the whole series, it would have made movie 8 amazing (not that I hate movie 8 ).