Hundreds, maybe even thousands of low-class Saiyans alive?

[Eire]

Sources, for goddess sake! No numbers taken from trash bin.

I disagree, because when Trunks popped up, Vegeta seemed pretty damn sure that there couldn't have been any more Saiyans survivors than them, and he must've had a good reason for that.

You believe a guy who cared nothing about his only followers? In the shoes of hypothetical Sayians I would make sure thet I would remain forgotten by everyone, including slave prince.

[TheDevilsCorpse]

Sources, for goddess sake! No numbers taken from trash bin.

You can't give sources for something that doesn't exist. I believe the only mention of how large the Saiyan population was comes from Toriyama's memo to Toei about the Saiyan-Tsufurian history, where it was mentioned that they have an "unusually small population". That will never equate to any number that isn't guessed at unless the issue is later addressed by another guidebook, so there is nothing wrong with them throwing out their own estimates. It isn't like we have to take them as official...

[Eire]

I've already written why such a low number it's just wrong from biological and organisation point of view. The number might be low, but a few hundreds just mean that's in the face of extinction.

[Piccolo Daimao]

I disagree, because when Trunks popped up, Vegeta seemed pretty damn sure that there couldn't have been any more Saiyans survivors than them, and he must've had a good reason for that.

You believe a guy who cared nothing about his only followers? In the shoes of hypothetical Sayians I would make sure thet I would remain forgotten by everyone, including slave prince.

Yes. Even if it is Vegeta, he apparently had a good reason that there couldn't have been any more Saiyan survivors but them. He seemed to completely rule out the possibility that they may've been other survivors. And Trunks, this random Super Saiyan who shouldn't even exist if there were no other survivors, turned out to be Vegeta's son. I'm not overestimating Vegeta's intelligence (I mean, he's not dumb, but his arrogance, anger, etc. can cloud his judgement sometimes); he's not omnipotent or anything like that, but I don't see anything that contradicts the statement said by both Raditz and Nappa that there were no other Saiyan survivors but those four.

[Herms]

I believe the only mention of how large the Saiyan population was comes from Toriyama's memo to Toei about the Saiyan-Tsufurian history, where it was mentioned that they have an "unusually small population".

Raditz mentions them having a low population while explaining Planet Vegeta's destruction to Goku, but that part drops out in Viz.

[Great Saiyaman I]

When you're considering planets, low population could mean anything from
hundreds of thousands to 1 or 2 billion. We don't really know enough about the population of people on planets other than earth to decide what amount of people would be considered a small number.

[Xyex]

When you're considering planets, low population could mean anything from
hundreds of thousands to 1 or 2 billion. We don't really know enough about the population of people on planets other than earth to decide what amount of people would be considered a small number.

Neither would Toriyama when he wrote it, so I think it's safe to assume it's small based on just Earth's population size. I suppose 1 billion could still be seen as small on a planetary scale, though I'd be surprised if there's more than 10 million Saiya-jins in total, and not surprised to find out there's only 100,000 or so.

[Rocketman]

So Freeza, who blew up his own underlings' planet to prevent a mass alliance of Saiyans, would just knock off for lunch and leave thousands of them alive.

[Eire]

He had many other things to do. I don't image him personally checking acts of every Saiyan in his database, stamping every paper "erased" and throwing into shredder. He would rather told someone to do that that increase the chance that because of henchmen's laziness/stupidity/mess in papers someone (maybe not thousands) slipped under radar.

[Rocketman]

He had many other things to do. I don't image him personally checking acts of every Saiyan in his database, stamping every paper "erased" and throwing into shredder. He would rather told someone to do that that increase the chance that because of henchmen's laziness/stupidity/mess in papers someone (maybe not thousands) slipped under radar.

So Freeza, who's so worried about this Saiyan alliance that he confesses to someone else that there's something he fears just says 'welp, done all i can do!'

Keep in mind that all those planets Saiyan babies where being sent to were being conquered for Freeza. Even if some underling got lazy, that mistake would be uncovered when Freeza's army arrives to conquer the planet and discovers a living Saiyan there!

[Michsi]

I mean, there were only about 100 Namekians on Namek during the series, so it wouldn't be unprecedented for the Saiyans to have had a very low population like that.

If we assume that they reproduced sexually it's too low number to avoid inbreeding.

About this, wouldn't it be possible to avoid inbreeding if they say had several children with several partners?
Let's say one saiyan male has seven children with seven different females. I could see sayains not being particulary interested in permanent mating and do the best they can to grow numbers.

[Eire]

Thousand babies? You mean... that filler stuff?
Yes, I see him as a moody being who destroyed planet, because he was absolutely furious, but when first rage passed he rethought that and come to conclusion that those lonely and fairly weak children without any contact with others of their kind weren't so dangerous that they couldn't be used and if it would be required- killed later. Goku's example shows that this later would be quite a long time.

I mean, there were only about 100 Namekians on Namek during the series, so it wouldn't be unprecedented for the Saiyans to have had a very low population like that.

If we assume that they reproduced sexually it's too low number to avoid inbreeding.

About this, wouldn't it be possible to avoid inbreeding if they say had several children with several partners?

That makes all Sayians one big family and complicates heredity system, but for a long term doesn't help to avoid mating with someone you are related to. The "safe population" wasn't estimated for people with all their moral norms, but for endangered species of animals which usually doesn't mind to whom they are mated.

[Michsi]

That makes all Sayians one big family and complicates heredity system, but for a long term doesn't help to avoid mating with someone you are related to.

Even if their numbers are say a million? A million could still be considered a low number for a population but it makes it less likely to meet with someone you are related to early in the growing process. I mean I think even we have the same ancestors going back thousands of years.

[Eire]

Million is OK, but lots of people here came with a number lower than thousand that made me wonder if they know how many is it.
About common relatives- with my twisted bloodline we probably don't have to travel back so far, to meet our hypothetical common grandpa

[Michsi]

If I recall correctly one of the daizenshu's or interviews mentioned something that saiyans were originally not native to planet Plant and that they were the suvivors of another war or something. It could explain why they had such a supposedly small population.

Even the inbreeding idea is plausible if they numbers were smaller than that, but if I'm not mistaken that would make future generations susceptible to diseases because of a weak genetic structure and imune systems (not that I know much about this stuff...)

[Eire]

Inbreeding does make population weaker by promoting recessive phenotypes. Many of small, isolated geographically or culturally populations tends to be prone to many diseases promoted by recessive genes. It's often result of one mutation that appeared long time ago. Our organisms aren't stupid and usually promote genes caring healthy genotype, so in normal population bad phenotype would appear rarely, because it would be dominated by healthy ones. Mating with close relatives increase the risk that you both carry the same wrong genes that will reveal to your children. Good example is achromatopsja in Pingelap or Habsburg's jaw.

So it would be better for Sayians to have larger population than estimated here.

[Fox666]

Funny, inbreeding could explain how mixing with humans can make them stronger

[Michsi]

Yeah , this would stongly go against their "strong and fit " image . The future of the strongest race of warrios would have looked pretty bad

[Godo]

Funny, inbreeding could explain how mixing with humans can make them stronger

And how there used to be a Saiya-jin that was strong enough to become a SSJ a thousand years ago or so. So in other words, the least inbred Saiya-jin would be Vegeta. Not only is Goku a hick, but he is more inbred than Vegeta and Nappa.
And maybe that's what lower class is about in Dragonball.

[Piccolo Daimao]

And how there used to be a Saiya-jin that was strong enough to become a SSJ a thousand years ago or so.

Btw, there's actually nothing that proves there was a Super Saiyan a thousands years ago. At least, perhaps not in the "blond-hair/transformation" way that Goku and Vegeta do it, since Freeza arc Vegeta and the SSj legend seems to treat it as basically a Saiyan that has surpassed the limits of a Saiyan, with no mention of a physical change or transformation, which is why Vegeta thought that he or Goku was a Super Saiyan a number of times.

And I don't imagine Saiyans noting down every instance of a super-strong Saiyan appearing once every thousands years. Would a Saiyan even live that long? It's only a legend, after all.