Who were the actual original inhabitants of Planet Vegeta?

[FindKenshi]

Ah, she. No wonder everything looks so cute. Do we have art on Toriyama's design of Chilled? I want to see that Any way, even if she's Toriyama's apprentice, she could have just taken creative liberties of her own, right? And I still stand firm on the idea that knowing about that Toriyama design of a Tuffle is rated as "obscure knowledge." Toriyama himself is quite forgetful, and that's something he admits himself readily, in at least a couple interviews, right? Also, from what we know of Akira Toriyama's personality, does he strike you as the type who would step forward and tell the author "No, no. The Tuffles aren't supposed to look like that? See, I drew them this way *shows her the original sketch*. I'd find that idea a little far-fetched. Also, who's to say that they didn't agree to re-design the Tuffles, together? It's been a long time since the original production process.

All in all, we're still referring to a single scene from a single anime episode. She may be Toriyama's apprentice, but do we really know she went back and meticulously re-watched the entire series and read every bit of supplemental material to prepare for this project?

I guess if information exists out there that declares them as a separate character from the Tuffles, I'd change my position on the matter. I'm sure some future publication of some new guide somewhere down the line will include the new content from Episode of Bardock, and it may discuss the appearance of the Plantians, it may be a vague description as is historically accurate to the rest of the guides, posing a question rather than outright declaring one way or the other.

I can almost picture the entry in my head

"These creatures are the inhabitants of the ancient planet Vegeta, at that time called planet Plant. But who are they? Are these the Tuffle people who the Saiyans overwhelmed? Or are these a new people, never before known?" Then it could point out things about them like their physical traits, and point out how their healing gel reminded Bardock of the Rejuvenation fluid from the modern healing machines.

Eh, just throwing it out there. I was aware of the official appearance of the Tuffles, like you were--but even still, when I had been reading Episode of Bardock, the thought never crossed my mind that these weren't the Tuffles. The fact that they had the healing gel, seemed to fit with the theme that much of the Saiyans technology was "borrowed" from the Tuffles. In fact, that little tid bit is also of Toriyama's design, isn't it? Come to think of it, isn't the tidbit that the Tuffles were the original inhabitants of the planet also something coined by Toriyama himself? Or no? So in this case, you'd be willingly embracing one retcon over another, for if these aren't the Tuffles, then the bit about Tuffles being the original inhabitants would be invalidated.

Anyway, it's quite clear to me that you find the idea of them being Tuffles to be very far-fetched, but I feel like the points which I have made here are certainly valid, and should at least be considered. Can we really rule it out? I'd not call it a royal "fuck up" if they were. Just a re-design/re-imagining, or simply an oversight by an author who didn't know of this one little obscure factoid and a Toriyama who had long since forgotten, or had simply liked the look of these little creatures, and decided to embrace the change himself.

[TheDevilsCorpse]

Do we have art on Toriyama's design of Chilled?

Back to the topic:

Are these little guys Tsufruians? Maybe. Do I think they are? No.

Again, could Ooishi have taken creative liberties? Maybe. I think the bigger question is "Would Shueisha let her?", seeing how anal they are about the franchise. If the statements about DBO's production tells us anything about how these types of situations may be handled, all the games characters, environments, attacks, etc. have to be run by both them and Toriyama. We know he was involved with Episode of Bardock at least a enough to design the main villain, its possible that the aliens featured in the specials were ran by him as well. Even if they aren't Toriyama went on record during the JSAT manga adaptation to say that Ooishi knows a lot more about Dragon Ball than he does anymore because she is a big fan. It wouldn't be a stretch to assume she knows that the original Tsufruains were created by Toriyama. After all, they weren't a race that was just featured in one filler episode. They also appeared in Plan to Eradicate the Saiyan and GT as well, resurfacing again recently in Plan to Eradicate the Super Saiyans, which was featured on Raging Blast 2 in 2010. If she was really a fan, I'm sure she saw that animation as well....

[DNA]

Exactly, like TheDevilsCorpse said, it is very unlikely anyone would forget how the Tsufruians are supposed to look.
I do understand your theory, but you got to consider that fact too. Also like Bussani said:

It's possible that both races inhabited Planet Plant at the same time back in the past.

As a final statement, did Toriyama actually flat out said that the Tsufruians were the original inhabitants of Plant? As far as the notes go it seems to imply that both Tsufruians and Saiyans were native to Plant, but years later that was ret-conned, and apparently cemented, as the Saiyans landing on the planet and conquering it.

(Emphasis on the imply there.)

[Pieter]

Great guides! I read your guides on saiyan history and I've come to somewhat different conclusions regarding their planet. I'll share with you:

I'd say we can consider Toriyama's note canon, just like how his comments about the Afterlife can be considered canon. It doesn't appear that the note was made for any side-story. He doesn't introduce recent history, but 'ancient' Saiyan history, since he speaks of "The Saiyans of long ago" and the houses which "ancient Saiyans lived in". In the note he says that "The other race [Saiyan] has an unusually small population", which matches Raditz's description of the Saiyans: "The Saiyans were a scarce race even from the start". The note also has a picture drawn of the Ancient Saiyan dwellings on the planet. The planet has two moons. The planet is very likely the same as the Saiyan planet destroyed by Freeza, since it notes how the planet has heavy gravity, just like how Kaio describes the planet 'where the Saiyans were'. Judging from this, the Saiyans lived on planet Vegeta / Plant since ancient times.

Toriyama introduced 'Raditz', and 'Kakarot', both born on planet 'Vegeta'. Their names are a pun on vegetables, and their planet is a pun on vegetable itself. Yet in the note Toriyama introduces the 'Tsufruians', and calls the planet 'Plant' (either because he forgot how he named the planet 'Vegeta' earlier on, or because the planet has two names) . It seems likely that Toriyama introduced the Tsufruians to explain the high-tech devices the Saiyans carry. After all according to Toriyama's note on the Saiyans "every one of them seems to be a warrior." The name of the Tsufruians is a pun on Fruit. So we have two races, one named after vegetables and the other named after fruits, both living on planet Plant. Since both fruits and vegetables are plants, it seems that the planet was named after both races. That means that both races may have been native to this planet and perhaps related to each other (like humans vs neanderthalers), which helps explain how Saiyans "since ancient times [] attack numerous planets to build up wealth and goods"; with the help of Tsufruian spaceships.

Toriyama's description of Saiyans takes a turn though, because according to his notes the Saibaimen were "artificially created by Saiyan scientist(s) using bio-technology." This means that Saiyan scientists did exist (assuming it was more than one), and that not every single Saiyan was a warrior (unless the scientists were also warriors). The Saiyan scientists must have lived on the Saiyan planet, since only four Saiyans survived the planet's destruction. So they were either educated by the Tsufruian's (likely), Freeza's scientists who migrated to their planet (far-fedged) or developed their skills on their own (doesn't seem to fit Saiyan nature).

So what happened to the Tsufruian's? Looking at Toriyama's etymology he liked to name races subordinate to Freeza after products that fit inside a fridge (Freeza). We don't know if Toriyama had already made up Freeza when he wrote about the Tsufruian (do we?). But later a lot of Freeza's henchmen were named after Fruits, just like the Tsufruian's. So perhaps the Tsufruian were a race working for Freeza? It explains why Freeza has Tsufruian technology like the scouter. Perhaps the destruction of planet Plant / Vegeta didn't just cause the genocide of Saiyans, but also the Tsufruian's who were the majority of the planet's population. The Tsufruian's had worked together with the Saiyans since ancient times, supporting space-piracy, and along with the Saiyans were employed by Freeza who made use of their planet's warrior's and technology.

Would like to point to this post of mine (part of it). It may answer some of the questions.