Significant or Negligible? (#18 & ki)

[Deus ex Machina]

That brings up another point, what organ of the body is ki produced from?

I don't think it's really supposed to be produced from any particular organ. Although Chi has its roots in mystism, it does has some science behind it since all living things have some kind 'energy' to them, like our brains.

[Adamas de Diama]

In the case of science, the energy that we give off is electricity. All living things give off an electric 'aura' (many sharks and some types of fish use these auras to detect their prey).

But as for true ki, since ki means 'spirit', it can be assumed that it is rooted in the spirit. The aura is simply an extension of the spirit, sort of an overflow of it that reflects the truth of the spirit.

Now, as for the Genki Dama issue, I really really really highly doubt that Jinzouningen Juuhachigou's donation of ki to Goku's Chou Genki Dama is a legit scene, unless Toriyama were trying to show the humanity that she regained over the years (fuguratively). As far as I'm concerned, if there is a life force outside of ki, it is not very strong, and could not surpass the potential of ki. According to the folks I was debating against, the Mafuba technique and Kikoho are examples of life energy-based techniques. They assume that all life energy is taken away from the user, thus killing him. Considering that Kikoho has the word 'ki' in it, and means something like 'Spirit Blast' or 'Spirit Cannon', I find it hard to believe that it is not ki-based.

As well, the properties of the Kikoho suggest that it takes a whole chunk of ki, instead of raising the user's ki to accomodate for the loss of ki from the attack. In other words, instead of raising his powerlevel so that when he launches an attack he'll return to his original powerlevel (because the deficit equals the amount he rose his powerlevel by), he just launches an attack taking out a chunk of his spirit in the process. By directly tapping your spirit, you create a huge surge of energy, because spirit is an incalculable source. It all makes sense to me, that Kikoho is ki-based. There's no way it could be based on any sort of 'life energy' junk.

So yeah...the Genki Dama, as far as I'm concerned, is completely ki-based, as well. Considering this, Juuhachigou's donation to it is incorrect. Simply a mistake that Toriyama made, as I see it.

[James R. Cadwell]

So yeah...the Genki Dama, as far as I'm concerned, is completely ki-based, as well. Considering this, Juuhachigou's donation to it is incorrect. Simply a mistake that Toriyama made, as I see it.

Or #18 was just contributing the same amount of energy that Bulma, Chi-Chi and Videl did, since she probably has the same "ki" as any ordinary human.

[Adamas de Diama]

Yeah...that makes sense to me. What if the ki that the Jinzouningen had was actually suppressed so greatly that it was indetectable...? Maybe it's not that they have so little ki, but that they have quite a bit, but it's just so well suppressed by their mechanics.

That was just a random thought.

[James R. Cadwell]

Yeah...that makes sense to me. What if the ki that the Jinzouningen had was actually suppressed so greatly that it was indetectable...? Maybe it's not that they have so little ki, but that they have quite a bit, but it's just so well suppressed by their mechanics.

That was just a random thought.

I agree with this. As one poster suggested earlier, Dr. Gero may have specifically employed a method of surpressing the "ki" signature when he created #17 and #18, so they would be undetectable by Goku and the rest of the gang.

#18 probably had at least as much "ki" as the average human. After all -- I don't see how adding cybernetic components would somehow eliminate an intrinsic property of life.

[Zackarotto]

These are my thoughts as well... Good to know we've reached an agreement. She would have had a normal ki level, but it would be supressed. Just because it showed her donating doesn't mean that she was donating a lot... Bulma, for example.

[Adamas de Diama]

I mean...let's think about it. How in the world can Jinzouningen fend off ki-based attacks if they themselves do not emit ki? They have to have an aura to defend against ki projectiles. And launching an energy attack that matches a ki-based attack or overpowers it obviously means that that attack is based upon ki, as well. So, it's either that, or this portion of the 'ki system' is flawed.

[Dayspring]

That brings up another point, what organ of the body is ki produced from?

It's mystical in nature (ie: the person's "soul"), IMO, but if I had to guess what part I'd say it's in the cells since Cell's ki is comprised of Goku, etc, when we know he's made from their cells.

[Adamas de Diama]

His cells are comprised of Goku & Co.'s, but Cell's ki is 100% his own. Ki doesn't exist in cells, per se. Ki exists at the center of a living being, primarily. Essentially, that center is the core ki, or the spirit. It's comparable to the physical heart, in that the heart stretches out into the circulatory system, and ki stretches out into an expandable aura.

As such, ki also is distinct for every living being as well. There's no such thing as compiling portions of ki from different people and fusing it as one, per se. You can convert ki and make it your own (ala Buu), but there's no making a collage of ki to create a fusion of characters. So, Cell's ki is distinctly his own.

[Zackarotto]

True, but wasn't there moments where they could feel others in his ki? I think that while the ki is the person's own spirit, it does have properties of people, so that it's not just a certain strength level that lets you recognize ki. Just like how a Super Saiyan's ki (Trunks) was mistaken for Goku's. The Super Saiyan property affected the feel of the ki. Or something.

[Professor Daravon]

His cells are comprised of Goku & Co.'s, but Cell's ki is 100% his own.

It is true that Cell has his own ki, but under certain circumstances, he manifests the ki signatures of other characters whose cells he inherited. There's quite a big deal made of this when he first appears; he powers up a Kamehameha to throw at Piccolo, and the Z Senshi are all shocked to feel Goku's ki, since Goku was still grappling with his heart disease and was totally unconscious at the time.

I think that while the ki is the person's own spirit, it does have properties of people, so that it's not just a certain strength level that lets you recognize ki. Just like how a Super Saiyan's ki (Trunks) was mistaken for Goku's. The Super Saiyan property affected the feel of the ki. Or something.

I don't think it's so much that the Super Saiya-jin transformation caused Trunks' ki to feel like Goku's, as it is that it gave him so much extra power that they couldn't imagine who else it could possibly be. I mean, after all, the only people there who had ever felt Goku's Super Saiya-jin ki were Vegeta and Gohan. It's been a while since I watched that episode, and I don't have my DVDs handy at the moment, but IIRC, Vegeta only said that it's a Saiya-jin ki, and someone else (Kuririn?) said that it was Goku (someone correct me if I'm wrong on that). Since, at the time of the Super Saiya-jin transformation, Kuririn was still raining down over the area in tiny pieces, we know he's never felt Goku's Super Saiya-jin ki, so if SSJ does "change" the way a person's ki feels, how would he know what SSJ Goku feels like? He wouldn't.

So here's how I always understood that scene. Goku and Freeza are the two strongest people that any of them have ever encountered. So when they are confronted with a power comparable to Freeza's, but lacking the evil that Freeza and his father emanate, who else are they going to think it is? The most logical guess is, it's got to be Goku, even if it feels different. Bulma's and Vegeta's time-traveling Super Saiya-jin son who won't be born for three more years isn't really the conclusion most people would jump to right off the bat. If they even bothered to stop and consider that it felt different from the Goku they know, perhaps they would attribute it to a year spent flying around space, undergoing strenuous training. It seems to be rare for a person's ki signature to be significantly altered, but it can happen, as seen when Gohan's ki was transformed during his "Mystic" upgrade (Piccolo makes a comment about how he feels totally different from the old Gohan). So that's my two cents on what's actually just a peripheral subject. Super Saiya-jin doesn't really alter the way ki feels, the Z Senshi just mistook Trunks for Goku because they didn't know Trunks even existed.

[Zackarotto]

So where do you stand on the idea of being able to feel types of ki? Evil ki is obviously noticeable, so it's got to be more than just the strength. I thought it was Gohan who said it was Goku, which would make sense. Allthough individual characters such as Goku might have their own ki feel, Gohan might have mistaken the SSJ feel for Goku's new feel, even though a SSJ ki would consist of the evil / hero part, the SSJ part, and the character himself's personality. Well, huge power too, but that might sorta be the SSJ part. I'm not sure.

What I'm saying is that Gohan would have overlooked the individual character feel, thinking that SSJ was Goku's character, and it had just gone through massive changes because of turning SSJ, just like mystic. Even though it didn't.

Grammar question: Would it be "a SSJ" or "an SSJ"? I was thinking it depended on SSJ being implied as "Super Saiyajin" or if most people would think of it and read it as "Ess Ess Jay" like I do. So is it "an EssEssJay" or "a Super Saiyajin"?

[PsyLiam]

I always read "SSJ" as "Super Saiyan". But if someone reads it as "EssEssJay", then it would be "an", I think. Like saying "He's an SAS member".

[Zackarotto]

I guess there's no definite correct way, then? Hmm, I guess I should stop abbreviating it in my head, then. "a SSJ" it is, for now at least.

[Adamas de Diama]

My whole point was that you can't fuse ki. Saying that signatures of others' ki could be felt emanating from him just goes on to prove my statement. If you can feel the signature of others' ki, then that means that it's an assembly of ki, instead of a fusion of it. So, still, Cell's ki is 100% his own. If those ki had been fused, then there would be no signatures--it would be one mass, still constituting to Cell's 100%.

[Professor Daravon]

So where do you stand on the idea of being able to feel types of ki? Evil ki is obviously noticeable, so it's got to be more than just the strength. I thought it was Gohan who said it was Goku, which would make sense. Allthough individual characters such as Goku might have their own ki feel, Gohan might have mistaken the SSJ feel for Goku's new feel, even though a SSJ ki would consist of the evil / hero part, the SSJ part, and the character himself's personality. Well, huge power too, but that might sorta be the SSJ part. I'm not sure.

What I'm saying is that Gohan would have overlooked the individual character feel, thinking that SSJ was Goku's character, and it had just gone through massive changes because of turning SSJ, just like mystic. Even though it didn't.

I'm not saying there isn't a specific "feel" to each individual's ki. This is pretty obvious in the scene with Cell that I already mentioned in my other post. I'm just saying I don't think that Super Saiya-jin changes the feel of a person's ki. Gohan felt an unimaginably strong power that _wasn't_ evil, like Freeza and his father, and quickly assumed that it was his father, the only person he knows of who has that kind of strength and is not evil (and, for that matter, the only person with that kind of strength who has any business on Earth, which the show leads us to believe is basically out in the boonies and of no concern to mainstream space-faring civilizations). I suppose it would be comparable to glancing at a picture -- you'll get a general idea of what it is, but you have to pay closer attention to distinguish it from another, similar picture. Gohan just "glanced" at Trunks' ki and immediately thought of Goku. After all, who else could it possibly have been?

Grammar question: Would it be "a SSJ" or "an SSJ"? I was thinking it depended on SSJ being implied as "Super Saiyajin" or if most people would think of it and read it as "Ess Ess Jay" like I do. So is it "an EssEssJay" or "a Super Saiyajin"?

Well, I would say SSJ isn't really a legitimate abbreviation, it's just shorthand used by fans. What I mean is, it's not actually used in the show or manga. So as far as I'm concerned, there is no "Ess Ess Jay," there's just Super Saiya-jin, regardless of how it's written. But that's just my two cents, and I myself often read it as "Ess Ess Jay," so it's not unheard of for me to slip "an SSJ" in somewhere, although I try not to.

My whole point was that you can't fuse ki. Saying that signatures of others' ki could be felt emanating from him just goes on to prove my statement. If you can feel the signature of others' ki, then that means that it's an assembly of ki, instead of a fusion of it. So, still, Cell's ki is 100% his own. If those ki had been fused, then there would be no signatures--it would be one mass, still constituting to Cell's 100%.

Perhaps I misunderstood what you meant, then. If Cell's ki gives off the ki signatures of other fighters depending on whose technique he's using, I wouldn't call that 100% his own ki. But I believe it is stated at some point in the story that Cell has his own discernible ki as well, so I guess we don't really disagree; it was just miscommunication.