Did Goku get lucky with the Red Ribbon Raid?

[dbzfan7]

Of course he got lucky in some cases, but I mean in the sense if the RRA figured out sooner that Goku was headed there way and he already killed Tao Pai Pai, would Goku have been killed? I remember discussing this before, and after reading an alternate fan made version of the Red Ribbon Raid, I wonder if Goku only got lucky and won.

[FoolsGil]

No. Yes Goku had the element of surprise, But at the level he was at, no traditional weaponry would have killed him, and none of the RR fighters were as strong or as fast as Master Roshi or even Tao, so no competition there either.

[Gaffer Tape]

Funnily enough, the TV version almost re-wrote it that way but then apparently forgot they had done so. At the end of the episode where Tao Pai Pai is defeated, command sees that a never-before-mentioned tracking device they secretly put on the assassin has stopped working, and they assume he's been killed. However, by the next episode they entire incident is forgotten, and they assume the arriving Goku is Tao Pai Pai. Good job!

[dbzfan7]

Funnily enough, the TV version almost re-wrote it that way but then apparently forgot they had done so. At the end of the episode where Tao Pai Pai is defeated, command sees that a never-before-mentioned tracking device they secretly put on the assassin has stopped working, and they assume he's been killed. However, by the next episode they entire incident is forgotten, and they assume the arriving Goku is Tao Pai Pai. Good job!

That is odd...possible continuity error, and just how did they plant a tracking device on Tao Pai Pai. I'd think he'd notice such a thing.

Also how would missiles affect Goku at this point. We know General Whites special gun did some damage. Though it was after Goku did a lot of fighting. Also Goku had powered up now so they probably won't hurt as much. Though I think regular guns may still sting him at least.

[Regarder]

Also how would missiles affect Goku at this point. We know General Whites special gun did some damage. Though it was after Goku did a lot of fighting. Also Goku had powered up now so they probably won't hurt as much. Though I think regular guns may still sting him at least.

Bullets don't seem to do much good in general, but explosive stuff still does damage at that point. Tao tried to kill Goku with a grenade, and it backfired, damaging him so much he had to become a cyborg.

I don't remember the Red Ribbon battle much - did Goku ever actually get hit by an explosive? Tao's grenade can't be that super special.

[dbzfan7]

Also how would missiles affect Goku at this point. We know General Whites special gun did some damage. Though it was after Goku did a lot of fighting. Also Goku had powered up now so they probably won't hurt as much. Though I think regular guns may still sting him at least.

Bullets don't seem to do much good in general, but explosive stuff still does damage at that point. Tao tried to kill Goku with a grenade, and it backfired, damaging him so much he had to become a cyborg.

I don't remember the Red Ribbon battle much - did Goku ever actually get hit by an explosive? Tao's grenade can't be that super special.

Well bullets sting, and that one gun White used was effective. Though that could be because of fatigue.

I don't think he did. Though Tao's grenade is really odd as I'd think a kamehameha has more destructive capabilities than a simple grenade, and Tao Pai Pai shrugged that off.

[Regarder]

I don't think he did. Though Tao's grenade is really odd as I'd think a kamehameha has more destructive capabilities than a simple grenade, and Tao Pai Pai shrugged that off.

It's certainly not like a real world grenade for one thing. The fact that it had small area of effect shouldn't be an issue either since that applies to the ki blasts too.

I feel comfortable saying that the explosive weapons could kill Goku at this point*. Very powerful guns can hurt him, as you mentioned (I don't know whether it was fatigue or not).

*Somewhere between there and the King Piccolo saga, Goku became too strong for any explosive weapons to hurt him. I don't think Piccolo could be stopped by any Earth weapons, given that he conquered the Earth, so this should go for Goku too. Okay, a nuke might do it.

[dbzfan7]

I don't think he did. Though Tao's grenade is really odd as I'd think a kamehameha has more destructive capabilities than a simple grenade, and Tao Pai Pai shrugged that off.

It's certainly not like a real world grenade for one thing. The fact that it had small area of effect shouldn't be an issue either since that applies to the ki blasts too.

I feel comfortable saying that the explosive weapons could kill Goku at this point*. Very powerful guns can hurt him, as you mentioned (I don't know whether it was fatigue or not).

*Somewhere between there and the King Piccolo saga, Goku became too strong for any explosive weapons to hurt him. I don't think Piccolo could be stopped by any Earth weapons, given that he conquered the Earth, so this should go for Goku too. Okay, a nuke might do it.

I find it bizarre that Grenade>Kamehameha

Well maybe some powerful missiles and definitely a nuke at that point.

Perhaps.

[Regarder]

I find it bizarre that Grenade>Kamehameha

A real grenade wouldn't be. Fictional super-grenade, yes.

[RandomGuy96]

Of course he got lucky in some cases, but I mean in the sense if the RRA figured out sooner that Goku was headed there way and he already killed Tao Pai Pai, would Goku have been killed? I remember discussing this before, and after reading an alternate fan made version of the Red Ribbon Raid, I wonder if Goku only got lucky and won.

If they had some proper equipment, they could have killed him. We see that shoulder-launched WW2-looking rocket launchers can still inflict minor damage and hurt him. Tao Paipai also demonstrates the ability to hurt Goku, and he was critically injured by a single concussion grenade to the face. If they brought in a fleet of jets/tanks/IFVs/etc. equipped with missiles, bombs, autocannons and such, Goku would have been turned into bloody chunks. However, at some time between the RRA arc and the 22nd Budokai, he became too strong for any conventional weapon to hurt him, as he had a battle power of 180 there, and battle power of 100 =~ destructive power of a battleship's main gun. I'd say that the strongest character who the conventional military could still take out (assuming they're very well coordinated) is 22nd Budokai Krillin. Anyone at or above 100 is just too strong.

A nuke could still easily kill Goku around that time, though. A nuke could kill Daimao too; the power of his strongest attack was said to on par with a small nuclear bomb in Daizenshuu 7. So maybe low double digit kilotons? Note that most modern nuclear weapons are in the hundreds of kilotons, or megatons. On the other hand, he's really fast and nukes lose a lot of power the further away you are from the epicenter, so even though a single bomb would be enough to kill him, they'd need to drop a lot on him.

[dbzfan7]

I find it bizarre that Grenade>Kamehameha

A real grenade wouldn't be. Fictional super-grenade, yes.

It seemed like an ordinary grenade. Still weird though.

[Cetra]

Goku's Kame Hame-Ha couldn't destroy Pilaf's Steel Wall so just as Tenshinhan couldn't destroy the steel door to Gero's lab so those powers are inconsistent anyway because that really shouldn't make sense.

[rereboy]

He got lucky because there was no one there like Blue or worse. If there were 5 or 10 guys there around Blue level with weird powers, Goku could have easily lost and he had absolutely no idea if there were guys like that over there or not before going there.

[TheZFighter]

I don't think knowing about Goku's impending raid would've helped them out much. All of the Red Ribbon Army's best personnel had already faced Goku and been dealt with in one way, shape or form. They had nobody left who would stand a chance against Goku.

[RandomGuy96]

I don't think knowing about Goku's impending raid would've helped them out much. All of the Red Ribbon Army's best personnel had already faced Goku and been dealt with in one way, shape or form. They had nobody left who would stand a chance against Goku.

Except guys with big guns.

[Regarder]

Goku's Kame Hame-Ha couldn't destroy Pilaf's Steel Wall so just as Tenshinhan couldn't destroy the steel door to Gero's lab so those powers are inconsistent anyway because that really shouldn't make sense.

Who says the door to Gero's was actually regular steel? He made a completely artificial being (16) who could shrug off hits from a SS, so I don't think making a tough door out of some fictional super-science material would be too difficult for him.

I don't know why people have such a hard time imagining that technology can match the Z fighters when we are shown it through the androids. Granted, general Earth tech is too pathetic by that point, but Gero is shown to be way way way way ahead of regular Earth scientists by the examples of the androids.

[Cetra]

Who says the door to Gero's was actually regular steel? He made a completely artificial being (16) who could shrug off hits from a SS, so I don't think making a tough door out of some fictional super-science material would be too difficult for him.
.

And who says it is? Lapis' and Lazuli's modifications being so effective make even less sense. You can say "Well he made that which is unbelievable so the walls are reasonable" but you can also say that both does not make any sense. Also I believe a modification of living things to be more reasonable - even if 17 and 18 are too much - while I see no reason for Gero to invent an iron that is probably as durable as Katchin as ridiculous as it seems. Also there is no reason for him to make such a protection when the rocks around the door can be destroyed easier.

[Regarder]

And who says it is? Lapis' and Lazuli's modifications being so effective make even less sense. You can say "Well he made that which is unbelievable so the walls are reasonable" but you can also say that both does not make any sense. Also I believe a modification of living things to be more reasonable - even if 17 and 18 are too much - while I see no reason for Gero to invent an iron that is probably as durable as Katchin as ridiculous as it seems.

Sense is relative to context. It makes no sense for real world materials to be that strong, but that's because they aren't real world materials. The Saiyan armor is also ridiculously tough. Why is modifying living things to be strong easier? The benchmark for living things being super strong is ki energy, but Gero didn't just mind enslave two youths and unlock their potential for ki by scientifically working out how ki training works - no, he enslaved their wills but invented a mechanized infinite energy core to give them all of their power without ki.

Given this, it seems like he doesn't know how to generate ki or train ki at the point he enters the story, but he has worked out how to absorb it and convert it into the form of energy he works with (19 and 20), but even so it obviously isn't as strong for him using technological energy generation (18 and 17). 16 is the mechanical outer shell of 19 and 20 (but stronger) plus the infinite energy core of 18 and 17. This combination is apparently superior to either.

Really if you can buy that there is a thing called ki that acts like no real world energy and can actually form shapes and act physically like a material which emits light, which is itself energy, then buying super-metals shouldn't be too hard. Ki is already nothing like anything real - even plasma doesn't fit - so what's wrong with the even simpler concept of saying "Hey, there's this metal, and you know what that is, but this one is much stronger than any real world metal"? Seems very simple to me, unless you're stuck with the idea that because DB characters would level anything from the real world, that everything that superficially resembles something real has to act the same.

In addition, since DB fighters enforce their bodies with ki, couldn't Gero have worked out how to imbue things with non-ki energy? It would explain why 16 is more durable than 19 and 20, and it definitely explains how 17 and 18 aren't exploded into meaty chunks in a fight (it might also suggest that making them is more difficult). That or 16 in particular is made out of a rare and stronger alloy than 19 and 20. It could be a combination of inherently strong metals and energizing them. Take your pick, but technology in DB can certainly make metals as tough as ki can make flesh.

I think the real silly part is not precisely that a fictional material that can be super strong exists, but in the context of the story, that Gero is the only one to surpass the technology of an alien empire, while everything else on Earth is vastly vastly vastly behind. Gero is able to make all these leaps in development in complete isolation... except that Bulma (who is the closest) and other scientists know him very well and he's been on the front of magazines or something. Even being able to modify the twins is far out on a similar scale from the other tech of Earth. Gero is not doing so through shared research peer review, and building on previous discoveries - he truly is a genius on an unfathomable level!

Gero is spinning out all this super-tech from a box of scraps in a cave. In another series he'd be the hero.

Also there is no reason for him to make such a protection when the rocks around the door can be destroyed easier.

This is a better point. He didn't also reinforce the walls inside did he? Gero is another fictional genius who acts tactically foolish 24/7. Lots of series have super-geniuses who act this way. That's pretty iffy dunce behavior.

[Bullza]

I don't remember the Red Ribbon battle much - did Goku ever actually get hit by an explosive?

He did, one of the soldiers shot him point blank with a rocket to very little effect. Another soldier shot him right in the face with a sniper rifle too.