Why do people 'cap out' the humans? A long rant/essay

[Toadster]

Yet just before that happened, Dabura sensed that Vegeta, Goku, and Gohan were stronger than Piccolo, Krillin, and Kibito. Therefore, Kaioshin could obviously get a grasp of how strong Vegeta is.

Even though they'd all hidden their ki to avoid detection, and even though Dabura himself thought Pui Pui would annihilate them all.

Exactly. The whole scene was just bad writing.

[Saiga]

Exactly. The whole scene was just bad writing.

Not really. He says they have marvelous energy, which isn't necessarily battle power. You probably can't suppress energy either, which is how he can still sense them.

[Piccolo Daimao]

I think Dabra just used his magical demon powers to sense that Gokuu, Gohan and Vegeta had vast hidden power that was greater than Piccolo and Kuririn's (this hidden power being Super Saiyan), but Dabra obviously didn't know that it was a transformation of any sort and couldn't sense all of it, which is why he thought Pui-Pui could defeat them and was surprised when Gokuu became a Super Saiyan.

[Toadster]

So we have to use theories not backed by any substantial evidence to try and explain the whole situation... proof that the scene wasn't well written.

[Saiga]

So we have to use theories not backed by any substantial evidence to try and explain the whole situation... proof that the scene wasn't well written.

No... because it doesn't create any problems if you don't scrutinize it in the first place!

It's quite simple: He says they have marvellous energy. Never says anything about ki or battle power.

[mattymoron]

So, this has been bugging me for some reason. I started thinking that there should be a way to approximate how much the humans would improve training for the andorids, so I thought I'd grab my handy-dandy TI-84 and did some light calculation.

Training for the Saiyans gave the humans huge increases. Officially, we know that at least:
Krillin: 206 > 1,770 (8.59 x increase)
Yamcha: 177 > 1,480 (8.36 x increase)
Tenshinhan: 250 > 1,830 (7.32 x increase)

Let's assign Chaozu an arbitrary number that shows him increasing half as much as Tenshinhan did.
166 > 610 (3.67 x increase)

I'd always assumed that the humans got more of an increase on King Kai's planet. It makes sense that Goku increased his power twenty-fold on Kaio's world. "OVER 8,000!!! BLARGH!" makes sense because he'd go from 416 > 8,320

Ok. If the humans got a larger increase than he did, being stronger when they arrived, arriving quicker, plus sparring partners, and presumably tougher training...Let's throw 'em a 30x multiplier. Even Chaozu, because why not? So, they go from

Chaozu: 610 > 18,300
Tenshinhan: 1,830 > 54,900
Yamcha: 1,480 > 44,400

Krillin got the Elder Namek's power up, V-Jump places him at 75,000. Let's use that.
Krillin: 1,770 > 75,000


Ok, NOW. The android saga. They all get warned about the androids and train hard for three years. We'll use the increases they got from one year training for the saiyans multiplied by three and see what they get.
Chaozu: 201,483
Tenshinhan: 1,205,604
Yamcha: 1,113,552
Krillin: 1,932,750

I personally don't believe that the law of diminishing returns applies to training. The stronger they get, it seems like they would be able to do more effective training, even in the mountains, and thus maintain an even level of improvement. Now that I've completely over-analyzed this beyond any sane degree, I'm going to just assume that the humans reached roughly that level of strength.



I realize that this is ridiculous, I just have a lot of fun with power levels.

[Saiga]

Diminishing returns makes much more sense, though. Kaio's training would logically be less beneficial to people of higher power levels, and this is supported in series by Kami having nothing left to teach the humans, etc.

Also if you think they'd keep up the same level of progression, you'd have to assume the same thing for the Saiyans and as such power levels would get stupidly high really quickly (Go ahead and calculate Vegeta's power level from 3 years of 300G training, knowing that he is at least over 1,000,000 and Goku went from ~8,000 to 90,000 in 6 days of 20-100G training).

[mattymoron]

Diminishing returns makes much more sense, though. Kaio's training would logically be less beneficial to people of higher power levels, and this is supported in series by Kami having nothing left to teach the humans, etc.

Also if you think they'd keep up the same level of progression, you'd have to assume the same thing for the Saiyans and as such power levels would get stupidly high really quickly (Go ahead and calculate Vegeta's power level from 3 years of 300G training, knowing that he is at least over 1,000,000 and Goku went from ~8,000 to 90,000 in 6 days of 20-100G training).

Goku got the benefit of Zenkais, though. Doesn't one of the Daizenshuu say that Zenkais "became insignificant" after the Freeza saga? Plus, I'd put him much lower than that power level wise. His last official power level was like 250,000 from V-Jump during the fight with Freeza.

Goku got a....10.82 times increase. Multiply that by 3 = 32.46. That'd put him at 8,115,000 when the Androids show up. I think that makes pretty good sense.

[Saiga]

[quote="mattymoron"
Goku got the benefit of Zenkais, though. Doesn't one of the Daizenshuu say that Zenkais "became insignificant" after the Freeza saga? Plus, I'd put him much lower than that power level wise. His last official power level was like 250,000 from V-Jump during the fight with Freeza.

Goku got a....10.82 times increase. Multiply that by 3 = 32.46. That'd put him at 8,115,000 when the Androids show up. I think that makes pretty good sense.[/quote]

Well, the wording is ambiguous. It could just be saying that the Zenkai's weren't enough to make a difference in their battles - you never see a character turn a battle around due to a Zenkai anymore.

That'd be 32.46 in 6 days, though. 3 years of it would be more around 5923.95 times increase. 5,923,950,000 when the androids show up.

[mattymoron]

Well, the wording is ambiguous. It could just be saying that the Zenkai's weren't enough to make a difference in their battles - you never see a character turn a battle around due to a Zenkai anymore.

That'd be 32.46 in 6 days, though. 3 years of it would be more around 5923.95 times increase. 5,923,950,000 when the androids show up.

Lol, I mean. I guess it depends on how heavily you believe Goku used Zenkai Powah as a crutch (in my case, heavily, because it allows me an excuse to give the humans much higher power levels).

[Saiga]

Lol, I mean. I guess it depends on how heavily you believe Goku used Zenkai Powah as a crutch (in my case, heavily, because it allows me an excuse to give the humans much higher power levels).

But the thing is they go back to less effective training, so it doesn't make sense for them to keep up getting such gains.

[Bussani]

Plus, I'd put him much lower than that power level wise. His last official power level was like 250,000 from V-Jump during the fight with Freeza.

That number is from before Kuririn wounds and Dende heals him. After that he was apparently stronger than Piccolo, who had been kicking Freeza's second form around a little before that. I think that's why Saiga said he must have been at least 1,000,000 at that point. Maybe even twice that.