End of Z Yamcha

[Rocketman]

This is a very good point, and I wonder how people have missed this.
If Vegeta was stronger than Goku's 150,000,000 on Namek whilst fighting C19 and C20, why did Dr. Gero think that absorbing everyone's power but Vegeta's would give him the upper hand? Logic would tell that he could disregard Gohan's "un-angrified" power, and Krillin and Tenshinhan's low human powerlevels.
But no, he thought of absorbing the "weak" ones too.

Vegeta likes to throw lots of ki blasts.

[Godo]

This is a very good point, and I wonder how people have missed this.
If Vegeta was stronger than Goku's 150,000,000 on Namek whilst fighting C19 and C20, why did Dr. Gero think that absorbing everyone's power but Vegeta's would give him the upper hand? Logic would tell that he could disregard Gohan's "un-angrified" power, and Krillin and Tenshinhan's low human powerlevels.
But no, he thought of absorbing the "weak" ones too.

Vegeta likes to throw lots of ki blasts.

Yet, he knew about the Senzu bean, and I doubt that the Ki blast that Dr. Gero absorbed was anything near Vegeta's full power, and Dr. Gero still needed more energy.
But still you didn't respond to why he would want absorb the humans' power. Any thoughts on that?

[Dayspring]

This is a very good point, and I wonder how people have missed this.
If Vegeta was stronger than Goku's 150,000,000 on Namek whilst fighting C19 and C20, why did Dr. Gero think that absorbing everyone's power but Vegeta's would give him the upper hand? Logic would tell that he could disregard Gohan's "un-angrified" power, and Krillin and Tenshinhan's low human powerlevels.
But no, he thought of absorbing the "weak" ones too.

Vegeta likes to throw lots of ki blasts.

Yet, he knew about the Senzu bean, and I doubt that the Ki blast that Dr. Gero absorbed was anything near Vegeta's full power, and Dr. Gero still needed more energy.
But still you didn't respond to why he would want absorb the humans' power. Any thoughts on that?

Gero also decided to run when Vegeta didn't have enough energy to maintain SSJ anymore. As Vegeta pointed out, that would be the only time worth attacking. If the others were too weak to be a threat, he would have attacked.

[caejones]

[edit] Ur, Disclaimer: The part of "Fanboy" need not be played by a blind fanatic of said character. *Sits down to simplify ass-covering* [/edit]

To further clerify, I used the name "fanboy" in the generalization because I felt that using "someone else" to refer to two clearly different people/groups would be needlessly confusing.

(And as a side note, when people don't space between sentences (This applies to use of correct punctuation.And capitalization even), Jaws doesn't pause, which makes posts confusing and doesn't help the image of the author. ).
(And I tried to avoid exagerating in my summary, save the "Freeza Freeza Freeza Freeza!" bit, which was partly a reference to "F" by Maximum the Hormone. )

Ahem.

I'm going to play with math, now, after seeing some battle powers brought up here.

While Goku's power growth prior to the arrival of Raditz is kinda meh and then there's the Daizenshuu and ..... I'm going to go with something a bit more general: 100-ish to 400-ish is the improvement Gero might have observed over a period of roughly ten years. (All of those numbers are aproximations, mind, but they give Goku more credit, so eh.)

So, ten years and Goku's power quadruples.
His power increases by a factor of twenty-ish in the next year--~400 to ~8000.
That's an improvement of five-fold, over a tenth of the time--50 times more efficient than previously observed.
Let's assume that Gero assumes a similar rate of improvement. Five years roughly pass until the appearance of the Androuningen.
So if Goku's rate of improvement is about 50 times what it was after his death, let's assume the same happens after his revival: from a 20-fold improvement to 1000 or so, each year.
Five years, we can expect Goku to improve by 5000 times; that's 8000×5000, which gets us to 40,000,000. I think Gero is also aware of the insane Kaioken powerups, so he probably expects Goku's max to be in the neighborhood of 160,000,000 or so... which, oddly enough, outclasses Goku on Namek.

But let's also assume that #19 and #20 were looking for a not-powered up Goku, and for argument's sake, not at his preferred base of 5,000. That would actually imply that Yamcha was well into the range of Freeza's final formed suppressed... around 25%?

I still find that hard to accept based on what actually happens, but we know that Piccolo and Vegeta pointed out Gero's reliance on numbers as a mistake, so Yamcha was probably in the millions.

If Gero wasn't a calculations person, though, I'd go for something between the Ginyus and 1% Freeza, as there doesn't seem to be anything besides the numbers in favor of tens of millions Yamcha. (One could argue that Yamcha's Battle Power was improved by a factor of 50 at Kaio's and he'd still be in the Ginyu range. Weh. T_T )

[Bussani]

Even if they calculated the maximum possible power they thought Goku might reach, based on what they'd seen, that doesn't mean they thought he would absolutely reach that power. They saw Yamcha, he was wearing the Kame Gi, his power was way bigger than the last they'd seen from Goku, and he wasn't even fighting yet. It would definitely be a possibility from their point of view.

[Dayspring]

Gero knows:
1) That Saiyans can have BPs above 18,000.
2) That Saiyans can transform, multiplying their BPs x100.
3) That Goku can use Kaioken x4, when the safety limit is x2 (actually x10, but Gero doesn't know that). IE: the stronger Goku gets, the more kaiokens he can use.

I would figure Gero anticipated the worst: Goku attaining a BP somewhere greatly above 18,000, which could be multiplied by 10 before using an unknown amount of kaiokens.

EDIT: And that Yamcha reached, at the very least, whatever bas beyond 18,000 they guessed Goku would have.

[Rocketman]

They saw Yamcha, he was wearing the Kame Gi, his power was way bigger than the last they'd seen from Goku, and he wasn't even fighting yet.

That just means Yamcha's over 5,000.

Gero knows:
2) That Saiyans can transform, multiplying their BPs x10.

I would figure Gero anticipated the worst: Goku attaining a BP somewhere greatly above 18,000, which could be multiplied by 10 before using an unknown amount of kaiokens.

But he also knows they have to have a tail and the full Moon to transform.


Anyway, I think everybody's making a mistake by taking the King Kai training as the new baseline. Gero was following Goku, so he'd know two other things:

1. Goku died, gained enormous power, and was revived by the Dragonballs.
2. The Dragonballs can't bring him back again.

In other words, whatever that massive boost was, it's not going to happen again. That's why Gero stops monitoring Goku after the fight with Vegeta, he assumes Goku will go back to regular ol' Earth improvement.

[Super Saiyan Turlast x4]

Even if they calculated the maximum possible power they thought Goku might reach, based on what they'd seen, that doesn't mean they thought he would absolutely reach that power. They saw Yamcha, he was wearing the Kame Gi, his power was way bigger than the last they'd seen from Goku, and he wasn't even fighting yet. It would definitely be a possibility from their point of view.

They thought he was Goku through the sensors, though. I doubt the uniform was a reason. Also, as you said: He wasn't fighting yet, so his Chi was suppressed; and with that, he stil was implied to be a good source of energy. Imagine if he actually powered-up.

Once they saw him, they came to the conclusion that it was Yamcha. And if they calculated for how much power Goku "could conceivably wield", I see no reason why they wouldn't think he would reach it. That was why Gero said monitoring him when he left for namek was a moot point.

[Yamcha_krillin]

I also believe that Yamcha is very strong by the Android saga just because like everyone said Gero thought that Yamcha and the others humans would be a good energy source and that with that energy he could beat SSJ Vegeta.

If he was below a million that wouldn't be considered a good energy source IMO.

[Bussani]

That just means Yamcha's over 5,000.

Exactly.

And if they calculated for how much power Goku "could conceivably wield", I see no reason why they wouldn't think he would reach it.

They would think that he could, but it's not necessary that he would. It's the highest possible power they would be expecting, but for all they knew he could be anywhere between his strength in the Saiyan fight and that highest estimate, depending on what kind of training he did in between.

They probably didn't expect him to match their highest possible calculation, much less be so far beyond it. What I mean is, if his increase was only minor, they wouldn't be surprised. So since Yamcha was the first they came across, it was a reasonable mistake.

[caejones]

I also believe that Yamcha is very strong by the Android saga just because like everyone said Gero thought that Yamcha and the others humans would be a good energy source and that with that energy he could beat SSJ Vegeta.

If he was below a million that wouldn't be considered a good energy source IMO.

Well, Cell absorbed a bunch of supposedly average-ish humans. They added up though, didn't they?

SSJ Vegeta was weakened in his fight with #19. There were four or five non-Goku-or-Vegeta fighters to prey upon. And Gero had already taken some of Yamcha's energy when he impaled him, right? Even if Yamcha was as low as 20,000, he'd still be way more valuable than a random shmuck on the street (or Mr. Satan. ).
So I don't think Gero considering stealing Yamcha's energy proves much.

For the matter of the death-powerup being a one-time thing: Well, I suppose that could imply that Yamcha is in the 16,000-30,000 range (~5 years would roughly double Goku's power if it took 10 years or so to quadruple), but I'm not convinced Gero was looking at the low end of things; after all, he didn't seem eager to lose, or anything. And if he was counting on Goku's max being somewhere around 130,000, it gives cause to wonder what the point in calculating was, since all the androuningen are in the neighborhood of a thousand times that (#19 and #20 are up for debate).