Were the Saiyans really that strong?

[Ultimate_Nova_X]

The highest recorded powar levul is 18000, held by the 4th Fajita you had today.

They can't ki sense, or suppress their powar levul.

They're oppressed by a non-Saiyan, some midget space pod alien, and in his weakest form he's almost 30x stronger than Fajita.

True warrior race my ass.

But no really, even the Super Saiyan legend was the direct result of that same midget alien being a vengeful worrywart and made it a self-fulfilling prophecy.

But perhaps my perception is skewed, maybe they really were that strong, because the rest of the universe is that weak in comparison. Freeza, and even his top minions like Zarbon, Dodoria, and the bootleg dairy power rangers are the exception (them being mutants? Idk, they don't seem like the type to train).

The characters we see onscreen all the time are also, top of the top exceptions.

Hell, even the ability to ki sense, it seems everyone knows it by the time Goku defeats Freeza, and it was first introduced earlier either with the intro of Tenshinhan or the intro of Kami, but it's supposedly a rare skill of the universe or something.

Do you agree? Disagree? Provide your thoughts.

[Godo]

If we split the power scale in four factions it's more clear that they are:

- Mortals (99,9% of the Universe):
Saiyans would fit here, as well as Namekians.
Compared to the general strength of the organisms in the Universe, they are true monsters.
Even with "ordinary" Saiyans, they seem to be able to take over most planets in smaller numbers.
In Freeza's scope, a battle power as high as 1,500 is significant, and around 10,000 Elite, which shows just how strong the Saiyans were (as well as Kuririn, Tenshinhan and Yamcha who are weak compared to Goku).

-Artificial beings (Few):
Cell, Buu and the Cyborgs are in this group and should not be included.

- Exceptional Mortals and mutants (Few):
Vegeta, Goku, Broly and most other strong Saiyans should be included here (up to "the end" of Z), as well as the likes of Freeza, Captain Ginyu, Tenshinhan, Kuririn and Yamcha.

- Gods (Few):
Goku and Vegeta in DBS, Kaioshin, Gods of destruction, Angels and so on.

[Yuli Ban]

I recall an interview from Toriyama that said that most Saiyans were well below Raditz, who himself was a pretty high-end warrior, especially for the lower class. Son Goku wasn't outrageously weak for a Saiyan. In fact, he'd have been pretty strong for one.

The average Saiyan is probably 10x stronger than the average human. By the standards of Freeza and gods of destruction, clearly they're fodder. But assuming most races in the Dragon Ball universe are on par with Earthling humans, Saiyans are outrageously strong as an average, where even their outcast laborers basically being juggernauts by human standards.

Let's also not forget that Saiyans' true power was that of Oozaru, so even if you were as "weak" as beginning-of-Z Son Goku, you could transform and increase your strength and destructivity ten times over, complete with reduced inhibition and a berserker tendency that makes you even more destructive.

[Magnificent Ponta]

In the broader Universal context, even 1000 BP is a huge deal (Freeza's still looking for people at least as strong as that by the time of Broly); there aren't all that many beings who can get even that far (maybe some few thousands out of all the billions who populate the Universe at large), and Freeza seems already to have something of a monopoly on them.

So to have a whole species that routinely clocks in at somewhere in the hundreds for BP even among unremarkable ("low-class") individuals, can get rapidly stronger as they fight stronger opponents, can get absurd power-ups from recovering after a heavy beating, have a transformation up their sleeves that can multiply their BP ten-fold, and are starting to birth people like Vegeta and Broly who already stand among the true elites of the Universe without really having to do anything much...yeah, I'd say the Saiyans deserve their reputation, on the whole.

The quote in the OP points out a couple of limitations, but really this seems to stop at 'they're not well-versed in some of the esoterica of ki usage' (which is apparently rare among species anyway, and isn't really their jam, so it's not all that surprising), or 'they're not Freeza, his dad, or the super tip-top dozen-ish people he has working for him' (but considering what a monstrous outlier Freeza is compared to literally everything else, that caveat doesn't really count for much).

[Ultimate_Nova_X]

Yeah, I think we generally have a pretty unanimous consensus here, not much I can add.

By the way, the quote I put in the first post is just me being tongue-in-cheek.

In the broader Universal context, even 1000 BP is a huge deal (Freeza's still looking for people at least as strong as that by the time of Broly);

I forgot about that detail actually, all I remember was Broly being higher than 99,999. And I guess his dad being 4,200.