Dragon Ball Ireland wrote: Fri Aug 23, 2024 6:24 pm
Somehow no one seemed to know about them other than North Kaio before GT started, but Kami and by extension Piccolo when they fused should have known.
There's so much unexplained about the Black Star Dragon Balls though:
- Why were a set of Dragon Ball's with the power to destroy an entire planet created?
- Why were they not destroyed with this piece of information in mind? (I'd counter the "failed prototype" theory with this)
- Hell, if they were so dangerous why leave them in a place a Team Rocket-style villain trio like the Pilaf gang could find?
- Why does the planet blow up after a year, and why wasn't the year reset when they were all gathered? Why did the previous time limit still supply after Baby's wish?
- Why not store them away somewhere no one else could ever find them?
- Why were our heroes never warned about them when they were so easy to find?
So many questions, so little answers but has anyone ever heard any good explanations for them?
I'll try and take a stab at rationalizing solutions to these problems. Some of these solutions get in the way of each other, prompting new problems and new solutions.
Firstly I forget: do we get confirmation that Piccolo didn't know about these? If we don't get that confirmation, then I'd say it's possible that he did remember but never brought them up, given what happens if they're used. If we do get that confirmation, then I'd say that he's forgotten things before (his name, his alien heritage), so he could have forgotten other things too. This doesn't work super well given that the things he's stated to have forgotten in the manga were very early biographical details, while his making Dragon Balls as God's apprentice is much more recent and surrounded by other details he remembers vividly. Maybe the previous God wiped his memory of those because he didn't quite trust the Nameless Namekian yet, after confiscating and hiding them. Can he do that? Why not!
As for the bullet points:
- I can think of two possibilities: that's a side effect of their being so powerful, or it's a side effect of the Nameless Namekian still harboring evil inside of him (and thus may have either been a deliberate monkey's paw thing, or a subconscious thing). It could even be both.
- If there was a deliberateness to this monkey's paw aspect, maybe they were kept safe from destruction. Alternatively, and especially given the hypothesis that the previous God confiscated them and hid them away in the first place, maybe they were too powerful to be destroyed (at least by anyone on Earth).
- God's temple isn't a place just anyone is able to reach.* The temple in general is probably the safest place on the planet. That's probably why they also weren't hidden even better, or really mentioned at all.
- I've always assumed it was less their return within a year's time that prevents the planet's destruction, and more their presence on the planet at the one year anniversary of their use. If they're gone again, then their prior return is moot. Maybe they themselves give off a certain sort of radiation or energy that neutralizes another kind of energy that causes the planet to blow up after a full rotation around the sun.
*: Though that then gives us the problem of how Bulma, Boo, and later Pilaf, were able to get there at all. In Bulma's case you could say the vacancy of God's position meant some barrier was inactive, or there was nobody to repel possible visitors. In Boo's case you could say he was too powerful to be stopped (and also a magical being of sorts). With Pilaf? Well, this leads into:
Another question worth asking, is: if only Kaio knows about them, how the hell did Pilaf even know about them to go looking at God's temple in the first place? Well, they're into some esoteric shit. They knew about the main Dragon Balls. They were able to build a radar. They knew about the rice cooker Piccolo Daimao was in. I think that's enough precedent to research and uncover forbidden knowledge and information.
But that then raises another question: who disseminated information about their existence on Earth in the first place? My first instinct is to say Piccolo Daimao himself; maybe being freed from the Nameless Namekian's body allowed him to bypass the previous God's memory erasure. But then we'd wonder why he didn't go and get those balls for himself. Granted, if he was responsible for their monkey's paw aspect, then he'd know not to use them, because he wanted to take over the world, not destroy it. But then, if he's interested in world domination, why would he make something that might destroy the planet? Maybe Piccolo Daimao, the conscious being who does evil things, isn't quite exactly the same as the evil essence inside of the Nameless Namekian; I mean, obviously he is, but I mean that maybe he wasn't enough of an actual entity so as to be able to be carrying out a conscious will, if that makes sense. The general evilness inside of the Nameless Namekian made him want to add a curse of sorts to these Dragon Balls he made, but once that evilness took on a consciousness it developed goals that decidedly were incompatible with the particular curse that his essence helped bring into the world. But then, why would he spread rumors about them in the first place if that was the case? Well, maybe he realized his goal was conquest and not absolute destruction only after spreading the rumors. Maybe his path of destruction that Mutaito put an end to was ultimately a quest to kill anyone who might have heard the rumors, and he failed to snuff out everyone who knew before they could write it down.
And either way, if Daimao was able to remember them and spread rumors about them, then Piccolo should know about them. But, again, maybe Piccolo did know but just never mentioned them because they were never relevant.
Finally, why would anyone know what would happen when they were used? Were they used before? When? Who went out and brought them back? How did they accomplish that? I got nothing for this one.
So here's my sweet fanfic that the GT writers should have somehow consulted:
- The Nameless Namekian created the Black Star Dragon Balls, and the evil inside of him made him want to put some non-specific curse on them. This curse is effectively: if they're used, they fly off planet, leaving a residual magic radiation that, after simmering for a year, causes a new spell to activate which destroys the planet. Only these Dragon Balls have their own magic radiation that naturally counters that spell.
- The previous God read the item description, said "absolutely not", and confiscated these things. Since he couldn't destroy them he hid them away, and wiped the Nameless Namekian's memory of them.
- The Nameless Namekian expels all evil from inside of him. This manifests into a conscious being, Piccolo Daimao, who now remembers the orbs and seeks to use them to destroy this planet that the previous God and his original self love so much. He begins building an army to attack the temple and grab the orbs. Information about Daimao's prior union with God, the temple and the means to reach it, and the powerful orbs, are disseminated from Daimao, to his Mazoku troops, to humans. Real comedy of errors here; some minions definitely got terminated.
- After some time, Daimao realizes he wants to rule, and there's nothing to rule if his cursed orbs do their thing. So, he wages a path of destruction to eliminate any and all knowledge of them. He (incorrectly) believes he has stamped out all traces of knowledge of the orbs by the time Mutaito seals him away.
- Piccolo never mentions them because nobody should know about them. They're too dangerous to know about.
- Pilaf, a connoisseur of esoteric information, gradually learns about all of this cursed knowledge after following breadcrumbs and going deep down the rabbit hole after Daimao fired him.
That's my stab at it. It is not perfect. I could workshop it more, but I'm out of time and hungry.
