Dragon Ball: After the End

Wiadi · Dec 29, 2018

Jirachi47 said:
*Shrug* I'll definitely drop it after this post, and your basic point makes a lot of sense.

I mean, I guess? Garenhuld has a more or less Earth Normal tech level, and Saiyans typically exercise more and are probably more generally healthy than
typical humans on Earth. I mean, my only real assumption was "Masqued Saiyans, given the same environmental conditions, act the same as humans medically speaking", and considering how common somewhat healthy 80 year olds are, and how quick Poptart seems to describe Saiyan aging at the end of life to be...
Basically, at some point, Saiyans experience a sharp aging effect that happen really really quickly, but are much more 'in prime of life' before that, and humans have a gradual decridation after a certain point.
Sometimes, the human form will be really unhealthy by the time of Saiyan super aging, and not a superior alternative. Sometimes, they will be normal healthy (but kinda frail and all to prone to various medical conditions) 80 year olds.

I hope this is an okay way to deal with topic frustration?

Okay, maybe some (made-up but functional) numbers will help. Let's say the average reasonably healthy Saiyan has a lifespan of 100 years, just for convenience's sake; the exact number isn't super important, but this one's nice & tidy. Likewise I'm just gonna pretend "percentage of healthiness" is a meaningful statistic because it's a useful simplification. Now, what you're proposing is roughly this:

50 years old - Saiyan form at 100%, human form at 80%
70 years old - Saiyan form at 100%, human form at 50%
80 years old - Saiyan form at 10%, human form at 30%
90 years old - Saiyan form at 5% (or dead?), human form at 10%
100 years old - all forms dead

What is equally plausible (and in fact more so, given evidence that elderly Saiyans do not seem to prolong their functional lives via Masque):

50 years old - Saiyan form at 100%, human form at 80%
70 years old - Saiyan form at 100%, human form at 50%
80 years old - Saiyan form at 100%, human form at 30%
90 years old - Saiyan form at 15%, human form at 10%
100 years old - all forms dead

Note how in this scenario, the human form is never more healthy than the Saiyan form, despite the Saiyan form declining much more rapidly. Does that make sense?

(before anyone objects, I would like to state once again that all of these numbers are made-up bullshit but they're useful made-up bullshit for illustrating two competing possible scenarios)

QTesseract · Dec 29, 2018

Was just rereading the story, up till dazazel fight, and two quotes stuck out to me.

PoptartProdigy said:
And given that there are no other Vegetan Sorcerers -- more on that later-"

"Focus, Dandelor," says Raditz, sounding dazed.

"-right, sorry, later, given that there are no other Vegetan Sorcerers, I was his only choice.

In retrospect, the fact that this makes him dazed is a rather blatant warning sign; I suspect we didn't pick up on this because of the incredibly distracting realization that Jaffur was a sorcerer, but it could have been figured out then by following up on this. I have a bit of an omake idea on the subject rattling around, we'll see if it ever ends up going anywhere.

PoptartProdigy said:
Sensei raises his hands all of a sudden, cutting you off mid-flow. "Whoa. Whoa. Hang on. Give me a second." He takes a deep, shuddering breath, and then lets the silence stretch for a moment.

The he locks eyes with you and says, "Kakara, thank you for telling me this. I understand that it's a big secret. I promise I won't let it get back to Lady Vegeta. You have my word on that."

And this, in retrospect, seems like a sign that he is, in fact, under some form of mental influence here. This one is in turn even more ambigous, but still interesting, and gives some perspective on just how he resisted Dandeer's control and to what extent.

Simon_Jester · Dec 29, 2018

Terrabrand said:
No, you don't agree. You are assuming- on no evidence, with some circumstantial evidence to the contrary, as Simon_Jester pointed out- that what happens is not; Human form slowly declines, eventually Saiyan plays rapid catch up to match but is always as able or better than human form.

You have offered no basis to assume there is necessarily a point in even some Saiyans lifecycles where the human masque is more able, as opposed to getting decrepit first and then the unmasqued Saiyan catching up at the very last second to that. Which is actually the more plausible assumption just from them withdrawing from human society in their old age.

You are taking it as a given that it works a certain way that we have no evidence of. There is no particular reason why it can't be 'in the last year of their life, they rapidly descend towards the human masque level of decrepit, catching up at literally the last day as they die, and never being worse'.

There are reasons Saiyan form would necessarily be better at certain ages. There are not reasons for human form to necessarily be better at certain ages, only broadly plausible ones that may or may not be true.

I mean, I can think of like ONE exception to this rule where it might make sense to stay in human form, and that's if one contracts a saiyan-specific disease that a senzu bean can't cure (or when there is no senzu to be had).

On the other hand, given that we know mages can Seal away injuries (Dandeer has healing abilities), doing the same to diseases probably isn't that hard.

QTesseract said:
Was just rereading the story, up till dazazel fight, and two quotes stuck out to me.

In retrospect, the fact that this makes him dazed is a rather blatant warning sign; I suspect we didn't pick up on this because of the incredibly distracting realization that Jaffur was a sorcerer, but it could have been figured out then by following up on this. I have a bit of an omake idea on the subject rattling around, we'll see if it ever ends up going anywhere.

And this, in retrospect, seems like a sign that he is, in fact, under some form of mental influence here. This one is in turn even more ambigous, but still interesting, and gives some perspective on just how he resisted Dandeer's control and to what extent.

Huh. Yeah, those would be good omakes and if you want to bat things back and forth with me to accelerate things I'd be happy to help.

Then again, the tragedy is that it's entirely possible Dandelor DID tell Kakara at some past point, and the spell took effect and wiped her memory of it. Knowing Poptart, they'd have just rolled that behind the scenes and not told us a thing about it.

I have my own omake idea, not worked on- a parallel universe in which Dandeer seals her fate by being slightly smarter and more cautious than in the canon timeline, causing her to become horribly vulnerable to blind luck due to the nature of our original plan.

Terrabrand · Dec 29, 2018

Simon_Jester said:
I mean, I can think of like ONE exception to this rule where it might make sense to stay in human form, and that's if one contracts a saiyan-specific disease that a senzu bean can't cure (or when there is no senzu to be had).

On the other hand, given that we know mages can Seal away injuries (Dandeer has healing abilities), doing the same to diseases probably isn't that hard.

I mean, that's fair, but as you yourself point out it's not remotely guaranteed that it'd be the only or even best answer to such concerns.

veekie · Dec 30, 2018

Wiadi said:
Okay, maybe some (made-up but functional) numbers will help. Let's say the average reasonably healthy Saiyan has a lifespan of 100 years, just for convenience's sake; the exact number isn't super important, but this one's nice & tidy. Likewise I'm just gonna pretend "percentage of healthiness" is a meaningful statistic because it's a useful simplification. Now, what you're proposing is roughly this:

50 years old - Saiyan form at 100%, human form at 80%
70 years old - Saiyan form at 100%, human form at 50%
80 years old - Saiyan form at 10%, human form at 30%
90 years old - Saiyan form at 5% (or dead?), human form at 10%
100 years old - all forms dead

What is equally plausible (and in fact more so, given evidence that elderly Saiyans do not seem to prolong their functional lives via Masque):

50 years old - Saiyan form at 100%, human form at 80%
70 years old - Saiyan form at 100%, human form at 50%
80 years old - Saiyan form at 100%, human form at 30%
90 years old - Saiyan form at 15%, human form at 10%
100 years old - all forms dead

Note how in this scenario, the human form is never more healthy than the Saiyan form, despite the Saiyan form declining much more rapidly. Does that make sense?

(before anyone objects, I would like to state once again that all of these numbers are made-up bullshit but they're useful made-up bullshit for illustrating two competing possible scenarios)

Gotta keep in mind that they have more Power Level available with the Masque off, so even if the Saiyan form's terminal decline is worse than the human form's they still FEEL better as a Saiyan.
That said this sort of aging isn't unusual for a lot of solitary predators. They're biologically like fighter jets, incredible performance, but everything is so optimized and hyper efficient that any one part failing leads to the whole thing failing explosively.

PoptartProdigy · Dec 30, 2018

The last year of aging for the saiyan works like this, in relation to the Masque: the Masque always reflects what the person would look like, were they aging as a human. During the last year or so of their life, the saiyan side spends its time catching up to that. That's not what it's actually doing, but it's what it looks like to an observer. The point where it catches up to the Masque is when they die of old age. Thus, at any point up to the time when it no longer matters, the saiyan form is always, no matter how degraded, at least slightly less decrepit than the human form.

KnightDisciple · Dec 30, 2018

All of those calculations assume Saiyans live exactly as long as humans, instead of living a couple decades longer on average. If a Saiyan can live until they're 110, 120 before crashing down and dying at 125, sealing away the Saiyan part of the Exile (aka the part keeping them from likely being dead anyway) does them no good.

HoratioVonBecker · Dec 31, 2018

PoptartProdigy said:
You are entirely unsure what, "strong enough not to have to worry about the Enemy chasing you," looks like, given that apparently even Zeno credits the Enemy as a serious threat, but you strongly suspect that it looks like, "quest victory condition."

Ah. What part of going through Hell is a more effective barrier than Super-tier power level?

PoptartProdigy said:
and all of them have various excellent reasons to bend heavens and earth in order to avoid the information reaching Kakara specifically.

That's both fascinating and hilarious.
I don't have a Spacebattles account, though, mainly because the SB rules are a royal pain to read. Can you just talk about how the afterlife works for sapient machines?

QTesseract said:
In retrospect, the fact that this makes him dazed is a rather blatant warning sign; I suspect we didn't pick up on this because of the incredibly distracting realization that Jaffur was a sorcerer, but it could have been figured out then by following up on this. I have a bit of an omake idea on the subject rattling around, we'll see if it ever ends up going anywhere.

I think I may have noticed it, but I was offline and couldn't add it to the quote box for later review. I also don't think that's the only thing that seemed weird and hadn't been addressed.
(The really sad thing is that that may have included Yammar's behavior.)

Simon_Jester said:
Then again, the tragedy is that it's entirely possible Dandelor DID tell Kakara at some past point, and the spell took effect and wiped her memory of it. Knowing Poptart, they'd have just rolled that behind the scenes and not told us a thing about it.

Oh, I'm nearly certain that's what the 'more on that later' scene was. A very elegant way of editing out a conversational pause, I must say.

Simon_Jester said:
I have my own omake idea, not worked on- a parallel universe in which Dandeer seals her fate by being slightly smarter and more cautious than in the canon timeline, causing her to become horribly vulnerable to blind luck due to the nature of our original plan.

Okay, I'm very curious.

Simon_Jester · Dec 31, 2018

HoratioVonBecker said:
Ah. What part of going through Hell is a more effective barrier than Super-tier power level?

I can think of several reasons.

1) Yemma has control of Hell. Perhaps the space within Hell can be controlled by Yemma or his duly appointed successor. Thus, Hell might be a much more hostile environment to an enemy of the gods than to someone the gods are neutral towards. For instance, maybe space within Hell can be dilated to make it infinitely large, so that the Enemy cannot escape.

2) Related to (1), perhaps the gods have created some kind of trap within Hell that they think even the Enemy can't bust his way out of. For instance, we have reason to think that Hell has very few exits, and maybe those exits can be destroyed in such a way that the Enemy would be trapped there. They WANT him to go to Hell, but he's smart enough not to take the bait.

3) Maybe there's some kind of really nasty thing in Hell, worse than anything we've ever heard of, that the gods can unseal if they really want to, and which they think it might be worth siccing on the Enemy. Maybe it exists in a rock-paper-scissors situation with respect to Zen-O and the Enemy: "Zen-O can seal That One Thing, That One Thing can beat the Enemy, and the Enemy can somehow overthrow Zen-O." See (2).

4) Maybe there's something about Hell that would neutralize the Enemy's powers, making him easy (or at least less difficult) to defeat. Again, see (2).

There may be other explanations, but basically, it may well be that the reason Hell is viewed as an acceptable 'filter' to put up against incursions into Heaven by the Enemy isn't just because the occupants of Hell could beat him up by themselves.

I don't have a Spacebattles account, though, mainly because the SB rules are a royal pain to read. Can you just talk about how the afterlife works for sapient machines?

Has Kakara ever seen a sapient machine in the afterlife? Has she ever, on-screen, asked any of the gods about how the afterlife works for sapient machines? If yes, then that's your answer. If not, then Poptart will most probably reply "Kakara doesn't know."

HoratioVonBecker · Dec 31, 2018

Simon_Jester said:
Has Kakara ever seen a sapient machine in the afterlife? Has she ever, on-screen, asked any of the gods about how the afterlife works for sapient machines? If yes, then that's your answer. If not, then Poptart will most probably reply "Kakara doesn't know."

Thing is, it's not a matter of tactical advantage. (It's a matter of strategic goals, and not terribly high-urgency ones.)
It's also a matter of writing decisions. If there isn't an afterlife for some-but-not-all sophonts, that's deeply unfair, and choosing to build that into your cosmology says something about you as a writer.

Simon_Jester · Dec 31, 2018

HoratioVonBecker said:
Thing is, it's not a matter of tactical advantage. (It's a matter of strategic goals, and not terribly high-urgency ones.)

That doesn't mean Poptart is going to suddenly start breaking their rule about sharing information that Kakara doesn't have.

It's also a matter of writing decisions. If there isn't an afterlife for some-but-not-all sophonts, that's deeply unfair, and choosing to build that into your cosmology says something about you as a writer.

Yes, but in this case it probably says more about Akira Toriyama than it does about Poptart.

PoptartProdigy · Dec 31, 2018

HoratioVonBecker said:
Ah. What part of going through Hell is a more effective barrier than Super-tier power level?

Super-tier, by all evidence, would not be nearly enough. But you don't know what in particular about He'll makes it a good filter.

HoratioVonBecker said:
That's both fascinating and hilarious.
I don't have a Spacebattles account, though, mainly because the SB rules are a royal pain to read. Can you just talk about how the afterlife works for sapient machines?

According to the history as Kakara knows it, sapient machines don't have souls, and thus just...cease. This would be one reason why the Exiles have never, ever tried their own android projects; they consider it a massive breach of ethics to knowingly create something which would simply be annihilated on death, instead of going to the Other World.

ilbgar123 · Dec 31, 2018

I could have sworn 16 ended up in Heaven, but that might just have been TFS. Besides, it's entirely possible that a) Gero was just that bullshit, b) some element of being based off of Gero's son caused him to inherit a piece of said son's soul, or some of both, and the average (actual) android would not go anywhere.

KnightDisciple · Dec 31, 2018

ilbgar123 said:
I could have sworn 16 ended up in Heaven, but that might just have been TFS. Besides, it's entirely possible that a) Gero was just that bullshit, b) some element of being based off of Gero's son caused him to inherit a piece of said son's soul, or some of both, and the average (actual) android would not go anywhere.

As I understand it, that's definitely a TFS thing.

Also remember that 17 & 18/Lapis & Lazuli were modified humans.

ilbgar123 · Dec 31, 2018

KnightDisciple said:
As I understand it, that's definitely a TFS thing.

Also remember that 17 & 18/Lapis & Lazuli were modified humans.

Yes, that's what the 'actual' was for.

HoratioVonBecker · Dec 31, 2018

PoptartProdigy said:
According to the history as Kakara knows it, sapient machines don't have souls, and just just...cease. This would be one reason why the Exiles have never, ever tried their own android projects; they consider it a massive breach of ethics to knowingly create something which would simply be annihilated on death, instead of going to the Other World.

Have they tried anything else with Artificial Ki?

PoptartProdigy · Dec 31, 2018

HoratioVonBecker said:
Have they tried anything else with Artificial Ki?

Nope.

Simon_Jester · Jan 1, 2019

Also, 17 and 18 never died, so we have no idea what happens to them in the afterlife, even IF that told us anything about what would happen to a purely mechanical being (and I'm not saying it would).

HoratioVonBecker said:
Have they tried anything else with Artificial Ki?

They have plenty of natural ki, and artificial ki and Infinite Energy Reactors such as were used to power 17, 18, and Cell would be one of the few things Exile society could do to threaten the royals without their knowledge. As such, I don't imagine such research would be encouraged, and in fact it might be forbidden.

HoratioVonBecker · Jan 1, 2019

Simon_Jester said:
Infinite Energy Reactors

Is that something from the anime? (On the other hand, I don't remember 17 and 18 being impossible to sense - I vaguely recall 19 and 20 being hard to search for, but not 17 and 18.)

QTesseract · Jan 1, 2019

HoratioVonBecker said:
Is that something from the anime? (On the other hand, I don't remember 17 and 18 being impossible to sense - I vaguely recall 19 and 20 being hard to search for, but not 17 and 18.)

The infinite energy? It's in the manga too. IIRC Plot relevant several times, although the only one I remember off the top of my head was in the ToP

Then being unsensable? It's a plot point. It's (one of the reasons) why Piccolo vs 17 was so important, because cell could sense Piccolo going all out against an opponent he couldn't sense, which lead him right to the androids. It also comes up again after tien intervenes against semi-perfect cell, since it means he can't track down 16 or 18 by their energy and is slowed down enough for vegeta and trunks to arrive.

Simon_Jester · Jan 2, 2019

HoratioVonBecker said:
Is that something from the anime?

Either way, it's the name for "that thing that Androids 16-18 use as a power plant." Being powered by Infinite Energy Reactors doesn't automatically make you undetectable to ki sense (e.g. Cell has visible ki), but it does grant seemingly unlimited stamina and ability to continue using one's energy, enabling one to wear down a roughly equally powerful opponent over time (e.g. the fight between Piccolo and Android 17).

The operational point here being that IER-powered androids can in fact be made strong enough to oppose super-saiyans, and in principle can be mass-produced. Given how strongly Garenhulder Exile society revolves around the royals' unquestioned monopoly on power levels above the tends of millions, they would probably tend to discourage such developments.

ilbgar123 · Jan 2, 2019

Well, I'm fairly certain that 17 and 18 are only about as strong as the base Saiyan cap, so mass-producing drones of that level of power shouldn't be overly problematic. Though you'd have to work really hard on getting a VI that was decent at combat at the level multiple million PL beings fight at without approaching the sort of complexity that would make a proper AI.

Simon_Jester · Jan 2, 2019

ilbgar123 said:
Well, I'm fairly certain that 17 and 18 are only about as strong as the base Saiyan cap...

Uh, you mean power levels of 15 million? Definitely not. "Basic" super-saiyans could not defeat 17 and 18, as 18 demonstrated against Vegeta (ARMBREAK), and as Future 17 and 18 demonstrated against Gohan and Trunks in Future Trunks' original timeline.

Since we don't have any reason to think 17 and 18 were more skilled fighters than Vegeta or adult Gohan... In terms of this setting, this means that 17 and 18 must have been created with power levels greater than those of basic-form super-saiyans. That is, somewhere between 150 million (about the lowest possible for a 'basic' super-saiyan) and 215 million (the highest possible). My own benchmark estimate is that they had power levels of around 250 milion, but the number could be higher than that.

What this game calls the "Ascended" super-saiyan state (the one attained by Vegeta in the time chamber that enabled him to outmatch Semi-Perfect Cell) is a much stronger state, and "Full Power" super-saiyan is even stronger, dramatically so.

Now to be fair, if an android has a power level of 250-300 million, they're probably not a decisive threat to a full-power super-saiyan normally... but the combination of undetectable ki, enough power to be able to strike hard enough to seriously injure an FPSS whose guard is down or who hasn't transformed, and the ability to be mass-produced is a nasty one.

Enough, again, to motivate a ban on research into the technology.

ilbgar123 · Jan 2, 2019

Hm, I'm not sure the first fight between the Androids and the SSJ1s had the latter at their caps. I mean, my estimation of 4th Form Frieza's full power is at less than 10 million, who SSJ1 Goku struggled against, while Trunks one-shot him but was weaker than the Androids, and they weren't exactly doing well before the Hyperbolic Time Chamber training sessions, which explicitly did not unlock SSJ2, so 20 million or so seemed a reasonable estimate, which is not impossible to overcome with skill. Especially since it makes a reasonable amount of sense for Imperfect Cell (just prior to absorbing them) to be stronger than 17 and 18 by a fairly small margin, hence absorbing them being such a major boost. My estimation of that instance was 20 million (Imperfect Cell) and 17-19 million for the other two. If Vegeta was hovering at 40 million or so, then his skill bonus (as Cell mostly just ate everyone and didn't bother with actual training) would have let him trounce someone slightly weaker than him, but someone with an extra 15 million~ and a healing factor would in turn trounce him. That's at least 2 +10s to Cells rolls with this system.

Deathbybunnies · Jan 2, 2019

ilbgar123 said:
Hm, I'm not sure the first fight between the Androids and the SSJ1s had the latter at their caps. I mean, my estimation of 4th Form Frieza's full power is at less than 10 million, who SSJ1 Goku struggled against, while Trunks one-shot him but was weaker than the Androids, and they weren't exactly doing well before the Hyperbolic Time Chamber training sessions, which explicitly did not unlock SSJ2, so 20 million or so seemed a reasonable estimate, which is not impossible to overcome with skill. Especially since it makes a reasonable amount of sense for Imperfect Cell (just prior to absorbing them) to be stronger than 17 and 18 by a fairly small margin, hence absorbing them being such a major boost. My estimation of that instance was 20 million (Imperfect Cell) and 17-19 million for the other two. If Vegeta was hovering at 40 million or so, then his skill bonus (as Cell mostly just ate everyone and didn't bother with actual training) would have let him trounce someone slightly weaker than him, but someone with an extra 15 million~ and a healing factor would in turn trounce him. That's at least 2 +10s to Cells rolls with this system.

You're explicitly incorrect for this quest then - the SSJ1 PL boost has a minimum of 145 million, which it cannot go below. (The first post goes into more detail, but suffice to say that the boosts are additive rather than multiplicative for this quest, for ease of use.)

Dragon Ball: After the End

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Biribiri

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the Ordainer

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Lawful Evil

Love God. Do Right. Fear No Man.

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Lawful Evil

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Biribiri

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