scrape_r_rational/data/cache2/2mp1g9.md

Any good Dragon Ball Z (DBZ) rational fics?

• Author: u/jrpguru *

• URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/2mp1g9/any_good_dragon_ball_z_dbz_rational_fics/

• Score: 8

• Created: 2014-11-18T19:54:25

Post:

All a search turned up was this

I think it has a lot of potential as a rational series. Some aspects I would like to see explained.

• What is ki and how does it work? How is it that the characters can increase their ki seemingly without limit just by training it like a muscle. Goku eats a lot, but the energy he gets from eating food isn't enough to explain how he can make world shattering ki blasts.

• Immortality. There's a lot of potential here. Roshi doesn't seem to age. Dr. Gero turned himself into an un-aging android by putting his brain in a robot body. There's also a magic wish granting dragon that was created by god.

• Most of the gods in this series just seem to be long lived aliens that have special ki powers.

• An afterlife definitely exists. Only a very few people like Goku get to keep their bodies, though. The rest seem to turn into body-less spirits that may or may not be conscious.

• The power of a saiyan's child depends on the power level of the parent at the time of conception. This one is implied only, but notice how strong Goten and Trunks were as kids and how easily they became super saiyans compared to Goku, Vegeta, and Gohan.

• How did saiyans evolve with the ability to turn into giant apes under a full moon or evolve to have the potential to turn into a super saiyan at all? Maybe saiyans were originally bioweapons that were created by the Truffles, but went out of control and destroyed Truffle civilization.

• What ki techniques could be developed besides just blasting somebody with a ki beam? A multi-form technique to be in two places at once or think of a problem from two different sides at once? A ki technique to expand the processing power of the brain?

• Why are there dinosaurs and animal people on earth? Possible post-singularity or post apocalypse civilization that collapsed and by the time of the series is recovering civilization in some places.

Comments:

u/cae_jones [+6] (6 hours later)

Last time I tried it, this is what resulted (Warning: did not try very hard):

Rational Ball Z

"So you want to fight in my tournament for a foretelling? I'm flattered, but I haven't been able to update my ensemble of fighters since your father defeated them. And I don't feel very good about letting Yamcha participate a second time. Disqualifications roll over."

"Actually," Gohan said, "I just wanted to talk to Akkuman. I've already looked through Dr. Breef's science magazines, and learned that Dr. Gero's lab is near North City. I got Yajirobe to do all the detective work after that, since all this sneaking around is already putting me in hot water with my mom..."

"Akkuman? What for?" Baba didn't look like she liked where this was going.

"Dr. Gero has technology that can withstand Supersaiyans," Gohan explained, "But if Akkuman's Devil-might beam is based on the evil in the victim and doesn't concern itself with power..."

..........

"You brought me all the way out here, and he's mechanized himself? I'd better still get paid."

..........

"So, you thought you'd kill Dr. Gero before I had a chance to fight the androids?" Vegeta menaced, "Now what did I say I would do to anyone who did that?"

"... Give them a gentle pat on the back that will in no way knock them through a mountain?"

"Try again."

"... Crapbaskets."

..........

"Makankosappo!"

..........

"Thanks, Mr. Piccolo. I didn't really want to kill him, though..."

"Then you should have come up with a plan that wouldn't have made him angry."

..........

"Awe, Gohan! Why'd'ya hafta go 'n kill Dr. Gero and Vegeta? Who'm'I gonna fight now?"

"Mr. Piccolo is pretty strong..."

"AND YOU'VE BEEN FALLING BEHIND ON YOUR STUDIES!"

"But Mom,---"

"NO BUTS! YOU'RE GROUNDED, MISTER!"

"Doesn't it matter that I saved millions of lives, including our closest friends and family?"

"I'm with your mom on this one. That was very inconsiderate, Gohan."

..........

Gohan waited until Goku and ChiChi were busy trying to make a child who cared more about studying and fighting (at the same time somehow), then sneaked out and stole the dragon radar, gathered the dragonballs and asked Shenron to make everyone immortal. Babidi decided this was awesome.

u/puesyomero [+3] The Culture (19 minutes later)

well not rationalistic but a bit rational on most characters part https://www.fanfiction.net/s/4746383/1/Honor-Trip has cell go good and then mildly munchkin his biotecnologic powers. generally avoids the "for the evuls" villian motivation.

u/gabbalis [+1] (4 hours later)

Cell's sudden personality shift though... It just feels so heavy handed to me...

It looks pretty good after getting used to that though. Only took me to about chapter 3 to get over it.

u/jrpguru [+1] (4 hours later)

It sounds like a reference to kid Goku's sudden personality shift from evil to good when he hit his head on a rock.

u/cae_jones [+1] (5 hours later)

This description made me do a doubletake to see if it was actually Mr. Cell that was being linked. The premise being that Cell turns good and starts optimizing, but the trouble being that the story started out as a joke and got serious as it went on (an excellent metaphor for Dragonball as a whole), so the early chapters were heavy-handed and silly.

u/cae_jones [+3] (5 hours later)

What is ki and how does it work? How is it that the characters can increase their ki seemingly without limit just by training it like a muscle.

DBZ insists that ki cannot be reduced to numbers. Considering that battle powers were useful enough that all of Freeza's underlings, from himself down to Raditz and Appule, were equipped with scouters, there's clearly something to the measurements, and a reason that they fall apart when introduced to the Shounen Spirit™.

Goku eats a lot, but the energy he gets from eating food isn't enough to explain how he can make world shattering ki blasts.

The exaggerated power scale is the biggest WTF factor of the series. Off the top of my head, all I've got is "Clearly, the process of learning the kamehameha gives one the ability to produce antimatter instead of HCL in one's stomach.", which is a very unsatisfying explanation. It would have been nice if Dr. Gero had published the results of his research*.

Immortality. There's a lot of potential here. Roshi doesn't seem to age. Dr. Gero turned himself into an un-aging android by putting his brain in a robot body. There's also a magic wish granting dragon that was created by god.

Roshi's immortality is given two plausable explanations in the series, but if you go back to the roots, he's a Sen'nin, and traditionally, immortality is among the powers attributed to Sen'nins.

He and Umigame/Sea Turtle both state that he drank from theFountain of Youth / the Elixor of Immortality. He also claims that he lied about this just before going up against Piccolo. There's also the Immortal Phoenix, which was supposed to grant Goku immortality (except it died of food poisoning before the series began).

Most of the gods in this series just seem to be long lived aliens that have special ki powers.

And what's more, they can die and lose their job (or die and keep their job); the circumstances are not elaborated upon. (I've suggested the Mazoku / Demon Clan effect might be involved, but that doesn't account for the whole 15 generations of Kais between the Elder Kaioshin and the generation of the series.)

An afterlife definitely exists. Only a very few people like Goku get to keep their bodies, though. The rest seem to turn into body-less spirits that may or may not be conscious.

It doesn't come up often, but those spirits eventually get reincarnated (or the evil ones do, anyway; I'm not sure about those judged "good" by the afterlife bureaucracy). It's more or less a cartoonish version of the Japanese take on the Buddhist afterlife, with adjustments here and there for rule of funny.

The power of a saiyan's child depends on the power level of the parent at the time of conception. This one is implied only, but notice how strong Goten and Trunks were as kids and how easily they became super saiyans compared to Goku, Vegeta, and Gohan.

This subject always drives me nanners. It's probably intended to be the case, and Toriyama once stated that tails are recessive (but then how does Gohan have one?)... Gah! My fanon is that tails inhibit the Super Saiyan transformation, and very few saiyans lived long enough without a tail to discover this in the ancestral environment. And that the tails were probably just removed as thoroughly as Bulma could afford, but if we insist on the genetic explanation, there really need to be at least two genes involved, otherwise there should be humans with more saiyan traits.

Why are there dinosaurs and animal people on earth? Possible post-singularity or post apocalypse civilization that collapsed and by the time of the series is recovering civilization in some places.

The last time I tried this, I got stuck on "must be set in the Wheel of Time universe" at this point. This was very silly and ruined the attempt.

Maybe anthropomorphic animals are a natural consequence of the sorts of ki and magic floating around out there?

I've been trying to figure out how to do a rational DBZ ever since reading HPMoR, and have gotten stuck many times. It's easier to pick at the characters being silly than the mechanics of the world (though people have pointed out that Goku could just toss ki blasts at a turbine all day and power a city). I dunno, maybe if interet keeps up I can get around to it, but the outside view says not to get too hopeful.

* According to Dragonball Online, Gohan finally published ki research after completing his education. This covers half the explanation for how said game is possible (the other half is villains doing world-breaking things with timetravel and explosions).

u/None [+3] (5 hours later)

What is ki and how does it work? How is it that the characters can increase their ki seemingly without limit just by training it like a muscle. Goku eats a lot, but the energy he gets from eating food isn't enough to explain how he can make world shattering ki blasts.

I would really like someone to explain this to me because it pops up a lot on this sub. What is rational about rationalizing magic? Is it really so entertaining to come up with a pseudo-scientific explanation for clearly impossible phenomena?

u/jrpguru [+2] (8 hours later)

Looking at it as an outsider from the series it's magic that the writer just made up.
I look at it from the perspective of a rational person who exists in the world of the series. They would know what should be possible, but then see an impossible thing like Goku being able to output enough energy to shatter a planet. They're really there and just saw the impossible thing happen, so they have to come up with some way that it could have worked. I just find it interesting.

u/cae_jones [+2] (6 hours later)

Re: Post apocalyptic explanation.

If you dig into the minutia, there are islands formerly known as "America" and "Japan" (both of these do require acknowledging non-manga material), and Christianity and Buddhism exist (Mentioned explicitly: Namu is a devout Buddhist, and Upa wards off Draculaman by making the sign of the cross while "JESUS CHRIST!" flashes in the background). There is a one-world government, but its rule is arguably nominal outside of major cities (and the king is a talking dog for some reason). I don't remember if population figures were ever given for the world (I wouldn't be surprised; I also wouldn't be surprised if they were supposed to resemble our own around the time that the numbers were published.) There's also the calendar (the series covers the time from ~Age 760 to ~790, but unless it's been revealed in the past two years, there aren't any hints as to what started the Age calendar).

AI is also such a crapshoot that Gero tries to focus on modifying biological brains instead. Our current AI abilities seem to be approaching the capabilities of most of the robots in the series other than Androids 16 and 19 (I assume 8 has a biological brain, but I could be mistaken). If you take the Dr. Slump crossover into consideration, though, the only reason there hasn't been a singularity yet is because Turbo is nice. It's also worth pointing out that there is no indication to my knowledge that Freeza's empire made use of AI for anything other than piloting their spacecraft, yet Freeza is feared throughout most of the known universe.

u/Bowbreaker [+1] Solitary Locust (12 days later)

The power of a saiyan's child depends on the power level of the parent at the time of conception. This one is implied only, but notice how strong Goten and Trunks were as kids and how easily they became super saiyans compared to Goku, Vegeta, and Gohan.

The fact that child Trunks was able to do it earlier than alternate timeline Trunks strongly speaks for this as Vegeta was driven by alt-Trunks to train harder before fathering him. If my memory doesn't completely fail me.

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