Presumably if he even had a plan it was to hop it immediately afterwards, get in his pod, and leave.
Although he was so pissed off at the time he probably hadn’t actually given any thought to it. He gleefully would have blown himself up provided he also took out Kakarot in the process and therefore “won,” and the light bulb certainly would not have even flickered until the both of them were standing in front of King Yemma’s desk. With Goku getting his frequent dyer’s card punched again, just to rub it in.
The DBZA canon hits the nail on the head much more succinctly: “That’s it, everyone dies!”
At that point though, there were established points where Vegeta and Nappa were seen in space outside their pods. After their little side stop on Arlia, Vegeta blows up the planet from outside his pod. However, that’s also ginger Vegita with green and orange armor…
They certainly didn’t stay out for long. Maybe we can charitably assume he held his breath for 60 seconds. Guybrush Threepwood can make it to ten minutes!
Or maybe the pods have a local life support field when their doors are open, or something. Who knows. (Or like most writers, Akira Toriyama doesn’t quite understand space.)
Yes, given how quickly people are able to flit about the galaxy in spaceships but not even a single hand wave regarding faster than light travel seems to be made, I think it’s mostly a case of Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale, as usual. The amount of time it takes to get from one planet to another seems to be wholly dependent on how dramatic and tension building it’ll be for the most powerful dude (inevitably Goku) not to arrive in time. I assume Toriyama got so sick of it or, more precisely, sick of the nerds in his fanbase complaining at him about it that he simply decided after Namek, “Fuck it, Goku can just teleport now.”
I agree that he didn’t have a plan for 2 primary reasons: Saiyans as a whole are very bad at planning beyond the problem in front of them, and that Toriyama also planned very little of Dragon Ball ahead of time
In universe the explanation I’d give is that while Namek is bigger than Earth it still took Frieza “five minutes” for his blast to actually destroy Namek. Vegeta hadn’t even gone Super Saiyan yet. Even if his blast did connect and destroy the planet (unlikely) he would have had plenty of time to get to a space ship and fuck off
I think Frieza could’ve destroyed Namek instantly if he wanted. That was a deliberate slow destruction on his part. Vegeta is plenty strong enough at this point in the story to essentially instantly destroy Earth.
We see Vegeta and Nappa standing in their open pods out in space when they destroy that bug planet on their way to Earth, so presumably they can tolerate being out in space at least for a little while too, so maybe his “plan” was too call up his pod to his position after things blew up.
Presumably if he even had a plan it was to hop it immediately afterwards, get in his pod, and leave.
Although he was so pissed off at the time he probably hadn’t actually given any thought to it. He gleefully would have blown himself up provided he also took out Kakarot in the process and therefore “won,” and the light bulb certainly would not have even flickered until the both of them were standing in front of King Yemma’s desk. With Goku getting his frequent dyer’s card punched again, just to rub it in.
The DBZA canon hits the nail on the head much more succinctly: “That’s it, everyone dies!”
At that point though, there were established points where Vegeta and Nappa were seen in space outside their pods. After their little side stop on Arlia, Vegeta blows up the planet from outside his pod. However, that’s also ginger Vegita with green and orange armor…
They certainly didn’t stay out for long. Maybe we can charitably assume he held his breath for 60 seconds. Guybrush Threepwood can make it to ten minutes!
Or maybe the pods have a local life support field when their doors are open, or something. Who knows. (Or like most writers, Akira Toriyama doesn’t quite understand space.)
The destruction of planet Arlia is anime only (non canon to the manga), so this error was actually on the show’s writers/producers not Toriyama.
But like others say, Vegeta was full of rage and frustration so the only thing in his head was “fuck everything, better dead than defeated by Goku”.
I’ve seen a bunch of arguments…
They can hold their breath really long.
Their ki protects them.
They’re not in space, just the outer atmosphere.
But I think you’re right and the easiest explanation is that Toriyama just didn’t get space. Plot armor also helps.
Yes, given how quickly people are able to flit about the galaxy in spaceships but not even a single hand wave regarding faster than light travel seems to be made, I think it’s mostly a case of Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale, as usual. The amount of time it takes to get from one planet to another seems to be wholly dependent on how dramatic and tension building it’ll be for the most powerful dude (inevitably Goku) not to arrive in time. I assume Toriyama got so sick of it or, more precisely, sick of the nerds in his fanbase complaining at him about it that he simply decided after Namek, “Fuck it, Goku can just teleport now.”
I agree that he didn’t have a plan for 2 primary reasons: Saiyans as a whole are very bad at planning beyond the problem in front of them, and that Toriyama also planned very little of Dragon Ball ahead of time
In universe the explanation I’d give is that while Namek is bigger than Earth it still took Frieza “five minutes” for his blast to actually destroy Namek. Vegeta hadn’t even gone Super Saiyan yet. Even if his blast did connect and destroy the planet (unlikely) he would have had plenty of time to get to a space ship and fuck off
I think Frieza could’ve destroyed Namek instantly if he wanted. That was a deliberate slow destruction on his part. Vegeta is plenty strong enough at this point in the story to essentially instantly destroy Earth.
We see Vegeta and Nappa standing in their open pods out in space when they destroy that bug planet on their way to Earth, so presumably they can tolerate being out in space at least for a little while too, so maybe his “plan” was too call up his pod to his position after things blew up.