The Saiyan Army was the military force of the Saiyans and the overarching antagonists in the Dragon Ball Z franchise. They were led by King Vegeta and served under Frieza and the Planet Trade Organization.
History[]
Toei Canon[]
Prior to being annexed by Frieza, the Saiyans fought the Tuffles in the Saiyan-Tuffle war. After a ten-year-long struggle, the Saiyans completely annihilated the Tuffles after a full moon arose, allowing them to transform into Great Apes. The Saiyans then colonized the planet and renamed it Planet Vegeta after their leader, King Vegeta.
In Age 732, the Saiyans were peacefully annexed by Frieza and conscripted into the Galactic Frieza Army. The Saiyan Army fought in hundreds of conflicts for Frieza and had a very high success record, earning his respect.
After Bardock's team of low-class Saiyans defeated the Kanassans, something even Frieza's Elites were unable to do, Frieza began to worry that the Saiyans would rebel against him and secretly plotted to kill them all. When King Vegeta learned of this, he staged an invasion of Frieza's spaceship but was killed by Frieza himself. Bardock also tried to stop Frieza but was obliterated along with Planet Vegeta and most of the Saiyan race when Frieza launched a Supernova at him.
However, several Saiyans survived, including Goku, Vegeta, Nappa, Raditz, Broly, Paragus, and Turles. Vegeta, Nappa, and Raditz continued invading planets for Frieza, not knowing that he had destroyed their planet, while Goku was sent to Earth as a baby to conquer it.
Paragus, meanwhile, built a new Planet Vegeta and began plotting his revenge against King Vegeta's family, as he had ordered the execution of Paragus's son Broly when he was a baby.
Turles also managed to escape the destruction of Planet Vegeta and founded a group of space pirates, seeking to find a planet suitable to plant the Tree of Might, which grew fruit that granted immense power to anyone who ate them.
Eventually, Goku and Vegeta became the last remaining Saiyans, along with Vegeta's younger brother, Tarble, who had been sent away from Planet Vegeta long before its destruction.
Current Canon[]
The Saiyans originated from Planet Sadala, once a peaceful world that eventually was torn apart by war and strife. Eventually one Saiyan known as Yamoshi became a Legendary Super Saiyan, later a God Super Saiyan, and became a legend among his people. However, Yamoshi eventually died and the Saiyans ended up destroying their world entirely and fleeing to another planet, Planet Plant, which they colonized and renamed Planet Vegeta in honor of their king who led the army's efforts.
Eventually the Saiyans were conscripted by the Cold Army, led by the nefarious mutant King Cold; despite the power dynamics, Cold and King Vegeta had begrudging respect for one another to a degree and relationships were peaceful between the Saiyans and their employers, who utilized their elite capacities to destroy any world that resisted their grip. During this time the Saiyans used the Full Moon to become Oozarus and take down any opponent they couldn't normally beat. However, not all Saiyans were truly evil as those of low power level or non-royal family were relegated to peasants and forced to live peaceful lives in poverty while the Elites enjoyed a life of luxury. The God of Destruction, Beerus, eventually caught wind of the Saiyans' existence and work under King Cold (who feared and respected the God of Destruction) but let them live despite their destructive ways as they destroyed planets for him and letting him avoid ever working, though he took pleasure in humiliating their King and reminding them of how superior he was to them.
The Saiyans' luck and pleasantries came to an end after King Cold resigned from the throne and passed the ownership of his empire to his son, Frieza, who was much crueler than his father; Frieza presented the Saiyans with the Scouters, a new device that his top scientist, Kikono, developed to help his soldiers gauge the power level of their foes easily and counter effectively with King Vegeta coming to loathe the new boss. Eventually desiring to overthrow Frieza after his abuse got too strong, he began to see his prodigy son, Vegeta, as the one who'd eventually achieve this. But soon he caught wind of the birth of Broly (Dragon Ball Super), a Saiyan whose power level exceeded his son's own to his jealously and anger, despite his scientists' and council's desire to use Broly as their trump card against Frieza, the King was too resentful of his son being surpassed and banished Broly to Planet Vampa, while also being terrified of Broly's potential to destroy the Saiyans as a whole with his unstable power. Broly's father, Paragus (Dragon Ball Super), was furious over his son's banishment and went to Vampa to rescue him, unwittingly bringing along Beets, a low-class Saiyan who was in the spaceship Paragus hijacked. With the threat to his son gone, King Vegeta kept the Saiyans' conquests for Frieza going, biding his time to eventually overthrow Frieza; on Vampa, Paragus killed Beets to save on resources he would have to share with Broly after their spaceship crashed and was damaged beyond repair.
However, Frieza had them beat and soon ordered all Saiyans to return to Planet Vegeta; this caused the low level soldier Bardock to suspect something was not right and sent away his son, Kakarot (later known as Goku), to Earth to remain safe. Eventually Bardock turned out to be right as his friends were slaughtered by Dodoria and soon he found out Frieza was indeed coming to destroy Planet Vegeta, however despite his defiance he failed and he was killed by Frieza's Supernova that took out Planet Vegeta and all its inhabitants.
The only Saiyans to survive were the aforementioned Kakarot who was sent to Earth; Broly and Paragus who were stranded on Vampa; Raditz, Vegeta and Nappa who were offworld in a mission as well as other two other unnamed Saiyans accompanying the latter group and finally Tarble, Vegeta's younger brother who was exiled to the far end of the Universe by King Vegeta for his weakness. With this the Saiyan Army was destroyed besides the aforementioned Vegeta and his squadron who rejoined Frieza after being made to believe that Planet Vegeta was wiped out by a stray meteor. Years later, only Vegeta, Nappa and Raditz were left with the other Saiyans' fate being unknown but presumably being killed in battle or at Vegeta's/Frieza's hand.
The last hurrah of the Saiyan army was the invasion of Earth by Raditz (looking to recruit his brother, Goku) then Nappa and Vegeta (who sought the Dragon Balls to grant themselves immortality and also rejected breeding with humans to rebuild the Saiyan race in fear of the hybrids surpassing them), the former two were slain by Piccolo and Vegeta himself, respectively; while Vegeta in turn was killed by Frieza on Namek after somewha teaming up with the Goku and his friends to fight him, before being resurrected along with the Frieza Empire's victims and reluctantly joining the heroes and performing an eventual redemption, bringing the Saiyan Army's threat to a true end.
While Paragus and Broly eventually became threats in Dragon Ball Super: Broly 40 years after the Saiyan's genocide, they no longer aligned themselves with the other deceased Saiyans, and any leftover sentiment of that loyalty ended once Paragus was slain by Frieza and Broly himself regained control of his sanity and befriended Goku, bringing the Saiyan race's future to a bright, peaceful one.
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