What is "Ki?"
In this RP, "Ki" is not what you remember from the show. In the show, it was "energy." But energy isn't what you see in the show according to science. Energy is heat caused by rapidly moving molecules. And therefore, "energy" as you know it is physically unable to translate to power as it's not a fuel source for a humanoid body. Heat, by itself, is actually dangerous to the body. When your temperature rises too much, you die. Saiyans are no exception to this rule.
So what is "Ki" in this RP?
Put simply, it's a method of controlling one's electrical potential, and harnessing it for the creation (and control) of plasma.
When you watch DBZ, watch the first battle between Goku's allies and Nappa, Vegeta, and the Saibamen. When Nappa powers up, notice the electricity around his body. He's controlling his electrical potential. As he does this, the air around him is exposed to tiny bursts of electrical energy. This electrical energy which circulates around the body generates a lot of heat which warms the air until it hits a temperature threshold and causes a reaction which changes the air into plasma.
Plasma is a state of matter separate from solids, liquids, and gases. It's not a solid, but it's not a liquid or gas either. It can be touched and physically pushed, and in turn be stopped or pushed by other forces like another plasma blast or even the body, such as when Goku or others hold an opposing Ki blast in their hands or punch/kick it away.
In order to spark the generation of an electrical field around the body capable of igniting the air like this, it requires the expenditure of an enormous amount of energy which is why powering up can cause fatigue the more often it's done and the further you push into your power reserves. This explains why, when you power up frequently, you become fatigued and, if you don't take rests, it can lead to health complications.
The denser the plasma you create and harness, the more devastating and volatile it becomes which is why explosions get bigger as more energy is pushed into it by pushing your control over your electrical potential to the limit.
So what's your "power level" in this RP? Well, it's not your "energy" output or some number measuring how "strong" you are. What it's measuring is the plasma density and translating it into a "destructive potential" reading. The higher the reading, the more dangerous the plasma.
As such, your "power level" isn't strength on its own. But, in the case of the Saiyans and other races which can harness their electrical potential, it does have an effect on the body.
The Swelling Effect
The Swelling Effect is a two-fold biological reaction to the presence of plasma once it's been generated by the body utilizing its electrical potential.
The first thing to happen is a neuro-chemical reaction where the brain releases a hormone that travels through the spinal fluid into the rest of the body. In response to this, the body reacts with a bio-chemical reaction by causing the muscles and soft tissues of the body to swell and become both more rigid and more dense.
Remember when Goku used Kaioken x3 against Vegeta and his muscles enlarged?
Well, that's the Swelling Effect in action.
The Swelling Effect reacts dynamically to how far the Saiyan pushes their limits with their electrical potential. The stronger the plasma they generate, the greater the Swelling Effect. And as the Swelling Effect becomes more potent, the body's muscle and soft tissue rigidity results in the body becoming both "stronger" and "tougher." This means the body becomes more resilient to damage and also can yield greater damage potential when attacking.
However, the Swelling Effect is just as much a detriment as a help depending on how far you push it. Take Trunks vs Cell as the example. Trunks pushes his electrical potential to the limit and his body swelled dramatically. As a result, he became slower despite his strength increase.
So how do you prevent that? Acclimation.
As the body experiences greater limit breaking instances, it acclimates to the levels of electrical potential produced and as a result the Swelling Effect's actual "swelling" is reduced while the body maintains its density and rigidity increases. So the more you transform into a Super Saiyan, the less your muscles swell in response to the transformation taking place. And thus the faster and tougher you are while maintaining optimum efficiency.
So how "strong" do you become? Despite muscle and soft tissue density and rigidity increases, the strength increases are not nearly as impressive as in the show. If your character was able to bench press 200 lbs, for instance, then becomes a Super Saiyan, they could probably bench press around 1 ton. Sizeable increase. But not nearly DBZ show levels where they literally pick up and throw mountains. That's just not realistic.
In this RP, increasing your "power level" (Plasma Density Potential) does not make you superman.
So, how far above your enemy's power level do you have to be in order for your body to take little to no damage?
If your power level is roughly 4x greater than your enemy's, the damage from their blows will be lessened, but still felt and capable of doing some kind of damage. When it reaches 8x-10x your enemy's power level, the damage they can deal physically is greatly minimized to the point where they feel like little more than slaps. And if your power is 15x your enemy's or higher, their blows do next to nothing at all.
And thus, we come to a major point in this RP that I am going to ask you about if you request to join, so memorize this: Skill is more important than "power level" in this RP so long as the difference is roughly 4x or less.
However, this is not an excuse to God-Mode your character to victory over enemies much more powerful than your own. I'm not going to throw amateurs at your character, and your character is most certainly not going to be any kind of Bruce Lee or Goku capable of willing their way to victory or getting lucky with longshot after longshot working in their favor.
Believe me, I'll monitor that crap.
So again: Skill is more important than "power level" in this RP if the difference in power is 4x or less.
Power Scaling
Power Levels in this RP, as stated before, are a measurement of the destructive potential of your Ki. So how far does that go?
If your power level is only 20,000, you're not going to be a planet destroyer. A strong blast at 20,000 can, however, punch a small hole about the diameter of the blast itself through a mountain (maybe about halfway through before the plasma loses its heat and volatility as it encounters more surface area to expend its energy on, and fizzles out.
If your power is 250,000, you could blast the mountain in half.
If your power is 1 million, you could level the mountain outright.
If your power is 10 million, you can blast off a nice chunk of a planet's surface, around the same amount as about 4 or 5 nukes going off at once. So several miles worth of damage.
If your power is 50 million, you can probably blast the planet in half, or at least take off a good 1/3 of it.
And if your power exceeds about 100 million, you can most certainly destroy the planet outright.
The Genetic Limiter
A Saiyan's body has a threshold for how much electric potential it's capable of harnessing. And that threshold fluctuates throughout their lives based on their lifestyle. If they're in the interstellar military system, they usually have a higher threshold than someone with an office job and a more relaxed life style.
Eventually, every Saiyan reaches a point where this threshold for electrical potential reaches a ceiling that slows it down tremendously.
For example, one Saiyan in the military who is in their early 20's has a Plasma Density Potential (power level, for all intents and purposes) measured at 20,000. They undergo a huge battle and a near-death state, and once they recover from their injuries their body's threshold increases to 28,000. A Saiyan in their late 30's to early 40's has a power of 20,000, but has hit their Genetic Limit. They undergo the exact same battle situation and near-death state, recover, but their power only rises to 20,230. Growth, but not a lot of it.
The time when this hits each Saiyan is different for every individual. Some Saiyans get it in their mid-late 30's, some at 40+, and some incredibly rare instances reach their Genetic Limit in their teens.
But there's good news...
Breaking Barriers
When facing overwhelming odds, a Saiyan's body is capable of breaking through their Genetic Limiter if the right conditions are met. And they are as follows:
A) They must experience anger, as it's a very specific chemical reaction that's critical to this process
B) They must become desperate to overcome the challenge (desperation, aka the fight or flight response which triggers the release of adrenaline, is another chemical reaction that's critical)
C) They must not lose themselves to despair (despair is another reaction which can muddy/kill the process)
D) They must trigger the release of plasma (aka, power up) and trigger the Swelling Effect
E) They must force themselves to power up beyond their original maximum power level (a very dangerous venture for reasons to be explained very soon)
If all five conditions are met, the Saiyan's body responds by triggering a hormone (temporarily) which tears down the wall and causes the threshold spike and the body can then reach a higher level of power.
But this is a dangerous process. When the body reaches this point where the threshold slows down, sudden spikes like this can cause undo stress on the body leading to varying degrees of damage. Typically, the damage scales with the magnitude of the threshold spike. The greater the spike, the greater the damage. This isn't always the case, however. There are instances where great power spikes are handled well by the body. But it's a rare occurrence. And even when it does respond well, there's usually some damage like minor muscle tears which will be sore for a couple days.
However, now that their body has expanded the threshold again, they now have access to greater stores of power. But, within the next few days, their "wall" will start coming back.
This will ensure that our transformations become the crux of our ability to take on more powerful enemies as we progress. Our base forms will slowly stop making significant power gains, and we'll rely on the Ozaru, SS, SS2, etc to do most of the work.
