Krillin vs the Death Star

[Flickerdart]

The Death Star is a powerful terror weapon, capable of demolishing planets with a single shot from its superlaser. It is protected by a mass of TIE fighters, 15,000 Turbolaser batteries, 768 tractor beams, and energy shields. It is 160 km wide, crewed by 1.2 million people, including 342,953 Imperial Navy and Army soldiers and 25,984 Stormtroopers. The Death Star is capable of hyper- and regular-space travel. It has one weakness - an exhaust port that allows access to its reactor. A well-placed torpedo can blow up the entire thing.

Krillin is a human that has been killed by every villain in Dragonball Z. However, he is inhumanly tough due to his training and high energy level, and possesses Senzu Beans that allow him to heal. Krillin can fly, has incredible strength and speed (faster than the human eye), and can use ki-based energy attacks. His most notable abilities are Solar Flare, which blinds and disorients his foes, and Destructo Disc, which has been shown to deal major damage to even planet-buster enemies like Frieza and Buu despite taking some time to charge and being difficult to aim.

While exploring the universe, Krillin happens upon the Death Star. There is no Rebellion, and none of the Z-warriors can assist him. It's just Krillin against the Death Star! Let's assume that Krillin is flying in a Sayan space pod, but can breathe in space for a limited time if it gets blown up. He begins far enough away that the Death Star has time to scramble its TIE fighters and arm its turbolaser batteries. Can he make it close enough to the station and stay there long enough to destroy it, or will he be blown out of the sky by hella lasers?

Scenario 1: No force sensitives.

Scenario 2: Darth Vader and the Emperor are present. Darth Vader is flying his TIE Advanced, and the Emperor is waiting in front of the reactor core.

[Traab]

Right away I think we can say the death star itself is at a disadvantage. Its anti fighter ability sucks, outside of its tie fighters. Thats the whole reason the rebels won the first time. I dont think the tie fighters can kill him, though I may be wrong. So the real question is, can they destroy his ship, and can the death star survive whatever damage he can dish out until he runs out of air? Aaaand, now im picturing him breaking into the death star running willy nilly all over the place blasting holes in stuff while stormtroopers futilely try to stop him. Leaving darth vadar and the emperor the only ones with weapons likely to hurt him.

[Lentrax]

Scenario One: Krillin Dies. He gets killed over and over by TIEs, then he gets blown up by the Superlaser. He'll take out quite a few TIEs before this happens, kill a legion of spacetroopers, and amaze the Empire that a non Force user can do damage this high. But in the end he will die.

Scenario Two: Krillin Dies much sooner.

With the Force, Vader chokes him dead, then they bring him to the Emperor where he is killed over and over by Force lightning.

[Red Fel]

Here's the thing. For Krillin to win in this scenario, he would have to be able to breathe in space. That's the whole shebang.

In theory, he could attempt to board the Death Star in his pod. But while the Star's anti-fighter weaponry is rubbish, its entrance defenses are excellent; he would have to disembark his pod, blow a hole in the side, and climb in, without somehow being immediately sucked back into the vacuum of space to die.

If, in theory, Krillin could breathe in space, I'd give the victory to Krillin. He has a demonstrated ability to take on multiple fighters from multiple angles, in three dimensions (i.e. airborne) at once, including energy weapons (i.e. ki blasts), and still win. So he could handle a swarm of TIE Fighters, which are fast but weak. He has powerful attacks, particularly the kienzan (which only failed once, to my recollection, and only in the anime, because the writers wanted to show just how ridiculously overpowered Cell was), which would allow him to attack with incredible power and precision from range. In theory, assuming the famous ventilation shaft was a straight line, he could fire a ki blast directly into the core whilst easily dodging anti-spacecraft fire.

If he couldn't, it pretty much all depends on him boarding the Death Star. He's good, but he couldn't step out of his pod, fire a single blast to end the fight, then climb back in. Vegeta can fire planet-killing blasts; it's not clear that Krillin could destroy a that's-no-moon. So he'd have to get onboard. Saiyajin pods lack weapons, however, so he would have to leave the pod to board - a serious risk. If, in theory, he could board the Death Star, your proposed Scenario 1 (no Force sensitives) is a cakewalk. Stormtroopers are total mooks compared with the Strongest Human; he wouldn't even break a sweat fighting past them.

As for Scenario 2, Krillin has a demonstrated vulnerability to telekinesis. (See Guldo, Freeza, the latter of whom levitated and exploded him.) And despite being the Strongest Human, he still has the human need to breathe, and a vulnerable human windpipe. A well-placed Force Choke would end Krillin soundly. That said, some evidence suggests that Force Choke requires some degree of concentration; it's questionable whether Vader could use it in the heat of battle. And if Krillin got the jump on Vader, it would be a quick game over. Vader is tough, but slow, and ultimately much of his power comes from his cybernetics; Krillin has beaten robots, androids, and cyborgs before. Even his swordsmanship, while still good, is slower than any fighter from Z; Vader couldn't hit Krillin with the light saber to literally save his life. I'd give a Vader vs. Krillin fight to the Krillmaster.

Krillin vs. Emperor is even easier. Krillin has absolute mobility, thanks to flight and high speed, as contrasted with the decrepit, slow-moving Emperor, whose major asset is his manipulation and Force Lightning. You think Krillin can't tank an energy blast to the face? I'd give that one to Krillin, hands-down.

All this is contingent, of course, upon Krillin's ability to successfully board the Death Star. Barring that, he dies in the cold void of space.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Krillin finds the shaft he needs to fire an energy beam down to vaporize the Death Star, his attack is blocked by the ray shielding, and he's tragically fried to death by said ray shields while trying to get inside their protection.

This is assuming ray shielding works against Ki attacks, otherwise he probably wins. And the whole scenario assumes he can breathe in space for Long Enough.

[Kato]

Krillin has just one formidable enemy here: the vacuum of space. Assuming he even remotely kept up with the other Z warriors, his ki blasts at full strength should be able to take the not-moon.

If his pod gets blown up, which is hard to guess because we never saw those in a space battle, he should be able to rush at the DS if he can breathe "for a short time ". He's still pretty fast, though I'll admit cosmic distances are huge. Blowing a hole in the station should be easy, getting back to breathable atmosphere is harder. If he manages this no army of troopers can stop him.

Vader might proof slightly challenging but not much. Even if he chokes him, Krillin can still move and either pummel him or kiss blast him until he runs out of air. Of course this implies a) Vader is even able to choke someone physically far stronger and b) Vader not being able to choke and paralyze someone at the same time.

But yeah, I feel krillin doesn't fare too badly here. He might lose but he should win more often than not.

[Keltest]

Krillin has just one formidable enemy here: the vacuum of space. Assuming he even remotely kept up with the other Z warriors, his ki blasts at full strength should be able to take the not-moon.

If his pod gets blown up, which is hard to guess because we never saw those in a space battle, he should be able to rush at the DS if he can breathe "for a short time ". He's still pretty fast, though I'll admit cosmic distances are huge. Blowing a hole in the station should be easy, getting back to breathable atmosphere is harder. If he manages this no army of troopers can stop him.

Vader might proof slightly challenging but not much. Even if he chokes him, Krillin can still move and either pummel him or kiss blast him until he runs out of air. Of course this implies a) Vader is even able to choke someone physically far stronger and b) Vader not being able to choke and paralyze someone at the same time.

But yeah, I feel krillin doesn't fare too badly here. He might lose but he should win more often than not.

Point of order. Attempting to fight while being choked would almost certainly just make him pass out faster. You need a lot of air for that kind of exertion. Its also rather distracting being choked, so he may or may not even be able to muster the focus to fight back.

Darth Vader also has a reach advantage against any of Krillin's physical attacks due to his lightsaber. If Krillin holds still for any amount of time, Vader is just going to walk up to him and dismember him.

Finally, Darth Vader, like all force users, is precognitive. He knows where Krillin will be before he even starts to move. That seriously hinders his speed advantage (especially if he is suffocating) because Vader can just start moving first.

Also, if the Emperor is in the room, he can just put on a light show with force lightning, and Krillin will stare at it, politely waiting for the Emperor to take his turn, possibly wondering about the level of power he has. Meanwhile, Vader or somebody will sneak up behind him and kill him. The amount that DBZ characters know about tactics could collectively fill a thimble.

[Friv]

Honestly, I think that Krillin can get onboard the Death Star pretty easily in this scenario. If a mysterious space pod of unknown origin shows up near the Empire's greatest weapon, they are 100% going to tractor beam it into a hangar bay to find out what's up. They did with the Millenium Falcon, after all.

Once he's onboard, Krillin will be a wrecking ball. The only person who might be able to deal with him is Darth Vader, but telekinesis on humans has always been a bit wobbly in the Star Wars universe. And if Krillin launches his "disc of energy that can cut through literally anything", the question becomes "can you use the Force to deflect pure ki attacks, and can you do it fast enough to not be taken down to size".

Ki and the Force are pretty similar, so maybe you can! If so, the real question is how quickly Vader realizes that his traditional tactics are worthless and switches to something that can handle Krillin. If he does, he'll win. If not, he will be out and Krillin will be unstoppable.

[Flickerdart]

On feats: It would have been very easy for Vader to reach out with the Force and throttle Luke and the other X-wing pilots when they were making their attack run on the trench. He did not do this, and instead chose to use his TIE fighter's lasers. This leads me to believe that he can't Force Choke Krillin from some arbitrary distance.

[Keltest]

On feats: It would have been very easy for Vader to reach out with the Force and throttle Luke and the other X-wing pilots when they were making their attack run on the trench. He did not do this, and instead chose to use his TIE fighter's lasers. This leads me to believe that he can't Force Choke Krillin from some arbitrary distance.

He force choked an officer through a video feed once. I suspect the visual is significantly more important than the distance.

[tensai_oni]

This is ridiculously one sided as far as vs threads go. The difference in power, not just stated in-character through power level readings but also actually shown on screen, is just too huge.

Even during the early Frieza arc, fights in DBZ took place at speeds that normal human beings can barely perceive, less about react to. The whole fleet and garrison of the Death Star is fodder, it won't even inconvenience Krillin or slow him down. People (normal people) with guns or star fighters weren't a threat for DBZ characters, ever. Raditz is effortlessly catching bullets out of the air at power level 1200. Vegeta was destroying planets at 18000. Once his power was awoken by the Guru, Krillin's power level is 75 thousand. In Cell and Buu arcs, it stands at about 600k - more than Frieza's first form, and Frieza was basically a walking, human-sized Death Star to begin with.

The argument that Vader could force choke Krillin or pinch his brain nerve or something doesn't hold water. It won't work for the same reason Frieza lifted Krillin and blew him up, but didn't do the same to Goku: this type of posturing serves (both out of character and in character) as means to show how overpowered you are compared to the other guy. Frieza didn't blow up Goku and Vader never tried to force choke an actually challenging opponent (even non-lethally, when fighting his son for example) because that works only on people over whom you have the upper hand and can afford to be intimidating over practical. If you don't have the upper hand, it won't work. And Vader definitely doesn't have the upper hand here.

The argument that the Emperor would zap Krillin is laughable. The baldy would fly behind his back and cave Palpatine's skull in less than a second.

The only issue here is whether Krillin manages to hold his breath and survive in vacuum long enough afterwards. But even then, this isn't asking if the Death Star wins. This is asking whether he survives after winning or not.

[Flickerdart]

Krillin can't, to my knowledge, outrun a spacecraft, or fire attacks at interplanetary ranges. It seems that over 7000 TIE fighters should be able to overpower him - he can dodge the fire from one, but he can't really fight back unless they come close.

[tensai_oni]

What interplanetary ranges? Space combat in Star Wars is based on oldschool dogfighting where you have a visual on your target, which means spitting distances. And a Tie Fighter goes at 1200 kmh, roughly the speed of sound. Pretty fast, but nothing unusual for DBZ characters.

[Kyberwulf]

Yeah I think this is pretty one sided.
The power levels are so vastly different here. This is yet another case of people over estimating the power of the force. I mean a straight up vs match, Krillian would would win hands down.

However, if you actually use Krillian, with his personality intact. I don't know if he would win. I admit I haven't seen everything to do with Dragonball. Krillin never struct me as some who just flies around and attacks bases and whatnot willy nilly. I don't think he would try to destroy the base. He would show up and then run away. As far as I know. Even if forced to fight, I don't think he would kill anyone. Maybe someone else can tell me, has Krillin ever killed anyone before?

[russdm]

Shouldn't this really be Krillin vs Doctor Doom?

I don't think you can really call this a vs considering that DBZ is known for the crazy power of it's main cast (It's pretty standard for fist fights to cause the blast effects of what appear to be nukes going off on a regular basis), so how you would consider the Death Star an equal challenge is surprising.

DBZ after all has the scene where the mains actually accidentally break a power recording device despite trying to not punch it that hard. And then they survive scenarios that would have killed Vader even with his plot shields.

You would have to seriously de-power the DBZ to even barely start to give the Death Star, either 1 or 2 a chance, and then they still fail for a while.

[Anteros]

If Roshi can blow up the moon, Krillin who is something like 20,000 X stronger than Roshi can blow up the death star. It's really not even close. The most the death star could hope for would be to damage Krillin's pod so he suffocates in space after he dusts them.

[russdm]

If Roshi can blow up the moon,

I seem to recall Piccolo also blowing up the moon. Blowing up the moon is treated as being no big deal.

[tensai_oni]

Maybe someone else can tell me, has Krillin ever killed anyone before?

Several Saibamen (which are monsters that may not be truly sapient so not sure if they count) and at least one of Frieza's henchmen (who definitely count). He was also more than willing to kill Vegeta who was defeated and helpless at that point so it's not that Krillin is a pacifist who tries to avoid conflict or bloodshed.

[Sapphire Guard]

No idea who Krillin is, but if he can take the rest of the Death Star singlehanded, then the Emperor and DV are irrelevant.

Exhaust port also irrelevant, as you have to look at the plans to know its there.

But if he can choke in space, it's just a matter of the TIES (or planet destroying laser) just puncturing his pod and flying away.

[JeenLeen]

What interplanetary ranges? Space combat in Star Wars is based on oldschool dogfighting where you have a visual on your target, which means spitting distances. And a Tie Fighter goes at 1200 kmh, roughly the speed of sound. Pretty fast, but nothing unusual for DBZ characters.

Good point. If breathing and damage from the vacuum of space is not an issue, then he probably could just outfight TIE fighters by flying around and blasting or punching them. I don't see anything to indicate that DBZ characters need to be on a planet to fly, so he can fly outside his pod and fight TIE fighters.
I haven't watched the shows in a long time, but Krillin eventually moves so fast he blinks in and out of visibility (faster than light?), doesn't he? If so, moving faster than the speed of sound should be a cakewalk.

On the concept of breathing and damage from space: with the superhuman levels of endurance he has shown, do we have any reason to believe he couldn't just hold his breathe long enough to survive without suffering unconsciousness due to lack of suffocation? Likewise, whatever damage being in the vacuum of space would likely be mitigated simply by his being so tough. At least, it seems reasonable to me that if he can soak blasts that would destroy mountains*, he can survive those extreme circumstances for a while.

*I don't remember such from the show, but he isn't directly killed by single blasts when fighting some big bad guys, and those guys could easily destroy mountains if not planets, so it seems a reasonable extrapolation.

[McNum]

Now I want to see Krillin get into a beam struggle with a Kamehameha vs. the Death Star Superlaser. And that's not even all that outrageous. He could beat that.

The Dragon Ball crew have been planet killer level since before the Namek saga. If Krillin wanted to, he could blow up the Earth. This match is wonderfully lopsided, I mean, initially I thought it was Krillin in a fistfight with the Death Star itself. That'd be a sporting fight. If he gets on board, and I can't really see any reason the Empire would not tractor in something as harmless looking as a Saiyan pod, then it's over. He's just too fast and too powerful for anyone to deal with.

[Lord Raziere]

Vacuum of space? hahahahaha.....

Krillin can just blow up the Death star from the planet he is on. Kamehameha it from where he is standing, watch it blow up like a fireworks show, then go about his day without a sweat. Maybe brag about it to Yamcha or Tien. DBZ characters don't need to go into the vacuum of space to blow up your planet, they just need to see it.

Though if we're REALLY doing the vacuum thing, Krillin can just wish to become one of the Freeza race on the Dragon Balls beforehand and thus breathe in space anyways. That is assuming he doesn't just wish for complete immortality.

[Mato]

but can breathe in space for a limited time if it gets blown up.

Scenario 1: Easy win. Even if you look at the arguments purposed he doesn't, they all claim Krillin dies because he can't breath in space and the rules of the fight (and real life) doesn't mean Krillin auto loses for a shuttle rupture. Also it doesn't matter, as we seen with the Millennial Falcon who just happened to show up in what I can only imagine to be the first of a stead stream of ships that'd be arriving to Alderaan their first reaction is to tow it in instead of gunning it down.

Scenario 2: The scenario is directly dependent how what imaginary powers you give Vader that he doesn't have. Like predicting the future and choosing to gun down the space pod instead of not having the foresight to leave the message "shot all escape pods" or "hey shoot that ship before Ben shows up". Vader's only real power in this area is to choke you every time you remind him he can't do anything like that.

The average human can easily hold their breath for a minute or two, trained can go as long as six, and as early as the Saiyen Saga Krillin has lived in a world where one heart beat (apox 1/2~2 seconds) is enough to turn an entire battle around. You can't choke him to death fast enough for it to even be a thing. An actual point that wouldn't be a waste of text would be that Vader can block lasers with a lightsaber. So it'd come down to can Vader remove enough limbs or would Killian accidentally Kamehameha him and the Death Star away. And I'm in for the latter, because I think nukes have a statistical win advantage over the number of times I'd assume a perfect lucky hit was successfully pulled of.

[Prime32]

Eh, Dragonball power levels are screwy enough that I'm not entirely convinced Krillin can blow up a planet, or even a moon, despite all logic saying he should be able to do that with his little finger by now.

I do think his ability to hide his energy would be a major asset though, since it would prevent Vader and Palpatine from noticing him. In Super he even learns how to hide his energy while fighting, meaning he can evade Sith and guards/sensors at the same time. Conversely, Solar Flare is likely to do more harm than good against those two, since fighting while blinded is part of basic Jedi training.

His Kienzan could deal massive damage to the Death Star's reactors and trigger an explosion, but we've seen some incredibly durable metals/technology in Dragonball so it's conceivable for it to fail. In particular, narrative logic suggests that Vader can deflect/destroy Kienzans with his lightsaber (and possibly even bypass Krillin's ki defences).

Now, assuming Krillin can only destroy the Death Star via sabotage rather than just firing a Kamehameha at it from outside, would he even know where to go? He might need to bring Bulma along so she can figure out its weak points, which would make his mission significantly more complicated.

[Frozen_Feet]

Krillin wins. He doesn't even have to destroy anything. Once he gets inside the Death Star, it's easy for him to terrify everyone into submission. And he will get in. DBZ podships are tiny, single-person vehicles with no armaments to speak of. By Star Wars standards, they are a non-threat. The standard practice is to tow those in with a tractor beam and capture the pilot.

And that's the problem: nothing in the Star Wars universe is really made to deal with 5" baldy who can fly, force open blast doors with his bare hands or cut mountains in half with energy projections. Not even Palpatine or Vader, they are so badly outclassed in the speed department that it isn't funny.

This fight ends with Krillin sipping Pina Coladas on the Emperor's throne, with Moff Tarkin and all Death Star staff being his willing manservants, because what else are they supposed to do about the indestructible man-god who single-handedly outpowers their fighter fleet?

[Emperor Ing]

Krillin wins. He doesn't even have to destroy anything. Once he gets inside the Death Star, it's easy for him to terrify everyone into submission. And he will get in. DBZ podships are tiny, single-person vehicles with no armaments to speak of. By Star Wars standards, they are a non-threat. The standard practice is to tow those in with a tractor beam and capture the pilot.

And that's the problem: nothing in the Star Wars universe is really made to deal with 5" baldy who can fly, force open blast doors with his bare hands or cut mountains in half with energy projections. Not even Palpatine or Vader, they are so badly outclassed in the speed department that it isn't funny.

This fight ends with Krillin sipping Pina Coladas on the Emperor's throne, with Moff Tarkin and all Death Star staff being his willing manservants, because what else are they supposed to do about the indestructible man-god who single-handedly outpowers the entire Imperial fleet?

QFT, but with a minor change. Though by the end of Z, Krillin's probably strong enough to destroy planets on his own. If anything, the Death Star is a redundancy and the Galactic Empire of Krillin opts to have it converted into condos around Coruscant.

[Phobia]

I think Krillin could destroy the Death Star just fine from standing on the surface of Endor.

[Lethologica]

I think Krillin could destroy the Death Star just fine from standing on the surface of Endor.

Yeah--starting him out in the space pod is practically a handicap, as it gives him a failure condition.

[GloatingSwine]

I seem to recall Piccolo also blowing up the moon. Blowing up the moon is treated as being no big deal.

Yeah, but Krillin dying is also no big deal in DBZ at this point. Krillin dies like Stormtroopers miss.

[Lord Raziere]

Yeah, but Krillin dying is also no big deal in DBZ at this point. Krillin dies like Stormtroopers miss.

.....he survived both the Saiyan saga and the entire Android and Cell Sagas......heck he made it through most of the Namek, Ginyu and freeza Sagas, until Freeza killed him at the last minute. It was a very big deal then. it caused Super Saiyans to be a thing at all.

the other two times Krillin died in DBZ was from getting turned to stone, and getting turned into candy.

we should really remember that most of the things that the Z-Fighters face are incredibly exceptional foes that have advantages that likely 99.999999% of the universe don't even think possible. Freeza is an exceptional being among people with high PL's. every fighter after that is even more exceptional and unique. I doubt there is a second Cell in all of existence, or any being comparable to Buu at least until the Majin race is made canon.

Basically any foe above Freeza is kind of a ridiculous anomaly to outdo a galactic emperor who is already a ridiculous anomaly. Normal combat is probably closer to what happens when Z-Fighters duke it out with minions or something, and Krillin held his own there just fine even in Battle of Gods.